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Redemption By Stephen Bignall

Hi everyone, it's good to be with you. It was only this morning that I consciously realised
that Galoamabane is 55 kilometres further away from Dubbo than Gilgandran. So having
lived in Gilgandran for the last three years I suddenly realised I had a half hour more
drive but got in under the hour so that's thanks be to God. Let's just open up the booklet
please and we want to think this morning in the first session about redemption. Redemption
now you may think that redemption is a word that isn't used too much these days or redeemed
but I've actually heard it used on the radio, on the ABC, on Grandstand recently. One of
the footballers who had been a bit of a naughty boy and his game had dropped away because
of all the shenanigans that he got up to, all the nonsense off the field as well as
on the field. He talked about I've got to redeem myself in the eyes of the fans and
in the eyes of the club. Now he's using the word redeemed which is related to the word
redemption but he's actually mistaken. What he was talking about was reforming his character,
regaining his reputation but he wasn't talking about redemption but that tends to be the
way that redemption is used today. It's an act that you actually commit upon yourself.
I've got to redeem myself. It's about self-redemption and the Bible doesn't speak about self-redemption.
Self-redemption is impossible for human beings because we're sold under sin, we're bankrupt,
we don't have what is needed to redeem ourselves and as I was trying to think of an everyday
picture of redemption, my mind went back to Toronto when I was a young bloke, when I first
met my girlfriend and we both worked at BP Toronto, pumping petrol after school and across
the road was the police station. Toronto police station was a pretty important place. Toronto
was a pretty rough place after hours and there was a big impound yard right next to the police
station and in that yard not only were vehicles that were smashed beyond recognition from
road accidents usually where there were fatalities and therefore the vehicle was used in evidence
and it was retained for a time but there were also vehicles that had been impounded by the
police either because they'd been used illegally or they'd been parked illegally and they'd
been towed into the impound yard and unless they were redeemed by the owners they would
be either destroyed or sold at auction to someone else. So redemption has to do with
regaining something and it's the same if you ever had to hock anything. You know there
used to be a place called Cash Converters, I don't know if they still exist but it's
basically a pawn shop P-A-W-N and it's a place where you can get a loan if you hock something.
So people would go and they'd hock diamond rings or they'd hock their television and
they'd be given money and a ticket. Now within the time if they didn't pay the loan back
they lost possession of what they'd hocked but if they did pay the loan back then they
redeemed their possession. So do you get the idea? If you look at the definition there
it's actually getting something back. It's regaining something that's been lost and in
the context of the impound yard where perhaps the vehicle has been illegally parked and
there's a big fine because it's been there for weeks or the young bloke's broken the
speed limit and the coppers have locked the car up and taken him away and he hasn't paid
the fine and then the car's been taken into the yard. It's buying back something that
was formerly your possession and has been lost to another or has been lost under law
and impounded. Now it means much more than that but that's generally the way that we
use it in the modern sense but in the Bible it was a bedrock, it was a foundational sort
of transaction that could be made. It was an action that had its social outworking within
a community, its legal outworking within the courts and even within the religions of the
ancient world. So it includes the idea of loosing someone from a bond, setting free
a captive or a slave, buying back something lost or sold. So there you get your bond.
That's the idea of the impound yard today and the hock shop. Exchanging something in
one's possession for something possessed by another. So you make an exchange and ransoming.
So today I suppose the third idea of redemption is someone's ransomed, they're being held
and you have to pay a ransom to release them. Now can I recommend to you Baker's Theological
Dictionary and you might think oh I don't need another book that's a foot high and six
inches thick on my shelf. Well it's online so you can have that dictionary for free,
you can get on the internet, look up Baker's Theological Dictionary, all these wonderful
Bible words that give you those nice concise definitions, all sorts of cross references.
I did have some books that I'd ordered, unfortunately even though I paid extra money for express
delivery I said to Dave I should have got them sent to Dubbo because they just didn't
make it to Gilgander within the four days. I ordered them on Tuesday, they still weren't
here by Friday. So they'll probably arrive on Monday and they'll end up on the Dubbo
church book table. They're good books, if you ever see a book called Redemption Accomplished
and Applied by John Murray, grab it, it's a great book. There's some other booklets,
shorter books by the Gospel Coalition, one of them is on redemption. I even ordered a
couple of colouring books for the kids on verses about redemption and verses about repentance
and what that means, so I hope you guys will enjoy those books and eventually they'll get
to you. Now redemption is a very personal thing, it's a very powerful thing in the Bible
and I was looking for a biblical example that might show something of it, of the personal
nature of it, the powerful nature of it. Before we come to our Lord Jesus himself I wanted
to show how powerful and important it was in the ancient world and in the life of one
of the prophets, Hosea, he's the first of the minor prophets, which doesn't mean he's
unimportant, it just means that in the way the books are arranged in the Bible there's
the major and the minor prophets. The big book prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah and
Ezekiel, they've got lots of chapters in them, they're the major prophets, the minor
prophets are the smaller there, actually Daniel's the first of them and then after Daniel we
come to Hosea. Hosea's name means God is salvation. Hosea, he prophesied and served
in a very hard time and he lived for a very long time, if you look in the first chapter
of that book after Daniel is said. The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of
Berei, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah and in the days
of Jeroboam, the kings of Judah, the kings of Judah, the kings of Judah, the kings of
Judah, the kings of Judah, the kings of Judah, the kings of Judah, the kings of Judah, the
son of Joash, king of Israel. So God's people are now divided into two kingdoms. Israel
is actually the disobedient kingdom, composes ten twelfths of the nation, has a false temple,
a false king, false priests and a false religion based upon the oxen worship that Aaron introduced
way back in the wilderness. Judah is Benjamin and Judah, the two tribes, two twelfths of
the nation and they have legitimate Davidic king, legitimate temple worship, legitimate
priesthood but they often fall into sin and disobedience and have to be restored. Now,
Hosea is speaking to both those nations. Hosea has an unfaithful wife, she's called a woman
of harlotry so he has to live out in his life what is pictured in the life of Israel and
Judah, God's people. Their unfaithfulness to God, their harlotry with the Lord is symbolised
in the harlotry of Hosea's wife. Her name is Gomer and he's instructed to go take yourself
a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry for the land has committed great harlotry.
So he's got to marry a woman who has conceived children through adultery. So he went and
took Gomer the daughter of Diblium and she conceived and bore him a son. It's his son
but the world looks on and knows what Gomer does and as far as they're concerned his
children are children of harlotry, they're the fruit of harlotry. It's a very hard thing
to do isn't it? It's an extraordinary act for him to take a woman of such a reputation,
so much so that the people in the wider world think that all her children are probably the
issue of someone else. And her harlotry goes on until she is bankrupt, he keeps sending
her what she needs, she spends a lot of time away from the home, she spends a lot of time
with her lovers, the next chapters describe that and secretly he sustains her, she thinks
her lovers are sustaining her and then she falls into bankruptcy and she becomes the
possession of those who sell slaves. In order to pay off her debt she's to be sold on the
public block and chapter 3 tells us what happens. Then the Lord said to me, go again,
love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery. Now these things in the
Old Testament are not instructions for us, either to seek out adultery or you know, you
don't build a roof for the Christian life out of these Old Testament prophetic examples
their lives were living gospel pictures. I'm glad I'm under a new covenant, our living
gospel picture is of heart and life without some of the accretions and difficult things
of the Old Testament. You know, you've got some of the prophets doing extraordinary things,
they're not for our imitation but the principles that they encompass are for our life.
Then the Lord said to me, go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing
adultery just like the love of the Lord to the children of Israel who look to other gods
and love the raisin cakes of the pagans. This is a picture of God's people in Old Testament
times. This woman that I'm calling you to love, Hosea, who has been loved by another
and is committing harlotry. She is a picture of a greater harlotry and your love for her
is a picture of a greater love and I'm sending you to redeem her, Hosea, because I'm going
to redeem my unfaithful people. So you can imagine what it's like. Here's the public
slave block, slaves are sold naked. Here's the woman stripped upon the block under the
gaze of all the neighbours and citizens of the place. They know who she is, they know
what she's done. You think some people have got bad reputations in our community. Well
this doesn't happen to them, does it generally? But this is what happened to her. Imagine
the local preacher's wife being sold in the middle of the town, stripped naked, bankrupt.
A shame to all, a mock. And here he comes. Here comes God's prophet, God's preacher,
walking into town and there she is and he's standing before her. Has he come to glade?
Has he come to condemn her? Has he come to watch her carried away and changed to be the
domestic drudge of someone who will use her up all her days? The people wait to see. So
I bought her for myself, for 15 shekels of silver and one and a half homers of barley
and I said to her, you shall stay with me. I bought her for myself, that's the act of
redemption. That's what redemption means. I bought her for myself and this is the payment
price, 15 shekels of silver and one and a half homers of barley. By the economics of
the day, 30 pieces of silver. When our Lord was sold by Judas, he was sold for the price
of a slave. Everybody is shocked. They didn't expect this. They expected someone, she's
not worth much, she's used herself up. They expected someone else to buy her. They expected
the prophet to announce something against her. They expected him to stand in silence
and dignity but they did not expect him to take money and produce and buy her and take
his own cloak and wrap it around her nakedness and take her off the block and pledge his
love for her and bring her to himself. You will stay with me. That's why it's such a
powerful picture of redemption. You will stay with me many days. You shall not play the
harlot nor shall you have a man, so too will I be towards you. There's no one but you
for me and there's no one but me now for you. An end to all the harlotry. I will love you
and you shall love me and we will be together and there will be no one else in this relationship.
What a powerful statement of forgiveness but forgiveness involves a price, a redemption
price. That's why easy forgiveness is no forgiveness at all. There's a commitment, a
price to true forgiveness and it's paid by the one who is forgiving because it's
the one who is redeeming, buying back. For the children of Israel, you see this is a
picture of what God is going to do. For the children of Israel shall abide many days without
king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. Afterward
the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They
shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days. Notice that, they shall fear
the Lord and his goodness. They shall revere, they shall stand in awe of the Lord and his
goodness. Who is David their king? David is long dead by the time Hosea prophesies
this. Of course it's David's greatest son, the one who is upon David's throne, the
one who David points to, it's Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ is the redeemer and that's
who Hosea points to and that's where we see Christ, remember our last conference
together, Christ in all the scriptures. Hosea is a forerunner, Hosea's love for a wife
of harlotry, Hosea's payment of a redemption price at God's sovereign instruction is
a picture of what God himself is going to do. God is going to come into his world in
true humanity and with the depth of love and sacrifice that he alone is capable of in all
his purity, he is going to pay a price for an impure and unfaithful people and take
them as a bride to himself. That's the preeminent redemption of the Bible and that's
the redemption that you and I must know and glory in if we are to be given a place in
heaven, if we are to know what it is to be a son or a daughter of God, if we are to
become part of God's people we must know redemption because we're in the same spiritual
situation as Gomer was physically, morally and materially in the Old Testament. We're
bankrupt, we're sold into sin, we're slaves to sin, he who sins is a slave to sin, we're
under another master, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that works in the children
of disobedience, we're children of wrath, not children of God, the father of lies, a
murderer from the beginning slew our race and we were put into bondage, a terrible slavery
that has no prospect of freedom. The end of this life doesn't bring freedom, all the
material possessions in the world can't bring freedom, it's no profit to a man or woman
if they gain the whole world because they still lose their own soul, the forever you,
the person that you'll be throughout all ages will be lost in darkness and hopelessness
under that judgement of bankruptcy, being required to repay and having nothing to repay
God's justice with. Where does something go from the impound yard when someone does not
pay the fine? Away. Crushed. Well, hell's much more than that. But you see the picture?
So God redeems and that's what it's about. We're redeemed by Christ. We're told in Ephesians,
if you turn it up, that this is what we glory, this is what we are to glory and redemption
is, you see, it's a permanent act. That's the other thing I want to say to you. You
shall be with me. It's a permanent act. You don't become redeemed to become unredeemed,
you become a purchased possession. You now belong to another. He has paid a price if
you are a believer this morning and that, you know, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ,
the assurance of salvation, being brought to faith, being born again is evidence that
a price has been paid for you. What was the evidence that Gomer had been released? What
was the evidence? The husband covered her and took her to himself, didn't he? The evidence
that the price had been paid was that the auctioneer stepped back, that the authorities
stepped aside and that the man could come and claim his bride having satisfied her debtors.
He purchased her. And so Ephesians and the first chapter which talks about the glories
and the wonder of what Christ has done, writing to the church at Ephesus, but it's commonly
accepted that this was a general epistle to all the churches at the time and of course
it is God's Word to us. Blessed be the God and Father, verse 3 chapter 1, of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should
be holy, separate, separated to God. That's what holy means. It's not just actions. It's
a position, a permanent position. It's a separation from sin to God, from slavery to freedom,
from one master to another master, without blame, no debt to pay, without blame before
Him in love, having predestined us to the adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself,
to determine beforehand. That's what predestined means. According to the good pleasure of His
will, it was His sovereign purpose, it was His will to the praise of His grace by which
He made us accepted in the beloved, it's in the beloved our redemption. In Him we have
redemption. So in Him we have loosing from a bond, in Him we have setting free from captivity
or slavery, in Him we have a buying back of what we've lost and what we've sold, in Him
we have a great exchange, in Him we have a ransom. It's a glorious thing, it's the
wondrous thing, it's the wonder of all time and eternity, it's the greatest of all treasures,
it's the greatest of all acts and it is the act that will outlast this present world,
this present time, this present creation. It's our great hope and the Holy Spirit even
is given to us to remind us of what has taken place. Verse 14 of this same chapter, if you
look at verse 13 it speaks of the experience of the outworking of that redemption, in Him
you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation in
whom also having believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise who is the
guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise
of His glory. So you've been bought with the price of your Christ this morning, you've
been purchased as His own peculiar possession but the fullness of that act of redemption,
the fullness of the position and the place into which it brings you is yet to come. And
that's what we can talk about salvation present and salvation past but also about salvation
future. Paul talks doesn't he, he says now is our salvation nearer than when we first
believed. He's talking about the fullness of it, when our corruption puts on incorruption,
when our mortality puts on immortality, when we don't presently know what we shall be but
we know this that when we see Him we shall be like Him, the great marriage feast, when
everyone is gathered in, when the holiness that is ours by position is ours by perfection
and the fullness of the purchased possession, the fullness of the redemption is ours for
all time and eternity, a new world, you know even the creation because of our redemption
will be renewed. I was asking Dave for the reference because I had a, I don't know whether
it's age or just inability but I suddenly couldn't remember where it talked about the
whole creation growing, I knew it was in Romans, I'm looking in Romans 3, no it's in Romans
8, 820. The whole creation groans until now, it waits for the fullness of the purchased
possession. There's so much more to come brothers and sisters, it's the lie of the age to think
that this world can hold out to us anything that approximates comes anywhere near what
we will have and what will be revealed when Jesus comes and He is coming, it's real, He's
coming, He's coming to take us to Himself, He's coming to wind up this present creation,
even the very elements, even those things that make up this material universe will make
us, will melt and be dissolved and He'll create a new creation and He'll clothe us
in His image and so we shall ever be with the Lord, you will be with me and I will be
with you. That's the glory of what it means when we receive the fullness of the purchased
possession and that was and is the present hope of the Christian, that was the hope of
every martyr, that is the hope of every martyr today and that is the one and certain hope
that should be at play within our hearts, should help us make our way through this veil
of tears, through this, as John Bunyan said in the Pilgrim's Progress, this fear of vanity
where so many other things are offered to us, where so many other redemptions, this
will turn your life around, this will make you a new person, this will give you more
than you've ever had. No, He has given us all things in Himself and that is yet to be
revealed in all its fullness but I ask you, has it been revealed to you now?
1 Peter 1, 17 and 18 came to mind when I asked this question to myself because it's
good to question yourself, wherever subject to our great enemies, the world and the devil,
that's all there is, isn't it? No, what do the scriptures tell us? The world, the flesh
and the devil, the sinful fall of nature, the eye, the unholy trinity, me, myself and
I, it's all about me, that's the selfishness of sin, that was why Adam made his choice,
it's all about me, me and her, it's not about him, that's sin. Who do you belong to? And
if you call on the Father who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct
yourself throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing that you were not redeemed
with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition
from your fathers, what were you redeemed with? The precious blood of Christ as of a
lamb without spot and without blemish. You weren't redeemed with corruptible things,
you returned to corruptible things because that's what we do when we turn to the things
of this earth, to be our solace and our joy and our comfort and our stimulation constantly
and we become so cluttered and I confess to this, become so cluttered with corruptible
things, things that could never ever give us what Christ has done, things that cannot
purchase us from sin, cannot give us freedom, cannot set us free from the captivity of the
futility of this present world and the mortality that slowly but inexorably leads us towards
a grave. Corruptible things cannot free us from corruption but the precious blood of
Christ can and does and has forever. We've read Ephesians 1 but if you look in the booklet
there you see two other verses. Who you belong to determines how you live. Who you belong
to is what should be before your eyes as you choose the path in this world. 1 Corinthians
6.20, for you were bought with a price, so glorified God in your body. 1 Corinthians
7.23, he repeats himself the apostle which means God's repeating himself and whenever
God repeats himself it's really needful, it's really important. For you were bought with
a price, do not become bond servants of men. You have a master who is also your friend,
you have a husband who is also your Lord, you have a redeemer who is also your ruler,
glorify him in your body. Do those things that honour him and flee those things that
dishonour him and find refuge if you've sinned against him in the redemption price again
and again and again. The precious blood of Christ, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses
us from all sin, all sin. That's the fullness of the redemption price that's paid, much
more than Hosea paid for Gomer and much more than we could ever pay.