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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

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All right, day five, the last two sayings of Christ on the cross John 19, 30. And when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said it is finished. And he bowed his head and he gave up his spirit Luke 23, 44 and following. It was now about the sixth hour and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun's light failed and the curtain of the temple was torn into. And then Jesus, calling out in a loud voice, said father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he breathed his last. And so Jesus pushes up on his nail, pierced feet and finally, when he knows that his time on earth is over, no one takes his life from him, but he commits his spirit, his life, to his heavenly father and he dies. And before he does it, he says this it is finished. In Greek, what he actually said is these words tetelestai. Tetelestai not only means it is finished, it can also be translated as paid in full. The first century archaeologists have found bank records and if you had a loan, once you paid that loan off, then the banker would take a stamp and they would stamp the word tetelestai on it, that your debt had been paid. So the question when Jesus says what is finished, or the question is what is finished? When Jesus says it is finished, this is what he means that he came and accomplished everything that the father had sent him to accomplish.

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In Genesis, chapter three, god says to Eve I'm going to put enmity between your offspring and this serpent, this devil, this Satan, this trickster, this rebellious one, and one day there will come somebody from your line and this enemy is going to bruise his heel and in so doing he's going to get his head crushed. When Jesus says it is finished, he is dealing the final death blow to Satan and he is crushing that serpent's head. What is finished? That sin has been atoned for. That's what is finished. That when Jesus Christ came to this planet, he did not come simply to be a good moral teacher. He came to pay for our sin. This is why John the Baptizer says behold the Lamb of God who's come to take away the sin of the world. He didn't say another Lamb of God here to cover the sin of the Jewish people until next year. But when Jesus says it is finished, what that means is now forgiveness is made possible for sinners in this world to be made right with a holy and righteous God.

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What is finished? That the gospel of grace is now offered. The sacrificial system is finished. We don't have to sacrifice blood, the blood of goats and lambs anymore, because the lamb has fully and finally made the perfect sacrifice, the perfect substitutionary atoning sacrifice for us. So what is finished? The penalty of sin is finished. The power of sin in our life is finished. One day the very presence of sin is going to be cast into a lake of fire and it will be finished. But on the cross Jesus says it is finished.

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He does not say he was finished because he was not finished, because three days later he is going to come up out of that grave, and if Jesus walked out of that grave, then you can walk out of a grave too. That you were made for more. He did not make you to live like you used to live. That the power of the Spirit of God lives in you and your old life can be finished because God has a new life for you and he's not finished with you. The empty tomb and the alarm clock are empirical evidence that he's not done with you.

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Now the enemy is going to come along and he's going to try to convince you, in his dialect of condemnation, that God could never love you.

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He might love some future version of you, but there's no way God could love you because of the things that you have done.

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And what I want to remind you is that when Jesus Christ pushed up on his nail, pierced feet and he said to tell us that it is finished, that means that the devil is finished getting to speak condemnation in your life, because therefore, now there is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. I am here to remind you that Jesus said that sin debt is paid in full, that we don't have to work to pay him off because he paid the debt, but we better get to work because he has called us into good works, not to earn a right standing with him, but he has imputed us with his righteousness when he paid for that sin. So when you begin to hear the whispers of the enemy, then you can tell him shut up and you go back to hell, where you belong, because my Christ told me that my sin debt has been paid in full and I believe it, because three days later he rose from the grave. Be reminded of that that Jesus finished his good work, but he is not finished with you.

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Amen. Thank you for listening to today's episode Before you go. If you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five-star rating and review. Stay sharp.