It Is Finished # 4

It Is Finished # 4

It is finished. What is finished? Well, alleluia, from one angle this is finished, men aren't going to abuse Him anymore. A hymn writer says, "The head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now, the royal diadem adorns the mighty Victor's brow." He is out of the reach of men. They aren't going to push Him around. They aren't going to crucify. They aren't going to nail Him to a tree. How do you know that those thieves that were hailing Him and cursing Him on the tree were not part of the crowd of the thousand He fed. He did not discriminate. He did not say, "Give it to Jews, but not to those, and not to those Greeks, and..." He said, "Feed them!" Well, He throws His mercy over the air, over a hundred nations, a thousand peoples this afternoon.

"Tell me the story of Jesus,
Write on my heart every word.

Fasting alone in the desert,
Think of the pain that He bore,"

Oh, my God, my God. To me it is insufferable that the church has lived for 2000 years and there is still a person in the world that doesn't hear the gospel. There are still 1000 tribes that don't have the written Gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ. Partly our fault. I am glad, I lived in a house where all was talk about God and missionaries - I prayed for missionaries when I didn't know if they were missionaries or football players - but I prayed for them.

He said, "It is finished." What is finished? Man's power over Him. What is finished? satan's abuse of Him. satan's testing of Him.

He started with forty days in the wilderness and He ministered three years. How long did He live before the three years? Thirty years. So He had ten years training for every year He was going to minister. That's pretty good training, isn't it?

Thirty years of training? But again, He is going to do in this one act what all the "blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain, could give no guilty conscience peace nor wash away one stain, but Christ, the Heavenly Lamb, takes all our sins away." Ten million oxen have been slain. Thousands of sheep, sacrifices have been made, new moons and Sabbaths; people have done all kinds of things, and Jesus ties it all up in one redemptive act: Christ the Heavenly Lamb.

No, He is not going to be tempted anymore now. He is not going to be looking out of His eye corners as He carries that awesome Cross, and carries the sin of the world and thinks, "I can't see Peter around or anyone." He suffered heartbreak because His disciples were unfaithful. He suffered heartbreak because the synagogue and the temple rejected Him. I say they knew the law and the prophets. They heard Isaiah 35 so many times; they dreamed of it. The highway shall be there and bondages are going to cease, the Romans will lose their power over us. There is going to be no cripple, no lame. He is going to heal and cure and everybody is going to be sanctified." And when they met Him in flesh and blood they didn't even know Him. Do you know why? Because He didn't do it their way - that's why.  Because He put new wine in the old wine skins, and they burst.

The last great outpouring - a lot of people say it's here, I don't believe that for a minute. I believe we have one or two tickets, but surely not an outpouring. Someone said recently, "Well, if this is the visitation; if there are fifty million born again people, they why is the nation in this condition?" Well, the salt has lost its savor. I believe there will be such a visitation that even the workings of God will become headlines above the sports headlines, above political headlines, above economic headlines. There are going to be such manifestations of divine power that God is going to get the glory for His Son. That's going to shake the world too.  It is finished!  When He said, "It is finished," really He is saying, "I don't need this body anymore. I don't need food anymore. I don't need sleep anymore. I am not a human being any more in the sense you know humanity. IT IS FINISHED!" Men have no power over Me. satan has no power over Me."

It is finished. What was finished? The tyranny of the devil. I don't think the church has wakened up to that yet, but it is finished. It is so. I believe that when Jesus cried with a loud voice it echoed down every corridor in hell. IT IS FINISHED! I can almost hear the demons in hell say, "What? He's broken our power." You mean that satan doesn't have...?" No, no, no. satan is bound. And not only that, death has lost it's sting." What? "Yes, death has lost it's sting. And more than that...The vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus his pardon receives." It doesn't matter if he is going in the Waldorf Astoria this afternoon with somebody else's wife dripping with diamonds. Or if he is a bum down the street. Or he is with the folk that still go naked to the beach every week there in San Diego and defy the police to arrest them. Or whether he is a big ecciestiastical guy standing behind the desk with his mind loaded with such modernistic ideas. It makes no difference. If he comes to the Cross..." Well, we sang about it this afternoon, "That old rugged Cross, so despised by the world has a wondrous attraction."

"It is finished." The implication of the Greek word is "This is complete." This is redemption complete. You can't add to it. You can't subtract from it. It doesn't need something the priest says added to it. Jesus made a perfect redemption for men. His blood was shed. It's more than all the blood of beasts. Because again, it says in Hebrews 10:9, "If the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works." He not only paid the total sum of human sin, He nailed it to the tree. That's what He did.

~Leonard Ravenhill~

(continued with # 5)

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