Hebrews 10 Christ, The Better Way

Hebrews chapter 10 contrasts the earthly and temporary Mosaic system with the permanent work of Christ on the cross, emphasizing Christ's once-for-all sacrifice and the inefficacy of the Old Testament sacrifices. The Old Testament sacrifices were like shadows, not substance, unable to bring salvation or forgiveness. Christ fulfilled the law and sat down at the right hand of God, signifying completion. The sacrificial system could not bring transformation or salvation, leading to the need for Christ's ultimate sacrifice. Christ's sacrifice tore down the barrier between humanity and God. Good morning. Good morning. We're kind of scattered out today. Y'all are awfully quiet today. You're supposed to wait until I start talking to be quiet. Anyway, good to see you this morning and Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. It's getting close. I was already thinking about my next Christmas card. I'm going to use Ecclesiastes where it says there's a time for everything, including a time for sending Christmas cards. This is going to be the last one. I figured 91, that'll be the last one that I'll send out. So you can look forward to seeing what we come up with that. Well, we're in chapter 10 of Hebrews. Chapter 9, we saw the earthly priesthood, the earthly sanctuary, the description of it, and the rituals of the Mosaic system compared with the finished work of Christ on the cross. We learned that the Mosaic rituals themselves were earthly. They were temporary. In contrast, the Christ whose work was permanent, heavenly, and never to be repeated. The priest never finished doing sacrifices every day under the Mosaic law. But Scripture in Hebrews tells us Christ died once for all. So no need for any more sacrifices because the Old Testament saints, by the way, were saved by faith just like we were. They were looking forward to the coming of Christ. They believed in the promise, trusted in the promise. By faith, the sacrifices pointed to the coming sacrifice of Christ. And when Christ came, he fulfilled, not did away with, he fulfilled all of the expectations of the Mosaic law. So he didn't come to destroy the law. He came to fulfill it. And he filled it perfectly. And the book of Hebrews, one of the key words, as we said to you before, is better. It runs all throughout the book of Hebrews, better. Another word that we see particularly in the chapters we're in now is once. Earthly priest every day, twice on the Sabbath. Christ once, once for all. He fulfilled the promise. He satisfied the grace of God and bore our salvation on the cross. He died on our behalf, paid the price we couldn't pay. And now there's a new tabernacle in heaven. That's where he, as a high priest, took his own sacrifice. He distributed the benefits of his own sacrifice in the heavenly sanctuaries, what we've learned in Hebrews. And so that's why it's once for all. It's done. It stands having been done. And it's a great blessing for us to look back on it just as they look forward to. But here's how it starts. Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and it's not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. Otherwise, if it did sanctify them, if it did satisfy them, if the sacrifices did have a permanent effect, otherwise wouldn't they have stopped being offered? They would have stopped offering sacrifices if it was sufficient. It's never sufficient. Always have to do it again. Otherwise, wouldn't they have stopped being offered since the worshipers purified once and for all would no longer have any consciousness of sin? Pause just a moment. The sacrificial system was intended to bless the Israelites. But in reality, it alienated them from God because, as this passage in chapter 10 says, the sacrifices were a reminder of the sinfulness of the people. If it hadn't been for the sacrificial system, they might have forgotten about their sinfulness. But every day when they made those sacrifices, those sacrifices, this chapter tells us, were a reminder of their sins. So it served its purpose. But they were only a shadow of the real thing. Only a shadow. But the sacrifice, in the sacrifice, there is a reminder of sins year after year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. The Old Testament sacrifices did not forgive sins. Rather, they looked toward the coming of Christ, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and believing that the promise was for them, by faith they received what Christ was yet to do. When Christ came, he fulfilled everything that the Old Testament sacrificial system was intended to accomplish. It could never accomplish it. The sacrifice of blood, the blood sacrifice of goats and bulls, is not going to make any difference in anybody's life. But Christ's death on the cross, with his own blood being the sacrifice offered for our sins, God said, it is done. And when Jesus said it is finished, he meant it's over. Once for all. It is finished. Last thing he said on the cross. Tetelestai. It's over. It's finished. It's done. And so that's what we're looking at in chapter 10. I just have to call it, Christ is the better way. He's the better way. And there are several things that we notice. In these first four verses, the weaknesses of the Old Testament sacrifices are seen. They were shadow, not substance. Shadow, not substance. And the shadow is an interesting thing. The shadow is an outline. It's a silhouette. It's a vague symbol without any substance. It represents something else altogether. For instance, you might not know this, after the atomic attack on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the first visitors found that the atomic blast had vaporized some people so suddenly that it left their shadows marked on still standing walls. That's a pretty strong shadow. But not the real person. It represented the person. But the shadow is the dark outline that a figure casts, but it's not the complete representation of what causes the shadow. The old covenant was never able to perfect anyone with its sacrifices. The ritual and the law could never bring perfect forgiveness for sins. So the limitations of the old system is seen very clearly. Also, it tells us they were powerless to give permanent relief to the sinfulness of the worshipers. These shadow sacrifices lack the essential power to bring salvation. Just as one looks at the foothills and imagines what the mountains look like, or looks at the beach and tries to imagine what the ocean looks like, this was a symbol, this was a shadow that was reminding them of what was to come. Truthfully, if outward ceremonial religion could empower people and save people, Judaism would have done it. I mean, Lord knows they tried. I mean, no religion tried any harder, but all the Jewish sacrificial system did was to prove that God does not bring forgiveness through the sacrifices of bulls and goats. They tried, but they proved themselves that the sacrifices were not adequate because they kept having to do them every day. They never finished doing them. Oh, by the way, while I'm thinking about it, there were no chairs in the temple. The priests never sat down. They didn't have anywhere to sit. That's why it's significant when it's said at this point that Christ extended back and is sitting at the right hand of the Father. Jewish priests never sat down. They couldn't sit down. No place to sit. They never finished their job. They always had to do it again. Christ finished it, and then he sat down. It's a great picture of the finished work of Christ. And he sat down at the right hand of majesty, the right hand of God. So Christ is not only the high priest, he's the king. He's both king and priest. And as king and priest, he fulfilled all the intention of the Jewish sacrificial system, not destroying any of them, not putting them aside, but fulfilling the actual meaning of those sacrifices. He did what earthly priests could never do. They tried every day. They kept doing it and had to do it again. Jesus did it one time. He said, it's done. It's finished. What a confidence that is for us. You ever wonder if you're saved? Jesus died once. He didn't have to die twice. He died once. And when we trusted him, our sins were forgiven, our salvation was purchased, our eternity was secured. That's what Christ did. The shadow sacrifices of the Old Testament lacked the sense of power to bring change and transformation and salvation. And the word perfect that we find here is a very common New Testament word. It literally means to bring something to a conclusion. The ritual itself was impossible to bring the worshippers to the conclusion that God had created them for, and that's why verse 4 says, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. You just can't do it. The ritual was like a telescope. The telescope is not something to look at. It is something to look through. You put telescopes to enlarge so you can see better. And the sacrifices themselves were a telescope. We are not looking at the sacrifices, but looking through the sacrifices to the time when Christ would come and in his death he would bring a perfect provision for our sins and fulfill the needs of the law and fulfill every sacrifice, everything in the Mosaic system that was offered. But since we are humans, the ritual soon degenerated. The sacrifice became a way of buying God's forgiveness. It became a way of paying God off, of getting God off his back. Gradually, it became the way individuals could do what they wanted to do without God's further interference. They made the sacrifice, and the sacrifice became an end in itself. Now, pause for a moment. We do the same thing. We come to church every Sunday. We feel good on Monday because we went to church on Sunday. We did our due for God. And we sometimes think, well, we're doing what God wants us to do, so everything must be okay. The sacrifices themselves offered an opportunity for the worshippers, the one who makes the offering for the sacrifice, to have communion with God, to come into the very presence of God. But it could never happen because if you remember the temple itself, there was a very thick curtain that separated the major part of the temple from the Holy of Holies. But the Scripture says when Christ died, the veil was ripped from the top to the bottom, just like God had put his finger on it and split it, that it fell open, telling us that the cross of Jesus Christ means we no longer have to go through the veil. We now have an open door to enter into the presence of God for ourselves, for us. We have that privilege now. You don't have to do anything to get it done. You don't have to go through everything the high priest had to do to get into the Holy of Holies. He could only go in it once a year. The temple is torn apart. Christ's sacrifice is accepted. His cry on the cross, it is finished, tells us that now then there is no more fault at all about going to God. With doors open, we can enter freely. In fact, Hebrews 4 talks about us entering boldly into the throne of God and the throne of grace. It is interesting, back in Hebrews chapter 4, I think it is verse 16, where it says that we can enter boldly into grace in time of need. It is kind of interesting. The little phrase in time of need, if you literally translate the Greek, says in the nick of time. It is not just in the needy time. It is just in time. You get to go into the very presence of God. That is what the cross means. Christ fulfilled all of the intention and anticipation of the Jews. The sacrifices, if they had been successful, then they would not have had to repeat them. But they did have to repeat them. Here is a lesson for us. Sin will not go away. It is persistent. It is tenacious. When a man sins, he cannot get away from it. He cannot turn his back on it. He cannot walk away from it. He cannot wash it from his conscience. It just is there. That is why the Old Testament very caustically said that you can be sure your sin will find you out. It is kind of interesting. In Genesis, I think it is chapter 6, it talks about that sin crouched at the door. I mean, it is always there. We are never away from it. And none of us deserve to be in the presence of God. It is all by grace. It is all because of what Christ has done. Year by year, all of the sacrifices have been repeated, and the powerlessness of the legal system was just more vividly seen by the fact they had to keep doing it. The word here, it says it talked about the purifying of the worshippers is in the perfect tense in the Greek language. Now, let me just give you what we have talked about before, just to remind you. The Greek language tense does not mean time of action. It means kind of action. For instance, present tense in the Greek is continuous action like watching a movie. Continuous action. The aorist tense is like a rifle shot. Pow. It is gone. It is there and it is gone. That is the aorist tense, what our past tense would be. The perfect tense indicates past action that still has abiding results. Now, I am reminded of this every single day because in the house we bought three years ago, every time I walk to the mailbox, there are imprints in the cement where somebody walked on the wet cement. And they are not there anymore and we do not know who they are, but the imprint is there. It is still there. And so this is in the perfect tense. When he said we were purified, we were purified and the results of it are still seen. The imprint is still there. And that is what he is talking about. The sacrifice, though, was literally a heavy reminder that the individual was a sinner. Of course, just indulge me a little humorous thought. Every time a Jewish man brought a bull or a calf or a goat to sacrifice, he had to carry it. They did not have dollies. See him carrying that load. It was a heavy load. It was a heavy load for him to bear. It was a reminder to him that he was a sinner. That he had to come before God and offer this as hoping to get atonement for his sins. The sacrifices kept alive the memory of sins. Under the new covenant, God forgives and forgets the sins of his people. Now, just think about that. How many times have we said, baby, God, here I go again. I did it again. I am sure sorry and I am repenting of it. I can hear God say, what is it? He had already forgotten it. If God forgot it, it was forgotten. Nothing reminded him of it anymore because every time he lifted us, he saw us through the lens of the blood of Christ. And we are not only saved, we are complete. We are perfect in Christ. Now, not a one of us would ever claim to be perfect. But God says, by grace, through faith, the blood of Christ has perfected you. That means there is nothing left for you to do. What you do, you do not because you have to. Not because you are wanting something from God. You do it because you love God. And you are devoted to God. And just as every sacrifice was meant to offer an opportunity for communion with the one who offered the sacrifice for communion with God, so we have the opportunity to have communion with God through everything that we do that he wants us to do. To demonstrate our faith by our obedience. Now, that is an important statement because we are about to come toward the end of this chapter to the most difficult passage in the whole Bible. We will get there in a moment. But the sacrifice of animals could not ever remove the barrier of sin. Verse 4 tells us, every time the sacrifice was made, it reminded the one who made the sacrifice that he was the sinner. Always reminding of him sin. Then we see the finality and sufficiency of Christ beginning in verse 5. Therefore he, as he was coming into the world. This is talking about Christ. It would be interesting to just maybe pause for a moment. Someone put it like this. When Jesus was born and put in a manger, there was a shadow of a cross that fell across the manger. He was the only person probably I would say that ever lived who was born specifically to die for a reason. The cross was the death of Christ. It was the sacrifice required for us to have our sins to be forgiven. The heart of the sacrificial system was the intent to atone for sin. The burn offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, intended to atone for the sins of the worshiper. Although, now here I'm going to tell you something I don't understand. There was no definite provision for premeditated sin. Scripture calls it sins of the high hand. Deliberate sins. Provision was made for sins committed without premeditation, but none if you premeditated. Now, just let your mind grasp that a little bit. We all sin. Many times we don't mean to. We didn't set out to do that, but we did. But then there are other times when we sin and we know it's sin, and even though we shouldn't, we do it anyway. We premeditate it. We plan it. Even our legal system today wants to know whether it was intentional or deliberate or unintentional if someone is guilty of killing someone. Premeditation, the death penalty. Accidental killing of someone, there'd be another way we might go. The offerings, the really basic meaning, I think, of the sacrifices were a gift to God. The offerings, the sacrifices were there. They represented the people's sense of atonement. The sacrifice itself opened up the door for communication and communion with God. Let's just look at these for a minute. The burnt offering, Leviticus 1 and 6 go into detail about this. The burnt offering was where the sacrifice was completely burned up on the altar. And it was burned on the altar, according to Scripture, as a pleasing odor to Jehovah. This was a voluntary sacrifice. It was at the discretion of the worshiper. And the purpose, according to verse 4, the purpose that they wanted was to take away sin. It was an act of total dedication to God. And just as the sacrifice was wholly consumed on the altar, the consumption of this offering in the altar symbolized the complete devotion of the individual to God. It's coming to God saying, this is my deepest desire to please you and to offer you something that is desirable on your part. And this was all part of all major worship activities. These sacrifices were offered twice daily on behalf of the nation as a whole. And then it was doubled on the Sabbath. I mean, this went on every day. The burnt offering and the fact that it was burned on the altar was a reminder that the one providing the sacrifice was bringing a desire to commune with God and to atone for his sins through the sacrifice. By the way, there was a, we won't really go into it today, but at each of these offerings there was a variety of sacrifices you could make. You could do a bull or a goat or a sheep or a pigeon, a dove. You see, not everybody could afford a bull, but everybody could afford a sacrifice. And the more poor they were, the sacrifice was easier to obtain and more cheap to get. But the sacrifices themselves represented life. And we'll look at the next offering, we'll explain a little further, the grain offering, which is also described in Leviticus 2, 6 and 7. This was an offering of flour and oil and spice or grain. Sometimes it was cooked into cakes and the cakes would be offered along with the burnt offering. A portion of those burned on the altar, but the remainder was eaten by the priests in the court of the tabernacle. It was a voluntary offering and it demonstrated reverence and thanksgiving to God. It also demonstrated that God would accept anything of value as a gift because a grain sacrifice is different from a blood sacrifice. But it included, it shows you the variety of ways. It indicates how much God wants to have communion with us, giving us so many opportunities in so many ways to have actually a relationship with him. The most common of all the offerings is called the peace offering, also described in Leviticus 3 and 7. It was an expression of thanksgiving to God just for whatever God had done. Maybe he had provided an answer to prayer. Maybe you had given him a vow. Whatever you had done, that offering was there to express thanksgiving to God for what he had done. It was an expression of thanksgiving to God. The blood, the fat, the internal organs represented life that were burned on the altar for Jehovah. The remainder of the animal was eaten by the worshippers in the court of the tabernacle. One writer suggested that that kind of indicated that this pictures them as guests at Jehovah's table or as Jehovah being a guest at their table. But it expressed and it represented the relationship of God and the sacrifices. There were three classes of peace offerings. The thanks offering was just to express the devotion in your heart for your gratitude for God. For us in a modern age, it ought to just show us how important it is for all of us to be thankful. Gratitude is a great attitude. We just need to express appreciation to people. When I graduated from seminary, I wrote every one of my professors a note to say thank you. Thank you for putting up with me. Thank you for teaching me things. Thank you for letting me get my preparation for ministry. I've tried to keep doing that through the years. When I turned 88, I wrote about 80 thanksgiving letters by hand to everybody I could think of that had ever had a part in me walking with the Lord and finding God's place in my place and God's will. I wrote people that taught me in junior high school and elementary school, friends that I've had, so many friends that we've served together in these last years, over the last 40 or 50 years, men like Adrian Rogers and Jerry Fines. All the names of many of these would be familiar with some of them. Everyone that had anything, I just said, thank you. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for your encouragement. You know, I have learned that everybody appreciates encouragement. My dad told me one time, he said, be nice to everybody because everybody's having a hard time. You know, that's true. Every one of us carries pain today, some pain from the past, maybe some from the present. But every one of us lives with pain of one kind or another. We ought to be nice to each other. It's sad. I was reminded this last week that I got an email from David Allen. John, do you remember David? He has an online ministry and he sends out stuff. I was curious. He had a wonderful article about America, about what's happening in America and what needs to take place. And then for some reason, he included a link to a sermon I preached at Southwestern Seminary in October of 1975. And interestingly enough, my text was Hebrews 10.24. We ought to provoke one another to love and good works. The word provoke that we find in verse 24 literally means to incite a riot. That's the word. We ought to incite a riot of good works and love. That's what we ought to be inciting people about instead of attacking them. And what really led to that was several things. I was about to leave Dallas and come to Euless. In fact, that was one of the last weeks that I was still at First Baptist Dallas when I preached that sermon. But I recounted the things that I was going through. I didn't frankly remember I did that. I haven't listened to it yet, but I read through. He printed most of it. It just reminded me that all of us have had experiences that are mixed experiences. At LifeWay, when we used to make mistakes and people would get upset, I said, look, this is a learning experience. We learn more through our mistakes than we do through our successes. So we need to pay attention. We need to be sure we're responding appropriately. When I got to LifeWay, someone wrote an inquiry to LifeWay. They'd get a form letter back, said thank you for your letter and so on and so forth. Just a form letter. Didn't say anything. Didn't even acknowledge you were answering their letter. And so I immediately told our – we had about 65 managers that directed all the areas of the board. And I just told them, I said, look, new rule. You will send no more form letters, period. And you will send me a copy of every letter that you send. For 16 years, I got a copy of every letter that went out from LifeWay. And I said, you will not send a form letter. You will write a letter and you will acknowledge what the letter was about that you're responding to. You will answer the question that it answers, whatever it was. You will do that. Now, sometimes and many times people are asking a theological question about why we said such and such in a periodical or Sunday school lesson or something. So I said, well, you can have five working days to answer that. But if it's not that kind of letter, you know, you need to do it quicker. But you'll have five days. And if anybody calls you or emails you, you will answer that within 24 hours. See, my pet peeve, if you want to know my pet peeve, is people that never respond to their phone calls, their emails or their letters. And when Ben Mandrell came to be president of LifeWay back six or so years ago, he was pastoring a church in Denver, Colorado. And I called the state exec out there, who's now state exec of Southern Basin, Texas, Nathan Lorig. I said, Nathan, can you send me Ben's cell number? I want to just encourage him and, you know, tell him, pray for him and congratulate him on coming to LifeWay. Which he did. So I texted, which I hate. Don't ever text me, please. I type 120 words a minute, but I text about three words every minute with my finger. And so I don't like to do that. But I texted him and said, congratulations, you're coming to a great place. And, you know, I gave him a little bit of past president's advice and said, you know, praying for you and be your biggest cheerleader. I received an answer in five minutes. I told Carol Ann, I am really going to like this guy. Because that's what I would expect. That's what I do. You know, we, how did I get off on this? I don't even know how I got to where we're doing. But anyway, everybody's having a hard time. That's what we thought. You know, so treat everybody kindly. And I, you know, I write, I've got a whole horizon full of pastors that write me periodically. And always when I write them, I say, I'm proud of you. I'm so grateful for you. God has blessed you. And I'm praying for his anointing on your bed. You know, being an encourager. Now, let me back up. Not bad, but discouraging words are common. Encouraging words are rare. But they're very important. So the peace offering was just a way of saying thanks to God. You know, Carol Ann and I have been married 69 years. Do you know, I've told you, of course you know, I bought her lunch yesterday. And she thanked me for buying her lunch. You know, one of the secrets of a really good marriage is gratitude. I mean, I never get, some of y'all remember Dub and Doris Jackson. Dub was the one that started Partnership Missions, the foreign mission board. And then we had a big mission to Japan, New Life Crusade in Japan back in the 60s. And it was Dub's project. When she died, I did her service. And Dub has asked Carol Ann to speak. And so she did. And she told us what happened in their life one day. She said, one day they were talking about going to assisted living. And Dub said, I do not want to live in assisted living. Doris said, Dub, you've been in assisted living all your life. So, you know, I mean, everybody's struggling. Everybody needs encouragement. We can't make this by ourselves. That's why the church is a fellowship. It's not a draft situation of having to do something. It's a voluntary participation in a group of people who share the same goals and share the same Savior. And it ought to be a place of a little taste of heaven. Unfortunately, our church is different. Most churches are halfway split about something. And it's rarely anything significant. It's rarely theological heresy. It's usually through personal preferences. I don't like this. Well, big deal. Who are you? I mean, it's not about you. It's not about me. Get over yourself. We're recipients of incredible grace, and we dwell in the midst of a people of faith. And we have a family, and we have a staff that blesses us and ministers to us. We are, of all people, most blessed. Be grateful. Be encouraging. So the peace offering, the thank offering, was just saying thank you to God. And I still do this morning when I put my socks on. I said, Lord, thank you that I can still reach my toes. Attitude, gratitude. The peace offering was just a thank you to God. The thanks offering was just an expression of appreciation to God. One of the peace offerings was a thank offering. Whenever one received an answer to prayer, the Jewish law said you cannot appear before God empty-handed. So they had a peace offering, a thank offering. The second class of peace offering was the vow offering. This was an offer given after receiving a benefit from God of some kind, a blessing from God, or a vow to God. You exchanged a vow with God, like the covenant. The third class was the free will offering, and that was just, again, to say thank you to God. The peace offering is the most common offering of the Mosaic system. The sin offering was an offering that was an effort to make right the individual's relationship with God, and they could not do it by the blood of goats and bulls, but they did it by faith in the coming Messiah who would ultimately fulfill all of God's demands for holiness and pay the price for our salvation. The trespass offering was a sacrifice required for unintentional sins and certain intentional sins that involved restitution. The guilty party would bring a ram and make restitution to the party wrong. So in summary, the Old Testament presents sacrifice as a form of atonement on the part of God's people. Prior to Moses, the offerings were simple, very few. Through Moses, God gave to the Israelites an elaborate sacrificial system. Now, verses 5 through 10, here in the 10th chapter, is really a quote or reference to Psalm 40, and it demonstrates Christ's intention to give himself as the sacrifice that would replace all of the Mosaic sacrifices. There are several things about his sacrifice. The sacrifice of Christ was first scripture. It was a fulfillment of prophecy. What Christ did was based on prediction in scripture. It was personal because the words are spoken in the first person by the divine person who was coming to die for the salvation of those who were receiving by faith. So it was a very personal thing. It was joyful. Now, this is the most amazing part. Christ anticipates the coming cross with a sense of inward spiritual joy as he prepared to give himself as a sacrifice for human sin. Now, fast forward to chapter 12 in verse 2. Jesus speaking, For the joy that lay before him, speaking of Jesus, For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Now, just step back a minute. Remember how he died. Betrayed. Forsaken by those closest to him. Brutally beaten. The Greek words that describe the condition of Christ as he carried the cross is that he was beaten beyond recognition. Brutal beating. The most painful way to cause death was by the cross. It's the way the Romans executed people. Crucified as a common criminal between two thieves. Naked before the crowd. Six thyrs hung on the cross. Mocked by those who observed. All that he experienced. But Hebrews 12 says, For the joy that was set before him, He endured the cross. He despised the shame. He sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. There's a gospel song. I'm a southern gospel music fan. I think I told you. When I was in junior high school, we lived half a block from the school, and I'd go home for lunch every day. And KRLD had the Stamps Baxter Quartet at 1215 every day. I'd listen to J.D. Sumner that would give the world a smile each day, you know, and love that music. But there is a gospel music song that is especially insightful. When he was on the cross, I was on his mind. That was the joy. The joy that he had at the cross was looking through the ages, down through the centuries, through the years to 2025. He saw us and all of the redeemed of all the ages. And it was a joy to him. He did it for us. He paid the debt he didn't owe. A debt we could never pay. And he didn't serve it. But he did it for us. It was a joy for the joy that was set before him. So his sacrifice on the cross repealed the inadequacies of the Old Testament sacrifice. They were repetitious. They were always the same. The words and the actions were ineffective in dealing with human sin. The sacrifice of the cross was unrepeatable. It was singular. Verse 14 says, For by one offering he has perfected it forever those who are sanctified. One person. One offering. It was comprehensive. It said he perfected forever. The history of the human race has been a long line of guilty worshipers continually repeating their cries of repentance and asking of forgiveness. The people of Malachi's day had no more relief from the sacrifices that Cain and Abel did outside the gates of Eden. The sacrificial death of Christ has met the deeds of all generations. It's sufficient. It's sovereign in its authority. He sat down at the right hand of God. Jesus is not only priest, but he's also king. The sovereign king sat down at the right hand of the Father after he finished his work. And again, the earthly priest never sat down. Jesus sat down. It's finished. He had done it. And it's prophetic in its anticipation. It's interesting that when we come into this chapter, he mentions his coming again. Anticipation. And when you come to verse 15, the words are attributed to the Holy Spirit. And this is a reference to Jeremiah 31, verses 31 to 34, which speaks to the new covenant. This is what it says. This is the covenant I will make with them after these days, the Lord said. I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds, and I will never again remember their sins and their lawless acts. The implications of the sacrifice of Christ, there are certain privileges we receive. And I'm going to hasten through these because we'll never make it to the end anyway. This chapter, you're going to have to read it carefully yourselves, but I want to get over to the last of it, the last verses pretty quickly. But there are personal privileges that we as believers have. The privilege of entrance into the divine presence, verse 19. We're called brethren. The word brethren is the Greek word adelphoi. Philidelphia. What is it called? City of brotherly love. Adelphoi refers to people who are born of the same womb, born of the same mother. So we're family. Not any of us are illegitimate here. We're all important, and in Christ, everyone is somebody. That's the grace of God, and that's what we do. We celebrate the grace of God when we come into His presence. And we come with boldness, as Hebrews 4 says. And the basis of this boldness is access to the blood of Christ. So we have privilege of entrance into God's presence, and we have the privilege of a way of God, and it's through Jesus Christ. The writer of Hebrews compares the death of Christ on the cross with the veil being torn when Christ died. The veil was torn, opened the door for everyone to enter, and that is a new way, a fresh way into the presence of God. The torn flesh of Jesus tears down the spiritual veil that separates us and God. Another privilege is the privilege of actual entrance into God's presence. He says in verse 22, Let us draw with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, our bodies washed in pure water. We have a status, the status of purified people, and we can enter into the presence of God Himself through Jesus Christ. There are some responsibilities that come that he talks about in these last verses. We must maintain an open confession of Christian hope. He says, Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, says he who has promised is faithful. The ground of our hope is not our own promise, but the faithfulness of God. We have hope because of what God has done. By the way, hope, the Latin word for I breathe and I hope is the same word. It means I breathe or I hope. You can't breathe without hope and you can't live without hope. Again, it leads us, we need to watch out for one another, it says in this chapter, verse 24. We need to observe the discipline of worship. Verse 25 says, Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. Don't do that. Some are already doing that. Then there is a danger involved. I want to read this and get to this. We've got just five minutes or so and I just want to introduce it to you. In verse 26, For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversary. Anyone who disregarded the law of Moses died without mercy based on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think one will deserve who has trampled on the Son of God, who has regarded as profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know the one who has said, Vengeance belongs to me, I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Now, these verses describe a conversion experience. The words are clear. If you listen carefully to them, it talks about if you have received the knowledge of the truth. The Greek word for knowledge is gnosis. We get our English word knowledge from it. You can have a false gnosis. You can have a false understanding. But if you add the little preposition epi, epi-gnosis, it means full, complete knowledge. You can't have a false epi-gnosis. You can only have a real, true epi-gnosis because that describes it. And it talks about eating. When you eat something, it becomes part of who you are. All of these words describe it. So we're not talking about someone. Some people interpret this verse. We've had some experience with that in the Southern Baptist Convention. One of our professors at the seminary who believed that a man wouldn't lose his salvation, but he could decide he didn't want to be saved anymore. And if he decided he didn't want to be saved anymore, then he could apostatize. And he could give away his salvation. He could go back on it and it would be removed from him. Well, unfortunately, that violates every other scripture that deals with what salvation means. But it obviously doesn't mean that he's not talking about this. So what is he talking about? What is he talking about? Fiery indignation. Well, for one thing, by the way, Hebrews 12, 29, I think it is, says, Our God is a consuming fire. The Apostle Paul wrote about the judgment seat of Christ, and he said, If anyone builds on the foundation of gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one's work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire. The fire will test the quality of each one's work. If anyone's work is burned up, he will experience loss. But he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Later, Hebrews 12, 28, 29, we read, Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. By it we may serve God acceptable with reverence and awe. For our God is a consuming fire. God is seen always, fire always represents judgment from God. Now, I don't know how, you know, I've said, I personally believe this refers to sin unto death. And I can quickly, if you give me three more minutes, I can give you at least a little bit about that. When David sinned, and Nathan confronted him with his sin, in 2 Samuel 12, verses 9 to 14, Nathan, now as the prophet, is speaking to David, Why then have you despised God's command by doing, he's quoting God, he's telling us what God said, Why then have you despised the Lord's command by doing what I consider evil? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with a sword. You took his wife as your wife. You murdered him with the Ammonite sword. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house because you despised me, took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own wife. And this is what the Lord says, I'm going to bring disaster on you from your own family. You acted in secret, but I will do this before all Israel in broad daylight. David responded to Nathan, I've sinned against the Lord. And Nathan replied to David, listen, and the Lord has taken away your sin. You will not die. However, because you treated the Lord with such contempt to this matter, the son born to you will die. And also God told him that the sword will never depart from your house. So there are two things that happens when someone commits, a believer commits the sin unto death. And God will kill you. By the way, sin unto death is not something for us to judge other people. It's something for us to judge ourselves and make sure we'll never commit it. We have no right to say other people did it. David apparently came close if he didn't commit it because of what Nathan said to him. You're not going to die, implying you should die because of this. But God's committed your sin that you're not going to die. Your son that was born to you is going to die. And the sword will never depart from your house. Now, David's family was a dysfunctional family. His own son tried to steal the throne from him. He had turmoil the rest of his ministry. It was a dysfunctional family, I think, because of the judgment of God upon what he did with Bathsheba. Again, it is just a reminder to us that God is serious about how we live. And for those of us who claim to have been saved by the blood of Christ need to be careful that we never disgrace God and never act in a presumptuous way that disregards the blood of Christ because God has to respond and act. I'll leave it up to you. Just think about it. I'm not drawing any conclusions about what God's going to do, but God is going to act. If you, as a believer, deliberately reject Christ, consider his blood as being profane and invaluable, God is going to respond in judgment. How he's going to do that, I don't know, but he will do it. It's interesting, by the way, that the writer of Hebrews considered himself as one who could do this because he talked about we and us with humility. He considered himself to be under the same warning that he is mentioning for the other people. Well, we'll just stop there because time has gone. Finish reading. The last portion of the chapter does refer to the judgment of God, so we need to be careful we don't ask for the judgment of God because it won't be a pleasant thing. Father, thank you that you love us in spite of us and you gave yourself for us when we did not ask for it. But, Lord, you did it and we're grateful and we received the free gift. Thank you for loving us and caring for us at the sacrifice of Christ. In Jesus' name, amen.