Mesa Hills Bible Church

Pastor Tim Dane: We are living in a place, in an age and a place where things are really getting rotten. Sin in a rotten world is nothing new. Ever since the fall of Adam, we've been living in this fallen world, but we're living in a time period in our culture where we're watching radical changes at lightning speed where pagan values are overtaking the culture at an amazing pace.

One of the brothers earlier showed me something from a school district, a school down in the fountain area or down that direction. They were going to be having posters up in the school to have queer plays. This is like junior high schools, a public school. They pointed it out to the district superintendent and they got a hold of the school and said these things are not allowed. These are outside things coming in, but these things are coming at us from every angle.

It's not going to go away. A couple weeks ago when I was working on this study before I left, I read an article about a pastor in Canada where he went to pray outside of a library because they were having queer events at this library for children. He was outside reading the Bible and praying and they arrested him and now he's facing prison time for praying and reading the Bible outside. How do you like that? You can come in and bring all sorts of perversion into the libraries and the schools, but they're going to arrest you for reading the Bible and praying.

This is the world that we live in and it's not going to go away. What we are watching happen, especially in Western culture, is that Jesus Christ and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is getting evicted from the public sector and you and I are becoming the criminals. You and I are becoming the criminals in our Western culture. Be ready for this. It's not going to change. It's not going to go away. I don't believe this is going to go away.

What do you do when we are watching something happening where the world is pushing all of these things upon us and trying to make us bow the knee to their ideas? That's exactly what they want everybody to do is to bow the knees to their worldviews. This is what Revelation chapter two verses 12 to 17 is about. Christ's message to the church of Pergamum and it's about the dangers of compromise and the need to stand firm in the word of God. No matter what the world is bringing against you, standing firm in the word of God.

We're watching these things happening and it's happening so quickly in our present scenario. It's nothing new. Godless pagan values were there 2,000 years ago in John's day as well. In the city of Pergamum, there were two major kinds of things that were at work. One of them was the pagan idol worship. Pergamum was not any different from any other ancient Near Eastern city. They had all of these pressures from pagan worship, but you also had the pressures that came from political persecution due to emperor worship.

These things are not completely separate. They're really overlapping. The idea of paganism and emperor worship really went hand in hand. What God is going to say to the people in the first century is don't cave into those pressures. Don't cave in, don't bow the knee to what the world is trying to tell you you're supposed to bow down to. We know what's going on. They want the pagan world wants you and me to bow down and say, you are so wonderful, this is so great. We cannot do that. We must not do that.

What do we know about this place called Pergamum? Pergamum was a very ancient city that dated back to at least the first millennium BC, probably way back to at least as far as we can tell, 600 or 700 BC. It was inhabited by Greeks in those ancient times. As you go back and you look at the history of it, it would have had a Greek history and then that became a Roman history. It was a very beautiful place. It was about 20 miles inland from the Aegean Sea and it was set in the bottom of a valley where there was a river that ran through it.

There was a cliff that went up about 1,000 feet. One historian archaeologist by the name of Sir William Ramsey called it the royal city because it had just this majestic hill that was beside the city. It had a very rich history both in its Greek background and its Roman background. When Rome eventually took control of this whole part of the region, Pergamum actually became the capital, the official capital for about 300 years of the Roman Empire in that part of the world. The district capital was the city of Pergamum.

What this is going to mean is that if you want to be on good terms with your political leaders, you better bow the knee to Rome and you better be willing to say Caesar is Lord and you better be willing to confess the genius of Caesar. This is something that's an interesting expression, the genius of Caesar. When we were having some tours there in Rome a couple weeks ago, they talked about the idea, the concept, the genius of Caesar as to take Caesar and even if he's still living, they did not deify the emperors until after they were dead. Then they would say, now he's a God.

While they're living, they would say you have to be willing to worship the genius of Caesar, kind of like his spirit, so to speak. This was all part of living in ancient Rome. Pergamum was a huge center of Roman emperor worship. It had a lot of cultural diversity as well. As you go back, they had a library, a massive library that had some 200,000 volumes back in these ancient times. King Eumenes II going back to like 197 BC wanted to build this massive library that would rival the massive library that was down there in Egypt in Alexandria. Alexandria was noted for having this massive library of like 250,000 volumes.

They were building their library, but what happened is that the king down in Egypt, Ptolemy Epiphanes, he got suspicious of what was going on there because he got caught wind that the guy up in Asia, up in Pergamum was wanting to steal the librarian from his library in Egypt. What he did is he cut off all of the papyrus that was being sent up into Pergamum. Papyrus is what was the most common writing instrument. This forced the people up there in Pergamum to find something new that they would use to write and they perfected the use of the art of using animal skins. It's called parchment or vellum.

This really became a huge development up there in Pergamum was a center for making parchment for writing. Interestingly, over time what happened is that when Mark Antony and Cleopatra were alive and up there in that area, the library of Pergamum actually ended up getting taken down to Alexandria. This is something that Mark Antony gave to Cleopatra as a gift and so it ended up in Egypt anyhow. That library was there in Alexandria. It was the biggest library of the ancient world. It was there until the Muslims came in and burned it to the ground in 642 BC.

I remember one guy from our church in Los Angeles that was from Egypt, an Egyptian guy, and he said these guys came in and they completely destroyed this library there that had even things like records of how they engineered the pyramids and just amazing historical engineering things. The Muslims said this doesn't support our cause, so we're just going to burn it to the ground. Pergamum also had a huge amount of pressure that came from both pagan religious worship and emperor worship.

There were two kinds of what we call Greek gods that were worshipped in Pergamum. One of them was Athena, who was the patron goddess of Athens, and also you had Zeus. In Pergamum, there was a massive altar that was dedicated to Zeus. This altar was there that they built and it was relocated about 100 years ago to a museum in Berlin. It is an amazing museum and it's going to be closing for about 15 years come about like this October. If you ever want to see the Pergamum museum in your lifetime, you might want to try to do it before October comes because they're going to do massive restorations.

In that museum they have the Ishtar Gate from Babylon, the walls of the city that Nebuchadnezzar built 2,600 years ago are reconstructed in this, the actual walls. But they also rebrought and reconstructed this altar to Zeus, this giant limestone or marble, probably limestone I guess, this giant altar that was there for Zeus and that also is located in the Pergamum Museum. Zeus and Athena were two of the gods. You also had the worship of another Eastern god called Dionysus, who was the god that appeared in the form of a bull.

They also had a temple to Asclepius. Asclepius was the snake god. If you ever see the thing where they have the medical staff and then there's a serpent on it, this comes from the background of Asclepius. What they would tell people is that if they would come with some kind of sickness into the temple of Asclepius and spend the night on the floor and the snakes, if a snake would touch them, they would have healing. That's pretty nasty stuff, but this is pagan worship. What made things especially bad for the pressure of the people that lived in Pergamum, again, was the fact that it was a center for the worship of the Roman emperor and it had been since 29 BC.

They had the worship of Trajan, of Severus, Septimius Severus, Caesar Augustus, Caesar Tiberius, and there was a constant pressure on the people that lived there to bow the knee to the genius of Caesar. You will do what we tell you to do or we're going to kill you. This was a constant pressure that happened to the people that lived there and this helps us to understand why this church had so much temptations to compromise when it came to these areas of paganism. The church itself probably began when Paul was there in Asia, in Ephesus for 52 to 55.

During that time period, people that were ministering under Paul and growing under Paul's teaching, they went out into all different regions of Asia. That's probably the place where this church began somewhere back in the mid to late fifties. The year when Revelation is written is 95, so this church has been around for about 40 years and the pressures are coming upon them constantly. That's why Jesus brings this message here and says, "Hey guys, I see what's going on. I know the pressures that you are facing. Don't bow the knee, don't cave in."

In chapter two verses 12 to 17, we see four parts to this message that remind us about the need to stay faithful and never compromise. This follows a flow, the flow of this is what we see in each of these seven letters. It begins with Christ identifying himself and his perfect omniscience, everything he knows. He's the sovereign judge, he's the Lord that knows everything. He also promises that he's going to judge the evil one day. He also promises that those who stay faithful to him and that trust him are going to be in his kingdom and share the blessings of his kingdom. These are four key attributes of Christ that flow out of the passage.

Let's read this together and then we're going to go back and look at each one of these aspects, attributes of Christ. It starts in 2:12. "To the angel of the church in Pergamum write: The one who has the sharp two-edged sword says this: I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is; and you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas, my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality.

"Thus you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent therefore, or else I'm coming to you quickly and I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna and I will give him a white stone and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it." Lord, we thank you for giving us your word. Your word shows us that you're a holy God, you are a powerful sovereign judge, you're an omniscient God who knows everything. We thank you that you're a righteous God who will judge evil. You're also a faithful God who will bless your people when Christ returns. He'll bless them with an eternal place in his kingdom. We thank you for this.

Verse 12 has the first of four keys to standing firm against compromise and it comes out when we look at the identity of Christ. It identifies Jesus Christ as the sovereign Lord. You notice here in verse 12 that he is the one who holds the sharp two-edged sword. That imagery went straight back to chapter one verse 16. When Christ appeared to John in chapter one, Christ appeared holding this sharp two-edged sword. What we see here is that Jesus is identified as the sovereign Lord. He's the one who holds judgment, a sharp sword.

This is the idea here of this double sharp two-edged sword. Christ says I am going to judge sin one day. When you get to the closing portions of this book in Revelation 19, you see this is where the judgment begins to fall out upon the earth. Chapter 19 verse 11, this is when John sees Christ returning at the end of the tribulation period. It says down here in verse 15 that from his mouth comes a sharp sword so that with it he might smite the nations and he will rule over them with an iron rod and he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty.

We are watching wickedness run rampant, but that's not going to happen forever. Christ is going to return. The Bible says he's going to return and he's going to put an end to this. This is what God's word does. God's word is here to tell you and me, "Hey, I'm going to fix this thing one day. Don't cave in to the pressures." The second key to standing firm against compromise comes in verse 13. Verse 12 showed us who Christ is, he is the judge. Verse 13, we see the omniscience of Christ. He knows everything. He says, "I know where you dwell. I see everything."

When the Bible says that Christ has knowledge of everything, this is not like he has to do some kind of grand jury investigation. No, he doesn't have to do that. His knowledge of everything is intuitive, it's part of who he is. He sees everything. He sees the good and the bad. First of all in verse 13 he says, "I see the good things that you guys are holding faithful. I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is." Well, that raises a question, what does Satan's throne mean, where Satan dwells? After all, isn't this whole world under the power of Satan?

In Galatians chapter one, Paul called this the present evil age in which we live. In John's gospel, four times Jesus called the devil the ruler of this world. How can Jesus say that Satan is the ruler of this world? Well, Adam's sin brought an inversion of God's order. There's only one God, there's only one Lord Jesus Christ. And yet this fallen angel because of Adam's sin has obtained an ability to have massive influence upon this world. God is God, Christ is Lord, and yet Satan, Jesus called him the ruler of this world. In Second Corinthians 4:4, Paul called him the God of this world. In First John 5:19, John says the whole world lies under the power of the evil one.

At a general level when we look at the stuff that's going on, the perversion and the wickedness that is coming into our society and people are welcoming in the schools, this is why, because Satan is the ruler of this world and Satan operates in the hearts of unsaved wicked people. That's the people that run the show. That's the people that run the federal government, that's the people in the White House. There are believers out there. These are the people that run the school boards. We know why things are the way that they are.

When Jesus right here identifies the church in Pergamum as living where Satan's throne is, there's several different explanations. Is this talking about the fact that they had an altar to Zeus or is it because they had the temple of Asclepius and they used to worship snakes? Probably the best understanding is that it's talking about the emperor worship that was so intense right here. Anywhere within the Roman Empire you would be usually expected to show allegiance to Caesar by burning incense to Caesar at least once a year. But in Pergamum, where it was the capital of this region for emperor worship, this probably is the best understanding.

You lived with a daily threat of somebody coming against you and saying, "I want to see you bow the knee to Caesar. I want to see you swear by the genius of Caesar." If you don't think that these things can happen here, they already are starting to happen here and it's not going to go away. It's insane to watch what's happening right here. The Christians back then, they would not bow the knee to Rome and that is why they were being killed. That's why he talks about Antipas. He says who was killed because they would not bow the knee. Jesus says right here, "I know where you live. I've seen the things that you're having to endure. I see what's going on and I'm going to deal with this."

What about when you're the one who's being put out of business by the system? Like this baker up there in Denver, Jack Phillips. What do you do when they're coming after you and saying, "You will do this or we'll destroy your life"? Jesus says, "I see what's going on, I'm going to deal with it and I will reward you for your faithfulness to me." Look at the promise that Christ made in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:10-12. Jesus says, "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." They're saved.

"Blessed are you when men cast insults at you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely on account of me. Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." If you are being hated for your faith in Christ and the fact that you will not bow down to godless pagans, Jesus says rejoice. You belong to me and your reward in heaven is going to be great.

Notice what else happens here in verse 13. Jesus says also, "I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is; and that you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas, my witness, my faithful one who was killed among you where Satan dwells." Jesus commends them for holding fast to his name. They had all these pressures and yet they would not bow the knee to the world. There's a lot that we can learn by looking at saints of past ages. We learned about Polycarp. They burned him at the stake, a very sweet 86-year-old man, and they burned him at the stake because he would not swear by the genius of Caesar. Just confess Caesar, just burn some incense to him and we'll let you go. No, I'm not going to do that.

Look what else it says right here. "You did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas." We don't know who Antipas was. We do have one historical source that says he was cast alive into a fiery bronze bull like an idol and it was heated to glowing and they dropped him into this bull. It might have been Dionysus because Dionysus was a bull god. He didn't bow the knee to the world. This church had some very commendable qualities and the Lord says, "I see your faithfulness." In Revelation 22, he says, "Behold, I'm coming quickly and my reward is with me to render to every man according to what he has done. I see what's happening. Keep trusting me, don't compromise."

Jesus also knows the things that are not good here. Notice what happens in verse 14. He says, "You guys are doing well, but I have a few things against you." Verse 14: "You have some who are holding the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality." The background for this is in the Old Testament in Numbers chapters 22 through 25. There was a king by the name of Balak and he was terrified of the Hebrews. Now he was the king of Moab and the people of Israel didn't want his land. God said that land belongs to them.

Balak, this pagan king, was terrified of the Hebrews so he sent a message to a pagan oracle by the name of Balaam. "Hey, I'll pay you if you come and put a curse on Israel. I'll pay you more." "Okay, fine, I'll come and I'll put a curse on Israel." Balaam came and he was going to put a curse on Israel, but then God spoke to him and God said, "You cannot put a curse on Israel. I've chosen the people of Israel, I've put my blessing upon them." Not because they're better people, they're not better, they're just like you and me. But God chose Israel as the nation through which he would bring a Savior into the world. Jesus Christ is a Jew. God chose Israel as the vessel through which he would bring a Savior to the world.

Because God had chosen Israel, he would not let Balaam put a curse on Israel. But Balaam said to Balak, "I have an idea. We will go and we will get a bunch of temple prostitutes from the Canaanites, from the Midianites and we'll bring all of these prostitutes into the camp of Israel and the Israeli men, the Jews are going to start hooking up with these pagan prostitutes and God will bring a judgment upon them for their sin. That's how we can get to Israel." Guess what? It worked. 24,000 Jews died when God began to strike them with judgment. It wasn't until a priest by the name of Phinehas came in and put a spear through one of the guys that was involved in it and the prostitute that was with him and the plague stopped.

But what happened is that Balaam had an idea. I'll show you how you can destroy Israel, just bring in sexual unfaithfulness to the camp of Israel and God will deal with them. Well, what's happening right here in the church in Pergamum, they were allowing people to bring this into the church. You say, how in the world could they do that? It's not that hard to understand how it happens. There were cults that were beginning to rise up and infect the Christian church even in the first century. We know this from people like Irenaeus, who was a second century bishop in Lyon, France.

Irenaeus described some of these things that they were actually bringing in, sexual kinds of activities. Some of these false teachers were trying to bring them into the church. The way that they would argue this is they would say, "Well, we know that what happens in the body doesn't really matter because the only important thing," the false teacher said, "is what's in the spirit. It doesn't matter what we do with our body as long as the spirit is pure." They were bringing this in. It also mentions if you notice right here in verse 15, it says, "You also have some in the same way who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans."

The Nicolaitans were a Gnostic cult that began rising up in the latter part of the first century and the Nicolaitans did this exact thing. They were bringing sexual sin into the church and saying, "Hey, here's the way to worship God, sexual perversion." The church at Pergamum was letting these things into the church and that doesn't mean that everybody was involved in it, but they were letting these things come into the church and they were compromising. You say again, how could they do this? They call themselves Christians. Look at how many churches today are doing things like embracing homosexuality. Quite a few big groups right here, denominations saying, "Oh no, we can't condemn them. That's just an alternate lifestyle."

Then they're ordaining homosexual marriages and they're ordaining homosexual priests and pastors and everything else. It's happening. This is the kind of thing going on back then and Jesus says, "I'm really upset at what I see happening here to my church." Here's the application of this for ourselves. Don't bow the knee. This is true at a congregational level, but it is true at an individual level. Listen, we're being hammered with these lies and I feel so sorry for the next generations, my kids, my grandkids. I feel so sorry that this is the world that they're going to have to be living in where they're being told 24/7, "This is good stuff, and if you don't bow down and applaud it, we're going to destroy you."

Even this past week there was this rock star, you've heard of that rock group called Kiss, been around for like 50 years, they paint a lot of makeup. There's Kiss and then there's another one that's been around for probably 40 years or something called Twisted Sister. These guys are not your Sunday School teachers, okay? But this guy from Kiss said, "This is really wrong that they're pushing this transgender stuff on kids." Then the whole homosexual world, the transgender community came against him and said, "Oh, you're evil for not supporting us."

Then this other guy, Dee Snider, this singer for this group called Twisted Sister says, "No, I agree. This is really bad." He says, "You guys could do whatever you want, but bringing this stuff on kids and pushing it on kids, this is really bad." What ended up happening is that so much pressure came that concert venues began canceling his concerts. If they do this to these guys, it's not going to be any mercy on people like you or me. This is what was happening here. They were bowing the knee, they were compromising and Jesus says this really is not good.

We need to apply these things to ourselves and know that the Lord sees it, the good and the bad. Verse 16, we come to the third of these keys for standing firm and not compromising. This time here focuses upon the fact that Jesus Christ is holy and he hates evil, he hates sin and he judges sin. In verse 16, after he identifies what they are compromising in, he says, "Repent therefore, or else I'm coming to you quickly and I'll make war with them against the sword of my mouth." I see, not everybody, but I see that some of you are compromising. You're listening to the lies, you're bowing the knee to these pagan lies. You better stop it and repent right now. Turn from your sin or I'm going to return and those that are unrepentant about your sin, you're going to fall under my judgment. Don't compromise. Don't bow the knee.

Lastly here, verse 17, we see the fourth key to standing firm. It comes in verse 17 with an encouragement about God's gracious promises for those who trust him and follow him. Look at this verse 17: "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna and I will give him a white stone and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it." Every one of the times when you come to the promise section of these seven letters, it's a promise to the true believer who's called the overcomer.

The promise is, here is how you're going to be blessed in my kingdom. The two blessings that are described right here are one, that it is eating from the hidden manna. You know that during the wilderness wanderings back in the days of Moses, God brought bread down from heaven and every morning when they woke up, there was this powdery bread on the ground and they would go and collect it and they had bread for the day. It happened every day for 40 years. God gave them a break on the Sabbath. He says I'm going to give you enough on the day before the Sabbath, collect twice as much so that you don't have to go out and do it on the Sabbath day.

But they had this bread. Then they took some of the bread and they put it into a golden jar and they kept it in the temple as a reminder about God's faithful provision. That temple where these things were kept got destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC and that was the last that we heard of the ark of the covenant and that's the last that we heard of any of these things that were in the temple like that pot of manna. Probably what happened is that Jewish believers, maybe Jeremiah, maybe Josiah the king took the ark of the covenant and they had it hidden because they knew that the Babylonians were going to destroy the temple.

We don't know where it went, but in Jewish writings, what they did is they talked about the fact that when the Messiah comes, these are not spirit-inspired scripture, but they believed that when the Messiah comes, they're going to find the ark of the covenant again and they're going to find some of this manna that was hidden. The idea of having hidden manna is identified as being what's going to happen when the Messiah comes and brings the kingdom. That hidden manna is now going to be brought to us. What this is, this is a promise of sharing in the Messiah's kingdom when he comes.

"I will give you some of this hidden manna." But it also mentions here that he will give them a white stone with a new name written on this. Once again, we have to say what is this talking about? He doesn't explain it right here, but there's probably a good background here from the Roman background of the gladiator games and the things that happened here. The white stone would symbolize your entrance into the Roman events. We know this historically that they would do things like they would grant stones with markings on them and that was basically an entrance ticket to get into the Roman games.

One writer says that the victors of the games had entrance to special events by means of these kinds of stones. What Christ is doing here with these two different images, one of them is really kind of a Jewish imagery, the idea of hidden manna, the other one about the stone with your own new name written on it. He knows you. This is your relationship with Christ. He says this is what you're going to have if you stay faithful to me. It's the promise of entering into the kingdom and being with the Lord.

There's so much more that can be said on this, but today's a busy day. We're going to be sharing in the Lord's supper here in a minute. In closing, just think about this twofold message. Number one, don't fall into the trap of compromise because sometimes you get tired of having to fight this. Don't give in. And know the promise that Christ says here. He says, "If you stay faithful to me, if you trust in me and you're faithful to me, I'll bring you into my kingdom." When is this going to come? He didn't give us a day or hour. He just said stay faithful, keep preaching the gospel. God has his people in the world and he's going to save them when you give them the gospel and the Spirit of God does the work of drawing them to the Son.

Father, we thank you for your promises that are very precious. Lord, as we contemplate your gracious salvation here in the Lord's Supper, we're reminded with this visual reminder that you died for us, that you gave your body for our sins, that you shed your blood for our sins. You told the disciples that when you return, we're going to eat and drink together in your kingdom. We're going to share with you fellowship in your kingdom when you return. You told us and commanded us to do these things until that day when you return. We're here to obey you and to celebrate your death and your resurrection. We thank you for all of this in Christ's name. Amen.

The Lord's Supper, dear brothers and sisters, is the time period when we visually celebrate the death of Christ for our sins. Jesus was with his disciples in the upper room and they had a Passover meal, the so-called Last Supper. When they were eating this Passover meal, Jesus had the bread and he says, "Take and eat this. This is my body." This bread symbolizes my body, so as you eat the bread, remember that my body is being given for your sins. This cup of wine that you are drinking here in this Passover meal, this wine is for the forgiveness of sins, the wine being poured out symbolizing the blood that is being poured out.

The Lord's Supper is for you if Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. If you're not a Christian, then my suggestion is that you would not participate in this. It has no meaning to you. But my greater encouragement to you is this, if you have never trusted Christ and professed him in baptism publicly as Lord, then that you would do this. Trust him. Today is the day of salvation. Trust him. As the as we pass the bread, we're going to hold it until we can all eat the bread together. But I would encourage you also to do examination of yourself. Paul taught us this in First Corinthians 11. This is a time for us to look at our lives, to confess the things that are not right, to let them go. Amen.

Father, we thank you for this opportunity of being here and to remember what you have done for us in dying to take our sins. We cannot do anything to achieve that forgiveness, but you have done everything. We thank you for this in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. He has no beginning, he is God, the second person of the Trinity. The Bible says that 2,000 years ago, the Son of God took on human flesh. The Spirit of God brought a baby into the womb of a young Jewish girl named Mary and that God now united himself in this person with the with human beings. He was the God-man. The Bible says that when Christ lived 2,000 years ago, he lived a life without sin.

The Bible says that God took on the cross, that God took our sin, the punishment for our sin, the penalty for our sin, that God laid the judgment for our sin upon his Son Jesus Christ who had no sin. The Bible says that Christ paid the price in full and the proof that this was a an accepted sacrifice is that Christ rose again on the third day. In the Last Supper, Jesus took the disciples and he took that bread and he said, "From now on, I want you to remember my body that was given for your sin." This is not mystical and magical, it's symbolic, it's representing the person of Jesus Christ, the body that died on the cross. God promises this: God says if you will believe in my Son, I'll forgive all your sin: past, present, future. That's good news. Let's remember that.

Thank you, Father, for giving your Son, for not withholding your only Son, but delivering him up for us all. Thank you for doing what we could never do. We are already guilty, we're already stained. We're like sheep running astray, but you have laid all of our iniquity upon him that he could give us forgiveness. So we thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.

When Jesus was with the disciples and they came to the closing portion of their meal, he took the cup of wine. There were four cups that they would drink in the Passover meal and at the end of the dinner they would drink a cup that was called the Cup of Redemption. Jesus took that cup and he says, "This cup is my blood being poured out for your sins, the cup of the new covenant in my blood." Christ's death brings us eternal forgiveness. His blood was shed, his death pays for our sins. God's promise is here. He says if you will believe my Son, I will forgive you. For those that have believed, let's celebrate together.

Thank you, O Lord, for your free and kind and gracious forgiveness that you give us in Christ. I know that none of us are worthy of your forgiveness, none of us have done good deeds that can erase the stain of our guilt, but you don't forgive us because we earn your forgiveness. You forgive us because Christ paid the price and you promise us that you will give us that forgiveness if we believe in what your Son has done. So we thank you, O God, for your goodness. We praise you and thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.