This morning I want to kind of
do a little exercise in scriptural interpretation by showing you
two verses in Hebrews chapter 9 to begin with. The title of
this lesson or message would be, How Much More? How Much More? If you look at verse 13 of Hebrews
chapter 9, Says, for if the blood of bulls and of goats, now you
know that's the sacrifices of the old covenant. The ashes of
an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, that's the red heifer that you
can read about in Numbers 19. The blood of bulls and goats,
that was the animal sacrifices, the blood of atonement, for example. The blood that was sprinkled
on the mercy seat by the high priest in the tabernacle and
in the temple of the Old Covenant. The red heifer was another sacrifice
where the ashes of that heifer was mixed with water and sprinkled
on the people. It was a purification. further
purification especially uh... if you read in numbers nineteen
if if somebody touched a dead body that was that was what they
use but what he's talking about is these things represent the
entire sacrificial system of the whole old covenant the whole
law of moses and he says for if these sacrifices uh... sprinkling the unclean sanctifyeth
Verse 13. Now the word sanctify means to
set apart. A lot of people, when they hear
that word sanctify, they think of holiness, and that's okay
because holiness, to be holy means to be set apart. Most people
equate holiness with moral purity. But that's not always the case.
Now certainly if someone would be morally pure, if you found
any human being who's morally pure, which we won't find any
human being who is, And I'm not saying we won't find any human
beings who are moral, we do, but morally pure, sinless. If you found a human being like
that, that human being would certainly be set apart from the
rest of us, wouldn't it? And that's holiness in that sense.
Sanctified, to set apart. God is holy. God is unique. There's nothing, no one like
God. So we sanctify God, we set him
apart, we worship him. Well, if these sacrifices set
apart to the purifying of the flesh, now the purification of
the flesh refers to the outward ceremonial cleansing of people. It was actually washing. The
priests, they had to wash. The sacrifices had to be washed. They couldn't go in dirty. And
that's what that's talking about. an outward ceremonial purification. Just like when we take baths
and cleanse ourselves that way. But this had to be done with
these sacrifices, you see, because they meant something. Now, if
those animal sacrifices accomplished an outward ceremonial cleansing
for the nation Israel, In verse 14, how much more, look at it,
how much more shall the blood of Christ, the blood of Messiah,
the blood of the anointed one, the blood of God the Son incarnate,
who through the eternal spirit, now you see there was nothing
eternal about the blood of animals. There was nothing even spiritual
in those animal sacrifices in and of themselves, but who through
the eternal spirit, offered himself Christ when he went to the cross
he was all he was a blood offering but he offered himself in the
place of his people based upon their sins our sins imputed charged
accounted to him he took our debt and he says he offered himself
not the blood of animals but he offered himself And he offered
himself without spot, that is, without fault to God. He, in
himself, was perfect. Sinlessly perfect. He had no
sin in him. He had no contamination. He had
no thoughts or influence of sin on his heart. The perfect God-man. Now, was he guilty? Was he really
guilty? Yes, how? Because our sins were
charged to him. Our debt was put upon his account.
That's what guilt is. It means you owe something to
the justice of God. And what is the wages of sin? Death. So Christ, we could say
it this way now, Christ deserved what he got on the cross, not
because he became a sinner or was made a sinner or anything
like that, but because our sins were charged to him. He, he willingly
took those sins upon himself before the foundation of the
world as our surety. And so he had to come in time.
and perform the work of a surety. And that's what this is talking
about. He offered himself without spot to God. Now he didn't offer
himself to the devil. I heard a preacher say that one
time years ago. He was a sacrifice to the devil. No, the devil doesn't
need to be satisfied. He'll never be satisfied. He
didn't offer himself to you or to me. That's why, you know,
these preachers talk about, you know, he's offered to you. He's
not offered to you. He's not offering, he's offered
to God. It pleased the Lord to bruise him. So he offered himself
without spot, a lamb without blemish, without spot, to God. And then he says, purge your
conscience. That word purge means to cleanse. Now he talked about the purification
of the flesh, that's the cleansing of the outward flesh in a ceremonial
way, symbolic way. with the blood of animals and
the water of washing, the ashes of the heifer, but now the blood
of Christ purges your conscience. What is the conscience? It's
the seat of judgment in the mind, in the heart. It's what accuses
and excuses. Somebody says, well, you've got
a guilty conscience, you know, because you've done something
wrong. What's going to soothe the guilty conscience? What about
our conscience? Well, that's what accuses, but
hold on, he says, it purges your conscience from dead works. Dead works to serve the living
God. Now the dead works there are
twofold. First of all, it refers to the animal sacrifices and
the whole system of the old covenant, which in and of themselves were
dead. They killed the animal, and it
was a symbol, it was ceremonial, It was a type, it was a picture,
and that was dead works. There was no salvation in the
blood of animals. In fact, if you look over across
the page to Hebrews 10 and verse 4, listen to this. It says, for
it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should
take away sins. So they can't do that. They could not accomplish. In fact, if they could have,
look at verse 2, it says, if those animal sacrifices that
were offered, if they purged the conscience, it says in verse
2 of Hebrews 10, for then would they not have ceased to be offered?
Because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more
conscience of sin. Now, no more conscience of sin
doesn't mean that they wouldn't be aware of their sins, but they
would no longer be condemned for sin. You see, that's a condemned
conscience. A condemned conscience. So the
blood of animals could not accomplish that. They were dead works. But
dead works also is a scriptural phrase that describes man's efforts
to save himself. Man's works. Let me show you.
Turn back to Romans chapter 7. Here he's talking about a believer's
state in the Lord Jesus Christ. And what comes out of that relationship. And he's contrasting our relationship
as believers in Christ and what comes out of that relationship.
with our state without Christ before we come to Christ, before
we're brought to Him by God-given faith, and before when we're
unbelievers. And he says in verse 4 of Romans
7, listen, he says, Wherefore, my brethren, you also are become
dead to the law by the body of Christ. Dead to the law means
dead to the law's condemning power. The law cannot condemn
me if I'm in Christ. Justice is satisfied. I have
a righteousness that answers the demands of the law I Didn't
work it and I didn't do I didn't have anything to do with it It
was it was worked out in the mind and purpose of God before
the foundation of the world and it was worked out in time on
the cross And I wasn't even born then you weren't either My righteousness
is of thee, the scripture says. He is the Lord my righteousness.
I have no other righteousness but him. So I'm dead to the law
by the body of Christ. That's his sacrifice. That's
his substitutionary reconciling sacrifice. And he says that you
should be married to another, married to Christ. Now that's
when we come to, when we're brought to faith in Christ, we're married
to him. Even to him who is raised from
the dead, that we should what? What comes out of that relationship?
Fruit unto God. Now that's the service of a believer
as a willing, loving, bond slave of Christ. That's not works aimed
at saving myself, or even keeping myself saved, or it's not works
trying to earn my rewards in heaven. You see, that's not the
way God operates in grace. The fruit under God is just what
it says. It's fruit. It's not the cause
of salvation. It's not the ground of salvation.
It's the fruit. It's the result. What's the cause
in the ground? The blood of Christ. The righteousness
of Christ imputed. He's the ground of my salvation.
He said, I'm the vine, John 15, I'm the vine, you're the what?
Branches, and you bring forth fruit. You know, I often say
it this way, we are never to look at ourselves as fruit producers. You know, if you go into the
grocery store, and you go to the vegetables, and they call
that produce. Well, we're never to look at
ourselves as fruit producers, because we don't produce fruit.
We're fruit bearers. The root, the vine, produces
the fruit. Christ is the producer. You understand
that? So he says in verse five, now
look at verse five, he says, Romans 7, for when we were in
the flesh, now in the flesh there, in the context, means when we
were unbelievers, when we didn't know Christ. The motions of sins,
that word motions, you may have this in your concordance in your
Bible, it's passions. You were passions. The passions
of sins which were by the law did work in our members to bring
forth what? Fruit unto death. Now, how did
the law work in us as unbelievers to promote the passions of sin
to bring forth this fruit unto death? Well, it's in one of two
ways. And you can see it in our society.
We see it in ourselves. I don't want a show of hands
this morning, but how many of you were zealous in religion
before you came to a knowledge of the true gospel? I know some
of you were. I know a lot of you were. I know
I was. Well, that would fall under the
category of the passions of sin. Why? Because if we don't know
Christ, if we're not submitted to Him and His righteousness
as the only ground of our salvation, all we're doing in our religious
zeal is bringing forth fruit unto death. Case in point, Matthew
7, 21. Lord, haven't we prophesied in
Your name? Lord, haven't we cast out demons? Lord, haven't we done many wonderful
works? You see, the problem with those
false preachers in Matthew 7 was not insincerity or immorality. It was their ground of salvation.
What's the ground of my salvation? Well, I was baptized when I was
12. Fruit unto death. If you plead that as the ground
of your salvation, what's the ground of your salvation? Well,
I'm a physical Jew. I was born of the seed of Abraham.
Fruit unto death. Well, I've joined the church
and tried to do my best and tried to be kind to everybody and give
my money. Now listen, shouldn't we be moral and kind and shouldn't
we be charitable? Yes, but that is not the ground
of our salvation. That is not our righteousness
before God. And if we think it is or plead
it as our righteousness before God, then what are we doing? We're bringing forth fruit unto
death. Now another way the passions of sin bring forth fruit in it
is as abject rebellion. There are people out there who
are not religious, who don't care about morality, don't care
about laws of society, and they're just rebels in that sense, and
that's fruit unto death too. Here's the point, anything less
than perfect righteousness found only in and by the Lord Jesus
Christ and his obedience unto death, his righteousness imputed,
anything less is iniquity. Now that's right. We cannot measure,
I told Jim, I'm working on a message on that subject. How do we measure
our salvation? I thought I might have it ready
today to preach, but I don't. I have to work on it a little
more. But this is what he's talking about. There's the fruit unto
death. And then look at verse six of Romans seven. He says, but
now we're delivered from the law that being dead wherein we
were held. In other words, as long as we were seeking righteousness
by our works, we were in, we were held. That means we were
in jail. We were in chains. That's bondage. Any preacher
that tells a sinner that he can be saved based upon his will
and his work is placing or keeping them in bondage. And that's what
people don't understand. You say, well, if I was in bondage,
I'd know. Well, the Pharisees didn't. Remember
when Christ said, the truth will make you free? And remember what
they replied? They said, well, we were never in bondage to any
man. You're in bondage to yourself. You're in bondage to sin. You're
in bondage to Satan. As long as you think or believe
or attempt to be saved or made righteous by your efforts. That's
bondage. That's legalism. I had a fellow
who out somewhere out, I think, I think it was out in Tifton.
He wrote me an email, saw one of the TV programs. And he was
upset with me because I preached a message on keeping his commandments. And one of the points I made
in that message is Christ never commanded his people to try to
keep the law in order to be saved. In fact, he forbid it. And the
guy said, he called me a liberal. And it's the first time I've
ever been called a liberal. Well, except when I was a liberal before
I was saved. But I mean, since I've been preaching,
I've never been called a liberal. I've been called an antinomian,
but never been called a liberal. And so when he explained why,
well, I understand what he's doing, and I wrote back, and I said,
well, you're a legalist, so I guess we're both under the big L. I'm
a liberal, you're a legalist, you know. And he got upset. But
that's what illegalism is. It's anybody who's seeking righteousness
by their works, instead of submitting to Christ as their righteousness. So they're held in bondage. And
look at verse six, he says, that we should serve in newness of
spirit. Now, what is that newness of
spirit? Well, when the Holy Spirit brings a sinner to Christ, the
Holy Spirit imparts life, knowledge, faith, repentance, He replaces
that legal motivation for obedience that brings forth dead works
with a gracious motivation for obedience that brings forth fruit
of the God. And that gracious, it's serving
God, not trying to save yourself, but serving Him because of what
He has freely given us in Christ that we don't deserve, that we
haven't earned. Lord, if thou shouldest mark
iniquities, who would stand? And so he says that we should
serve in newness of spirit, not in oldness of the letter. That
is that legalism. We'll look back here, Hebrews
9. Now let me just take you to a couple of Old Testament passages
in this exercise. You know what Hebrews is doing
here in Hebrews 9, the whole thing of chapter 9 here is showing,
and it's really the theme of the whole book of Hebrews, he's
showing how God designed that whole old sacrificial system,
the law of Moses, Sinai, the old covenant, as a temporary,
imperfect way of pointing sinners to Christ. Pointing sinners to
Christ for salvation, for righteousness, for life, for everything. All of these things were types.
Well, somebody asked me the question one time. Well, that verse 13
of Hebrews 9, it says that these animal sacrifices sprinkled the
unclean and sanctified to the purifying of the flesh. Well,
let me give you a couple of Old Testament examples. Turn back
to Numbers 23, and I'll show you how this is applied. Now,
I'm not taking, I really wanna go to one verse here, and I'm
not taking it out of context, but I don't have time to go into
all the background of this. But just to let you know, Numbers
23, you remember the false prophet Balaam? You remember him? Well,
how did Balaam come into the picture? Well, when the children
of Israel were going through the wilderness, there was a king
of Moab named Balak. And Balak had heard about what
Israel had done to the Amorites. And of course we know that was
all about the power of God. Do you remember the Amalekites
and the Amorites? Do you remember how God in his
power defeated those great powerful nations that came against his
people in the wilderness? And this Balak king of Moab,
he had heard about that, so he was afraid. It says all Moab
was afraid of these. So he hired a prophet named Balaam,
he's a false prophet, to curse Israel. But Balaam could not
curse Israel. He just couldn't do it. And you
know why? Because God wouldn't let him.
Every time he opened his mouth, it came out different. And of
course, you know the story of Balaam's ass and all that. We
won't go into all that. But when Balak approached Balaam
and said, why haven't you cursed Israel? And Balaam just said,
well, I've got to speak what the Lord says. I can't speak
any other way. Why wouldn't God let Balaam curse
Israel? Well, it's because God had chosen
Israel for a purpose. Made a covenant with Abraham
concerning that. In fact, he says it, look at
verse 19 of Numbers 23. God is not a man that he should
lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. God's not gonna
go back on his promise that he made to Abraham about this nation. Hath he said and shall he not
do it? God doesn't change his mind. We do, but God doesn't. Or hath he spoken, shall he not
make it good? So God's not gonna curse Israel. But in the mix,
he makes a statement that's sort of mind-boggling. Look at verse
20. Behold, I have received commandment to bless, and he hath blessed,
and I cannot reverse. That's Balaam. He says, I can't
say otherwise. But look at verse 21. He hath
not beheld iniquity in Jacob. Neither hath he seen perverseness
in Israel. The Lord his God is with him,
and the child of a king is among them. Now think about that. Now,
who's he talking about here? He's talking about Israel. Look,
how do you know? Well, look at verse 23. Yeah,
verse 22. God brought them out of Egypt.
He hath, as it were, the strength of a unicorn. That's talking
about an animal, but using that to show power. It's not saying
that the Bible says there's unicorns, as somebody told me one time.
All right. But anyway, he's talking about
Israel. Now, do you remember the history
of Israel? Remember what happened when he
brought them out of Egypt? They came up on the brink of the Red
Sea and they begin to complain and go after Moses and desire
to go back into Egypt because they were afraid of Pharaoh.
Remember what God did? He opened up the Red Sea. They
walked over dry shock. And then when they came to the
other side, Moses went up into Mount Sinai. And what happened
then? The golden calf, you know the story. And there were other
episodes before this where Israel just rebelled and complained
and disbelieved God. And yet it says here, he hath
not beheld iniquity in Jacob. Now what's he talking about?
Well, he's talking about them as a nation under the old covenant,
according to the ceremonial purifications by which God suffered long with
them and did not destroy them. It's not that there was no iniquity
in Jacob, there was. But God, for his purpose, chose
not to view it in a condemning way to destroy these people. Now, he had a purpose. What was
that purpose? Well, he chose them mainly to
bring the Messiah into the world hundreds of years later. You
see? So God made a promise And his
dealings with the nation was based upon all these ceremonial
cleansings and washings of the blood of animals, but it was
just physical, it was just temporal, it was ceremonial, it was not
eternal. There was gonna come a time,
and he brought this through the prophets, that this whole nation
was gonna be destroyed when those things ceased. And that's what
it's talking about. The blood of bulls and goats
did sanctify to the purifying of the flesh and God suffered
long because He had made that promise and it was indicated
and typified by the blood of animals. It's not that the blood
of animals did anything for them spiritually, eternally or in
salvation, but providentially in God's historical purpose,
working things out according to the good pleasure of His will,
God did not destroy that nation. He wouldn't let Balaam curse
him because he made a promise. He had a purpose. Now turn to
Jeremiah chapter 50. There's a verse in Jeremiah that
speaks much in the same way. But Jeremiah is prophesying of
the future in these verses. So what you have back in Numbers
23 in type and in picture is prophesied of in Jeremiah chapter
50, look at verse 20. Jeremiah 50 and verse 20. He says, in those days, now that's
talking about the days of the Messiah, the days of Christ. And in that time, saith the Lord,
the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for and there shall
be none. Now, when Christ actually came
into the world, was there iniquity in Israel? Was there sin in it?
Well, of course there was. Who's he talking about here?
He's talking about the true Israel, spiritual Israel. He's talking
about his church, typified back there in Numbers 23 by the nation,
Israel. And he says, there shall be none,
the sins of Judah, they shall not be found, for I will pardon
them whom I reserve. That's his elect. God's gonna
pardon them. Now on what ground is God gonna
pardon his spiritual people? Verse 14 of Hebrews 9, how much
more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit
offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience? to serve the living God. God
sees no sin in his people, not because we're no longer sinners,
because we are. But in what sense does God see
no sin in his people? In the sense that God as judge
will not charge us with our sins. How do you know that? Romans
8, what is it, verse 33? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather
He's risen again, seated at the right hand of the Father. How
can God not charge me with my sin and still be God? How much
more shall the blood of Christ? His blood is His righteousness. That's what it is. His death
on the cross, to put away my sins, to pay the debt in full,
to satisfy the justice of God, to enable God to be just and
justify the ungodly. So that the true Israel, eternally
spiritually safe, can say what they were blessed is the man
to whom the Lord imputed righteousness without works.