It's All in Jesus Part 1

Have many of you have witnessed the reading of a Will? It is the will and wishes of the one departing the earth of what they wish to leave to their relatives still on earth. In this same sense, the Bible is Jesus' Will left for believers, His family still on earth.

What is Peggy Joyce Ruth?

Peggy Joyce Ruth, aka "the Psalm 91 Lady" is author of a variety of Psalm 91 book titles with over six million copies in print. She taught a weekly Adult Bible Study for more than 35 years in her church in Central Texas as she shared how to make God’s Word your final authority. Known for her easy-to-understand style of communicating the Word of God and warm storytelling, Peggy Joyce's heart is that her books and teachings will bring you into the same freedom from fear she experienced and help you put God's Word to work ​in your life.

Peggy Joyce: 00:00

It's all in Jesus. Have you ever witnessed the reading of a will? Well, you're going to today. This is a 2 part series, and you're going to sit through the reading of the will where you've been named now as the beneficiary. Now first, let me just give you the definition of a will.

Peggy Joyce: 00:14

Now according to Webster's dictionary, a will is the legal statement of a person's wishes concerning the disposal of his property after his death. Now, someone has to die before a will can be probated. So it's his wishes concerning what happens to his belongings after he dies. Now it's called a will because it's the expression of this person's wishes or the expression of this person's will. It's what they want done.

Peggy Joyce: 00:37

Now, I'm gonna tell you something exciting. The Bible is the legal statement out of Jesus wishes. It's the legal statement of his will. It's concerning the disposal of his property, his benefits now after his death. Now Jesus paid a really tremendous price now to accumulate these benefits, and so he wishes to leave it now as an inheritance.

Peggy Joyce: 00:58

Now, you've seen business tycoons many times in the world who they spent their entire lives accumulating this financial fortune, and they did it so they could leave it now to their beneficiaries. Jesus spent his earthly life doing exactly the same thing. He saved up everything in his life, so that he could enter it as his inheritance to his children when he left. So to qualify as a beneficiary, you have to be God's child. See, only children get the inheritance and you have to be born in his family to become the child.

Peggy Joyce: 01:28

You can't just be an acquaintance, you know, or even just a good friend of the family who runs around with God's children. It's not gonna work even if you go regularly to church. That's not gonna work. You have to be born into his household to qualify. Okay.

Peggy Joyce: 01:41

Why is that? Okay. I want us to look at Romans 5 verse 12. Sin has spread into the world and had alienated us all from God. Legally, we had sold the world and ourselves over to Satan.

Peggy Joyce: 01:54

Now that was a horrible, sad situation. So I want you to take note then of these next few verses because they're so important. Now in Romans 5 verse 12, therefore, as sin came into the world through man and death through sin, so death has spread to all people because all have sinned. I mean, that's a frightening statement. Every person born into this world has a sin nature, and there's no one that's exempt.

Peggy Joyce: 02:19

Now according to Romans 3 verse 10, as it is written, there is none righteous. No, not one. I hope you'll mark these in your in your Bible because these are important scriptures for you to go back over. Romans 3 verse 23, for all have sinned. All have come short of the glory of God.

Peggy Joyce: 02:36

So the this is making it very, very clear. It's all spelled out in the word that everyone has sinned. Everyone has a sin nature. And then Romans 5 verse 8, but God demonstrated his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I tell you what, you can take that one scripture and it should just make your heart just sleep that God would do something like that for us.

Peggy Joyce: 02:57

Now, Romans 6 verse 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. While we see how we've all sinned, we there's no hope for us, and then all of a sudden we start seeing what God did because he loved us so much. Now, I want you to go next to John chapter 3 verse 16. We're very familiar with this, but oh, this is such a glorious scripture. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

Peggy Joyce: 03:25

He literally gave his son to death so that whoever believes in him wouldn't perish, but have eternal life. I mean, what a promise. You know, sometimes we just read past that real quickly and we don't stop to realize what a promise that is. And then in John 3 verse 3, Jesus said, truly truly I say to you, unless a man is born again, he cannot even see the kingdom of heaven. Okay.

Peggy Joyce: 03:47

Now, what does it take? God couldn't have said it any more clearly. That unless someone is born again, he's not even gonna see it, much less enter the kingdom of heaven. So unless you become born again, there is no way that you can get rid of this sin nature that, you were born with the first time you were born. In fact, you can't even see the kingdom of heaven.

Peggy Joyce: 04:06

You know, we don't think about that, but we can't even see it. We can't even be a part of it, you know, from our first birth. Now remember, to qualify now as the beneficiary of of the will, you have to be God's child. Only children are going to be able to have the inheritance and that's that's the way it's always been. Now in John 33 again, Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven.

Peggy Joyce: 04:33

Be sure and mark that in your Bible. Okay. John 112, yet to all who received him, he gave the the power then to become sons of God to those who just believed in his name. Wow. You know, what what a promise.

Peggy Joyce: 04:47

What a miracle this is from God. Okay. I want us to go back now to Romans chapter 10. Okay. Now, these are all scriptures that you're going to absolutely have to know if you want to know how to become a child of God.

Peggy Joyce: 04:58

So you need to mark them down and memorize them. Take them in. Or if you want to know how how to get somebody else saved, you need to know all of these scriptures. You need to have them memorized. Now, in Romans 109 and 10, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Peggy Joyce: 05:17

For with the heart man believes and then it brings you into righteousness. And with the mouth, confession is made and this is what brings you to salvation. Okay. Now, when we truly believe in our heart that Jesus died for our sins and that God raised him from the dead and we start confessing he is our my Lord, and if we mean it, we become born again. And you say, well, how on earth does that happen?

Peggy Joyce: 05:41

How do you get born again? Well, it's kind of like Nicodemus asked. He said, can I enter again to my, mother's womb a second time? No. It's not a physical birth the second time now.

Peggy Joyce: 05:52

This is this is how it happens. The first time it takes place in the physical realm, but the second time it's a spiritual rebirth. Now, the moment that you truly believe that Jesus died for you, the moment you believe that he took your sins and the consequences of those sins for you, And he took your guilt and the moment you believe that he now is alive again, because God has raised him from the dead and you want him to be your Lord. You want to sell out to him. At that moment, the Holy Spirit plants the seed of God down in your spirit man and you literally become born again.

Peggy Joyce: 06:27

It really is so simple that so many people miss it, but you're born again by the incorruptible seed of of the God of the universe. Now the first time it was the seed of man from which you were born, but the second time it's the seed of God, the God of the universe. Now Ephesians 2 verse 8 says that it's by God's grace. It's by his love now that we were saved, that we were born again. And it's through faith in His Son.

Peggy Joyce: 06:52

Faith in the fact that Jesus came and we know he died on the cross to save us. And faith that God raised him from the dead. And then Ephesians goes on to say, that salvation is a free gift. It's when we believe it in our heart, when we confess it with our mouth, that's our part. And then the rebirthing is the Holy Spirit's part.

Peggy Joyce: 07:11

Now just like we were born the first time out of our mother's womb into the world, we were born with a sin nature. Colossians 113 tells us now that the second time we get born again is out of the kingdom of darkness, it's out of the world. We're born out of the world back into the kingdom of light. Now the second time we're birthed out of Satan's kingdom into God's kingdom and we become his child. Thank God he loved us enough to make a way for us.

Peggy Joyce: 07:36

Now remember John 112, for as many as received Jesus, he gave them the right to become his child. So it's not something that you can understand with your natural mind because it takes place in the spiritual realm by the power of the Holy Spirit. But it's real. It's just as real now as your first birth. Nobody doubts their first birth.

Peggy Joyce: 07:55

Some people doubt their second birth, but it's just as real as that first birth. Rebirth is the greatest miracle now that we will ever experience. I want to say that again because it's so part important. Our rebirth, our second birth is the greatest miracle that we ever experience. And Jesus said in John 10:10, he said, I've come to give you life and give you life more abundantly.

Peggy Joyce: 08:16

Just because you have a heartbeat and just because you're breathing air, you know, that's not life. Only Jesus can give life. He gives us what the Bible calls the abundant zoe life. God's life and it is all tied up in that one word Jesus. That's all it takes.

Peggy Joyce: 08:33

Now when someone has an honest real encounter with Jesus, they're never again going to be the same. They won't be the same in their emotional realm. They're not gonna be the same in their mental realm. In other words, they're not gonna think the same way And they're certainly not going to be the same in their physical realm, if their rebirth is is real to them. Now God was not just filling up the page, the pages of the Bible when he said Jesus is the name that is above every name.

Peggy Joyce: 08:57

We need to memorize that. We need to say that often. Lord, your name is the name above every name. Now the Bible tells us truly every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord when he returns. Everybody's gonna confess that.

Peggy Joyce: 09:11

Now it's not gonna do them any good if they've waited too long to confess it, but it's in the name of Jesus now that all of the power and all of the authority in the entire universe is wrapped up in that one name. His name is actually what holds the whole universe together. You know, when you see how perfectly the universe is run, then we look at our world and we think, well it's not run all that, wonderfully. Well, it's because God's not in charge of this world. We took this world back with our sin, but he's in charge of the universe.

Peggy Joyce: 09:40

Look at the way the universe is run so perfectly and it's all inclusive in that one name, Jesus. So no wonder Gabriel was excited when when he told both Mary and Joseph. He said his name is gonna be called Jesus. You know, I can just see the excitement that he he must have been feeling. And he said his name is gonna be called be called Jesus because he's the one that's going to save the world.

Peggy Joyce: 10:02

He's gonna save all of his people. It's all in Jesus. There's no prayer in the universe more powerful than that one word prayer, Jesus, when we truly mean it. Now have you ever found yourself in a situation where there's not time to think, there's no time to even quote the word, but just that one word Jesus can absolutely take you out of an the earthly realm and put you into a heavenly realm. And sometime maybe you're facing a car wreck or something, there's not time for anything else.

Peggy Joyce: 10:28

That one word Jesus can change the whole situation. So today, I just want us to look at a lot more scriptures. I felt like the Lord said just show all of these scriptures that mean so much. And I want us to remind ourselves of why this is true and who he is. Then next week, we're gonna look at the scriptures again and we're gonna see what came as a result of what we're talking about today, what we're reading today.

Peggy Joyce: 10:51

Now later you can look at Revelation 5. Now we're going to start at the end and we're going to work backward, but there's nothing that can put us in a state of, awesome reverence for God more quickly than just reminding ourselves of who he truly is and what he did. Now in this passage of scripture, John had just been taken up into heaven and the Lord was giving him unbelievable revelation. So So we're gonna be looking at Revelation 5:2 through 10. I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seal?

Peggy Joyce: 11:24

But no one in the heaven or on earth or under the earth. No one in heaven, on earth, or under the earth was able to open the scroll and look at it. And I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll or to look in it. Then one of the elders said to me, don't be afraid. Don't weep.

Peggy Joyce: 11:42

Look, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, he has triumphed, talking about Jesus. He is able to open the scroll. He's able now to loose its 7 seals and I saw a lamb in the midst of the throne and of the 4 living creatures and in the midst of the elders standing as though it had been slain having 7 horns and 7 eyes. Now sometimes we hear these different things in Revelation. We think, what does that mean?

Peggy Joyce: 12:07

Well, he tells us what it means. Which are the 7 spirits of God sent out into all the world. And he, then Jesus came and he took the scroll out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the 4 living creatures then and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb, each one having a harp and golden bowl full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. You know, so many times we pray and we think, did that prayer even do any good?

Peggy Joyce: 12:34

But you gotta realize, God saves up our prayers and he puts them in a golden bowl, you know, and and saves them. And they sang a new song saying, you, Jesus, are worthy to take the scroll and to open the seals for you were slain and you have been you have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe, out of every tongue, every people, and every nation. So he's saying there's going to be people saved from all over the world, different tribes and nations. And, you have made us kings, priests unto our God and we shall reign on the earth. Now no one was found worthy except the sacrificial lamb of God.

Peggy Joyce: 13:10

No one was found worthy. No one else in heaven or on the earth or even under the earth was worthy. Now, the reason that all the power and authority in this world is in the name of Jesus is because no one has ever even approached the scripture, the scriptural sacrifice that Christ made. Okay. Now, there's never been that kind of obedience to the will of God before by anyone.

Peggy Joyce: 13:32

Okay. Now, I want to show you something in the Old Testament. Now, I say this pretty often, but I want us not to forget this. The things in the old testament are a type and shadow or a picture now that was pointing toward the real thing that was coming. It was it was it was pointing toward Christ.

Peggy Joyce: 13:48

Now in this passage, God refers back to the Old Testament event that foretold and foreshadowed now. The most important event that was ever going to take place. Now, this story in the old testament explains perfectly now, or gives us a perfect picture of what was going to take place on the cross. You know, it's amazing how many of these different little stories in the old testament, they they paint a whole picture that helps us to understand our new testament. That's why we need to read it very carefully.

Peggy Joyce: 14:14

So in John 314 and 15, it says just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but shall have eternal life. Okay. Now God is so determined that we don't miss this type and shadow. That, boy, he just spelled it out. Says just as Moses lifted up the snake on a pole, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

Peggy Joyce: 14:39

God said, I want you to see this analogy. That's in Numbers 21. In the old testament here, we find that the children of Israel had sinned and snakes came out from, into the camp and many of the people had been bitten and they were sick and they were dying everywhere. So some of the people came and they cried out to Moses and they said, we we've got to have hay up. And Moses began to intercede.

Peggy Joyce: 15:01

So this is in numbers 217 through 9. And they said, we've sinned for we have spoken against the Lord and we've spoken against you Moses. So they're admitting their sin. We were wrong. We've spoken against you both.

Peggy Joyce: 15:12

Pray now to the Lord that he will take away the serpents from us. So they're just begging Moses, and Moses prayed for the people. You know what's interesting? When the people were hurting, it doesn't matter how much sin they had been, how many things they had done wrong. When they came and they started begging Moses, Moses do something.

Peggy Joyce: 15:29

He was right there. He always did. And the Lord said to Moses, make a poisonous serpent and put it on a pole and it will be that everyone who is bitten when he looks at the serpent, he then will live. So Moses made a bronze serpent. He put it on a pole and if the serpent had bitten any man, when that man looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

Peggy Joyce: 15:51

Okay. Now notice the answer Moses got when he cried out to God. God said, just make this image, make it a fiery serpent. He said, it has to be a deadly serpent that's killing the people. Put it on a pole and all who look on it will live.

Peggy Joyce: 16:04

And we think well how simple, you know, who wouldn't look? You know, I'd go look too if he said it was going to heal me. You gotta remember that there were several million people, and they're spread out over miles and miles and miles of territory. So it it wasn't gonna be an easy thing. It was gonna take some faith because some of these people now, they were so sick that they could hardly move.

Peggy Joyce: 16:23

And when their whole body wracked with pain, it was gonna take faith to even pull themselves up to look out of the tent. And then some of them had to walk for miles and miles and miles to a place where they could see that snake up on the pole. They didn't have a car that they could jump in and drive down there and look the snake. So we need to realize that effort had to be put forth and it had to take faith in order to initiate now this effort. Well, that's a type and shadow of our faith.

Peggy Joyce: 16:49

When God tells us if you want healed, if you want this, there's something you have to do. And some of the people would be too sick to even wanna make the effort. Some of them just know it's too too much trouble. I can't do that. Others wouldn't even believe that it was going to work, so they wouldn't put forth the effort.

Peggy Joyce: 17:04

But verse 9 lets us know that those who did do whatever it took to go and look at the serpent, on the pole lived. But even then, why did they use a snake? You know, have you ever thought about that? Now I could maybe understand maybe an innocent lamb if they had put the innocent lamb up on the pole. A sacrificial lamb lamb, but why did God say put a snake?

Peggy Joyce: 17:26

Well, the Lord began to show me that if we can understand why a snake was on the pole to be the type and shadow of the crucified Christ, then it's going to open our eyes to what really took place now in the atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross. God gave the secret right here in this story in numbers. When we read it, it it just floods us with revelation. Now in 2nd Corinthians 521, he said, this is the companion scripture to the one here in numbers. In 2nd Corinthians 521, God made Jesus who had known no sin.

Peggy Joyce: 17:59

He made him to become sin on our behalf that we might become then the righteousness of God through him, through Christ. Okay. Now Jesus who had never known sin, he'd never sinned, he was made to be sin literally. He became sin. And Jesus took the sin of the world on himself and he literally became sin for us on our behalf.

Peggy Joyce: 18:20

Now that was prophesied through Isaiah. Now Isaiah describes this crucifixion and it's so absolutely accurate. I mean, you could see the picture when you looked at it, And that's it's as though it had been written after the fact instead of 100 of years before. It's amazing. So many things that were foretold in the old testament and you read them and then after it happens you think, oh my goodness.

Peggy Joyce: 18:41

It was spoken to us way in advance. Now in Isaiah 5214, it's prophesying the the condition of Christ when he was on the cross. Now keep in mind that the type and shadow of the crucified Christ was a snake. He wasn't a lamb when he was on the cross. He was a snake when Jesus took our sins on his own body.

Peggy Joyce: 19:01

And in verse 14, it says that his appearance now was marred more than any man and his form was marred more than any of the sons of men. So think about that. His appearance was marred more than any man, more than the son of any man. Now when we comprehend this scripture, we can understand then why it was a serpent on the pole that was to be the type and shadow of the crucified Christ. Because Jesus who knew no sin now, literally was made to be sin on the cross.

Peggy Joyce: 19:28

He literally became sin for us. And when Jesus took on the sin of the entire human race and he took on all the consequences of sin, he became sin and it marred his entire body. Now you've seen a lot of people whose bodies were pretty marred. Some to the point that they were totally unrecognizable. Well, the Bible says that his body was so marred that it was marred more than any man or more this than the son of any man.

Peggy Joyce: 19:53

So he literally he wasn't Christ when he was on the cross. He literally became sin on the cross and bore all these consequences. Now sickness and disease is the result of the sin that came into the world, and it's a byproduct now of the original sin. Now I'm not saying that that every time you're sick, it's because you're in sin. That's not what I'm saying.

Peggy Joyce: 20:12

But I am saying that before the fall in the garden, there there was no sickness and there was no disease. But when sin entered into the world, then sickness and disease came in with it, came in as a result of it. And this is what had to be paid for. Now there was a legal penalty, which had to be paid. Now the Bible says that the wages of sin is death.

Peggy Joyce: 20:33

The penalty is death. Man had had chosen sin. Now God couldn't change that. He couldn't change the penalty. So someone who who was not guilty had to die, had to literally pay the penalty, pay the price.

Peggy Joyce: 20:46

Now there are people who believe that God has put sickness on the world because he was angry with man for sinning. A lot of people preach that from the pulpit. Listen, that is so far from the truth. Take that in or it'll it'll ruin your theology of how good God is. We must understand what took place or we'll always be deceived at this point.

Peggy Joyce: 21:05

Now God had given all the authority on this earth over to Adam. He'd given it all to him. Man was given dimension over the world. The earth literally was in subjection now to man. Not to God, but to man.

Peggy Joyce: 21:17

Therefore, when man chose by an act of his own will, his free will, to give his authority over to Satan by sinning, it made Satan the god of this world. So God didn't do that. Man did it. Man did it to himself. Now legally, there was no way for God to undo this transaction, because even though God was omnipotent, he had given his authority over to man over the earth, and he gave man a free will.

Peggy Joyce: 21:41

Now, it was man's right to give it away or do with it whatever he chose. He could he could do anything he wanted to. God had given him the choice. But when he did, then it tied God's hands. Therefore, there was a legal debt that had to be paid to get it back.

Peggy Joyce: 21:57

Now it's at this point that God devised a plan whereby Jesus then, who knew no sin, you know, would come to earth to be tempted in all areas just exactly like we're tempted. Yet he would resist the temptation. He would refuse to sin in order then to bear the consequences of our sin for us. I can't even imagine someone having that kind of love. Now if Christ had sinned when he died, he would just be paying for his own sin.

Peggy Joyce: 22:24

But because he had never sinned, he could take the consequences of our sin for us. He paid the penalty of our sin for us and brought us back out of the hands of our father, Satan, at the time. Now that's why Jesus is called the redeemer, because he came to redeem us. Now there was no other way. God himself had to do it as a man.

Peggy Joyce: 22:45

No one else was found worthy just like it says in Revelation. It is so wrong when people think that Christ did all this as God. You know, they they think, well, it wasn't really that hard after all. He was God. No.

Peggy Joyce: 22:57

The penalty couldn't be paid by God in his divinity. It couldn't be done that way. And that's why he had come to earth as a man for it to be legal to have done it in his humanity. And so he he took it all the the sin, all the consequences, and he did it in his humanity. And that's because it's absolutely necessary for us to realize that he did what he did for us just exactly like you and I as as a person.

Peggy Joyce: 23:22

Now, Philippians 2 emphasizes this fact again and he does it very clearly. Philippians 2:5 through 8, he's talking to the Christians and he said, have this attitude in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who although he existed in the form of God, he did not regard a quality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself. He took on the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of man and being found in the appearance as a man. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death on the cross. Okay now, Jesus was equal with God.

Peggy Joyce: 23:57

He's the 2nd party in the trinity, but he emptied himself and he took the body and the soul of a man in order to do something for us that we absolutely could not do for ourselves. Now it's gonna be so much more meaningful, when it really dawns on us that he did this for us as a man. He did it for us. He took all we can't even imagine the the torment. We can't even imagine the pain that he went through.

Peggy Joyce: 24:22

So he took all of that pain, all that suffering. Now we're gonna understand so much more clearly the love that God had for us when we stop and really make ourselves understand what Christ did for us. Have you ever dreaded something so badly that you literally thought you couldn't stand the thought of it? I've seen children in doctors they dreaded a shot so badly to the point that they were screaming like they were dying, and that was before anybody had ever touched them, you know. Some people have dreaded death so badly that they they can't handle it.

Peggy Joyce: 24:52

Some women have dreaded childbirth, you know, others have dreaded losing a loved one. And the point is that they were all tormented. They were tormented. So think about the Lord in human form with every human emotion that we have, he was tempted and always just exactly like we're tempted, and yet he did it without sin. He was tempted in every way that we've ever been tempted.

Peggy Joyce: 25:15

Now Jesus was facing the fact that he was going to take on the sin of the entire world. Well, our mind can't even conceive of that, but that's that's what he had come to do. He was going to experience for the first time all of the consequences of seeing every sickness. He was going to experience what every disease was like, all of the mental agony. Most of all, he was going to experience what it was like to be separated from God.

Peggy Joyce: 25:39

Can you even imagine all the mental agony in this world? The emotional agony, the mental illness, all the mental illness that you see in this world. He was taking every bit of that on every consequence that had come as a result of sin. He was going to bear it on his own body, and he was doing it just because he loved us. He was doing it for the world.

Peggy Joyce: 25:57

And that's why his body, it says, was marred more than any man. Now this helps us to better understand what took place in the Garden of Gethsemane. Now the Bible lets us know that he was grieved to the point of death, thinking about what was about to happen. Can you just imagine knowing what he was going to face in in just a few hours? Now we find the same account written by Luke in chapter 22 verses 39 through 44.

Peggy Joyce: 26:22

And, Jesus came out now and proceeded just as it was his custom to go to the Mount of Olives. And all of his disciples were following him. Well, when he arrived at the place, he told them, he said pray that you'll not enter into temptation. He said, you really need to pray because you have no idea what you're about to face. And so he withdrew from them about a stone's throw and then he knelt down and he began to pray saying, father, if thou art willing remove this cup from me.

Peggy Joyce: 26:50

He's come to a place where he knew what he was gonna do, but he's saying, God if there's any other way, will you just take this from me? Because he knows what he's fixing to face. And yet he said, I I want you to take it from me if there's any way, but not my will, but thine be done. Now an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him, and being in agony, he was praying very fervently, and it said that the sweat drops became like drops of blood falling on the ground. Okay.

Peggy Joyce: 27:16

Have you ever dreaded something so badly that you sweated blood? Probably not. None of us has ever even approached the emotional and mental agony that Jesus was facing. Knowing that for the first time in his life, he was going to be actually separated from God. He's never been separated from God before.

Peggy Joyce: 27:34

Now as we look at the anticipation that he felt, because of knowing what was about to happen to him, it does give you a new awareness of his love for us. I can't imagine loving somebody enough to do this. Now he had been dealing with sin in people's lives every day, and he had been dealing with the consequences of sin. He had been casting out demons who were tormenting different people. So he knew all about sin.

Peggy Joyce: 27:58

But now he knew that it was time for him now to take that sin on himself. He'd been casting it out of other people, but now he had to take it. And, he had to experience it to become the supreme sacrifice in our place. Now I'm going to be reading to you out of Isaiah 53 out of the amplified. Now this chapter is not foretelling the entire life of Christ, but this chapter now in the, in Isaiah, it's it's just the prophetic revelation of the crucifixion of Jesus, and it was told in detail now 100 of years before it took place.

Peggy Joyce: 28:33

You know, people that don't believe in the word, it should be just a revelation to them to realize these things were told in detail before they ever happened. You know? So in Isaiah 53 verses 1 through 3, who has believed I'm I'm reading to you out of the amplified. Who has believed, trusted, and relied upon, and clung to our message of of which was revealed to us. And to whom has the arm of the Lord been disclosed?

Peggy Joyce: 29:01

For he grew up before him like a tenders plant, and as a root out of a dry ground, he has no kingly form that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him. Okay? So evidently, he just looked just like a normal man. He was despised and rejected by men. He was a man of sorrows and pains acquainted with grief, sickness as one from whom man hide their faces.

Peggy Joyce: 29:27

He was despised and we did not appreciate his worth or have any esteem for him. So they're describing what was taking place, when he took the sins of the world on his body. Now remember only the week before now that people were spreading out palm leaves and they're calling him king. They're wanting to make him a king. But now when they see what's happening to him, they say, well, he must deserve all this.

Peggy Joyce: 29:49

And so they're seeing him in an entirely different light, because just 1 week later after they've been hollering for him to be king, they're hollering for him to be crucified. Now even some of the very disciples whom he had walked with, he had eaten with them meal after meal. He'd been with them for 3 full years and most of them have forsaken him and they've run. Now he identified with sin by becoming sin on our behalf. So Isaiah 53, the last part of verse 3, it says no one esteemed him.

Peggy Joyce: 30:17

No one appreciated what he had done. Nobody. I mean, he was taking the most horrible torment in the entire world and doing it for us, and nobody appreciated it. None of us can appreciate what he did until we allow the Holy Spirit to make it come alive, you know, for it to to literally just explode inside of us. And so in Isaiah 53, the first part of verse 4, in the Hebrew, the words for grief and sorrow is sickness and disease.

Peggy Joyce: 30:42

Actually, it means pains of the body and pains of the mind, and so he took all of that. Now when the people of that day saw someone afflicted, they automatically thought that God was doing it to him to punish him for some sin that was in his life. They they just assumed, well, you know, we saw him when he was doing pretty great things, but he had sin in his life, and this is what's happening to him. So when they saw Jesus on the cross, many of them thought he was just being smitten and afflicted by God, you know. And so they were wrong, but they still believed that.

Peggy Joyce: 31:11

So as they watched, they blamed him for what was happening. Not knowing that he was wounded for our sin, he was bruised for our inequity. And that had been said ahead of time. It had been prophesied ahead of time. And, but they're not taking it in.

Peggy Joyce: 31:26

They're just seeing what they're seeing and they're making their own conclusion. He was taking the punishment that was necessary for us so that we could obtain peace and well-being, but it was all put on him. Now in Isaiah 535, this death had to take place for the penalty or the sin to be paid for. And it was with the stripes that wounded him that the Bible tells us that not only are we healed, but it says that we're made whole. We can be made whole because of what he took.

Peggy Joyce: 31:54

You know, some people get healed of a sickness, but they still have the results of the sickness on their body. But he not only healed us, but he made us whole. And Isaiah 53 verse 6 says, all we like sheep have gone astray. You know, every one of us have turned and we've done our own thing. We've gone our own way.

Peggy Joyce: 32:12

And we've harbored all the rebellion. We've harbored self will. We've gone away other than God's way. And God took every bit of that rebellion. God took all that self will.

Peggy Joyce: 32:22

He took all that bitterness, all the sin, all the consequences, and laid it on him on the cross. Now in Isaiah 53 verses 7 and 8, he was oppressed, it says, yet when he was afflicted, he was missing and he opened not his mouth. Didn't say a word, just took it because he knew he had to, to save us. As a lamb that is led to slaughter and as a sheep that before it shears is dumb. So he didn't even open his mouth.

Peggy Joyce: 32:48

He just took it. Now the people who were doing all this to him, they had no idea that he was being killed and cut off out of the land of the living and he was dying for their own sins. You know, they they were yelling crucify him, having no idea that he was taking it for them. And then in Isaiah 53 verse 9, they assigned him a grave with a rich man in his death. If you'll remember, he was laid in a tomb, The tomb of a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea.

Peggy Joyce: 33:14

And Isaiah 53, the last part of verse 9, although he had done no violence, neither was there any deceit in his mouth, yet it was the will of the father to bruise him for our sake. I can't even imagine what God would have to have been going through to put all of that on him knowing the the torment, the the the the horrible pain, everything that he was putting on his own son and doing it purposefully and doing it just because he loved us. Because there was absolutely no other way for us to be saved and God loved us that much. Now apart from what Jesus did, we and everyone else would be totally doomed. And he didn't have to do it.

Peggy Joyce: 33:54

Even to the very last moment, he could have said, I've changed my mind. I'm not going there. And that's why Timothy says that it's not God's will for any to perish. After what Christ went through, God didn't want anybody to perish. He wanted everybody, to receive what had been done for them because he God wants all of us to be saved.

Peggy Joyce: 34:13

So he paid a high enough price that he doesn't want anyone to miss it. So God had no other choice but to crush Jesus to pay the penalty for our sin. Now in the margin of, my Bible, it says that he was put to grief and made to be sick. Isaiah 53 verse 11, he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. I love that scripture because it lets us know he went through unbelievable torment.

Peggy Joyce: 34:40

But the Bible lets us know that he was going to see the fruit, of his travail. And finally, he was going to be satisfied. Now when Jesus saw the fruit of all that he had gone through, he was satisfied. And in Isaiah 53, the last part of of 11, it was worth it because we're worth it to him. I can't imagine somebody being worth that much to go through what he went through.

Peggy Joyce: 35:03

And that's where our first Corinthian scripture said, he became sin in order that we could become righteous. He became sin in order that we could become righteous. It's unbelievable. He took our sin so that we could take on his righteousness. Now in Isaiah 53 verse 12, he divided the spoil.

Peggy Joyce: 35:22

In other words, he divided the inheritance with us. And the last part of Isaiah 53 verse 12, he let himself be regarded as a criminal. We've got to realize that he truly paid it off. He redeemed us and he bought us back. Okay.

Peggy Joyce: 35:35

Do we ever meditate and appreciate and esteem all this? It says they didn't know that he was cut off from the land of the living, by a death that was due them. They were saying, boy, he's he must be a horrible sinner. Look what else happened to him. Having no idea he was taking all of that that belonged to them.

Peggy Joyce: 35:53

But we do know, we know now that we owe it all to him. I love that song that we used to sing. He paid a debt he did not owe. I owed a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to take my sin away.

Peggy Joyce: 36:07

And that's exactly what he did. He took the debt that we couldn't pay, and he paid that debt that he didn't owe. He died for us and he left us his will. Just like some rich man dies and leaves his will for his children to receive, That's exactly what he did for us. And then he even rose and became the mediator of that will.

Peggy Joyce: 36:28

And we became the beneficiary. We became the recipient of those benefits. So no wonder that song goes on to say, and now I sing a brand new song. But when we finally do realize it, that's all we want to do is just start singing a brand new song, Amazing Grace all day long. I love that song.

Peggy Joyce: 36:46

Amazing Grace because it is amazing what he did for us. Christ Jesus paid the debt and he washed us white as snow. So everything we have, everything we are, all that we enjoy, all that we're gonna enjoy throughout eternity is because of Jesus. Everything, you know, it's all in Jesus. Now he is our last will and testament and that's why the New Testament is called the New Testament made in his blood.

Peggy Joyce: 37:12

So next week, what we're gonna do, we're gonna go through the benefits. We're gonna go through the inheritance that's left for us, which is exactly the same thing as as reading the wheel. And we're gonna read the wheel, and we're gonna see the things that he left for you and me as our inheritance. And apart from what he did on the cross, none of this, absolutely none of this would be possible. Father, we don't even have words to say thank you.

Peggy Joyce: 37:36

We don't even have any kind of words that are adequate enough to even come close to being able to say thank you the the way it needs to be said. We can't do it. It's impossible. But, Lord, when we do finally see it, we are so grateful. Lord, we we do wanna say thank you, Lord.

Peggy Joyce: 37:53

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That you were willing to pay that kind of of debt, that kind of death, that kind of horror in order for us then to be able to live with you and have the riches that belong to you. Lord, we thank you.

Peggy Joyce: 38:11

And that's why, Lord, we don't wanna just save this up for ourself and listen to it and appreciate it for ourselves. Lord, we wanna spread it to the world. We want the world to know that you did this for the entire world. It was not your will that even one should miss out. Not your will that even one should perish.

Peggy Joyce: 38:29

Thank you, father. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Amen and amen.