Turn to Hebrews chapter nine
if you want to, please, but I'm going to give you some, we're
gonna go, I normally do this in my own study. It's necessary
for me, for me to really enter into the enjoyment of the truth
of any particular passage, I always have to start before that text
of scripture and read all around it, so I'm going to give you
that recap, that summary. So turn to Hebrews chapter nine,
hold your place there, and we will refer to some things in
the previous sections of Hebrews. Today we're going to be talking
about the shadows, but really we're going to be talking about
the substance. So I want to give you that as a outline of what
we're going to be doing here in Hebrews chapter nine, and
let's pray that the Lord blesses that to us and for his glory. Father, we thank you that this
is your word, and it's about your son, and it's about how
you and your goodness and greatness have determined and brought about
this salvation, provided it, provided your son to be our savior
and accepted him for us. and accepted Him and us together
so that we are what we are in Him. And thank you for this salvation. We pray, Lord, you'd be with
all those we have mentioned in prayer this morning, that you
would be with them. the sick and the fearful and
the anxious and thank you for keeping those safe who were in
the accident and thank you for bringing us together and we pray
all of our lives each one of us would be a testimony of your
saving grace you would make us vessels of honor, you would deposit
in our hearts your word, the glorious gospel, and you would
cause us to live upon your grace and bring glory to your name,
and you would save our children and save our loved ones, in Jesus'
name we pray, amen. Now, in the seventh chapter of
Hebrews, just to give you a recap, In the seventh chapter it says
that the Lord Jesus Christ is the surety of the new covenant. And that's in verse 22, by so
much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. It also
says in chapter seven that he has an unchanging priesthood.
His priesthood doesn't fail, it doesn't end, doesn't go on
from one to the other because his life never ends. And God
swore that he would be a priest forever. And then also in verse
25, it says that he makes intercession for us. And in that same verse
it says he is able, he has the power, and he's willing to save
us to the uttermost, all who come to God by him. And then
also it says there that he has become higher than the heavens,
because in verse 26, because he has ascended into the heavens,
that's where he ministers. and he has been perfected forever
and sits on heaven's throne, and all of his will shall be
done. And we, according to other places in scripture, are his
sheep, his people, his workmanship, his bride, his church. All these
things are said and given to us in a condensed way here, but
they were expounded in chapter seven in what begins the book
of Hebrews, even from the beginning. It's all about the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's important that we see that when God wants to teach
us about himself, he talks about his son. When God wants to show
us his greatness, he talks about his son. When God wants to show
us our sin and our salvation, he talks about his son. Everything
is always about the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why in the very
beginning of the book of Hebrews, he says what he does there about
how he is the brightness of God's glory. The brightness, the brightest
of God, the rays of the sun are its brightness. To see the Father,
we have to look at the sun, but in looking at the sun, we're
seeing the very brightness of God. and he's the express image
of his person. There's nothing that God is that
Christ is not. And we don't see anything about,
we know nothing about God the Father that isn't seen in his
son. So it's all there in Christ.
Again, all that God has to say is concerning his son. and him
crucified. That's what the book of Hebrews
is about. And he takes the Old Testament, point by point, and
he unpacks it, and he shows us how that is fulfilled in Christ. It was always about him. It was
always about him. It always will be about him. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
fulfills this new priesthood. But it's not really new. It's
an eternal priesthood. Since the beginning of time,
before time, Christ has been the lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. He was ordained, his precious
blood was ordained that we might, that he might shed his blood
and redeem us. All these things are true. Therefore,
he had to be a high priest then. He had already vowed to his father
to perform the work. He had already pledged himself
to be our surety. And the father set him up this
way. We see this arrangement made between God the Father and
God the Son in such a way that it's eternal. It was established
before time. And this is the priesthood. The
Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God. God set up his Son as
our High Priest. Think of that as our high priest,
the one who stands before God for us. He's the surety. That means that he guarantees
to God and to us that all God has promised, all God purposed,
all that's required to save us from our sins and to save us
from our enemies to the uttermost will all be done by Christ. That's
what it means. He's the surety, the guarantor. the mediator and the testator
of this covenant. So he fulfills the priesthood,
and his priesthood, therefore, in chapter seven, it shows that
with the priesthood comes the law. The law was given under
the priesthood, therefore, because Christ is now our high priest,
and that's revealed in the gospel. It's always been the case, but
it was hidden during the time of the law. They had these men
who were doing that, just men. It was a shadow then, pointing
to the true, but the true wasn't revealed until the gospel was
made known. until the gospel made Christ known. Now that that's
come, therefore we need a new law. Because the priesthood and
the law and the covenant are all joined together. The sacrifice,
the priesthood, the law, the covenant, all one. There's an
old and there's a new. Because Christ is our priest,
we have to have a new covenant. That's what chapter 7 is saying.
The priesthood of Christ and the new covenant cannot cannot
coexist with the old covenant and the old priesthood. It's
either one or the other. We either have a priest on earth
or we have a priest in heaven. We either have a sacrifice that
accomplishes nothing or we have Christ our sacrifice to accomplish
everything. We either have blessings which
we never realized and they're only earthly or we have all heavenly
and spiritual blessings in Christ which are most certainly ours
and cannot fail. The old could not please God.
The old made nothing perfect. The new has come. And by the
new covenant, God is both pleased and we are perfected. In the
Lord Jesus Christ, our High Priest. The old was only external, and
it was weak to our sinfulness. It had to do entirely with earthly
and temporal and physical things, and it made nothing perfect,
and it was therefore ineffectual. It did not accomplish what was
required for a high priest to accomplish. That's amazing, isn't
it? What does a high priest do? He
offers to God for the sins of his people. But if the priest
can't obtain by that offering that he offers forgiveness, if
he can't make them perfect, then he hasn't accomplished anything.
His job has failed because he was a man. Christ is the one
who accomplishes that work. He's our high priest. And think
about how this is, in the new covenant, God has made his son
our high priest. He knows our condition. Without
a high priest, we're forever lost. We're ruined. We have to
be judged and condemned. But in our high priest, God has
accepted us. He's accepted his sacrifice for
us himself. And in that sacrifice, he's accepted
us. He's accepted us in our high priest, the one who represents
us to God. What amazing grace this is that God would appoint
for us a high priest, one who represents and stands before
God for us, in our place, instead of us, and yet we're there in
all that he does. It's received from him as from
us, and God blesses him and blesses us in him. amazing, amazing grace
that God would do this. Nothing outside of God moved
him to do this. We didn't influence him, we didn't
coerce him, we didn't talk him down, we didn't make God do this. God, I wouldn't say dreamed it
up, that's a little too crass, but God It was in his heart and
purpose and will, out of his character, this sprang before
the worlds began. It was his purpose. So that our
life is inside this purpose of God, which is much, much greater
than we could ever imagine. And therefore, because it's God's
purpose and work, it will be fulfilled. And Christ is the
one set up by God to make sure it happens. He's the surety.
And so Hebrews was written in the twilight of the Old Covenant.
You know what it's like in the evening when the sun sets and
then it gets a little darker and you go outside and you're
beginning to see the stars and the moon? The Old Covenant was
like the setting of the sun. The shadows begin to get even
dimmer. And then the rising of the sun
at morning appears. Everything is bright. The reality
shines. That's what the old covenant
transition to the new was like at the time this was written.
It was the setting of the old covenant and the arising of the
new in the gospel. Christ had come. He had done
the work, finished it. Now he had taken his place on
the throne of glory. Our high priest doesn't have
to go through an intermediary. He is there on the throne of
God. He has the ear of God. He is
God in one. One God and one man, our mediator. So we will be heard. There's
no possibility. All that's in his heart will
be done. I know that you may not have read the book of Esther
recently. But in the book of Esther, if
you remember, there's a king who has a wife who is sinful
and he gets rid of her and he chooses Esther to be his princess,
his bride, his queen. And she has an uncle, Mordecai.
And there's this plot in the book of Esther where a wicked
man named Haman and all of his family and his people plot against
to destroy all the Jews They wanted to destroy all the Jews
because Haman hated Mordecai. But God blessed Mordecai. Mordecai
represents the Lord Jesus Christ and Esther, the church of God.
They're like one in the book of Esther. And at the climax
of the book, Haman is killed on the very means by which he
wanted to kill Mordecai. Just like the Lord Jesus Christ,
when he died on the cross, which was designed by his enemies to
destroy him, it was actually their destruction. And then after
this, the king tells Mordecai and Esther to do something amazing. And I wanna read this to you
because it's so delightful to hear in the book of Esther how
God has shown us the Lord Jesus Christ and his church and how
he's going to richly bless him with all things. In Esther chapter
eight, Listen to the way that this is written here. Again,
see in this the success of our high priest. He sits on the throne. Everything is put into his hands.
Everything he desires is given to him. In fact, everything is
given to him. God's will, God's people, God's
glory, God's throne is in his hand to do as it pleases the
Lord Jesus Christ. Our intercessor is the one who's
been given all these things. He cannot fail. He has all power.
It was in his heart to do this, and he has accomplished it. Listen
to the way God says this in Esther chapter 8. On that day did the
king Ahasuerus give the house of Haman, the Jew's enemy, unto
Esther the queen. He gave everything that had been
the belongings of Haman, he gave it to Esther, the queen. And
Mordecai came before the king, for Esther had told what he was
to her. And the king, listen, he took
off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and he gave it to
Mordecai. And Esther sent Mordecai over
the house of Haman. And Esther spake yet again before
the king, and fell down at his feet, and besought him with tears
to put away the mischief of Haman the Agagite, and his devices
that he had devised against the Jews. Then the king held out
the golden scepter toward Esther. So Esther arose and stood before
the king, and said, If it please the king, and if I have found
favor or grace in his sight, and the thing seem right before
the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to
reverse the letters devised by Haman, the son of Hamadetha,
the Agagite, which he wrote to destroy the Jews which are in
all the king's provinces, for how can I, this is Esther speaking,
how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people,
or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred? Then
the king Ahasuerus said to Esther the queen and to Mordecai the
Jew, listen to what he says, Behold, I have given Esther the
house of Haman, and him they have hanged upon the gallows,
because he laid his hand upon the Jews. You see this? Satan
tried to destroy Christ's sheep. God reversed that evil for our
good. He gave to the church all of
that. Verse 8, Therefore write write
ye also for the Jews, as it liketh you, in the king's name, and
seal it with the king's ring. For the writing which is written
in the king's name and sealed with the king's ring may no man
reverse. Amazing. So you can read, you
can see in this how God has given all things to his son and with
him all of his people and he tells the Lord Jesus Christ,
whatever pleases you, make it so. Make it so. Is it in your heart to have your
people? Is it in your heart to hold them up and to prevent them
from falling? Is it in your heart to present
them faultless before the throne of my glory with exceeding joy? Make it so. I have bestowed all
authority, all power upon the man who is the son of God, the
one who has been exalted to heaven's throne because he accomplished
the will of God, our high priest. He intercedes for us. He can't
fail. And so he did the service of
God. He made propitiation for our sins. He himself is that.
He cleansed us from our sins in the sight of God. He obtained
our eternal redemption. He made full remission of our
sins. He makes us holy and perfected
us forever with the offering of himself to God. Amazing. He made atonement for our sins.
He established our everlasting righteousness. He subdued our
sins. He cast them into the depths
of the sea. That's what Christ did for us.
It's true. It's done. That's why he's seated. And his will is done. His word is accomplished. Nothing
can fail of all that is in his heart. It shall not fail. And
so we see how highly God has exalted him according to his
eternal purpose and promises in that new covenant. This was
arranged. It was arranged before. It was
set down in the legal and the binding books of God called the
covenant. It's in his heart. It doesn't
have to be written on stone. It's in the heart of God. What
can change that? It's a covenant in Christ's blood.
And so the Lord Jesus Christ has taken his hand there, taken
his place there on the right hand of God, and he's done it
all for the glory of God, for the salvation of his people.
Now, these things are told to us not merely to fill our heads
with facts, but to fill our hearts so that when our hearts are full
of these truths with God-given faith, we love these things. We love the God who saved us.
We love the Lord Jesus Christ who shed his blood for us and
gives himself, and we worship God because of these things,
you see. So it's meant to Give to us the
blessings of this covenant. And that's what the last part
of Hebrews chapter eight is talking about. Not on stone, but in our
very heart, God has written these things. He's put them down there
so that that faith we have in Christ is emblazoned on our heart. The spirit of God himself is
in us. Christ has risen and lives in
us by his spirit. How can he fail? This is the
blessings of the covenant. God will not remember our sins
anymore because they've all been remitted. And He teaches this
to us. He teaches us that our acceptance
before God is entirely based on the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore,
we're to come to Him at all times with full assurance, not doubting,
not looking for more evidence, but looking to Christ, whom God
has received and blessed and given all things. because all
of our salvation is in our high priest and in his accepted sacrifice
of himself. And so in this new covenant we
have a better hope. All the things God has promised
to Christ are eternal. Everything God has promised to
his son is given to us with him. And all that we are before God
is what he is before God. We're right there in Christ. We are now in the presence of
God. And we know it by faith. Faith,
this God-given persuasion, this conviction, this confidence we
have in Christ, this is what God has given to us. It sees
it, it understands, and lays hold on it. We cling to Him.
And this is God-given grace, whereby we come to God at all
times in our heart, with our mouth, and in our thoughts. We
live this life coming to God by the blood of Jesus. So not
only is he there actually, but we enter in now by faith through
the blood of Jesus. It's commanded to us to do this.
In chapter 10, in verse 19, it says it this way. Having therefore,
brethren, boldness, no concealing, no reluctance, based on God's
word, confident that he has given us warrant, that Christ has made
entrance for us, that Christ is our access, that his blood
has washed us and perfected us forever, made us holy. Not our
own keeping of the commandments, but what Christ has done, and
all grace that we need to come, even that comes. from the Lord
Jesus Christ on his throne. He dispenses to us his grace
that we might enter into the holiest of all by the blood of
Jesus. So he says, having therefore,
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. The high priest could go there
once a year in the tabernacle on earth, but we now enter at
all times, not just occasionally, all the time. Sleeping, waking,
we wake up, we think of the Lord, we say, Lord, receive me for
Christ's sake, hear the needs of my heart, and we express to
Him the things that trouble us. We express to Him the desires
of our heart. One thing have I desired of the Lord, and that
will I seek after, that I might dwell in the house of the Lord
forever, and behold the beauty of the Lord. I want to know Him. I want to be made like Him. I
want to live upon Him, and I want to live for Him. This is the
constant attitude and direction of our lives. And so all these
things are tied up in this new covenant. In Hebrews chapter
13, listen to the way it's written there. Hebrews 13, verse 20. Now, the God of peace, the one
who established peace when we had made ourselves hostile in
the objects of his wrath, the God of peace who made peace in
the blood of his son, the God of peace that brought again from
the dead our Lord Jesus, this is God our Father, the Lord Jesus,
that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting
covenant, Okay? Okay? Listen to what He says
is going to happen because of the covenant. Make you perfect
in every good work to do His will, working in you that which
is well-pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom
be glory forever and ever. Amen. May God say so too. This
is the truth. That's what amen means. Truth.
May God say so. He's saying, this is the way
things are. Christ has shed His blood. God
has made way for us. He has fulfilled the covenant,
and now that covenant and His fulfillment will make us perfect
in every good work. God will work in us what is well-pleasing
in His sight, and it'll all be done because of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the new covenant. Isn't
it wonderful to know that not only our salvation, but our sanctification,
our preservation, and our glorification are all because of and by the
Lord Jesus Christ on the throne, full access to God, and here
we are with him there. Access by his blood. Certainty. It's all going to happen because
the Lord Jesus Christ can't fail. And I love this. God has made Christ our surety
with an oath, with an oath. He swore by himself, God the
Father. He did it for two reasons. Number
one, for our full assurance. We doubt when people speak to
us what they're going to do. God knows the weakness of our
flesh. He gives us an assurance that cannot be shaken. I swear
by myself I've spoken it, I can't lie, can't fail, no one's gonna
keep me from it, but now adding a capstone to that, I have sworn
by an oath this will be, and it's done for our assurance.
But also because by his oath it joins together his covenant. purposes, his covenant arrangements,
and he says, by an oath, by swearing, he said to his son, his beloved
son, thou art a priest forever. So it was by an oath in that
everlasting covenant that God made his son our high priest
forever. So we have these two things by
the oath of God, full assurance. God cannot fail, He can't lie,
He can't change, and Christ established as a surety so that it has to
be done because Christ can't fail. He's not going to fail
to do all that His Father gave Him to do. Not while He was on
earth, He finished it all, and certainly not in heaven when
He has all power and authority on the throne of God. It says
this, I love this verse in Job 23, speaking of God, our Father
and Christ, our Savior. He is in one mind, and who can
turn him what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. That's in
Job 23, verse 13. He is in one mind. He doesn't go forward and backward
and sideways. His will is always done. He works
all things according to the counsel of his own will. He is in one
mind. God the Father and God the Son have the same will, same
purpose, the same heart's desire, the same people, the same work. It's all one. One mind. And who can turn him? No one
can keep him from doing what he wants to do. No one can impede
him, slow him down. No one can accelerate him. He'll
do it in his time. The Lord our God is in one mind,
who can turn him, and what his soul desires, that's what he
does. Amazing, amazing, our God is
so great. Where the word of the king is,
there is power, and who can say to him, what doest thou? No one. All the inhabitants of the earth
are reputed as nothing, and he doeth according to his will in
the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth,
and none can stay his hand or say to him, what doest thou?
That's amazing grace, isn't it? All because of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, look at Hebrews chapter nine. I wanna go over
a few verses with you here in Hebrews chapter nine. He says here that because Christ
is a high priest, he has to have something to offer, and he has
to do it in the sanctuary. Now, here's the question, and
I answered this, I attempted to answer this last time we talked
about this in Hebrews 8. What is the sanctuary? What is
this tabernacle? Well, it's not a place on earth,
that's for certain. It's what the Lord has pitched.
In other words, the Lord put it together. The Lord established
it. And we also know that Christ
appears, according to Hebrews 9.24, now in the presence of
God for us. So whatever the sanctuary is,
it has to do with being in the presence of God. And then I pointed
out last week in Jeremiah, or the week before, Jeremiah 17,
12, that a glorious high throne from the beginning is the place
of our sanctuary. So the sanctuary, therefore,
is the very throne in the presence of God in all of his glory. That's the sanctuary. And we
have this place God has allocated, if you want to use that kind
of a word, a place in himself for his people. That's our sanctuary,
the glorious high throne, the place where God himself is, his
purpose and his will, his work, the revelation of his glory,
and the execution of all of his desire. It's all right there.
That's our sanctuary. Christ is there, appearing there
for us. But not only is Christ there,
but as I said a minute ago in Hebrews 10, 19, we are to enter
into the holiest, by the blood of Jesus. So we now enter by
faith. Christ is there. We're there by faith. We don't
know that this is so. We can't enter in any other way
but this God-given faith. What a powerful, powerful thing
this grace of faith is, that we see what is true because God
said it. We rely on it. We say, Lord,
do according to your word. Do what you've said. and we come
to God on the warrant of His word, through the blood of Jesus,
and in this coming to God by faith, we now are entering into
the very presence of God. Okay? See that that's the picture. Christ is there for us. That's
why we're there. But we have access because of
Christ. We have access through a high
priest. Not a distant, but a present communion with God in our souls. Christ in you, the hope of glory.
We have him now in us and it's the expectation of all that he
said for us. Okay? So in the Old Testament,
there was this tabernacle, this tent, two chambers. The first
was called the sanctuary. The second was called the holiest
of all. We enter into that place in reality where God is on his
throne, where Christ serves as our high priest according to
God's will for us forever. And so we therefore have access
in our high priest. But notice in chapter nine, he
says, then verily, First verse of chapter nine, then verily
the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service and a worldly
sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle made,
the first, the first part of that tabernacle, wherein was
three things, the candlestick, the table, and the showbread,
which is called the sanctuary. So the high priest would come
in to that first part, and there was three things he's pointing
out here, a table, a candlestick, and this bread called the showbread.
All right, these three things have a correspondence in the
New Covenant. These things were just a shadow.
There's a reality that these things pointed to. The shadow
outlines it, teaches us it, but the shadow is not the substance.
What's true is what's real in heaven, what Christ has done.
So we want to understand, what are these things in the New Covenant?
Let's go on. Verse three, and after the second
veil, in other words, you enter the first chamber called the
sanctuary, and then there's the holiest of all separated from
that by this veil. He says, after the second veil,
the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all, the holiest
of all, the high priest could only enter into once a year,
and he had to go through this thick veil. Later in Hebrews,
in this same chapter, he says that veil was Christ's flesh.
We know his flesh was, he bore our sins in his own body on the
tree, and he was crucified, dead, buried, and rose again, so the
veil has been opened to us. Now we enter by his shed blood. Okay? Verse four. The holiest of all, this place,
his inner chamber, where there were some things, and the first
thing he mentions was the golden censer. And the second thing
was the Ark of the Covenant. But inside the Ark is going to
be some other things. So he says, verse 4, which had
the golden censer, the holiest of all had the golden censer,
and the Ark of the Covenant, overlaid round about with gold,
wherein, wherein the Ark, was the golden pot that had manna,
Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant, and
over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercy seat of which
we cannot now speak particularly." All right, so those five verses
describe a very thumbnail sketch of the Old Testament and the
tabernacle, the sanctuary, and the holiest of all. What was
in the sanctuary was, if you remember, there was the candlestick,
the table, and the showbread. And then there was the veil,
the high priest would go through the veil, he had to take in a
golden censer, and that censer had fire on it, and he would
put the incense on that fire inside that censer, and the whole
inside of the holiest of all was filled with the smoke of
the incense. And then he would sprinkle the
blood, once a year he would sprinkle the blood of that goat that was
to be sprinkled on the mercy seat. And then after he had offered
for the sins of Israel and his own sins also, and he went out
and he confessed the sins of Israel on the scapegoat and sent
that scapegoat out. So think about these things now,
these first three things in the sanctuary. What were they? The
candlestick. What is the candlestick? What
is a candlestick? Well, a candlestick gives light,
but there was this very specific design God had for the candlestick
in the Old Testament. It had these different branches
and the candlestick had the lights burning because there was oil
put into the candlestick. I'm going to read this to you
from the book of Zechariah. He describes this in Zechariah
and it's It's a little bit obscure, but still it helps us lay the
foundation for what the candlestick is. Zechariah chapter 4, the
angel that talked with me came again and waked me as a man that
is wakened out of his sleep and said to me, what seest thou?
And I said, I have looked and behold, a candlestick, all of
gold. So the candlestick was made,
so there was pure gold. with a bowl upon the top of it,
and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven
lamps which are upon the top thereof. So that's the way the
candlestick looked in the sanctuary. Seven lights, or seven places
where the flame was burning, and each of these had a tube
the oil would go through so that this pure gold candlestick would
be lit up, these seven different flames, by the oil that flowed
to them, and the light was always to be burning, okay? He's referring
to that here in Zechariah. They were very familiar with
it, but it had a different meaning. It had a more important meaning,
a meaning that was outside of the physical, that spoke of eternal
truth, things much greater than that physical candlestick. Verse
three. And two olive trees by it, one
upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side.
So now, we know that the candlestick needed oil to burn, but here
we have two trees? olive trees constantly feeding
the oil needed to keep the lights burning. And so he says in verse
four, so I answered and spake to the angel that talked with
me, saying, what are these, my lord? Whenever you see something
in scripture you don't understand, what do you do? Do you ask, what
are these, my lord? You have warrant here to do that.
It's wonderful to know that you can go to the Lord at all times
and ask him to explain himself. Verse five. Then the angel that
talked with me answered and said to me, knowest thou not what
these be? And I said, no, my Lord, perfectly
honest. Well, now I'm gonna tell you,
for our sake. Verse six, then he answered and
spake to me, saying, this is the word of the Lord undesirable,
saying, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith
the Lord of hosts. So the candlestick, the two olive
trees and the candlestick represent something. Whatever that representation
is, we know this, that it's lit up. that it functions, it does
its service through the spirit of God. All right? It's by my
spirit. Look at Revelation chapter one.
He says this about the candlestick. John said in Revelation chapter
one, Verse 10, I was in the Spirit
of the Lord's day, Revelation 1.10, and I heard behind me a
great voice as a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first
and the last, and what thou seest, write in a book and send it to
the seven churches which are in Asia, to Ephesus, to Smyrna,
Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and into Laodicea. And I turned to see the voice
that spake with me, and being turned, I saw what? Seven golden
candlesticks and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one
like the son of man Clothed with a garment down to the foot and
gird about the paps with a golden girdle his head and his hairs
are White like wool as white as snow and his eyes were as
a flame of fire and his feet like unto fine brass Okay, so
you see the picture? What is he describing here Christ
in the midst of the candlestick and then he goes on? And he says
this in verse 16, And he had in his right hand seven stars,
and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance
was as the sun shineth in his strength. He describes the Lord
Jesus, the Son of Man, in heaven. And what do we see him? He has
in his hand seven stars, out of his mouth a sharp two-edged
sword, and his countenance was like the sun when it shines in
his strength. And when I saw him, I felt that
his feet is dead, and he laid his right hand upon me, saying
to me, fear not, I am the first and the last, I am he that liveth
and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, amen, and
I have the keys of hell and death. write the things which thou hast
seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be
hereafter." Verse 20, the mystery of the seven stars which thou
sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks.
So there's a mystery, there's a meaning. He's gonna reveal
it. He says, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches,
and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches. Put it all together. What is
it saying here? Christ is the light of the world, isn't he?
How is that light given to us? In the gospel. What does it say? Christ and him crucified. How
do we know it? Through the Spirit of God. We
who receive it are the church. We who believe Christ have been
given that oil. both to know and to shine forth
the truth of the gospel. Christ is in the midst of the
candlestick. He dwells with his people, in
them, and he is with them. Remember, he says, I will not
leave you comfortless, I will come to you. Christ in you, the
hope of glory. The life that I now live in the
flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. He was crucified
with Christ, yet He lives, and He lives by the life of Christ
in Him. All these things are speaking of Christ in us. And
the Gospel teaches us what He's done. It's what we hold forth,
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. The light is Christ. The light
shines forth through the Spirit of God, teaching us, the believer,
about Him, and we then believe in Him and shining forth that
word. He says it like this in Philippians
chapter 2. He says, do all things without murmurings
and disputings that you may be blameless and harmless the sons
of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse
nation among whom you shine as lights in the world holding forth
the word of life that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I
have not run in vain, neither labored in vain." We hold forth
what? The Gospel. The Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the light. Because it points to Him and
He is Himself the light. And it comes to us and is shining
forth through us, pointing to Christ. We receive Christ in
that light and we ourselves shine it forth by the Spirit of God.
Now, He Himself said, the candlestick is the church. The stars are
the angels or the messengers. Those are the ones God has given
to the church to preach Christ. And so we see that the two things
together are speaking of the ministry of Christ as our High
Priest in fulfillment of the Old Testament candlestick. You
see? So the candlestick points to
Christ, the Spirit of God, revealing Him to us. He's the light. And
we ourselves then become lights in this world by trusting Him.
Okay, that's the first one. And then back in Hebrews 9, it
says, there was not only a candlestick there, but there was a table
and showbread. So the table was spread. The
table was made of acacia wood, but it was covered with gold.
And on the table was bread called showbread. And it was set like
a meal, like a table for a meal. But where was it? It was in the
sanctuary. What is the sanctuary? It's in
the presence of God. What is that bread? It's the
Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I am the bread of life. Remember
John 6.35? And he goes on in John 6 to show
that we live upon Christ and Him crucified. We eat His flesh
and drink His blood by faith and therefore we live. Our souls
live and we worship God in taking of Christ to ourselves, of the
benefits of his life and his death and his resurrection and
his ascension and enthronement and glory. And how do we do this? In the presence of God. God has
provided his son. I am the bread, my father giveth
you the true bread. Remember John 6? And so in the
very presence of God, God receives his people and gives them to
feed on Christ by faith. It's God's will. It pleases him
to do this. It's his blessing to us. And
this is the way we know God, in the sanctuary. Again, Christ
fulfills both. He's the light in the candlestick.
The Spirit of God, or the Spirit of Christ, makes Christ known.
We partake of Him by faith. We show forth that light in believing
Him, in declaring Him, confessing Him. But also, we live upon Christ,
and it's all according to the will and in the presence of God.
And then he also goes on in verse three, and after the second veil,
the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all, which had
those two things, the golden censer and the Ark of the Covenant.
The golden censer and the incense placed on those coals in that
censer filled the holiest of all with smoke. And we know from
Revelation that the incense is the prayers, the prayers of the
saints, but in this case, it's the interceding work of Christ
for us. He searches the hearts, he knows
the mind of the spirit, and what does he do? He makes intercession
for the saints according to the will of God. What was the will
of God? that we come to Him, that we believe on Him. John
6, verse 40, this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone
that seeth the Son and believes on Him shall have everlasting
life, and I will raise him up at the last day. That's God's
will to give us eternal life, to bring the benefits of the
covenant, the new covenant to us through Christ's blood. So
Christ fills the holiest of all. He enters the holy place in the
presence of God with his intercession and with his blood. And the place
is filled with that intercession. And God receives us because of
his prayers, because of his offering. But, notice also, there was an
ark there, the ark of the covenant. The ark of the covenant contained
the testimony of the covenant. So all of it had to do with the
covenant, right? The ark of the covenant in the Old Testament
was a box, and the box had a lid called the mercy seat, a lid
made of pure gold, and that gold lid as part of it had these cherubims
looking down on that mercy seat where the high priest would sprinkle
the blood. But in the New Testament, what is it that makes the New
Covenant? It's the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And what makes the gift? Remember Jesus said it's the
gift, it's the altar that sanctifies the gift. What is it that made
the blood of Christ acceptable to God? But his divine nature. So when the Lord Jesus Christ
entered into heaven with his own blood, he was accepted. He's
the son of God, but also because as man he was holy, harmless,
undefiled, and therefore his sacrifice of himself was perfect
and could be offered for sinners. And God accepts that. So the
altar, the Ark of the Covenant represents Christ himself. Now
what was inside of that Ark? He names those things here. He
says, that covenant was overlaid with gold, and wherein was the
golden pot that had manna, and the Aaron's rod that budded,
and the tables of the covenant. There was in the Old Testament
in the wilderness, God said to Moses, take some of the manna
and put it in a pot and put that pot in the ark to be a remembrance. But this is again the Lord Jesus
Christ. In the Lord Jesus Christ, God
has deposited the manna. He is himself the bread of life. He's the one who fulfilled it.
He's our food, our life. And then also there was the Aaron's
rod that budded. Remember, they disputed as to
whether God had chosen Aaron to be the priest, the high priest.
And so Moses said, every tribe, put down your staff, your rod
here. The one that buds, that's the
one God has chosen to be the high priest. Aaron's rod budded
and it blossomed and brought forth almonds. And so God said,
now you take that rod and you put it in the ark. There it is
in the ark. What does it say? Christ is the
one, the high priest God has chosen. He's the high priest
of this new covenant. And he has blossomed and budded
because he brings forth fruit. His priesthood accomplishes what
God gave him to do. And so he's there. That rod is
there. And so he fulfilled that in the reality of it. And then
there was the two tables, the Ten Commandments written on stone.
What did those two tables say about the children of Israel
and the Old Covenant? Guilty. Condemned. Bring the
curse, and that's why the lid and the mercy seat was sprinkled
with the blood, so that the cherubim, the glory of God looking down
on the blood, would see the blood and God would accept the people. He would be atoned by that blood.
He would be pacified, propitiated by that blood. The lid, the mercy
seat is the propitiation. Christ is our propitiation. Remember
1 John 2, verse 2? He himself is the propitiation
for our sins. So the Lord Jesus Christ is the
propitiation, but the two tables in that ark are in the heart
of the Lord Jesus Christ. I come to do thy will of God,
yea, thy law is within my heart. Remember? So the ark is Christ,
in his heart is the law of God, and what did he do? He's the
end of the law for righteousness. So that our high priest is everything
for us in the presence of God. He's the light, the Spirit of
God flows to us, revealing Christ and him crucified. We see the
glory of God in Him. We partake of Him by faith. We
live upon Him in the presence of God. It's God-provided, God-accepted,
God-blessed. It glorifies God. And then we
see in Christ that He is the chosen High Priest, the One who
fulfilled the law, our righteousness. The law of God does many things. It condemns us, it proves us
guilty, it exposes our sinful corruption. But you know what
else it does? It points to the Lord Jesus Christ who fulfilled
it in total. And that's what we see here in
this new covenant. It's done. Christ said it is
finished. When he offered himself to God
in obedience, his blood not only made satisfaction, but fulfilled
the law of God. He is the end of the law for
righteousness to everyone that believe it. Now all these things
were but shadows in the old, but see how glorious they are
in their reality in the new. Can you see how these two things
cannot coexist? You either have the old or the
new. You can't have both. The old is abolished, as it says
in 2 Corinthians 3. The new has come. The old was
external. The new is internal. God has
written it on our hearts. It speaks of Christ and Him crucified,
our access to God, our acceptance in Him, the grace that flows
to us by His Spirit, not only to believe on Him, but to live
and to declare the truth of Christ as lights in this world. Amazing
grace, isn't it? That God would do all this for
us by our high priest. And he's exalted to the highest
possible place. He sits on his father's right
hand. All things are given to him.
Everything's under his control to do as pleases him. And He
will do it. He will fulfill it. All that
He does is for us. Even the circumstances of our
life are working together for our good. Even the evil in this
world is being turned to our good and to God's glory. It will
all work out for our salvation because it was all established
for Christ's sake from the beginning. Do you stand in awe of this?
Do you come to God by him? Do we thank him? Do we worship
him that he would do all this for us? That God would set up
his son as our high priest forever? That he would serve in the sanctuary
for us in the presence of God, both to God and to us as our
mediator? amazing grace. How could we live
this world knowing these things, being convinced of these things,
and live as if what we see and do is all of it? No. Everything
we see and do is for His glory, for Christ's glory. We want His
name to be proclaimed, His grace to be made known. We want to
live upon Him at all times, come into God's presence, worshiping
Him for Christ's sake, and then going to His people as we meet
together here and speaking to one another of His glorious things.
So that together as a body of Christ, the body of Christ, we
are ministering to the body what each joint supplies. And in doing
that, Christ is glorified, his people are saved, they are built
up, God is glorified in his Son. And everything that Mordecai
and Nestor wrote down there, it had to be done. Everything
that was Haman's has been emptied out and given to the queen. Amazing. All things are yours
for Christ's sake. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that
as you have given this old covenant in the Old Testament in such
great detail and physical and earthly and temporal things,
that you would bless us from your word to see that it's all
fulfilled in our heavenly High Priest. The One who came to this
world, laid aside His glory, emptied Himself, and suffered
by humility and in humiliation for us, to bring us to God, to
clothe us in His righteousness, to wash us from our sins in His
own blood, and to do all for the glory of God according to
the eternal will and by the approval of God himself. Amazing grace. Lord, we pray that you would
give us this grace to live upon him, that we would see this light
and take of Christ, and we would shine forth what is true in our
hearts, in our prayers, in all that we say and do. and that
we would look for and expect Him, our Lord Jesus, to come
again and to bring us to Himself in the reality of these things,
not only by faith now, but in presence, because the Lord Jesus
Christ in us who gives us these things by faith now is our hope
of glory. In His name we pray, amen.