The High and Holy Day of Atonement

Man, it's great to be here. I'm telling you, I've been looking forward to this, and good to see friends. It's good to see Bill and Debbie Hubbard. My wife and I, we pastored in Las Cruces nearly 30 years at the First Assembly of God Church there, and about three years ago we handed the baton to our son, and he took the church over, and we began to travel and help churches that needed help. We've taken two churches in Albuquerque, and one church was 11 months, and then the second church there, Tramway Community Church, where Bill and Debbie were at, took 22 months. We got them a new pastor there, and just pastored through that transition. That's what we've been doing over the last three years.

A lot of people don't realize it, but Kerry, your age, my age, there's a lot of boomers that are stepping down from the pulpit. There's a wave of about 300,000. There's going to be thousands and thousands of transitions in churches, because the boomer generation was so large, and so many of us are aging out, that transitioning with new leadership into the church is so important. I know in our fellowship and our we've been very strategic in helping churches in that time, because that is a critical time. So that's what we've been doing.

Elda, would you stand? Let everybody see you. This is my wife of 53 years, and we got married in the Methodist Church in Lorenzo, Texas. The little Assembly of God Church we grew up in was too small. We didn't have enough space to the wedding there, and the Methodist Church was so gracious to allow us to use their facility, and we got married there. That's where Kerry and his family grew up. Terry and Sherry, it's good to see you guys, man.

It's been a long time since I've seen a lot of the friends and family here in Lorenzo area and Lubbock area, but man, it's been great. It's been great to see everybody. I was thinking just so many things running through my mind today, but you know, there's something about just simple beginnings. The Bible says, don't despise the day of small things, because you know, God uses small things to plant a seed, and things grow. But I brought my granddaughter back, my oldest granddaughter. I came back over when I took a trip. I wanted her to see where we grew up.

I wanted to kind of give her a little bit of history of our family and stuff, but I've come back at times and visited that little country church there in Lorenzo, where I was saved, and I was filled with the Holy Spirit, and even in that place, I was hauled into the ministry. And there's something about those roots, something about those early beginnings, and I remember pulling up, Kerry, outside that church, sitting in my car, and just began to roll down my face, thinking how God touched me in that place, that little place, and I thought about it. Can anything good come out of Lorenzo, Texas, you know? Can anything good come out of Nazareth, you know, the Scripture says? But I got to thinking, Kerry, I mean, you know, there's a lot of good things. There's, man, we were with some of our classmates, and they've done so well. They're loving the Lord, serving the Lord today, and it's just a joy, but I can't remember how many ministers came out of that era, out of that little town.

I know there's at least 10, 15 of us that went into ministry out of the 60s and 70s, and so, you know, we just thank God for that heritage. We thank God for that heritage. So it's a joy. I've been, it's a joy to fill your pulpit today, Kerry. I'm just honored, honored to do this. I think this, I don't know if this is the and charismatic churches, but it's good, good to be here. You know, I was thinking about this reunion time.

I heard the story about this couple that back years ago, and Lorenzo, I worked at a service station. It was one of those full service stations, you know, where you'd pump the gas and clean the windshield. That was back in that day. Well, this couple drove up, and he was the banker in town, and his wife, they pulled up there and sat in the car, and he got up and went inside the gas station, and the gas attendant there, the attendant that was working, he came over and started filling up the gas and realized that his wife, the banker's wife, was sitting in the car, and she rolled down the window. They got to talking and just talked and talked and talked. Well, the gentleman got back into the car and rolled up the window, and they started driving, and he said, well, you seem like you knew this guy. You spent a lot of time talking to him.

She said, oh, yeah, he was one of the guys I grew up and went to school with, and we went to high school together, and the banker kind of, he was trying to be a little proud, I think. He said, just think, he said, if you'd married him, you'd been a wife of a gas station attendant, and she said, no, no, you don't get it. If I'd married him, you'd be pumping gas, and he'd be the banker. So, you know what, as we think about God's blessings in our life, I just, I thank God for our wives. You know, behind every good man is a surprise mother-in-law, don't you know? I don't know if you've heard that or not, but I, this is what's on my heart today. I just, I've been studying the Jewish feast.

Now, I've been to Israel several times, and matter of fact, in 2020, we were some of the last people to get out of Israel to get back home when they shut everything down with COVID. I had a team of about 40 people there in Israel, just had a wonderful time, but I've really never preached a lot on the Jewish feast. I've read them, I've read about them, but I've never really done an in-depth study, and I've been doing a study with some of our folks there in Las Cruces on Tuesdays. I teach a class there on the mornings, and then one in the evening, and so they keep me busy there right now, but I've been studying the Jewish feast. I don't know if you realize it, but we've just come through, and Israel has come through the fall feast, and there's three fall feasts that have happened. On October 1 was the Feast of Trumpets. That was a feast where they sounded the trumpets.

It's a 48-hour feast. They come together. It's their new year. October 1 was the beginning of their religious new year, but they come together. They celebrate. It was a time to recognize the fall harvest, and it was one of the feasts that all Jewish males had to make the three major feasts in the spring and in the fall. So Israel has just gone through this.

Then from the Feast of Trumpets started Ten Days of Awe. It was a ten days where the Jews would fast and pray and ask God to cleanse their life, forgive them of their sins. And for ten days there would be prayer and fasting and seeking after God. And then at the end of that ten days was what was called the High and Holy Day in Israel. The highest and the holiest day of Israel was the Day of Atonement. And I want to talk about that today. I want to talk to you about the Day of Atonement.

But after the Day of Atonement, as they took that 24-hour period for the high priests back in the day would go in and offer sacrifice for the sins of the people and the nation. But after that, there was just a few days started the Feast of Tabernacles. And it would be where they would build booths, and they still do that today in Israel. They'll build little shacks and booths made out of palm leaves and different things of that nature in their backyard or somewhere on the street. And they live in those booths for about seven days for a week to remind them of the 40 years of the wilderness they spent traveling through the wilderness. So it's interesting because all of these feasts, they still observe most of them today, but they were pictures of what was to come. So I want us to look at that there.

I want you to look with me at the book of Leviticus, some of your favorite books. Some of you love to read Leviticus, don't you? But Leviticus, if you'll turn there, and I haven't preached out of Leviticus very often, but I want you to listen to a few verses.

And it's Leviticus 16, 6 through 10. I want you to hear what it says. It says, "...and Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering which is for himself and make atonement for himself and for his house. He shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat. And Aaron shall bring the goat on which the Lord's lot fell and offer it as a sin offering. But at the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement upon it and to let it go as the scapegoat into the wilderness."

And then down to verse 20 and 22. It says, "...and when he had made an end of atoning for the holy place, the tabernacle of meeting, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat. Aaron shall lay both his hands on the live goat, confess over all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their transgressions concerning all of their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness for the hand of a suitable man, by the hand of a suitable man. The goat shall bear on itself all the iniquities to an uninhabited land, and he shall release the goat into the wilderness." Now, it just kind of gives you the instruction what's going to happen on that day of atonement. I want you to do something with me. Will you take your Bibles, if you got it on a tree version or an e-version, it doesn't matter.

But take your Bible. I want you to do, I do this nearly every time I preach. Bill and Debbie know what I'm going to do. But I just want you to hold up your Bible for a minute and just repeat this after me. And it's something that declares I'm going to receive God's Word today. So let's say it. This is my Bible.

I am who it says I am. I can do what the Bible says I can do. Today I'll be taught the Word of God. My mind's alert, and my heart is receptive, and I'll never be the same again.

Never, never, never, in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Bless His Word today.

I want to start out with a little story about a young boy who was told that by his doctor that he could save his little sister's life by giving her some of his blood, doing a blood infusion. You see this six-year-old girl was near death and had a had a rare disease. And the boy had had it a few, two, three years earlier. And he had survived the disease and recovered from that. But her only chance of really surviving was to have a blood transfusion from someone who had had that disease and had been healed of it. And so the boy's blood type was the match for his little sister. And so the doctors and the parents got to talking to the little boy and asked the little boy if he would be willing to give his blood so that her, his little sister could live.

And as they asked him that question, the little boy paused and he just thought for a few minutes and didn't answer right away and finally said, yes, I'll give my blood so my sister can live. So they took him down to the room and they laid on a table together and they were looking at each other and they started the blood infusion. And it was like you could see life coming into this little girl as they were pumping that blood into his, into her. And when it was just about over, the little boy kind of with the trembling lips, he looked at the doctor and he said, doctor, when do I die? He thought he was going to have to die by giving his blood to his sister. That's why he hesitated about giving his blood. I tell that story because it's a little simple story, but you see, he thought he had to give his blood for his sister to live and that he would have to die.

But let me just say this, he didn't have to. But there was a man one day who gave his life on a cross so that you and I could live. He had to die. He had to shed his blood so that you and I could have eternal life. Hallelujah. Aren't you glad for that? Ephesians 1 7 says, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.

In whom we have redemption through his blood, through Christ and his grace, you and I have been saved. If you're a believer today, it's because of his death at Calvary and his blood that was shed. And so we turn our hearts and our lives over to the Lord. But this Day of Atonement, we need to realize that the Bible was written by Jews. There was an Eastern mindset when you read the Bible. We're in the Western mindset, and it's different. You see, we think in terms of definitions and technical terms, but the Eastern mind looks at pictures.

They think in terms of pictures. And this Day of Atonement in the life of a Jewish person was very, very important. It was very central to them. It was the most holy day in the calendar of the Jews. And it began, again, those feasts started in the Passover in the spring, where we celebrate Easter during that period of time. There was the Passover, there's the Feast of the First Fruits, the Resurrection, and so the different calendar events that took place then. But then you come into the fall, and you get to this day, the Day of Atonement.

Now, the Day of Atonement came, as I mentioned, 10 days after the Feast of Trumpets, and it's called Rosh Hashanah. Have you ever heard that word? The Jews call it Rosh Hashanah, and it's the Day of Atonement, and then that was the Feast of Trumpets. The Day of Atonement is called Yom Kippur. Can you say that with me? Yom Kippur. So they started the new year with the sounding of a trumpet.

It was God's way of getting their attention. It initiated this 10 days of awe, of soul-searching, examining their hearts, of fasting and prayer, and getting ready for this day. The word Atonement, do you know what it means? What does it mean? The word Atonement means to cover. It means to cover. It was when God would cover their sins with the blood of an animal, with a blood sacrifice.

It was a moment when God would forgive man's sin and cleanse them in the Old Testament. Now, there were three. I want you to see this. This really excited me when I got into this. I want you to see three things about this day, and it focused around these three aspects. Number one, it focused on the Great High Priest, or the High Priest of that day. Back in the wilderness, when they were in the wilderness, Aaron became the High Priest, and it focused on him.

Because, you see, it was the one day of year, the only time, that the High Priest could go into what was called the Holy of Holies. He would put on his vestment. He would put on the royal robes, the priestly robes of the High Priest. And he would be decked out in that robe, and this would be the one day that he could come into the presence of an Almighty God. There's a picture of there. It's not the greatest, but it kind of shows you that robe that he wore. He wore a breastplate that had 12 stones on it, and it had the names of each of the tribes that was engraved on each of those stones.

One stone for each tribe. He wore it over his heart, because that High Priest would intercede and love the people, and he represented the people. He had on the straps of the vestment that he had there, of that breastplate, there would be six stones on each of the shoulder straps. And it represented him carrying burdens of the people as the priest of God. And so we see this, but he would go into the Holies of Holies, into the very presence of God, for the cleansing of sin for the nation and for the people. The first thing that Aaron had to do was, as you read there in Leviticus 16, he had to sacrifice a bullock. He had to have a sacrifice for his own sins.

Because you see, in that day in the wilderness when this first began, the glory of God, the Shekinah glory, I tease these Hispanics in our church, it's not the Shekinah glory, it's the Shekinah glory. But it was visible. Remember, if you read your Bible, there was a cloud by day that hovered over that Holies of Holies, and a fire by night, the Jewish nation in that wilderness, two million people in that wilderness, they could see a tangible presence of God's glory over that tabernacle. And so there, it was the one day that he could come into the very presence of God and offer a sacrifice for sins. The garment was made with great detail, and it was beautiful. The second thing that it focused on was not only the high priest, but the tabernacle itself. There's a picture up there of this tabernacle.

I took that out of a book so you can't see it real well, but you see how it was set up with the gates down here on this side. Worshippers would bring their animals to the priest, they'd go to the altar of burnt sacrifice, they would offer their offerings there. There's the golden laver where the priests would wash their hands and make sure when they went into the tabernacle, as they went in, you see that first room is the holy place, and there was the seven candlesticks there on one side, the table of showbread on the other side. Remember when Jesus said, I am the bread of life? I wonder where he got that from. Remember when he said he was the light of the world? I think he was referring.

Those things was a type and symbol of what Jesus was going to do. And then as you get further down, you see the altar of incense when they offered the incense, and it would rise with smoke and fill that room with sweet fragrance. And then once a year into that holy place where the Ark of the Covenant was at, the high priest would go around that curtain there, and that veil of the temple, or the veil of that was a thick veil that he would go behind once a year. Now, you can't find this in your Bible, but many believe, and through the Meknesh, there's a Jewish history, if you go back to the rabbis, and about the 6th century after Christ's death, or 600 years later, the rabbis taught in some of their writings that they would tie a rope around the priest's ankle and he had bells on the bottom of his robe because if he was struck down dead, because if he went in there with sin, he would be struck dead in the very presence of God. And nobody could go in there into the presence of God but the high priest. So they said they would have to pull that priest out with that rope tied to his ankle if he was struck down dead. Now, that's not in the Bible, but you can find it in the rabbis' writings that you read from Israel.

And so we see this tabernacle where they first started to worship. They built the temple, Solomon's temple, and they offered the sacrifices there, and the glory of God abided in it. In that Solomon temple, and then by the time you got to Christ's day, we know that Herod's temple is what they call it, was rebuilt and by Ezra and Nehemiah, they came back and rebuilt the temple. But it was nothing like what Solomon built. Then King Herod came in and refurbished that temple and made it beautiful and just enhanced it during the time of Christ. So it all focused on the priest, and then the tabernacle or temple, and worshipers and historians like Josephus, he was a Christian writer in the Old Testament after the days of Christ, around that time. He wrote this.

He said, when we saw the temple in operation on the day of atonement, it was an occasion of great amazement. As we saw the high priest and all of his vestments and the precious stones on his garments, and when he entered to offer the sacrifice and then reappeared, it was a moment of awe. All of the people had gathered. They were standing there around that tabernacle in the camp, and they would hold their breath.

They would be praying. They had been waiting for the high priest to go in and to come back out. And they said it was just a moment of awe, something spiritual, supernatural that was taking place. He said a person felt awestruck and dumbfounded because you felt as if the priest had come from another world. He said every person there would describe the experience with astonishment and amazement. It was as if you saw it, when you saw it, that the priest had a ritual transported himself to somewhere else. It was like he had a heavenly experience.

Now, how many know that the tabernacle and the temple down here is just a picture of the heavenly that the Bible talks about in the book of Hebrews? There's a heavenly temple. And it was like the high priest, there was this blurring of the lines between here on earth and in heaven. Things were happening in the spiritual realm during that period of time.

So something huge was going on. Leviticus chapter 16, there was something going on not only here on earth but even in heaven. So it described this experience of amazement among the people.

God says this, I'm a holy God. God was saying to the people, I'm a holy God, I want my priests to be holy and clean, and I want my people to be clean because I want a relationship with my people. You see, God wants to dwell with us, doesn't he? I thank God for his presence this morning here. I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit here. Matter of fact, he's here whether you feel him or not. He said where two or three gathered in his name, there he is in the midst of us.

You can bank on that. But as we think about this, God wants a relationship with us, but he couldn't have a relationship with us because sin separated us from God. And so this Day of Atonement was all about God cleansing the sins and cleansing the people so that he could have a relationship with them. And he did that for you and I when he sent Jesus Christ on the cross. The reason Jesus died is because God loves you and he wants to have a relationship with you through Jesus. God wants that. He wants to dwell among us and in us.

You see, things haven't changed in the last thousands of years, 2,000 years. He still wants to have a relationship with us. The third thing that this involved was the sacrifice. And so this is a picture I came up with, and it's a picture of that altar and the priest that would take a lamb or goat, sacrifice it, and take that blood into the temple on the Holies of Holies, into the Holies of Holies on the Day of Atonement. But in Leviticus 16 verse 7, again, it goes back and begins to talk about how he would take two goats, and one would be, as you look at this, it would be two goats that he would take to the door of the tabernacle meeting, and they would be presented to the Lord, and one would be the Lord's to be sacrificed, the other would be a scapegoat. Have you ever heard of that? How many have read that in the Bible?

You know, you ought to read your Bible. There's a lot of stuff in here. But there was two goats, one was to be sacrificed, the other was going to be a scapegoat. And this is very important because, you see, in the Old Testament is the type, in the New Testament is the substance. In the Old Testament there were symbols or there was pictures, in the New Testament was the reality. And so, we see this, one would be sacrificed, the others would be led away outside the camp, symbolic of taking away our sins. Hallelujah. You see, there were two goats because there were two issues.

Number one, there had to be an atonement for our sins, there had to be the covering or the shedding of blood so that we could be forgiven of our sins, but also there had to be the removal of our sins or a cleansing from our sins. And that's why these two goats came in. Here was the process, here was what happened on that day and we read it there. The priest, before he could ever go into the holies of holies on behalf of the nation, he had to take and sacrifice a bull and then take that blood into the holies of holies and sprinkle it on the holies of holies there on the mercy seat for himself. He would come back out, he would wash his hands and there was a ceremonial cleaning of his hands. Then he would go back to the altar and they would present these two goats and in an urn, they would have this urn, a bucket that they would have. The tradition is they would have two tablets.

One had written on it, the Lord's and the other was a scapegoat, the sacrifice and the scapegoat. And they would put that in that urn, the priest, the high priest would reach down with both hands and pick up one of those, both of those tablets. And he would then take the one that said, there was two goats, if it said the sacrifice of the Lord, he had laid on that lamb's head and the scapegoat he had put on this head. And so he'd lay that there and then as he would get ready to sacrifice and sacrifice the Lord's lamb, he'd come back and you read where he would lay his hands on the head of the scapegoat and confess all of the sins of the people in the nation. He'd confess them over the head of that goat. Now there was, I think, 612 laws in the Old Testament, something like that. I don't know if he had to repeat all of those sins that people would break, but he would confess the sins of the nation.

And as he would do that, they would take that scapegoat after the other one had been sacrificed and then they would lead that out of the camp. They would take it, and usually no Jew wanted to do that because that goat was, he was loaded. That goat was a loaded goat. All the sins of the people were on that goat, had been confessed and conveyed to that goat. So they would get it, normally the tradition is they would find a Gentile and have the Gentile lead that goat out of the city and they would lead it out about 10 miles out into the wilderness and push it off of a cliff and make sure that scapegoat died in the wilderness. Why? They didn't want that loaded goat to come back into the camp two days later.

That goat was carrying away our sins. Now this is a picture of what God did for us. We need to think about that. The Bible says in Isaiah 53 6, all like we of sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to our own way. And the Lord, listen, has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He laid, just like that priest would confess the sins on that scapegoat, the Lord laid the iniquities, our iniquities, the iniquities of the world, the sins of the world, laid it upon that scapegoat and then he carried it the sins away. It was a picture of that in our life.

Now the word scapegoat in the Hebrew is Azazel. A-Z-A-Z-E-L. Azazel. And it means to take away. It means to carry away. It means to remove our sins. So I want you to look at the reasons for atonement here real quickly today.

Why did God give us such a picture? Why did he give us this picture of a lamb carrying away our sins? You see, he not only died to forgive us, but he also met the demands of God's justice and he did something to deal with the power and the guilt of sin in our life by that scapegoat. Those early, those Old Testament believers, get this, they literally believed that God was capable of removing their sins. Can you believe that? That they really believed that God could remove their sins on that day of atonement. Now, if you look, if you know the scripture, what does it say in 1 John 1.9?

If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Did you notice that? If we confess our sins, he's what? Faithful and don't miss this next word, just. The demands of justice had to be made. We deserve death because we couldn't take care of our own sins. So God sent his son to die on the cross for our sins and through his death on the cross, he paid the demands of justice so that we could have life. Hallelujah. That'll make a Methodist shout here tonight. Amen. Psalms 103 verse 12 says, As far as the east is from the west, so have he removed our transgressions.

Jeremiah 31 34, For I will forgive their iniquities and their sins I will remember no more. Micah 7 14, He says, You will cast our sins into the depths of the sea. And I like what Carmen said years ago, and he puts up a no fishing sign. Don't go pulling them back up out of there. You see, when Jesus forgives us of our sins, he forgets our sins. He looks at us as we have been justified through faith, through his blood, as though we have never sinned. Aren't you glad for that?

Aren't you glad that he don't bring up your past and my past and and keep bringing them up? Now Satan will do that. If you've been saved and forgiven and having problem with condemnation in your life, I can tell you that's the devil. Because once you confess your sins and accept Jesus Christ as Lord, he gives and forgets your sins. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. You see, he dealt a death blow to the sin nature in our hearts, and he gave us a new nature so that we could serve the Lord and we could walk with him and have that relationship with the Lord.

Second Corinthians 5 17, If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. The old is past, the new has come. Aren't you glad that he makes us new people? You know, my dad, and many of you remember my dad, Vernon. For many years, as a young man, he gave his heart to the Lord, but he went to the war. He was one of the first young men drafted out of his county in Oklahoma and went to World War II. And when he came back, I think he had PTSD.

He was an angry man. And you know, he's a good father, provided for us, but he cursed, cursed a lot. He'd get angry. Boy, on a drop of a hat, he'd be angry. You know, you didn't see that all the time, but we saw it as a family. And he struggled. But I remember when I was 14 years old, God was moving in that little community.

My mother had prayed for him. She had seven kids. If anybody's going to make heaven, it's going to be her. She's with the Lord today. She raised six boys and one girl. Man, that's a lot. But my mom prayed for my dad.

I remember time and time again that he would really give his heart to the Lord and really get right. And I remember one day that my dad knelt in our living room of our house. Pastor was there, a pastor there, and my dad prayed through. He gave his heart to Christ, surrendered his heart, and he changed. For the first time, I remember hearing my dad tell my mother, I love you. For the first time, I remember hearing my dad. My dad was always good.

He was a good provider. But boy, you didn't know what you were going to get when you got around him. But I saw a change of heart. He began to be more of a loving person when he came to know Jesus. You know, I had an old country preacher growing up, Don Martin. He used to say, even the dogs know when you get saved because you don't kick them the way you used to. You know, people around, you're going to be changed. He was a witness of a new life.

So, thank God for that. He gives us a new heart, but he not only forgives us, but he dealt with that sin issue so that we can have new life. And then, I want you to look at the reality of the atonement. On that day, there was that transferring of our sins, or their sins, to the scapegoat to be carried away. Now, here's another Jewish tradition that Jewish rabbis will tell you that it's not in Scripture, but in their writings, they say that the rabbis or the priests would lay hands on that scapegoat and would pray and confess the sins of the nation, put that tablet, set it on top of his, after they've chosen that, put that tablet on his head. And then, after they did that, they would put a red cord, a red cord dipped in blood, and they would lay it on that scapegoat's head. Then, when it was time, after it was time to take that goat out, the priest would take that red cord and nail it to, put it on a post at the at the temple or the tabernacle in the wilderness, or put it somewhere where it was visible.

And as they would lead that scapegoat out into the wilderness, in the next day or two, they said miraculously that cord, they would be watching that cord, that that red cord would turn white. Now, the Jewish rabbis recorded that, that that would happen. It was a supernatural thing. It was a sign to the people that their sins had been removed, their sins had been forgiven.

Now, that's crazy, isn't it? Amazing. I wonder where they got that. Listen to what Isaiah said, Prophet Isaiah.

Chapter 1, verse 18. He said, Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be white as wool. I've wondered now, where did Isaiah get that? I think he got it from the Holy In Isaiah's day, that that tradition or that Jewish, that tradition of the Jews, that he wrote that scripture, that though our sins are like crimson or red, it's going to become white as snow. He washes us.

You know, the greatest miracle that ever happened in life is when he takes the black heart of sin, washes it with the red blood of Jesus, and makes us white as snow. That's one of the greatest miracles that could ever take place. So we see that we see some fulfillment in what Jesus did for us. John chapter 19, verses 1 through 3. John gives us a lot of details about the crucifixion and the rest and the crucifixion of Jesus, and he said this, So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him, and the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on his head.

Did you get that? Like they take that cord and put it on the head of that lamb or that goat, scapegoat, and then they put a purple robe on him, and then they said, Hail King of the Jews, and they struck him with their hands. So we read that and the account of Jesus being crucified, but I wonder if John was really giving us some insight here, because the soldiers would make that crown of thorns, they would put it on his head and beat it down on his head, and blood would flow all around his brow, down his garments, and when they took it off, there would just be this red ring around his head from all the blood. But as they stood there in front of Pilate that day, John says, he said to the Jews, Here is your king. And what did the Jews say? Remember that Hebrew word for scapegoat? Azazel. They were shouting away with him, away with him.

They were shouting Azazel, Azazel, the same word that was used for the scapegoat in the Old Testament. And then they led Jesus outside the gate of the city to Golgotha and they crucified him there. Hallelujah. My friends, I want you to know, Jesus paid the price for you and I. He was our scapegoat. He was the sacrificial lamb that died for your sins, my sins, the sins of the world around us. And when you read the Scriptures, sometimes we don't catch that, but there's so much that happened during that period of time that really goes back to that Day of Atonement and some of the things that happened around that. Hallelujah. He took our sins away.

You know, we used to sing an old song, I owe a debt I cannot pay and he paid a debt he did not owe. I needed someone to wash my sins away. And we used to sing that old chorus. It reminded me of this story of a young man who was starting out in life and he saw an advertisement, a flyer that came in the mail, where a bank was offering, you know, to loan $20,000 for startup businesses and stuff. So the young man, he was starting his own business. Thought, man, I could use that. So he went down to the bank, met the banker and signed up for that loan and walked out with $20,000 to start it.

And so that first year is a balloon payment. Next year he had to pay it off and got down to the time to pay it off and he didn't have the money. He'd worked hard but didn't have it. Went back to the bank and said, man, I just I can't pay the the balloon note. So the banker said, that's no problem. We'll just add it on and give you another year. And so that went on year after year for several years and that young man was getting further and further in debt. And finally the bank saw he began to owe a lot of money and the bank sent him a note calling the loan.

And so this young man goes back in to the banker and they become friends. His heart was beating thinking, man, he's going to lose everything because he can't, he didn't have the money to pay off the loan. He's gonna have to sell everything he had to pay it. And he talked to the banker in his setting there and the banker looked across the desk, looked at him. He said, young man, I've been watching you. He said, I've really, really been watching you, been working hard and I admire you. He said, don't worry about that loan.

And the guy looked up, the guy looked at him and what are you talking about? He saw that banker pull out his checkbook, write a check for $100,000 that he owed, took it over to a teller, came back a few minutes later and he handed him a piece of paper and it was stamped paid in full. Now that little story tells a little bit about you and I. Because friends, that's exactly what happened to you and I. There was a debt we couldn't pay. There was no way that we could ever take care of our own sin, but there was one who canceled our debt and his name was Jesus. He was the one who died on the cross for us.

So my friend, the entire point of this day of home was God's great love for you and I. That he would send not only a lamb, but he would send the Lamb of God to die on a cross so that you and I could be saved and forgiven. And I know most of you, probably every one of you here know Jesus as your Savior. But you know I like to ask the question when we get through preaching, what does the Holy Spirit want you to do with this? You've just heard a gospel message that we were sinners, that God sent a son to die for us, and that because of his death on the cross and his resurrection, you and I now are new creations in Christ Jesus and on our way to heaven. So what do we do with this message?

What do we do about it? We have to ask the Holy Spirit, what do we do? I can tell you what we need to do. We need to tell everybody we come in contact with that Jesus loves them and he died for them. And we need to be sharing our faith so that others may know him and be saved. That's his heart. I'm telling you, we're running out of time, friends.

Do you know that? Jesus Christ is about to come again. Any day now, he's coming. And we need to be busy about the master's business. I believe this is one of the greatest...this is the greatest day we've ever had as a church.

There's a revival in the air. This death of Charlie Kirk, what happened there and what's happening on these college campuses, my friends, God's up to something big.

He's up to something big. And I believe God wants just to bring a renewal and a great revival and awakening to America one more time before the trumpet of God sounds and we are caught up to meet Christ in the air. I believe with all my heart that God wants our friends to be saved, our neighbors to be saved. He wants to reach this nation in a lost world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So, let's pray. Father, I thank you today for your word. And Lord, I pray that you would let this sink in to see all of the things that happened in the Old Testament were fulfilled in Christ in the New Testament, that Jesus became our atonement.

He became our sacrifice. And Lord, not only does he, Lord, forgive us of our sins, but he cleanses us. He takes away our sins and makes us a brand-new creation in Christ. Father, I don't know if there's anyone here, Lord, that needs forgiveness of sin, but Lord, I'm so thankful that you've given us that avenue that we can confess our sins and that you're faithful and just to forgive us. Father God, I thank you today for your word. And I pray, Lord, touch your people today and help us, Lord, be your ambassadors. Help us to be, Lord, your spokesman.

Help us to be a light in the community, Father, wherever we go that we're sharing your love with others so that others may know you and be saved. Father, I thank you for that right now, in Jesus' name. Amen.