what we're trying to accomplish.
Today we're coming to Hebrews chapter number 10.
And I've been waiting about two months
to tell you this stuff, so I'm excited about it.
Have you ever had somebody say
that something that they had had sentimental value?
You've ever heard that?
Yesterday my wife had me put some things
into storage from our garage,
and I asked her what she was wanting me to move
because it was heavy.
There were several boxes, one box had some of our girls
stuffed animals, that part wasn't heavy,
but the other things that were in there were,
I'm not that weak, okay, that's bad.
They're toys and clothes, and one of the boxes
had my old yearbooks in it, my basketball
for my senior year, back when I was good at things.
And there's a box of our wedding photos,
and as much as, and all my old CDs from high school,
you guys remember CDs, they're like little records,
you know, that was fun.
Most of the time I'm a person that likes to throw things away.
Why are we leaving it here?
I don't want stacks everywhere,
let's get rid of it, right?
If you can take a picture of it,
it doesn't take up as much space, you know,
and then throw it away, that's awesome, right?
So,
that's my favorite person here, right?
Laughing more than they should have, amen, that's good.
So yeah, we all have things that have
sentimental value to us, don't they?
I've been in the homes of some people that I love
who've lost loved ones prematurely.
We're on the internet, so I won't talk too much about them,
but, because they may see what I had to say,
but I know people that have lost kids, you know,
and having lost their kids,
when you don't have your kid anymore,
the things that remind you of them become more precious.
And I've been in homes of people that have had
their kid's room look the way it is,
because they lost their kid,
and they didn't want to touch it or change it,
because it would be like saying, buy to them, right?
When the actual is gone,
the symbol becomes so much more important.
What you remember about them,
the problem is the picture isn't them.
It's just the thing that we have to remember them by.
When the person is gone,
all you have of them is a shadow of who they are.
You have memories, you have pictures, you have images,
and those images are important when that's all you have.
The good news is, if you know Christ is your savior,
it's not goodbye forever, it's see you later.
Are you glad about that?
And so in the meantime, those pictures may be precious,
but you know, one day you'll see them again,
and that's a pretty cool thing.
In today's text, we find the preacher,
that's what I'll call him,
because we don't know who the person who wrote
the book of Acts or the book of Hebrews is.
There are some that say they think it's Paul.
I could see that being the case.
We'll call him the preacher.
And the preacher, we get to chapter 10,
and chapter 10 comes after chapter nine.
Write that down.
And when he gets to chapter 10, he uses this phrase,
he says in verse one, for the law,
having a, what's the next word?
A shadow of good things to come.
That's what the law was.
It was a picture of the good things to come.
He's talking about that ceremonial law.
He's talking about the sacrifices.
It was a picture of a shadow of good things to come,
and not the very image of the things.
That shadow, that's what he's talking about,
can never, say never,
can never with those sacrifices,
which they offered year by year continually,
make the comers their unto perfect.
The word here for shadow is the Greek word skiya.
It refers to a pale shadow or a nebulous, ambiguous shadow
as opposed to a sharp, distinct one.
The law and the ceremonies and the rituals
that we find in the enumerated and obeyed and done
in the Old Testament,
were all just an ambiguous shadow
of all that Christ would bring to us.
One writer said it this way,
they were form without substance.
They portrayed something real,
but they themselves were not real.
We are back today in the study of Hebrews,
and since it has been since the end of June,
since we've been in here, let me just catch everybody up.
There may be some new people here,
and we are super glad that you are here.
So let me just catch up where we have been.
The theme of the book of Hebrews
is what we have named the series,
and that's Jesus is greater.
Jesus is greater, he is better.
Jesus is superior in every way to the features
and the people connected with the Old Covenant.
Well, when you get a Bible and you open your Bible
to the index, and if you're at that part
in your Christian life where you still need to go
to the index, don't be ashamed of that.
That's fine, we all start somewhere, okay?
But when you do and you go,
you see the books of the Old Testament,
and you see the books of the New Testament.
That word Testament is the same word as the word Covenant.
Covenant, Testament.
In this text we're gonna look at today,
he even uses the word, like we would use the word will,
a last will and Testament.
Yes, we'll see that in a second.
And what the writer of Hebrews, the preacher is preaching,
and we get to chapter 10 and all throughout,
he's talking, and this is why we've named it this,
he's talking to the Hebrews, okay?
And people, some who are believers,
some who are regenerate,
some who are maybe intellectually convinced
of Jesus' Messiahship, but not necessarily saved,
and then some who aren't saved at all,
but because of their Jewishness and because of their background,
they believe in all of the Old Covenant,
and what the writer of Hebrews is trying to do is to say,
hey, we have something new.
We have something better.
What happened in the Old was a shadow or an image
or a picture, we now have the real.
We have something better, you know what we have?
Jesus, Jesus is greater.
Jesus, he said in the first few chapters,
is a better revelation.
In times past, he's spoken unto us,
and to our fathers by the prophets,
and these last days, he's spoken unto us through his son.
He's better.
He's better than Moses, better than Moses.
Moses gave us the Old Testament, he gave us the law,
he gave us Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers and Deuteronomy, and even today,
if you don't have those five, we're in trouble.
They're foundational, and if the foundations be broken,
who can lay anything there on?
And so better than Moses, yes, he was better than Moses.
When we get to chapter five,
we began to see that Christ is a better priest.
He has a better priesthood.
There's the old Aaronic priesthood,
the priesthood of Aaron, Moses's brother,
who God ordained to be the order of priests,
the Levites, we're gonna talk about them today.
And then there's the order of Melchizedek,
the order of priests that Jesus comes from.
And so he is a better priesthood.
And as we moved along in Hebrews,
the author, the preacher, goes on to speak of the covenant
and the sacrifice of Jesus.
And just to catch us up with where we were back in
May and June, before we took that detour,
we were in chapter nine, and we saw in chapter nine
the need for a sacrifice.
Not just the old sacrifices, but a new one.
In chapter nine, verse 16, it says,
for where a testament is,
where a testament is, where a covenant is,
where a last will and testament is,
there must also of necessity be the death of a testador.
Where there is a testament,
using the word like we would use a will,
there must be a death.
You can write all you want in the will,
but that will is not in functioning until a person dies.
Do you get it?
So he's saying, there's the need for a death.
The old covenant demanded death to make that will valid.
We also see that there was a need for sacrifice
in the necessity of blood in chapter nine.
In verse number 22, it says talking about the old covenant,
referring to the new covenant,
and almost all things are by the law purged with blood.
He says, in the old testament,
they would sacrifice those sheep and bulls and doves and goats,
and they would sacrifice them by killing them.
There would be the shedding of blood.
It was a picture, but he says here in verse 22,
almost all things are by the law purged or cleaned or purified
with blood, and without the shedding of blood
is no remission.
Remission means forgiveness.
There's no forgiveness unless there's been a death,
and that death came about by the shedding of blood.
The old covenant with its sacrifices pointed to the blood,
to the necessity of blood for the forgiveness of sins.
And so we have in the death of Christ a substitutionary death
and a blood payment for sins for us.
We also see the need for sacrifice described in chapter nine,
that salvation demands substitution.
If you look at verse 28,
and this leads us up right to the very end of the chapter.
So Christ was once, how many times?
Once offered to bear the sins of many,
and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time
without sin unto salvation.
He shall return in robes of wide.
You get it?
And we're gonna go be with him.
Anybody excited about that?
It's gonna be amazing.
And so today we're gonna continue on.
In chapter 10, he continues on to talk about this sacrifice,
and he's making the case, and I want you to see the case,
but not just to see it.
Here's what I want today.
If you're not trusting in Christ's sacrifice for your sins
to make you right with him and get you to heaven,
today's the day.
There's no other option for you.
I mean, there is separation from God forever.
Paying for your sin yourself.
It is a bad plan to try to pay for it yourself.
The check's already been written.
The payment's already been made,
and it's better than the old one.
It's better than the old covenant,
because the old covenant wasn't really even intended
to pay for your sin.
It was intended to picture the one for all gift
that was given.
That's what it's about.
And so today, you should trust
in Jesus Christ's sacrifice for sin.
It's your only shot.
Because it's superior to the old covenant in two ways.
Here's the first one.
The first way that it's superior is this.
Number one, Jesus Christ's sacrifice takes away sin.
Here's another way of saying it.
It worked.
It works.
It actually takes away sin.
Okay, now that I've led you up to here,
let's look at chapter 10, verse one.
Now I already read it.
Let's read it now with that context.
Verse one, for the law having a shadow
of the good things to come,
and not the very image of the things,
can never with those sacrifices,
which they offered year by year, all the time,
continually make the comers there into perfect.
The sacrificial system here referred to as a law
was merely and wonderfully,
and wonderfully a shadow of good things to come.
It's kind of like anybody have a precious picture
of somebody?
So a picture that's precious to you?
Anybody here have, if you have one, raise your hand.
Yeah.
You have something that somebody else had
and it was like really precious to you.
Paul, not Paul, the preacher is writing to these people
and says, I know that for you, the sacrificial system
and all that has a sentimental value.
I'm not trying to say that it was bad.
I'm trying to tell you that it was incomplete.
I'm not saying the picture on the wall is bad,
but the picture is of less value if grandma's still with you.
Are you with me?
That's when it's better.
And he's saying it was a shadow,
the ceremony was a shadow, not the actual, not the real.
It's a picture of the wheel and says in verse one,
they were not the very image of the things.
That word I already mentioned, that's Skiah.
This word he says, and not the very image of the things,
that word is the word icon.
Icon, there has this idea of an exact representation.
The old covenant was the shadow, the New Testament,
the new sacrifice is the substance.
The old ceremonial law and sacrificial systems
were pictures, Christ is the substance.
And because of this, the Old Testament sacrifices
were inferior to Christ's sacrifice.
We see this in several ways.
First, we see that the sacrifices,
and this is in your notes, so you can take extra notes.
But the sacrifices could not of themselves
give access to God.
If it could perfect, it says here, the comers
or the worshipers, it would have happened once
and then ceased.
That's the argument he's making in verse one.
If the blood of bulls and goats was enough,
they would have done it one time,
and then it would have been over.
But they didn't do it one time, they had to keep doing it.
You know why?
It couldn't fully and finally get rid of sin.
It was just a picture.
And they kept sinning.
Anybody here have that problem?
Who wants to stop sinning?
No, you don't.
Not all the time.
You got that problem?
Because I got that problem.
I don't want to sin if somebody asks me,
I'll raise my hand.
Man, I'm a jerk to do that to you guys.
I'm sorry.
That was probably not good.
That probably wasn't a good thing.
But feel this with me.
On Sunday, I don't want to sin,
but sometimes Tuesday afternoon I have a problem.
Anybody with me?
Sometimes I want to.
Lord help me.
Amen. Seriously.
Lord help me.
The idea here is like perfect is not necessarily
that we're perfect now in the sense that we've stopped sinning.
The idea here is acceptable to God.
I can't get to God on my own.
I can't get to God just with the blood of bulls and goats.
God had to make it possible.
See, here's the thing, God is so holy.
He can't be in the presence of sin.
And I'm a sinner.
And so are you.
So how do I get to a holy God with my sin?
I had to have a righteousness which was not mine.
I had to be given an alien righteousness.
Do you get it?
God had to take away my sin and give me perfection.
And you know what he did?
He did that through his son.
He did that through the sacrifice of his son.
And so here we find this very, very important idea
that the old sacrifices he's trying to convince the Jews
he's talking to, they could not perfect
or make the worshipper have access to God
merely based in those sacrifices.
Second, the sacrifices could not of themselves take away sin.
The proof that it did not perfect and could not perfect
is in God's command, it says in verse two,
for then they would not have ceased to be offered
because that the worshippers once perished
should have no more conscience of sins.
But in those sacrifices there's a remembrance again
made of sins every year.
It is not possible, why?
For it is not possible, it says,
that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin.
God commanded them to do these sacrifices yearly.
Some sacrifices they did monthly and daily.
They did them all the time.
Why?
Because at best it was a picture of the real that was to come
because it was merely a picture of what was to come
and not yet come.
God's command for that time was that they keep making those sacrifices.
And when those under the old covenant believed God
in responding to the revelation that they had,
God gave them, you're saying, well, Pastor Ben,
are those Old Testament saints not in heaven
because their sins weren't forgiven?
No.
How do they get to heaven?
They got to heaven by faith.
By faith in what?
By faith in the revelation that they had.
God says through Paul and Romans,
Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.
They got there by faith.
They just didn't know what we know.
Jesus is in our history.
For them it was in their prophecy.
And just like I hath not seen nor ear heard,
nor has it entered the heart of every man,
what God has for those who love him,
we know God has some stuff for us that we do not yet know.
Who's looking forward to that?
So we by faith look forward to that.
I have been saved.
I am being saved.
One day I will be saved.
And I'm so excited for that.
That's how it was for them.
They had to believe God.
It wasn't their works.
It wasn't the sacrifices.
It was belief in what God had given to them
and faith in him.
And then God imputed eventually Christ's righteousness
to their account.
They're there by Jesus too,
even though they didn't know his name.
Do you get it?
I can tell you this.
They know his name now.
Because Jesus is greater.
So when those under the Old Covenant believe God
and respond to the revelation that they had,
God imputed righteousness to them.
This was made possible as we should see
because of what he says here of the good things to come.
Namely the person in the work of Jesus Christ.
So in verses one through four,
the preacher makes this case that the sacrificial system
proposed and articulated by the law was merely a picture,
a shadow or an image of the good things to come
and the blood of animals could not take away sins.
He goes on to substantiate this case
by pointing the prophecy about the necessity
of another sacrifice.
Now I want to tell you something today.
And if it's your first time in church,
you haven't been in church in a long time,
even if you have been, I want you to not let this lay lightly on you.
God called this shot.
What I mean by that, he said what would happen in the future.
He said this is what's going to happen and then he did it.
Which if you believe there's a God, isn't that hard?
It's not hard.
If you're God you know the being from the beginning.
Are you with me?
So we have evidence in the Bible that it's divine
because God made a prophecy about what it would happen
and then it happened in history.
Okay, so you got to deal with that.
He does this, he talks about this in verse five of Hebrews
chapter 10, look at what it says.
Wherefore when he cometh into the world he saith,
sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not,
but a body hast thou prepared for me.
In verse five, the preacher here refers back to one of the Psalms.
He said remember that song we used to sing when we gathered together at Sabbath?
That talked about, because the Psalms was just their hymn book,
it was their song book.
Are you with me?
And he says remember Hebrews when we used to sing that song
and in that song it said sacrifice it,
this is Psalm 40 verses six through eight, sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire,
mine ears hast thou opened, burnt offering of,
and offering hast thou not required, then said I, low I come.
Who's I?
Low I come?
Who is it?
In the volume of the book it is written to me,
you have the whole Bible is about Jesus.
Low I come, and the volume of the book is written to me,
I delight to do thy will, oh my God,
ye thy law is within my heart.
In Hebrews chapter 10 it says that the voice speaking in the text of this Psalm
is he who cometh into the world.
This of course is Jesus Christ.
Who's greater?
Jesus is greater.
And it says here sacrifice and offering back to verse five,
look at it sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not.
He's saying there's coming a time that even the Psalmist said
that the sacrifices are gonna stop.
Why?
Look at the end of the verse.
But a body hast thou prepared for me.
What is he talking about?
Jesus has always existed.
But Jesus didn't always have a body.
Jesus has always existed, but he didn't always have a body.
When he came born of a virgin, he was conceived of the Holy Spirit
and he became fully man while he was fully God.
Isn't that awesome?
It's talking here about the incarnation.
A body was prepared.
Why?
So that body could be obedient and then be sacrificed.
That's what he's saying.
This quote foretells this incarnation and he compares and contrasts that
with the burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin and the law.
He says in verse six again quoting the Psalm and burnt offerings
and sacrifice for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
Those sacrifices are said to give God who the quote is directed to
no pleasure.
What would satisfy a holy God?
Verse seven.
Then said I lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me
to do thy will, oh God.
This is amazing.
What is he saying?
Jesus came to do the will of the Father and this body that was prepared for him.
God became man.
Does that blow your mind?
It should blow your mind.
God became man.
He came and lived the perfect life.
That at least partially was, that statement was fulfilled in Matthew
chapter 26 verse 39.
It will be on the board.
Here's what it says.
Talking about Jesus.
He went a little further and fell on his face.
Jesus in the garden and prayed saying oh my Father if it be possible
let this cup pass from me.
The cup of your wrath.
Let it pass from me.
Nevertheless not as I will but as thou will.
What was Jesus saying?
I will do what you want.
I will come and be obedient.
Jesus came to be the full and final once for all sacrifices that
appeases God's wrath because of his perfect obedience.
That's why he goes on to verse 8.
When he said sacrifice, again back to the quote.
When he said, there's a preacher quoting Psalm.
The guy in Hebrew is quoting the Psalm.
When he said sacrifice and offering and burn offerings and offering for
send out what is not and neither has pleasure therein which are offered by the law.
Then said he lo I come to do thy will oh God.
What is he saying?
Verse 9.
He taketh away the first that he may establish the second.
What is he saying?
He's saying that God through the psalmist prophesied in the words of Jesus
that he would come, become incarnate in the body, be obedient unto death.
And in saying that he would do that, he ends the first covenant and the first set of
sacrifices and the old thing, the old testament so that he could establish the
new, the new covenant, the new testament.
Does this make sense?
This is really good news.
This is very good news.
He was literally fulfilling what it would take for the first covenant to not be
needed.
Matthew 26, 28, just a few verses before Jesus had been obedient in the
garden, he said this in verse 28.
For this is my blood of the new testament, the new covenant.
When he was in the upper room with those disciples and he said, hey, see this
bread from the Passover, they're doing the Passover thing.
Remember the old testament and the old testament.
We would have this meal, this Passover meal and we would break bread and we
would eat it.
And you used to think of it as what we did remembering how God delivered us in
the land of Egypt.
Now when you break this bread, that's my body.
It's not what I did in the past.
Now it's about what I'm about to do in the future.
This is my body that was broken for you.
You see this blood, this cup, you used to drink it remembering what I did in
Egypt.
Now drink it remembering that my blood was sacrificed for you.
This is the new covenant.
Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission for sin.
That's the new testament.
Jesus' body was prepared for obedience and for sacrifice.
Our body is a gift of God to us for the stewarding of obedience and
sacrifice as well.
My salvation, though, is not made possible by my obedience.
It's only made possible because of Christ's obedience.
When I'm obedient to the gospel by putting my faith alone through grace
alone, in Christ alone, what happens?
God saves me.
Not because of me, but because of Jesus and his blood.
This is true of every person in the world.
Nothing can take away our sins, but the blood of Jesus Christ.
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
That's it.
It's a better sacrifice.
The blood of bulls and goats can't do it.
Jesus did it.
If it could, they would have stopped without first covenant.
But God foretold and established and performed a second one.
We're not bound by the ceremonial law anymore.
Why?
Why are we not bound by it?
Verse 10.
By the which will.
By the which testament.
Because there was a testament.
Because there was a will.
And that will was fulfilled by a death and fulfilled by the sacrifice.
We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for some.
For all.
The which will here speaks of that second covenant.
The word covenant and testament.
Testament here are used in the sense of a will.
Not only does that will save us, but it also sanctifies us through Jesus' bodily sacrifice.
When we get saved, we are sanctified, set apart positionally.
But we are also indwelled, we are going to see so that we can progressively become more
and more like Jesus.
And what God predesigned is this.
That those who would believe would be sanctified.
Positionally and then progressively.
He didn't say which one was going to be saved.
But he said all that who would be saved, I am going to make them holy.
I am going to change them.
Isn't that good?
That's what he does.
Christ's sacrificial death was offered for everyone.
He died for everyone.
And this verse is a great statement to point to that reality.
And so let's just apply it and then we will move on and I will be quick to be finished today.
And I will try not to make that a lie.
Here's what he said.
Here's what I want you to know.
The only hope that you and I have for having our sin purged is Jesus Christ.
When he was on the cross, he said, it is finished.
And when he died, the veil in the temple was ripped from top to bottom.
The spirit and the bride say, come.
Because we have been perfected, now we have access to God.
Now being justified by grace, by faith it says in Romans 5, we have peace with God and we have access to God.
By faith, into that grace wherein we stand.
God has given us access.
Jesus sacrifice can make me perfect.
And then I am acceptable to God.
And I can have a relationship with him and I can know that I can get to him.
And when I pray to him, I pray to him and then I pray to the Father in the name of the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And I can have a relationship with him.
How cool is that?
It's all because of what he did.
When we believe God takes Christ, when we believe God takes Christ's righteousness and gives it to us, he took our sin and placed it on Jesus on the cross.
And when we believe, that's called salvation.
We get saved.
Keeping the rules is not the method to be right with God unless one does it perfectly.
And the only one with a merited righteousness born without a sin nature is Jesus Christ.
This doesn't mean there's no law to keep.
Of course we keep the moral law.
When we trust Christ because of his sacrificial death, God takes our sin and gives us Christ's righteousness and then he grows me through his spirit to help me be obedient because I am saved not to make me saved.
That means my conscience can be purged.
Jesus Christ's sacrifice is the only thing that can take away sin.
Loved ones, friends, it's your only hope.
Jesus Christ's sacrificial death for you so that you don't have to pay for your own sin because he already did.
So you should trust in that first covenant and that second covenant because it's superior to the first covenant because it can take away sin.
Here's number two and I'll be quick.
Jesus Christ's sacrifice.
Never, never, never, ever, ever, never.
Never, how many never's do you need?
Never, never, never needs to be repeated.
It's done.
That's right.
Verse 11, okay?
And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sin.
What was he saying?
Here's a contrast that's being made in these next few verses between the priests, those who mediated the first covenant, and Jesus Christ who mediates this covenant.
Here's six comparisons and I'll go through these quickly.
Ready?
Six comparisons of the old sacrifice with Christ's sacrifice.
Number one, this passage speaks of two different mediators, two different kinds of priests.
He says in verse 11 and every priest, talking about the men, earthly priests, while he says, but this man, right?
Speaking of Jesus Christ, you have here in verse, that's in verse 12, but this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever.
You know what the priest did?
The priest's basic ministry so much of the time was to sacrifice animals.
An Old Testament priest, and what he did so often, he was basically a butcher.
He would kill animals as sacrifices.
He would do more than that, but that was a big part of what he would do.
And what the preacher here is saying is these priests, these earthly priests, they would stand.
They're always standing, always moving about.
They're in the temple, they're always moving.
They're always doing these sacrifices, doing the ceremony.
They're all that picture pointing to reality, but they're always killing, always doing these sacrifices.
And he says in verse 11, there are sacrifices that can never take away sins.
But you have here that priestly order that did the old sacrifice.
And he says, while Jesus became both a priest, there's an Aaronic priesthood and then there's Jesus who's a priest after a new order.
So it talks about two meteors.
The passage also talks about two postures.
Verse 11 says that the priests do what? What are they doing?
Verse 11, and every priest, what does it say?
Are you with me? What are they doing?
They're standing. Who agrees? Do you see it in the verse?
I'm not making this stuff up, people. Come on.
Verse 11, and every priest, what does he do? They stand.
There were no seats in the holy place where the priest mediated this old covenant.
There was one seat, the mercy seat, and the holy of holies on top of the Ark of the Covenant.
Only one priest could go there every year, and they definitely did not sit on that seat.
They sprinkled blood there once a year, and no one dared sit on it.
Always standing, never sitting. Why?
Because every time I make a new sacrifice, more sin kept happening
because the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin.
They were standing. What was Jesus doing? Verse 12,
but this man, after he had one, offered one sacrifice for sins forever, what did he do?
He sat down on the right hand of God.
But this man sat down.
You know why? He sat down because the work is done.
He sat down because it is finished.
It even says, and I love this in verse 13, it even says here that his enemies,
he's expecting his enemies to be made his foot stool.
You know what that means?
Does he look like he's got any more work to do?
He wins!
If your enemy is where you are propping your feet up, are you in control?
You better believe it.
You ever feel like we are not winning?
It's an illusion.
The war ain't over. Jesus is going to win.
He already has. It's just a matter of time.
It's a posture of completion and victory.
You have two mediators, you have two postures. How often do they have to do it?
Verse 11, the priest standing and ministering continually.
But this man, after he had made one sacrifice for sin. How many did he have to do?
Listen, when we take the communion, when we do the Lord's Supper, it's a memorial.
It's a remembering of what's already happened.
When we eat that bread, Jesus isn't dying again.
When we drink that wine, we drink that grape juice, that's not his blood.
It just helps us remember what he did. He doesn't have to die again.
Why are you saying that?
Because there's whole groups of people that say every time you do that,
it's Jesus being sacrificed again. That's blasphemy.
He doesn't have to do it again. He did it one time for all.
He didn't have to die every day. Are you kidding me?
Where's the yet?
It's over, folks. It's already been done.
He made one sacrifice. They made many, he made one.
Where was the location? The priests did that old covenant in an earthly tabernacle.
Where did Jesus mediate this new covenant?
This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever,
sat down where? At the right hand of God.
Why is there an earthly tabernacle? Because there is a heavenly tabernacle.
What's he doing? He's expecting his enemies to be made his footstool.
And the only location is at the right hand of God.
What was the effectiveness of that old one versus that new one?
The priest in the old covenant ministered in an earthly tabernacle.
What was the effectiveness of their sacrifices?
What does it say in the first verse?
Those offerings that were sacrificed continually for a year could never take away sins.
They could never make the comers their unto perfect.
But what does this say? In verse 14,
4 by one offering, Jesus is the priest and he's the sacrifice.
He's the priest and he's the sacrifice. Verse 14,
4 by one offering, he hath perfected forever
them that are sanctified. One time for everybody.
So what's the practical effect of this for us?
He gives us that in verse 15 to 18 real quick.
Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us.
For after that he said before, okay,
here's another prophecy.
The preacher who's talking to these Hebrews who understand the Old Testament,
they remembered the Psalm that spoke about a body that would be prepared and Jesus would die.
And with the sacrifice that brought God no pleasure and he would do the will of God.
That was the first prophecy. Here's another one.
Remember in Jeremiah, if you come to our Sunday school classes, we just learned this in Jeremiah.
He quotes Jeremiah, I believe it's chapter 38.
Oh, chapter 31, I wrote it down. Praise the Lord.
He quotes Jeremiah 31.
In verse 16 to 17, he says, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, sayeth the Lord.
There's a new covenant coming. The Old Covenant, hey, will you obey the law that I give?
They said we will, then they didn't.
That's what happened. They broke the covenant. God was still faithful to them.
He had to establish a second because the first one didn't do, the first one was only supposed to point to the second one.
Are you with me?
He says there's a new covenant coming in Jeremiah. Jeremiah speaks on behalf of God and says,
this is what the Lord says is going to happen with this new covenant.
I will put my laws into their hearts.
And in their minds will I write them and their sins and their iniquities will I remember.
Sometimes, what does it say? No more.
Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sins.
What is he saying?
God is going to fully and finally forget.
Remember our sins no more. We are forgiven once for all sacrifice believed in.
It's done. You don't have to keep sacrificing.
We don't have to keep doing it. What is he saying in Jeremiah? What is he talking about?
He won't have to tell. What does that mean?
In Jeremiah 31-34 it says, behold the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel,
with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers.
And the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they break,
although as a husband unto them, sayeth the Lord, this shall be the covenant that I will make.
And the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt,
they were at Mount Sinai and read the law to them and said, will you do that?
Will you keep that law? They said we will and they didn't.
Even though God was never stop being faithful to them.
Verse 33, but this shall be the covenant I will make in the house of Israel after those days,
sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and I will write it in their hearts
and I will let his neighbor and every man his brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me.
From the least of them to the greatest of them sayeth the Lord, I will forgive their iniquity
and I will remember their sin no more.
Let's wrap this up. Are you ready? We're going to land the plane.
Who wrote the law? Moses did through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
In the first covenant God wrote on tablets of stone.
In the first covenant he tells people to obey.
He had to tell them to teach the law diligently to their kids.
They had to get people to know the Lord and the people could not do it.
So day after day, year after year they had to sacrifice.
But the blood of bulls and goats cannot make the comers therein too perfect.
But what happens now? What happens in the new covenant?
What happens now because of Christ's sacrifice? Here's what happens.
When you put your faith and trust in Jesus for your sin,
God regenerates you. And it's in that order.
We believe and then he does it. Okay?
And when he does, what's amazing is this?
God sends the author of the covenant to live in your heart.
So to trust in the new covenant is to actually know God.
You have the Holy Spirit of God living inside of you.
If you're a believer, he's indwelling you.
You don't have the Holy Spirit indwelling you. If you don't, you're not saved.
Because of the once for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ and his high priestly mediation for us in heaven.
Now we have the Holy Spirit in this new covenant age
so that he can bring to mind what we ought to do.
Our sins are forgiven and there is no more reason to continue to do sacrifices.
They've already been paid for and now the Holy Spirit is inside of us and we can be perfected.
The work of salvation to save us can also lead to the work of the Holy Spirit to grow us.
And to use us to declare what he's done to people who don't know.
And then once they know, once they believe, guess what happens to them?
The Holy Spirit comes to live inside of them and to change them from the inside out.
We don't have to do sacrifices. You don't have to keep the ceremonial law.
That's why Jesus said to Peter, rise Peter, kill and eat.
He saw this vision of all this pork, bacon, cheeseburgers coming down from a blanket.
And in the vision he says, rise Peter, kill and eat. And Peter being a good Jew goes, never.
I'm a Jew, I don't eat bacon. Are you kidding me? God, I've never done that.
God says, don't call what I've called clean, unclean. Then he wakes up to...
Who's at the door? He goes downstairs.
He's from Gentile servants saying, hey, our boss, a Roman centurion.
Not a Jew. Who agrees not a Jew?
He wants to talk to you.
Peter goes over to the Roman centurion's place.
He gives him the gospel. The guy gets saved.
The Holy Spirit comes and lives and comes to him. He starts doing the same things.
All the Jews are working. The same evidences of the spirit that was happening with the Jews was now happening with the Gentiles.
Because it was never just about the Jews.
That's why Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It's the power of God unto salvation to all who believe, to the Jew first.
But also to the great, to the Gentile. Anybody Gentile in here?
When you ask Jews to raise their hands, they don't like to do that.
It's for us, folks. That sacrifice doesn't have to keep happening and all over and over again.
That's why in the book of Acts, they're like, hey, what do we tell these Gentiles who are coming to Christ to do?
It was like the perfect time to say, hey, have them keep doing all the ceremonial law.
Right? And what do they say? Tell them not to do that.
Do what keeps unity. Tell them not to eat things strangled so that way that they're not making all that Jews mad.
And tell them to flee fornication other than that.
The Holy Spirit is inside of them. He'll figure everything else out. Are you with me?
When he says, I'll do your will, he basically ends the first thing that he can establish the second.
We can have our sins forgiven, not because we brought a sheep with us to church.
Not because of some shadow or picture in the past. We don't have pictures anymore.
We've got the real thing. We have Jesus. And Jesus is greater.
Would you bow your head and close your eyes?