Live with Lon-God's Plan of Salvation - Part 2: Substitutionary Atonement

Well, hello, everybody.

Welcome to Live with Lon. This is our Venti, not tall, not grande, but our Venti Bible study in the Gospels that I'm doing live every week, a message for you. And we're going to go deep, exegetically, expositionally, theologically, and then we're going to apply all that we learn with so what.

Good. I'm glad you're joining us. Thank you so much. Just before we dig in, I had a very good friend of mine, Randy Foltz, and his wife Mary, who sent me a video of the hymn, It Is Well With My Soul, done by some musicians in Nashville. And it was just so moving that I thought I'd like to share it with you as kind of an opening today because we need it to be well with our souls in this time where there's so much fear and anxiety around us. So I hope you enjoy this.

Here we go. It Is Well With My Soul. When peace, like a river, attendeth my way.

When sorrows, like seas, be blows raw. Whatever my life, thou hast taught me to say. It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well with my soul. Though Satan should barf and though trials should call.

Let this blessed friend's control. That Christ hath regarded my helpless state. And I've shed his own blood for my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well with my soul. And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be signed.

The clouds be rolling as the storm. The storm shall resound and the Lord shall be sang. Even so, it is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. That was great, huh?

Awesome. Let's take a moment and pray. And with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, why don't we all just take a moment and bring all of our anxieties, all our cares, and let's just lay them at the foot of the cross and let Jesus take that burden from us and replace it with, it is well with my soul.

Let's take a moment and do that. Lord Jesus, we come to you today as human beings who are so easily frightened. Lord, we're easily made anxious and scared and nervous and we fret.

Lord, we all do this and I do it. And Lord, yet you tell us 366 times in the Bible, do not fear. And so Lord Jesus, help us to bring our concerns, bring our cares, bring our anxieties and our fears today.

Lay them at the foot of your cross and give them to you and let you bear them for us. And Lord, help it to be well with our soul because we know that our sovereign God is in control of this universe. He's in control of every event of our life. Our days have already been written in his book before there was a one of them.

And Lord Jesus, nothing is happening or will happen to us or has ever happened to us that has not been part of your perfect plan and will not be part of your perfect plan going forward for us. So Jesus, with peace in our hearts and now with the burdens lifted from our heart, I hope, help us as we study the word of God to be encouraged by the incredible truth that we're going to study today. And we pray this in Jesus name and all of God's people said, Amen. We said Amen. Okay, well, we're in a study of the Gospels and we're not very far in. We're just a couple messages in. So if you missed anything, catch up with us by going to Lon Solomon Ministries or our Facebook page or wherever our app and listening to the first couple messages that we have done.

Today, we're going to continue. Last week, we talked about the virgin birth. Today, we're going to continue and talk about one of the greatest people in the Bible, a fellow named John the Baptist. Now, you know, in the very first message we did, we talked about the fact that the synoptic Gospels, the first three Gospels that is Matthew, Mark and Luke are very similar and in their content and contain, for the most part, different information, different incidents in the life of Jesus than the Gospel of John.

There are only a few happenings or only a few incidents that are repeated in all four Gospels. But John the Baptist is one of them, indicating that he is a very important and his ministry was a very important part of the story of redemption in the Lord Jesus Christ. So what exactly are we going to talk about with John the Baptist?

Well, we're going to talk about him for two or three weeks because there are so many great lessons that come out of his life. But today I want to read the passage out of John Chapter one that describes John the Baptist. So I'm going to be using, as I said, this is the New King James Bible and I'm going to be reading beginning at verse 19. John Chapter one, verse 19.

Here we go. And this is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you? And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ, the Messiah.

And they asked him, What then? Are you Elijah coming before the Messiah? And he said, I am not. And they said, Are you the prophet? He talked about in Deuteronomy 18, the Messiah. He said, I am not. Then they said to him, Well, who are you that we may give an answer to those who sent us the higher up priests?

What do you say about yourself? And he said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah Chapter 40, of course. And those who were sent went from the Pharisees and they ask him saying, Well, why do you baptize them if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet? And John answered them, saying, I baptize with water. But there stands one among you whom you do not know. It is he who coming after me is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. The next day, John saw Jesus, verse twenty nine, coming towards him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

John continues. This is he of whom I said after me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me. And I did not know him, but that he should be revealed to Israel. Therefore, I came baptizing with water. And John bore witness, saying, I saw the spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he remained upon him, Jesus.

And I did not know him. But he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, upon whom you see the spirit descended and remaining on him, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and testified that this Jesus is the son of God. And again, the next day, verse thirty five, John stood with two of the disciples and looking at Jesus as he walked, John said, Behold, the Lamb of God. Now, salvation, as we understand it from the Bible, salvation meaning our sins are forgiven. We get eternal life and we get to go to heaven when we're done living here on Earth. Salvation is described in the Bible by several different dynamics. That is, there are several different processes that describe the plan of salvation in the Bible. For example, we talk about being born again, being reborn, being regenerated and becoming children of God in a way that the rest of the human race isn't. That's one of the processes involved in salvation regeneration. We also talk about the blood covering of the Lord Jesus Christ, where when I see the blood, I will pass over you because you are covered and hidden behind the blood of Christ. And this is another one of the prophecies where where salvation is explained to us.

Last week, we talked about the two races being in Adam and being in Christ. And salvation is described also in the Bible, particularly in First Corinthians 15 in Romans Chapter five, as transferring races from being in the race of Adam to being in the race of Jesus Christ. But there's one other process that the Bible uses to explain salvation to us, and that is the process of substitutionary atonement. And this is what John is referring to when he says, Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. And he's talking of Jesus. Of course, he is talking about substitutionary atonement. Now, let's explain that term.

It's not as complicated as it sounds. First of all, we're talking about atonement. Atonement is forgiveness by God. Atonement means that our sins are atoned for. They are forgiven and dismissed in the sight of a holy God. And you say, Yeah, but he's a holy God. I mean, he just can't dismiss sin like it never happened. I mean, this would be like a human judge.

You come in, you say, Yeah, I was doing 90 miles an hour in a 45 mile an hour zone. And the judge being a righteous judge says, Ah, don't worry about us. No big deal. Case dismissed.

Boom. No, a judge can't do that. There was culpability there. There was guilt there. There was the violation of the law there. And God just can't as a holy being say, Ah, well, yeah, don't worry about it.

No, no, no. We do get atonement, but we get atonement because our sins, here's the first word in the phrase, are put upon a substitute. That is why it's called substitutionary atonement.

It's not personal atonement. If we had to personally atone for our sins in the sight of the holy of a holy God, we would have to die because the wages of sin is death. Romans Chapter six and all who sin shall die.

Ezekiel Chapter 18. So we can't if we personally have to atone for our sins, we end up in hell and dying. No, no, this is atonement, real atonement. But because our sins instead are laid upon an innocent substitute.

Do we understand the term? Okay, well, this principle, this process, God spent centuries trying to teach this truth to the Jewish nation because this is one of the key principles. This is one of the key processes upon which the plan of salvation operates. You say, well, how did he try to teach it to them? Well, even before there was a Jewish race all the way back with Adam and Eve, if you remember, Genesis Chapter three, after they sinned, God killed two animals, made clothing out of the skins of those two innocent animals and covered Adam and Eve in his sight with the skins of these innocent animals. So God took their sin and laid it off on these innocent animals. Now you say, well, I don't know if Adam and Eve fully got that, did they? I think they did, because when Abel and Cain were born, if you remember, Cain brought God an offering of fruit and vegetables, while Abel brought a lamb and slaughtered this lamb as his sin sacrifice unto God. And the Bible says that God respected that God accepted Abel's sacrifice for sin, but rejected Cain's. And therefore, Abel came to God the way God had shown Adam and Eve by offering an innocent substitute in his place as a sinner. And Cain refused to do that.

And his offering was rejected. Then we come to the home, Abraham, read the Bible, built an altar when he got to Canaan, and he sacrificed animals there. These people knew that that was the way you approach God. You approach God through the sacrifice of an innocent substitute. And this is what the Mosaic law was all about.

The tabernacle, the temple after that, for a sin substitute, read it in Leviticus chapter four, for a sin sacrifice, a person would bring a lamb, the priest would kill the lamb, the priest would offer the lamb on the altar. And the Bible says that that person's sin who offered this substitute, this lamb, would be forgiven. And the Jewish people practiced this for century upon century, 15 centuries, and God was trying to teach them something.

He was trying to teach them this principle. And so when Jesus came and he was the ultimate substitute for our atonement, he was not a temporary substitute. All these animals were temporary substitutes for our atonement. But Jesus was the permanent substitute, the once for all substitutionary lamb for our sins. And this is why John the Baptist called him the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And this would have meant something to these Jewish people that it doesn't mean to us. It would have meant to them that this is the lamb you offer for sin. And once this lamb is offered, he takes away the sin of the world.

And this is exactly why Jesus went to the cross, to be the permanent substitutionary atonement for our sins. Now, in the Bible, this dynamic is explained to us especially well in the book of Hebrews. I love the book of Hebrews, and not because I'm a Hebrew only, but because of the way it explains to us so clearly what Jesus did for us. Let me read to you beginning in Hebrews chapter 9 verse 12. Nor by the blood of bulls and goats, but by his own blood, Jesus entered the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption, eternal atonement for us. Let's go on Hebrews chapter 10 verse 14.

For by one offering, his offering of himself on the cross, he has perfected for ever those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also witnesses this to us in the scripture. For after the Holy Spirit said, this is the covenant that I will make with them after these days, says the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds, I will write them. That's from Jeremiah 31.

Notice the writer of Hebrew says this was the Holy Spirit talking, he understood inspiration. And then the Holy Spirit adds in Jeremiah 31 and their sins and their lawless deeds, I will remember no more. Folks, this is what Jesus did for us by being our sinless substitute.

We talked about that last week in the virgin birth. Go back if you don't understand why that's so critical by being the sinless Lamb of God, the blemishless Lamb of God on the cross. He what does the Bible say here in Hebrews chapter 10? It says he there he decided that our sins and our lawless deeds I will remember no more. He made eternal redemption, eternal atonement for us. Friends, this is why we don't sacrifice chickens in church down front in front of the communion table because we don't need to do that anymore. That was as Hebrews tells us a shadow of things to come.

It was meant to point to Christ but now that we have the reality of Jesus himself dying on the cross, we don't need the shadow anymore. So this is why we don't sacrifice sheep down in front of the communion table because we don't have to because we are perfected forever in the sight of a holy God because the sinless Son of God accomplished eternal atonement for us. He accomplished perfect atonement for us.

He accomplished permanent atonement and redemption for us by being the Lamb of God who gave his life as a substitute for you and for me. Hallelujah, huh? And this is why the book of Hebrews says I love this verse chapter 10 verse 18. Listen now where there is remission like this where there is remission of these of this magnitude there is no longer an offering for sin.

I like how the New American Standard translates it. It says now where there is forgiveness like this there is no longer a need to make offerings for sin. Why? Because we are permanently redeemed. Why? Because we are perfectly redeemed.

Why? Because we are eternally redeemed by what our living sinless substitute did for us on the cross. Now let me tell you what this means. It means that next to my name in heaven, Lon Neil Solomon, there are two entries.

Entry number one says physically born August 24 1948. The second entry says perfected forever by the atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross March 1971. And there'll be a third entry one of these days and that entry will be translated into heaven for eternity and there'll be some date written beside that.

Isn't that wonderful? Folks, this is salvation. This is substitutionary atonement and this is how a holy God forgives our sin. This is how a holy God is able to let us unholy people come into heaven. This is how a holy God is able to allow us our sins to be atoned for in his sight. This is how a holy God allows us to be redeemed in his sight. He did not dismiss our sins as though we didn't do them. Rather, he laid our sins on the perfect substitute, the sinless Son of God.

Do we understand this? And what a great truth this is, what a great spiritual process this is that God built the plan of salvation on this principle. And this is why Paul exclaimed after explaining this to us our wonderful plan of salvation in the book of Romans. He exclaims in chapter 11 verse 33, oh, the death of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. Folks, Paul is saying who in the world but God could have figured out a way for him to stay holy and yet for him to redeem us unholy people and the way to do both at the same time.

He justifies us and he remains just as Paul says. Wow. Oh, the unsearchable wisdom of God.

Only he could have figured out a way to do this. Now we're going to go on in just a second and talk about so what, but I want to in the interest of being venti here, I want to do one other thing with you. And that is I want to show you from the book of Hebrews something very interesting. So follow along with me. I'm in the book of Hebrews and I'm starting in chapter eight.

Here we go. Now it says in chapter eight verse two that Jesus was a minister of the true tabernacle which the Lord set up and not man. And then it goes down in verse five of Hebrews chapter eight to say that earthly priests serve watch the copy and shadow of the heavenly things when they serve in the temple in the tabernacle. And this is why Moses was admonished by God to make the human tabernacle precisely look like the one that God showed him up on the mountain for God said see that you make all things Hebrews 8 5 according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.

Now what mountain is this? Well of course this is Mount Sinai. And then the Bible goes on to tell us that Jesus entered I'm in Hebrews 9 11 the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with human hands that is not of this creation. Now what tabernacle is that? Well there must be a tabernacle in heaven.

There must be an altar there and maybe an ark and a mercy seat there and this is what God showed Moses up on Mount Sinai and said now you build the earthly tabernacle and temple to be an exact model of this. You say what does God do with the tabernacle in heaven? Well look Hebrews chapter 9 verse 12 for not by the blood of bulls and goats and calves but by his own blood he Jesus entered the most holy place in heaven once for all. He never entered the holy of holies on earth.

Bible never says that. He entered the one in heaven having obtained eternal redemption for us. Let's go on in chapter 9 verse 23 therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in heaven that is the earthly tabernacle the earthly temple should be purified with these talking about up above the blood of bulls and goats and sheep but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices for these than these for Christ has not entered the holy place made with hands which is a figure of the real and true tabernacle but rather in the heaven itself to appear in the presence of God for us. You say wow what is that?

Friends look I don't have a slightest idea what that really means in toto. It just means that that up in heaven there is a temple or a tabernacle with a mercy seat upon which the blood of of the of the lamb of atonement which was Jesus himself had to be placed in order for our redemption to be eternal. God showed this tabernacle to Moses. He said you build the human one to be an exact replica and I will let the blood of bulls and goats brought to that replica produce temporary redemption but only the blood of the Messiah the sinless son of God the lamb of God that takes the sin of the world that blood will be brought to heaven by the risen Christ and laid upon the altar of the tabernacle that is in heaven that is not made with human hands and that will not produce temporary atonement in my sight God said it will produce eternal atonement eternal redemption that never needs to be done again you only have to sacrifice the Messiah once the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world once and eternal are the results. I don't know exactly how all that works but that's what the Bible says and we believe that that Jesus went in and put his blood on that eternal tabernacle producing eternal atonement for us. Now wow that's going in there baby and pulling it out that's exegesis at its finest so however it's now time for us to ask our most important question and you know what that is so are you ready here we go one two three so what and as I love to say and you'd be disappointed if I didn't say it how sweet it is you say Lon this is great man thank God for what Jesus did for us amen you're right but you say I'm not so sure I mean what is this really I mean what's the practicality for my everyday life from this oh as the King James Bible says much in every way you know um I'm sure maybe you've been to an auction before or you've participated in an auction online or you certainly know how auctions work maybe you watch Mecum auctions for these you know antique cars and and lust over these antique cars and then you got to confess it before you go to bed I may I'll watch it I like those cars but you know how an auction works I mean whatever it is that's being auctioned off the price it goes to the highest bidder it goes up and up and up and up and up and up people bidding until finally somebody's willing to pay more for it than anybody else is willing to pay and the hammer the gavel bangs and the auctioneer says so well you know when you watch those auctions you learn a very important lesson and the lesson is this that how much something is worth to a person can be easily seen by how much that person is willing to pay for it I mean you know if you're willing to pay more than anybody else is willing to pay it shows us no matter how high that may go it shows us that the thing that you're bidding on means a lot to you and the higher you're willing to go shows us how much it means to you in increasing increments now let's bring that to what we've talked about today how much do we mean to God how valuable are you to God how valuable am I to God well the answer is we can see the the how much he's willing to pay for us and then we'll learn we learn how much we're worth to him and how much was God willing to pay for you and me friends he was willing to pay his own son he was willing to pay his own life as the second person of the Godhead incarnate in Jesus Christ he was willing to go to the cross and stay on the cross through all of that agony and suffering and why did he do it because he knew that the only way you and I had any chance to be redeemed the only way our sin could be atoned for the only way we could get eternal life the only way we could escape hell and go to heaven was for him to stay on that cross and allow God to transfer onto him as our substitute your sin my sin the sin of the whole world that's how much we mean to God wow and and you know I love the song that says he could have called 10,000 angels to destroy the world and set him free while he was on the cross I mean I don't know how many angels there are I guess there are 10,000 angels Jesus said don't you think I could call on 10,000 angels so I guess there's 10,000 can you imagine what 10,000 angels can do two of them wipe Sodom and Gomorrah off the planet can you imagine what 10,000 angels can do they make thermonuclear weapons look like you know a firecracker he could have called on 10,000 angels to come down and get him off the cross but he died alone the song says for you and me that's how much you and I mean to the Lord Jesus Christ in fact I love the the hymn that the great hymn writer Isaac Watts wrote let me read to you a couple of stanzas this is amazing I love this watch he says not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain could give my guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain but Christ the heavenly lamb takes all our sin away a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they wow this is what Jesus did and because this is how much we were worth to him now growing up I have to tell you I didn't think I was worth very much to anybody some of you heard me talk about my growing up years and maybe some of you have had growing up years like I have but honestly I didn't think I was worth anything to anyone my mom was never home my dad was never home when they were home they never spent any time with me they didn't coach my little league teams or or take me to piano lessons or do anything they they come I mean I basically grew up kind of by myself my brother didn't like me and and and my friends I was pretty much shunned by most of the people my age because my behavior was obnoxious and offensive and I even got kicked out of kindergarten that's absolutely true I the kindergarten bus stopped by my house to pick me up and I wanted to sit in the front seat and the child up there wouldn't let me and so I punched him in the face and they kicked me they suspended me from kindergarten this was my behavior no wonder people didn't like being around me so by the time I hit 18 19 years old I mean I hit it pretty well but on the inside I pretty much felt like other than to myself I didn't matter much to anybody I wasn't valuable to much anybody and then I met Jesus Christ wow and suddenly I began to realize that I was worth something to him that I was valuable to him that he cared about me and that I had great worth to him and what convinced me of that very simply friends he went and died on the cross to redeem me to atone for my sins to allow me to come to heaven you don't do that unless somebody's worth something to you and that truth changed my whole life because I figured if I'm worth something to almighty God that I'm worth something period even if nobody else agrees that I'm worth something friend if I'm worth something to almighty God of the universe then I'm worth something and the same is true for you you may not have grown up feeling like you were worth anything to anybody either and you may have gone into adulthood feeling like you weren't worth anything to anybody and you may still feel like that today but it's not true Jesus went to the cross to prove to you that you are worth everything to him enough to give his life when he didn't have to stay on the cross but he did because you are worth that much to him he's the guy in the auction who no matter what anybody else bid Jesus is gonna bid more for you because you're worth that much to him and I want that to change your life I want that to change the way you look at yourself and the way you esteem yourself I don't want it to produce sinful pride in you I want it to produce healthiness and healing like it did in my soul friends if you don't believe you're worth anything to anybody it affects your whole life your self-image it affects the way you live it affects the way even that you can react with other people if you don't feel that that you've got any worth but when you feel that you're worthy and valuable not in an arrogant way but you feel you're valuable because almighty God says you are valuable then that's a healing thing for our souls that changes the way we live so that's what I want for you because that's what God did for me he brought that healing into my life that has been there now almost 50 years and sometimes I can still feel bad about myself I haven't totally escaped those first 21 years of my life but every time I start feeling bad about myself and every time I start condemning myself for every time I start going wow that is so stupid I cannot believe you did that you are so stupid what is wrong with you and I just start really getting on myself the Lord Jesus says yell on I maybe I wasn't the smartest thing you've ever done but just remember I don't love you because of what you do and I don't love you because of what you don't do I love you because you're valuable to me because I love you it's just that simple so forgive yourself get comfortable with just being a human being asked to be forgiven I'll forgive you and let's go on and we'll try to do better tomorrow now that's healthy but you can't do that unless you really believe when God says you're worth something to him let's pray Lord Jesus I think the single most important thing that we have to do as human beings to be healthy is we just have to believe what you tell us in the Bible period what you tell us about salvation what you tell us about yourself what you tell us about the Lord Jesus and Lord what you tell us about us who shall separate us from the love of God well the answer Romans chapter 8 is no one for I am convinced Paul says Romans chapter 8 that neither life nor death nor angels nor principalities meaning demons nor things present nor things past nor things to come nor any other created thing that covers it all will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ Lord help us believe that with all of our hearts help us believe how much we are worth to you help us believe how much you love us Jesus and that we are valuable because God values us and if he values us then we can value ourselves it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks so Lord Jesus help us to believe what you say and may it change our life may it heal those scars so many of us carry from our parents from ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends from people who've treated us as unworthy all our lives thank you Lord Jesus that we are worth a lot to you we are worth the life of your very son and we pray these things in Jesus name and everybody said amen and may God protect you this week and the Lord bless you thanks for watching.