The following message was delivered
on Sunday morning, November 13, 1994, at the Trinity Baptist
Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now let us again unite our hearts
in prayer and consciously, each one of us, acknowledge our need
of the present aid of the Holy Spirit, that we are rightly to
understand and likely to respond to the word of God written and
preached. Let us pray. Our Lord Jesus, we have confessed
you to be our helper, our savior, our guide, our keeper. And we pray that in this hour
you would be all of those things to us as we come to consider
your own person and work on our behalf. Will you not save us
from spiritual dullness and blindness? Will you not save us from spiritual
apathy and indifference? Will you not help us to understand
the right, your truth? Will you not help us that our
minds may not wander upon matters that in the end are of no consequence. Be our Savior, be our Helper,
be our Keeper. Come to us, we pray, in the ministry
of your own Word, and give us such a sight of your glory as
it is set forth in the Scriptures, that our hearts will run out
to you, for some, perhaps for the first time, in true acts
of penitent faith, and for your people in renewed acts of repentance
and faith and confidence in the virtue of your mighty work on
our behalf. O Lord Jesus, come to us, in
your own word we pray, for our good and for your glory. Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the
midst of one of his discourses with the Jews in Jerusalem, declared,
Marvel not at this, for the hour comes in which all that are in
the tomb shall hear his voice and shall come forth. They that
have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done
evil unto the resurrection of judgment." According to these
words of our Lord Jesus, an hour is coming in human history in
which every single one of us will be involved in the matters
described in these verses. in the same body with which you
got out of bed this morning, in the same body with which you
staggered into the bathroom to take your shower and brush your
teeth, in the same body that you brought to the breakfast
table and ate your breakfast, in the same body with which you
sit in this pew this morning, God says that body shall be called
out of whatever place holds its remains in the day of the coming
of our Lord Jesus. And united to your spirit shall
come forth, and having come forth shall go to judgment, and having
gone to judgment will be ushered into the unspeakable, indescribable
glories of heaven, or the unthinkable miseries of hell, and that forever. And it is the certainty of the
fulfillment of the words of Jesus that lay at the backdrop of the
burden of the ministry through the summer months in which week
after week for approximately three months I pressed upon your
conscience the question, are you for real? Seeking under God
with the scriptures to urge you to consider whether or not your
professed faith in Christ was indeed the real thing, so that
when this hour does come, and it shall come, you would be among
those who are called forth unto the resurrection of life, and
not summoned to the resurrection of judgment. After that series of messages,
believing from the input that many of you gave to me, that
a number of you have come to a renewed conviction that you
are indeed for real, that God has by His grace wrought in you
a saving work and you have brought that conviction to the scrutiny
of the word with judgment and honesty, I judge that it would
be in the best interest of your ongoing spiritual stability and
preservation to focus your attention on some pivotal text of scripture
that would encourage and strengthen you in the remainder of your
earthly pilgrimage. And so we have considered Philippians
1, 6, being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun
a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ. Psalm 37, 24, Though he fall,
speaking of the truly righteous, he shall not be utterly cast
down, for the Lord upholds him with his hand. 1 Thessalonians
5, 23 and 24, in which we have the apostles'
prayer for the Thessalonians, that the God of peace himself
would sanctify them wholly, and that their entire body, soul,
and spirit be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Faithful is he who calls you,
who also will do it. And then, last Lord's Day, I
direct your attention to Hebrews 7 and verse 25, a text which
declares concerning our Lord Jesus that He is able to save
to the uttermost all who come unto God through Him, or draw
near unto God through Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession
for them. And in the opening up of this
text, I sought to lay before you what it says in the way of
this assuring affirmation that Jesus Christ is able to save
to the uttermost those that draw near unto God through him, and
its satisfying explanation, seeing he ever lives to make intercession
for them. And in sticking to the opening
of the language of the text, I did not address such questions
as, what is the ground of the intercession of Christ? What
is the nature of that intercession? What is the position from which
he intercedes, thereby securing our ultimate and our perfected
salvation? and the subject of the intercession
of Christ into which I led you last week by this text has so
fastened itself upon my own mind and spirit that I cannot be true
to what I am as a Christian man or a preacher if I did not take
this Lord's Day to amplify certain aspects of that work of our Lord
Jesus which forms the basis of our confidence that we shall
be saved to the uttermost. That is, saved with the salvation
in which all of the saving purposes of God will be realized in us. And so today, for your consolation
as the true people of God, for your further stabilization in
your walk along that restricted, pressured way which leads unto
life. I want you to contemplate with
me this morning and this evening certain aspects of the intercessory
work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now I realize as I announce that
subject that there are sitting here in this place this morning,
men and women, boys and girls, with no acute felt sense of sin,
no dread of the wrath of God, no sense of holy fear that you
should fall short of eternal life, And I confess that realizing
that, and having no ability to separate you from those who are
for real, I almost feel that preaching this subject in your
presence is a violation of the command of Jesus, As I sat at my desk and realized
that this morning there would be men and women, boys and girls,
sitting here and inwardly saying another ho-hum-hum-drum hour
of the preacher blabbing on about Christ this and Christ that. When will this weariness be over? There was something in me that
wanted to protect my Lord from being insulted by the internal
disposition of your heart. And had I the power to identify
every man, woman, boy, or girl who has no self sense in me,
No sense of dread that you would fail of eternal life, and did
I know that you would sit to another sermon in the willful
posture of unbelief and closed ears, I would graciously dismiss
you by name from this auditorium. You say I dare not cast such
pearls before the swinecloth of your sin-loving worldly heart. But I have no such power, and
therefore I cannot do it. and believing that the Lord Jesus
has commanded his under-shepherds to feed his lambs and to feed
his sheep, believing that there are many of you who are his true
lambs and his true who desperately need a further biblical understanding
of precisely why it is and how it is that the intercession of
Christ secures your ultimate perfected salvation, that I am
emboldened to launch into this study both this morning and again
this evening. And this morning, as time permits,
I want us to consider, first of all, the place of the intercession
of Christ, and then secondly, the ground or the foundation
of the intercession of Christ, and then God helping us tonight,
some aspects of the precise nature of the intercession of Christ. But we begin with the consideration,
the place of His intercession The text that we studied last
week simply affirmed the fact of his intercession. Wherefore,
he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God
through him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them. But when we ask the question,
where is he as he makes intercession, we are addressing the question
of the place of his intercession. And according to the biblical
materials, it is the place of his intercession that casts many
beautiful shadows upon the nature of that intercession. And according to the scriptures,
there are two things that we can say for certain with respect
to the place of the intercession of our Lord Jesus. And the first
is this, it is carried on at the right hand of God, or in
the language of Hebrews, the right hand of the majesty, or
the majesty on high. When we come in Hebrews 7.25
to the statement that He ever lives to make intercession for
them, the writer to the Hebrews has already asserted in the first
chapter precisely where He is. If you turn there with me you
will see in verse 3 of chapter 1, who being the effulgence of
his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding
all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification
of sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. And here we are told that subsequent
to his sacrificial work here upon earth, that our Lord Jesus
sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. And then in verse 13, But of
which of the angels, as he said at any time, sit thou on my right
hand. Further, in chapter 8 of this
very epistle, in verse 1, we read, now in the things which
we are saying, the chief point is this. We have such a high
priest who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the majesty
in the heavens. And then again, in chapter 12,
in verse 2, speaking of our Lord Jesus, who for the joy that was
set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat
down at the right hand of the throne of God. And then, in the one other explicit
reference to his intercession, along with Hebrews 7.25, and
here I refer to Romans 8 and verse 34, we find him in the
same position. Romans 8 and verse 34. Who is
he that condemns? It is Christ Jesus that died,
yea, rather that was raised from the dead, who is at the right
hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Now, surely the Scriptures
have made the point repeatedly and clearly that whatever the
precise nature of the intercession of Christ is, it is an intercessory
labor carried on from a particular place. And that place is designated
as the right hand of God, the right hand of the majesty on
high, the right hand of his Father. Now, what is the significance
of this language, the right hand of the majesty, the right hand
of God? Well, let the scriptures themselves
answer the question. In Ephesians chapter 1, verses
19 to 22, the answer is given. These verses are in the midst
of Paul's prayer for the Ephesians, that the God of glory would give
them a spirit of wisdom and revelation, the eyes of their understanding
being enlightened that they might know certain things, and one
of them is this, what is the exceeding greatness of his power
to us were to believe according to that working of the strength
of his might which he wrought in Christ when He raised Him
from the dead and made Him to sit at His right hand in the
heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power
and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world
but also in that which is to come and he put all things in
subjection under his feet and gave him to be head over all
things to the church. Surely we need no further explanation
of what the significance of this being seated at the right hand
of God is. It is pointing us in the direction
of Christ's present posture of exaltation and power, that in
the accomplishment of his work of salvation as a mediator, in
his office as prophet, priest, and king, Whatever he does in
the fulfillment of his redemptive purposes right now, he does from
the posture of one who is seated at the right hand of the Father. That means he is in a position
of exaltation, of power, and of glory. And you say, what's
the great significance of that with respect to the intercession?
Well, precisely this. Whatever our conception of the
intercession is, it must forever be stripped of any of those peculiarities
of his intercession in the days of his humiliation. He is no
longer an intercessor in the days of his humiliation. He ever lives to make intercession
in that unique position of supreme exaltation and of power. For example, in John chapter
12, we find our Lord in the anticipation of his coming death as it were,
thinking out loud. And he says in John 10, 27, Now
is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father,
save me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto
this hour. Father, glorify thy name. There came therefore a voice
out of heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify
it again. Here we find our Lord praying
in a state in which He is conscious of this internal trauma. Shall I say, save me from this
hour? No, no, for this hour I came
forth. Father, glorify Your name. This is, as it were, but a preview
of Gethsemane. when we find the holy, sanctified
human will of Jesus facing the new unfolding of what it would
mean for Him who knew no sin to become sinful, off praying,
O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless
not my will but Thine be done. And the Scripture describes that
situation of prayer as an agony, one in which he sweat, as it
were, great drops of blood. It is described in Hebrews 5
as an experience in which he prayed with strong crying and
tears. But you see, whatever attached
itself to the intercessory ministry of the Lord Jesus in the days
of his flesh, that was peculiar to that epoch in his life, all
of that has been left behind. And whatever his intercession
now is, it is the intercession of one enthroned in a position
of unrivaled majesty, power, and authority. It is, in the
language of Psalm 2, it is the asking of an enthroned messianic
king and priest upon his throne. Psalm 2. In spite of the agitation
and the collation of the hatred of the leaders and the great
ones of the earth seeking to throw over Messiah's reign, God
says in Psalm 2 in verse 6, I have set my king upon my holy hill
of Zion. I will tell of the decree the
Lord said unto me, You are my son, this day have I begotten
you, referring according to New Testament exposition to his being
begotten in space-time history, to his posture and position as
messianic king upon his throne. And from that position, God says,
ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance,
and the uttermost part of the earth for your possession. This is the asking in conjunction
with an enthroned king. And you find a little hint of
that in what is called Our Lord's High Priestly Prayer in John
17, language that has baffled some commentators. For while
the Lord is yet in the days of His humiliation, it is clear
in this prayer that He anticipates the time when weakness and suffering
and sorrow are behind Him. And in this prayer we find not
only petition that look at the crowning request for his own
in verse 24 of John 17, Father, I desire, I will that they also
whom you have given me be with me where I am. that they may
behold my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before
the foundation of the world." He anticipates himself, you see,
as already in the presence of his Father, in the place of exaltation,
already glorified, and in that posture It is not neither for
these only do I pray, the standard word for prayer used throughout
this particular section of the Word of God, but I desire, I
will." You see, he anticipates that when he comes into the place
of intercessions, For the ultimate perfection of His church and
the gathering of all to Himself, there is no longer anything of
that which could be called the self-imposed weakness of the
days of His flesh. His intercession being carried
on from that place of exaltation is royal, priestly intercession,
and it is crucial for us as His people to have some understanding
of that fact. And then the second line of biblical
evidence with respect to the question, what is the place of
His intercession? It is not only carried on at
the right hand of God, But turn to Hebrews 9 and verse 24, and
here we are told it is carried on before the very face of God. Hebrews 9 verse 23, It was necessary
therefore that the copies of the things in the heavens should
be cleansed with these But the heavenly things themselves with
better sacrifices than these, for Christ entered not into a
holy place made with hands, like in pattern to the truth, but
into heaven itself, now to appear, literally to appear openly before
the face of God for us. fascinating phrase, appear before
the face of God. The picture not so much that
Christ is beholding the face of his but he is appearing openly
to be seen and beheld by the Father now to appear before the
face of God for us now what in the world is the significance
of the language appearing before the face of God for us well think
back What was his posture before, in the mystery of his conception
as the God-man in Mary's womb, the Eternal Word took to Himself
a true human soul and body? What was the position of the
Eternal Word, the second person of the Godhead? Well, when we
turn to John 1 in verse 1, As much as that question can be
answered and received and contained by our feeble human understanding,
we read, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. And when we read the phrase,
The Word was with God, A particular preposition is used,
pros, towards. Lenski commenting on this, the
preposition pros is distinct from the prepositions en or para
or sum, and is of the greatest importance. Robertson, one of
the greatest Greek grammarians to live and to write and leave
the fruit of his sanctified scholarship behind him, Robertson attempts
to render its literal force by translating face to face with
God. Robertson adds that the preposition
cross is employed, quote, for living relationship, intimate
converse, end quote. which well describes its use
in this case. The idea is that of presence
and communion with a strong note of reciprocal interaction. The Logos, then, is not an attribute
inhering in God, or a power emanating from Him, but a person in the
presence of God, and turned in loving, inseparable communion
toward God, and God turned equally toward Him. He was an Other,
and yet not Other than God. He was face to face with God. Could it be when he prayed earlier
in this high priestly prayer of John 17, the glory that I
had with thee before the world began, that part of that glory
Was the uninterrupted eternal face-to-face communion with Him
the triune Godhead? The whole thought of God creating
the world and men because He was lonely is blasphemous! Only God Himself can fill His
own heart. Only God's mind can satisfy the
mind of God. Only God's love can fully satisfy
His own heart of love. And within the glorious mystery
of the triune being of our one God, there was this reciprocal
affection, this face-to-face communion. Though our Lord became
incarnate in Mary's womb, throughout all of His bitter trials in life
and all of the development of mind and soul, for He grew in
wisdom and knowledge, and in favor with God and man, He could
say, I do always the things that please my Father. And knowing
that everything he did pleased the Father, he lived in the conscious,
constant consciousness that the Father's face was towards him
with favor, with acceptance, with delight. The Father himself
expressed it. He spoke out of heaven and said,
My face is toward him. This is my son, my beloved one,
in whom my soul with whom I am well pleased. Therefore our Lord
could say, as he came to the graveside of Lazarus, I know
that you heard me because I know that you hear me always. Face to face, the face of God
toward his Son speaks of his face toward him in favor his
face toward him with pleasure and delight. Further to underscore
that this is the significance turned to one significant Old
Testament passage, Numbers chapter 6, Numbers chapter 6, in the
priestly benediction that was to be pronounced upon God's covenant
people. We read in verse 22 of Number
six, the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and
his son, saying, Aaron being, of course, the head of the priestly
caste. Speak unto Aaron and his son,
saying, On this wise you shall bless the children of Israel.
You shall say unto them, The Lord bless you and keep you. Now notice the next two verses.
The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto
you. The Lord lift up his countenance
upon you and give you peace. So shall they put my name upon
the children of Israel and I will bless them. Do you see? The dominant
concept in having the covenant favor, blessing, and goodwill
of God towards His people is this concept of the Lord's face
shining upon His people, the Lord lifting up the light of
His countenance upon His people. Now, having established the significance
then of the words, now to appear open before the face of God for
us. Think with me for a moment. Of
all that our Lord bore in the days of His humiliation, of all
that He took willingly as the lamb before her shearers is done
and He opened not His mouth, of all the insults, the abuse,
the mockery, crown of thorns, the purple robe, the jeering,
the false accusations, which of those indignities brought
forth any cry, pain, and of anguish from his lips? Not a one is recalled. But there
was one element in his suffering, and only one. only one. Remember what it was from the
sixth hour? It was darkness over the whole
land until the ninth hour. God shrouded the heavens in blackness. When the sun was at its zenith,
And toward the conclusion of those hours of darkness, the
Scripture says that Jesus cried, My God, My God, why have you
abandoned me? Turn your face from me. forsook me and fled. I knew that
your countenance was still lifted up upon me in favor and in good
health. You had said, Behold my servant
whom I uphold, And when my own disciples forsook me, when my
favored three slept and would not watch with me, Holy Father,
I was conscious of being upheld by the beams of the favor that
emanated from your countenance. And when the rabble crowd came
and apprehended me in Gethsemane, And when they dragged me from
the puppet court at the high priest, and then to Pilate, and
on to Herod, and back to Pilate, and when I was mocked and jeered
and lied about, and the false witnesses came forward by the
handfuls, and when I was crowned with thorns, and when there was
mock worship and abulation, I still was conscious of your promise
being fulfilled, behold my servant whom I I could still draw comfort from
your words, my son in whom I'm well pleased, my own disciples
in weakness forsaken me, the blind and apostate Jews who have
handed me over to the Roman authorities and all the indignities these
I can bear, but your face is toward me. But in the mystery
of those hours when He who knew no sin was being constituted
sin in a unique and in an intensified way, when He was becoming the
vicarious curse-bearer, when God was, as it were, narrowing
the funnel of all of the ocean of His wrath against human sin
and causing it to break upon the soul of His own Son. This was the pain of his pains
and caused him to cry, my God, my God, why have you forsaken
me? He looks up into the heavens
and sees nothing but blackness. And he sees nothing behind that
blackness. May I say it reverently? but
a hidden place. And then in a way that is not
revealed, when the last drop of the cup had been drunk, when
the ocean of God's wrath against His people had been exhausted,
He then has a felt sense of the restored favor of His Father
And it is now not the address, my God, into your hands, having
given the shout of triumph at the last tide, stands accomplished."
He said, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. There was the realization that
the Father's face was towards him again in faith. Now look
at our text in Hebrews chapter 9, that having shed his own precious
blood, that all of the realities of which the ancient temple and
tabernacle and priestly rituals and sacrifices were but shadows,
when the realities had been affected in the bloodletting of the Son
of God, now we read Christ entered not into a holy place made with
hands, but into heaven itself, now openly to appear before the
face of God, the object of the Father's full, approving, delightful
gaze once more. Now, do you see the implications
of this for His intercession? What is the place of His intercession?
It is not only the position of power and might and authority
of the priest-king at His right hand, But it is the position
of acceptance, of favor, and of delight, as in the face of
God, before the face of God, He appears, and listen to these
precious words, for us. For us! Not for the vindication
of Himself! But he appears before the face
of God for us. For us! For us! He has secured the Father's accrobation,
the Father's smile, the Father's acceptance. For what would power
and authority be without the Father's face of acceptance and
goodwill? And what would acceptance and
goodwill be without the position of authority and power, the joint
authority and power to acceptance and goodwill? And we have an
intercessor in the most enviable position imaginable by our poor
human faculties. Dear people of God, no wonder
the writer to Hebrews says, consider the high priest of our confession,
Jesus. the Son of God. He is right now
at this moment in the place of exaltation and power, the place
of acceptance and favor, not for Himself, but for us. That is, for all who have turned
from all other grounds of hope and have turned from all silly
notions about justifying themselves, and in the felt spiritual pain
of our native spiritual nakedness and hell-deservingness, we have
in the language of Hebrews 7.25, we have drawn near to this God
who is a consuming fire in Himself, but we have drawn near to Him
through Christ. And in Christ we have seen the
goodwill of God to sinners. In Christ we have seen the favor
and love of God to sinners. In Christ we have seen the wisdom
of God contriving a way in the language of our scripture reading
this morning that God might maintain all the integrity of His justice
and still justify hell-deserving sinners. He doesn't whitewash
their condition. He doesn't in any way equivocate
with regard to their hell-deservingness. But having transferred it to
His only begotten and beloved Son, and having vented the full
fury of His wrath against their sin when it is vicariously borne
by the Lord Jesus, He has raised him from the dead and to forever
demonstrate that there is not one gram of wrath remaining. He has accepted the sin bearer
back into his presence with unqualified, undiluted, irreversible favor. He appears openly before the
face of God for us. We haven't even touched on the
ground or the foundation of his intercession, and I don't want
to rush through these things. For some of you, I know they
are new avenues of thought, and as I was preparing, I said in
a real sense, what I'm doing is thinking out my own meditations
in your hearing. And it's right that at times
preaching should be that. But oh, dear people of God, what
consolation we should draw as we sit in this place this morning,
to know that amidst all the realities that we address throughout the
summer, that we must remain in that restricted way, that way
in which we must constantly turn from every tendency to look to
ourselves as the ground of our acceptance with God. the way
in which we must constantly battle with sin that seeks to regain
its mastery. And if it cannot do that, and
it cannot in a true Christian, it seeks to win a battle here,
and a battle there, and a skirmish here, and call this member and
that member into its service. And we seek by the grace of God
not to present our members instruments of sin unto unrighteousness as
we continue to seek to deal with that element in us that would
still make us self-centered and self-serving, and constantly
deal with the bewitching influence of the world, what hope is there
that we shall be saved to the other to the consummation of
a salvation that will bring us all along the way, however long
we must walk in it and upon it, with whatever opposition we face
in the course of it, what certain surety do we have we should be
saved at the outermost? Hebrews 7.25 says, We shall be,
because He ever lives to make intercession for us, and the
certainty The prevalency, the conquering nature of his intercession
rests, first of all, upon the position in which he is found
as he intercedes. He intercedes as a messianic
king-priest upon a throne. He is at the right hand of God. There this morning, By His Spirit
present here, yes, but in His glorified body there, as much
in His heart there as here, and here as there. Who can understand
the mystery of it? But faith can grasp its reality. We have a high priest who does
not intercede with the limitations, self-imposed limitations, of
what the Scripture calls the days of his flesh, but with all
the unfounded liberty and freedom of one who has been seated at
the right hand of the Majesty on high, and who every time he
turns his face to the Father to request anything that any
of his children need, in order to get them safely along the
way and eventually into His presence, so that He will be the firstborn
among His many brethren, whom He has brought these many sons
to glory in the language of Hebrews 2. We have the confidence that
everything He asks, He asks as one who appears open before the
face of God for us. And if I say in the days of His
flesh, He says, you hear me always, how much more now can He say,
you hear me always? And whatever He asks for us,
He asks according to eternal covenantal engagements and commitments
as I hope to demonstrate tonight, God willing, and in answer to
those prayers, we are kept in the way of righteousness and
holiness and persevering faith until we are taken to a better
place. Child of God, do you treasure
Christ as your intercessor, as the priest who not only was offerer
and offering, but as the priest who now intercedes for all who
are his own. It's a marvelous thing to know
that in heaven's morning there is an exalted, glorified Christ
Seated at the right hand of the Father, towards whom the Father's
face is turned, and He's there for me. He's there for me. Do you have that confidence that
He's there for you? If He's not for you, He's against
you. And this is why the call goes
out from that very psalm that we quoted earlier, kiss the sun,
lest he be angry, and you perish from the way. He will no longer
come into a state of weakness. In that first coming, yes, they
could mock him. They could jeer him. They could
treat his calls to come to him with indifference. The Lord Jesus
did not snap his fingers and pull down thunderbolts from heaven.
And when his disciples on one occasion wanted to do it, he
said, no, no, in this my first coming, I have not come to judge. He came not to judge the world,
not in his first coming. But when he appears the second
time, it will be in terms of the text that I read at the beginning
of our message this morning, to call you out of your grave.
call you into His presence with a resurrected body and say, why? Why did you go on in your unbelief? Why did you go on clinging to
the world and to self-centeredness and self-will and eat at the
hog pens of carnal and fleshly desires and ambitions when I
was set before you in all my glory and pity? as a high priest
who died and bore the wrath of God for sinners, as a high priest
who went back into heaven there to appear openly before the face
of my Father for all who would entrust themselves to me. Why
did you count the preaches of this world of greater value than
myself? And what are you going to tell
him? What are you going to tell him, young man, young woman?
What are you going to tell him, old man, old woman? What are
you going to tell him, when you've treated so lightly what he has
done to you? Kiss the son, lest he be
angry, and you perish in the way. God willing, when we gather
tonight, we'll take up the second head, the ground, or the foundation
of his intercession, and attempt to show the intimate relationship
between his sacrifice upon the cross and the intercession in
heaven, and perhaps begin to open up some of the aspects of
the specific or the precise nature of his intercession. But I trust
that just the contemplation of the position, the place of his
intercession this morning will strengthen the faith of every
weary pilgrim who is pressing on his or her way. to that place
where we shall see him face to face. Let us pray. Our Father, we never cease to
marvel the great pains to which you have gone to effect a righteous
and a certain salvation for the likes of us. Oh God, when we
think of how lightly we've regarded you, and how carelessly we've
treated your mercy and grace in Christ, we marvel that knowing
we would do this, you nonetheless contrived so glorious a plan
of redemption, and in your love and mercy sent your Son to effect
all of these things for us. We pray that you would take your
word and apply it with power to every heart this morning,
that those who have been indifferent to him may tremble and may flee
to him for mercy, and that we, your people, may have our confidence
and our courage increased as we behold him who is at your
right hand, who is before your face. O give us eyes of faith
to behold Him there for us, securing our salvation. Seal then your
word to every heart we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen.