JESUS, THE MORE EXCELLENT
SACRIFICE
April 7, 2002 pm
MFBlume
Genesis 3:6-8 And when the
woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise,
she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her
husband with her; and he did eat. (7) And the eyes of
them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and
they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
(8) And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the
garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid
themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of
the garden.
Genesis 4:1-5 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and
bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
(2) And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a
keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
(3) And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain
brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the
LORD. (4) And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings
of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto
Abel and to his offering: (5) But unto Cain and to his
offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his
countenance fell.
Adam and Eve sinned.
- And they proceeded to try and deal with it in their own
ingenuity.
- They "covered up".
- Anyone who disobeys God is going to feel naked within.
- The only way Adam knew how to respond to this inward nakedness
is to outwardly try to cover it up.
Adam was wrong.
- His fig leaf covering was futile and useless.
- The couple ran when God's presence came.
- They had used fig leaves to cover up, and then ran behind even
more trees by hiding behind a tree.
Fig leaves became the
issue in other events in the Bible, and became known as a symbol of
hypocrisy.
In Matthew 21, after Jesus was rejected by
Jerusalem, He saw a fig tree with many leaves, and went to obtain
fruit from it.
- But He found no fruit upon it.
- He cursed it for its hypocrisy.
- It was not the time for fruit, but it should not have leaves
if there was no fruit.
- Its leaves were a hypocritical boast, that reflected the
hypocrisy of Jerusalem with its "leaves" of ritual and ceremony
and worship.
In Luke 13:7, Jesus spoke a parable of the
fig tree in the vineyard.
- For three years the tree bore no fruit.
- Just leaves.
- And a fourth was granted in mercy before it was to be cut
down.
- In the fourth year of Jesus' ministry, Jerusalem crucified
Him.
- No fruit.
- God cut Jerusalem off.
So God took Adam and Eve, and
stripped away their man-made coverings.
- He took an innocent lamb and shed its blood to provide a
covering for them.
- God clothed them.
- God blessed them.
Everytime Dam and Eve would see each
other from then on, they would be reminded of the covering provided
at the death of an innocent.
- Reminded of what God did for them in their trouble.
- And when God lovingly clothed them, the work gave them peace.
- They would not have to run away again.
Cain and Abel
were born.
- Time came for sacrifice.
- God is no respector of persons.
- But he respects faith and disrespects unbelief.
Cain
repeated Adam's error!
- He offered vegetation in sacrifice for covering sins.
- Adam tried covering himself with vegetation.
Abel
offered the firstlings of his flock.
- He picked up on Adam's error, and noted God's provision.
- He noted that God took the life of another and clothed Adam.
Cain was relying on his own works, like Adam.
- Abel depended upon the life of another.
Cain learned
nothing from Adam's error.
- Abel did.
- He learned from Adam's mistake.
- Cain learned nothing from the past.
- We need to learn from the stories in the Bible, and not repeat
the same errors of others.
- 1 Cor 10 says the past events of the Bible are examples that
we should not fall after the same manner of unbelief as they did.
Adam's home-made works were thrown away by God.
- God shed the life of another and clothed Adam.
- God set the pace for sacrifices to be made by man.
- Abel had faith.
- Abel caught what God did.
- And Abel shed blood of an innocent and God clothed him, too!
Hebrews 11:4 By faith Abel
offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he
obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his
gifts: and by it he being dead yet
speaketh.
As an animal hide clothed Adam, God
clothed Abel with RIGHTEOUSNESS.
- Righteousness is said to be a garment or robe.
Revelation 19:8 And to her
was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and
white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of
saints.
Cain put vegetation that was already
dead onto the altar.
- He killed it the moment he pulled it from the earth.
- No life was actually slain on the altar.
- It was dead when harvested.
- The sacrifice must be killed on the altar.
Abel gave
life on the altar.
- Blood is the life of the flesh that is taken on the altar.
- When blood is shed, life is taken.
By faith Abel
offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain
- Life of an innocent had been given for the life of a sinner.
- There were no works of his own that Abel offered to God.
- Just the life of an innocent, contrasting with his own sinful
existence.
When Cain did shed blood, it was Abel's
blood.
Abel shed blood in faith
towards God.
Cain was cursed in shedding Abel's
blood.
Abel was covered in righteousness when he shed the
lamb's blood.
God testified of Abel's gifts.
- He accepted Abel's sacrifice.
- The Bible testifies of it to this day!
Today, the True
Innocent is Jesus!
- The true sacrifice to God is Jesus.
- It is the one acceptable sacrifice that God is pleased with,
alone.
Cain put on a show!
- Abel had real faith, not a front or a show.
- Abel was doing something from his heart.
- He was concerned about what God accepted.
- He heeded God's words with Adam concerning Adam's error.
- Cain cared not.
- This betrayed Cain's disinterest.
Christ is the
firstborn of every creature.
- As Abel's sacrifice.
- Only Jesus is acceptable to God.
- When you give to the Lord, give nothing but Jesus.
- When you look for your ticket to glory to hand to God, give
nothing but Jesus and His sacrifice.
There are always two
kinds of worshipers.
- The spiritual and the carnal.
- Sincere and serious, or half-hearted and careless.
- Those who truly seek to please God, and those who do not.
Only what comes from faith will ever please God.
Hebrews 11:6 But without
faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God
must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him.
The faithful will perk
up in sermons like this.
- They care only to please God.
- Jesus Himself called Abel Righteous.
Mat 23:35 That upon you may
come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood
of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias,
whom ye slew between the temple and the
altar.
Give Jesus, only.
- Don't brag of your faithfulness.
- Don't count on it to get God's attention.
- Forget your abilities...
- ...your goodness.
- ...your giving.
- Come to God with Jesus'sacrifice as your only gift.
- He's your everything.
A hymn goes:
I come to thee without one plea,
But that
thine blood was shed for me.
Nothing of
ourselves was ever recoverable to give to God again.
- All of what we were and had, had to die.
- Jesus' death is our deaths.
- People don't like HIm because His message is "Nothing of
your's can ever redeem you."
- But when we give His soul and offering for sin, it pleases
God.
Isa 53:10 Yet it pleased
the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt
make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his
hand.
Abel offered by faith,
- What is an offering by faith?
- Well, we are not saved by works, by through faith.
- So an offering of faith is certainly not an offering of our
good works.
- God will testify of your gift if you give Jesus.
We
must admit that we simply have to become new creatures, and that
there is nothing of our old lives that is useful to God.
- He must remove our entire old existence.
- Create us anew in Jesus.
People who often get down
about themselves have never gotten this revelation.
- They get down about themselves because they still honour their
own works.
- And our own works will never be good enough for God.
- People who do not get down about their failures, and serve God
faithfully, are people who have realized that their works and
efforts are useless to God.
- So these people do not grieve over lack of good works to
render to God.
- They realize that they can only offer Jesus.
- They can only claim what Christ did on the cross for them, and
not anything they have of themselves.
If these people
would realize that their works were so useless to God, and so
valueless, because our lives in Adam are valueless, and if they
could understand the cross is meant to totally remove our past
lives, they'd not worry about their efforts today.
- If efforts could not save us then, then further efforts cannot
help us today, either.
Since God gave Christ as an
offering for sin, then we must also give Christ as our offerings,
since that alone pleased God and He was satisfied.
If you get
down over not being good enough, then you are too concerned over
your own works.
- Get a revelation of your efforts being valueless.
- Learn how Jesus is your everything.
All we can offer is
Jesus.
People who worry about their works are people who
offer these things to God, and do not even realize it!
- God accepts nothing but the Son of God.
Maintain an
attitude of being a living sacrifice.
- All of your life is dead.
- Christ is all that is in you that is acceptable.
- We died in sacrifice with Him, knowing our lives are
unrecoverable and cannot be reformed.
- Keep that attitude.
- A constant sacrifice.
- A living sacrifice.
Singers, before you sing, pray and
ask Jesus to sing through you.
Before I preach, I pray for
Christ to preach through me.
Before you testify, pray that
Christ speaks through you.
Before you do anything for God,
pray that Christ do it through you.
Otherwise, none of it
will please God!
Christ is the more excellent sacrifice!