I want to pick up tonight right
where I left off this morning. So if you will open your Bible
to Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 14. Hebrews the 10th chapter
and verse 14. This will be our text. Here is
a believer, a sinner saved by God's grace, given faith in Christ,
looking back to Christ's finished work and declaring with the joy
of confident faith what the Son of God has done for him and for
all for whom he died, for all who believe on him. For by one
offering, he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. This
is one of those texts that I've been turning over in my mind,
in my heart, over and over and over again, seeking some illumination
from God, the Holy Spirit, concerning its meaning for years. It's one
of those texts that comes back to me just about every day, sometimes
countless times through the day. I love to just roll it around
in my mind, in my soul, in my heart, like a good piece of candy
in my mouth, just tasting every bit of the sweetness I can get. And every time I think maybe
I've gotten one of the doors opened for me, I see several
more standing there that I haven't quite gotten to. And so tonight
I don't have any intention of even making a pretense at expounding
everything contained in this text, but I want to share with
you what God has taught me. I want to declare to you what
God has taught me, and I pray he will teach you the same. There
are three things in this text that just jump out at me as I
read it. First, the text speaks of an
offering made. And then it speaks of a people
sanctified. And then thirdly, it speaks of
a perfection accomplished. Let's look at those three things
together. First, here is an offering made. For by one offering, he
hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Now the book
of Hebrews is just full the message of redemption. It talks much
about the offering of the body of Jesus Christ our Redeemer.
It speaks much about Christ who is our sin offering, our offering
for sin to God and the work he has accomplished. The emphasis
made throughout the book is made so as to forcibly teach us, I
mean to forcibly teach us, that the sacrifice of Christ was an
effectual sacrifice. It literally accomplished everything
He intended to accomplish by it. Our Lord Jesus Christ did
not try to do something at Calvary. He actually accomplished something.
Now let's look here and see what the book tells us our Savior
accomplished. Turn back to Hebrews chapter
one, Hebrews chapter one. Here's the first thing. By His
one offering for sin, The Lord Jesus Christ purged our sins
from us. He purged them away. He completely
cleansed away our sins. Hebrews 1 verse 1. God, who at
sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers
by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his
Son. whom he hath appointed heir of
all things, by whom also he made the worlds. God spoke to his
people in days gone by before the giving of Holy Scripture
in its fullness in different ways, in many different ways.
Often we read in the Scripture of the angel of the Lord appearing
to one of his disciples or one of his people or to many of his
people. every time you read in the scriptures, the angel of
the Lord in the Old Testament, it is Christ Jesus the Lord.
It is a pre-incarnate manifestation of the incarnate Christ our Redeemer. Every time you read that in the
Old Testament scriptures, the angel of the Lord appeared to
Abraham. The angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah. The angel
of the Lord appeared to this person or that. And God spoke
to folks in dreams, with visions. He spoke to people by supernatural
revelations. But now He speaks son-wise. He's spoken to us by His Son. Christ is the Word of God. He is called by John the Word. In the beginning was the Word.
He is that Word by which God expresses and reveals Himself. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
came into this world, God spoke with finality by His Son. the Apostles writing for us the
New Testament epistles and the four Gospels give us simply the
inspired record, the inspired understanding, the inspired revelation
of that which Christ taught them while he walked on this earth.
Let no one today Let no one today be deluded by the charismatic
Pentecostal nonsense that you hear so much about. God giving
a vision of this or a vision of that or having a dream or
that kind of stuff. God speaks by his word that he's
given us and we have before us. This is the word of God given
in its finality by his son. Look at verse three. Who being
the brightness of his glory, That is, Christ is the light,
the bright shining light of God's glory, the express image of his
person and upholding all things by the word of his power. When
he had by himself, when he without the aid of another, when he altogether
alone had purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the
majesty on high. He sat down in heaven because
his work was finished. Finished exactly as God had purposed. Finished exactly as he had promised. Finished exactly as the prophet
said it would be. Turn to chapter 7, Hebrews 7
verse 26. Such an high priest became us.
A priest like Melchizedek. Such an high priest became us,
who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made
higher than the heavens. A priest without beginning of
days or end of years. A priest without father or mother,
the eternal Christ, That one who is holy, harmless, and undefiled,
no corruption in him, that one who's altogether separate from
sinners, made higher than the heavens. who needeth not, there
is no need for him daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice
first for his own sins and then for the people's. No need for
him to do so. For with one sacrifice, by one
sacrifice, he did the work. Look at it. For this he did once
when he offered up himself. Christ Jesus, by the sacrifice
of himself, has thoroughly, completely, absolutely, forever, once and
for all with finality, purged our sins away. They're gone. Gone. No trace of them to be
found. But pastor, you talk about our
sins all the time. You talk, we know our sin, we
confess our sin. Yes, indeed. by His sacrifice,
purged them away before ever they were committed. those things
that we now experience in our natural sinful state in this
world those things we experience as natural men though now born
again by God's Spirit and those things we commit tomorrow horrible
evils which we confess to God for which we repent Christ away
before ever they were committed so that God Almighty sees no
sin in His people. God sees no sin in His people. And then by His one offering
our Lord Jesus obtained eternal redemption for us. Look at chapter
9 verse 12, Neither by the blood of goats
and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once. You see how
many times the Spirit of God uses that word once in the book
of Hebrews? He entered in once into the holy place. Having obtained,
having gotten in his hand. Having obtained eternal redemption
for us. Our Lord Jesus Christ, by his
one offering made to God for sin, obtained eternal redemption
for us and put away our sins. Look at verse 26. For then must
he often have suffered since the foundation of the world.
But now, once in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put
away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed
unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. So Christ
was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that
look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto
salvation. He who died bearing our sins
in his body on the tree, suffering the wrath of God for our sins,
so thoroughly satisfied the wrath and justice of God for us that
he completely expunged, blotted out, put away our transgressions. And by his one offering, the
Lord Jesus has perfected God's elect, perfected. That's the
subject tonight, perfected, perfected. I look at you, my brothers, My
sisters, sinners like myself, saved by God's free grace, washed
in the blood of Christ, and I'm here to declare to you, oh may
God seal it to your hearts, Christ has perfected you. So that you
and I are perfect before God. And I said, Sam and Ruth Wall,
And if I start to talk about him being perfect, Ruth may think
to herself, well, you don't see him like I do. Now, she hadn't
said that, but she might say that. You don't see him like
I do. That's because she doesn't see him like God does. And you
look at me and say, he's not perfect. You don't see him like
I do. You don't see me like God does. And it is our privilege
and our blessed responsibility to look on God's people just
as we do His Son, perfect, perfect, for Christ has perfected them. Perfected, that's our subject.
The Lord Jesus, by that one great sacrifice for sin described here
in Hebrews 10, has perfected them that are sanctified. Now,
second, Hebrews 10, 14 speaks of a people sanctified. For by
one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. God's elect, all of God's elect
are sanctified. What does that mean? I've shown
you many times through the scriptures. God's elect are sanctified by
God the Father in eternal election. Sanctified by God the Son in
his effectual redemption, and sanctified by God the Holy Ghost
in regeneration. Sanctified by the three persons
of the Holy Trinity. Now what does the Bible teach
us about this thing called sanctification? Turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter
six for just a minute. I want you to look at a little
bit of scripture with me. 1 Corinthians chapter six. When Paul wrote the epistle of
1 Corinthians, He had never met any of these believers. He had
never seen any of them. All he knew about them, he knew
by word of mouth. And if you read the 15 chapters,
16 chapters of this book, you will recognize that what Paul
had heard, Lindsey, wasn't very good. He hadn't heard much about
them that was encouraging. If I were looking for a place
to go worship, That probably wouldn't be one I'd be looking
for, a place called Corinth. If I were looking for a church
to join, that probably would not have been one I would choose
to join. The saints at Corinth were bickering,
fighting, divided people. The saints at Corinth, they had
in them folks who were guilty of incest. They had among them
fornicators. They had among them folks who
were just full of difficulties. The kind of stuff that pastors
just didn't want to deal with. And other believers just don't
want to deal with. And when Paul writes to them, he calls them
saints. He calls them sanctified in Christ
Jesus. You see, all believers are truly
sanctified. There's no such thing as an unsanctified
believer. The word saints means holy or
sanctified ones. God's people are a holy people. I don't mean they try to be holy,
I mean they're holy. I don't mean they ought to be
holy. I mean they're holy. God's people are. Not holy by
something they do, but holy by something God has done for us
by his spirit and by his son. If we are saved, we're saints. If we're not saints, we're not
saved. Look at 1 Corinthians 6 verse 9. Know ye not that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters,
nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with
mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers,
nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such
were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified. but ye are justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. If you've
been washed with the renewing of the Holy Ghost in regeneration,
washed with the blood of Christ, in the name of Christ and by
the Spirit of God, you are justified and you are sanctified. God has
spoken in your soul, his testimony that you're righteous, justified. And God the Holy Spirit has made
you righteous. Holy, he sanctified you. Sanctification. altogether the work of God's
free sovereign grace in Christ. Our sanctification, like our
redemption and justification, is the work of God Almighty in
the Trinity of His sacred persons. We are sanctified by God the
Father in election, sanctified by God the Son in redemption,
and sanctified by God the Spirit in regeneration. Sanctification
is not something we do for God or something we do for ourselves.
Sanctification is something God does for us and in us. To speak of a man sanctifying
himself, you may as well speak of him giving himself life. To
speak of a man sanctifying himself, you may as well speak of him
saving himself. The words sanctify, sanctified,
sanctifieth, and sanctification are used in the New Testament
over 30 times. And in the New Testament, we're
told that we're sanctified by God the Father in election, God
the Son in redemption, God the Holy Spirit in the new birth.
We're told that we're sanctified by the Word of God. We're told
that we're sanctified by the hand of God. But nowhere in the
New Testament, not even one time, is something you do associated
with sanctification. Not even one time. Not even one
time. Where then do men get the idea
that sanctification is When a person is born again, God gives him
an inclination toward holiness. God gives him a bent toward righteousness
and he must discipline himself and the more he reads and studies
and prays and draws close to God, the more sanctified he is
and he gets more and more sanctified and more and more sanctified
until at last he's right for heaven and the Lord takes him
home. You get it from Rome, that's where you get it. You get it
from hell, that's where you get it. You don't get it from this
book. Sanctification is the work of God's grace. I've often had
folks to say, well, we believe in salvation by grace, but you're
sanctified by what you do. I say to them, do you have to
be holy to be saved? Have you got to be sanctified
to be saved? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, that means God did it,
not you. Sanctification is a part of God's salvation. We're sanctified,
I repeat, by God the Father in election. Turn to Jude, verse
one. Jude, verse one. This is what
the book says. And when all's said and done,
it doesn't really matter much what you think, or what I think,
or what Gil thinks, or what Pink thinks, or what anybody else
thinks. The only thing that really matters is what does God say?
Look at Jude, chapter one, verse one. Believers, all believers,
are sanctified, set apart by God in His eternal decree of
election, separated unto Him, sanctified. Jude, the servant
of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified
by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. Now, when you read the scriptures,
and in some places you have order of things reversed. Sometimes
we're spoken of as being called and then preserved and then sanctified. Sometimes we're spoken of as
being justified and then sanctified. Other times we're spoken of as
being sanctified and then justified. Here, Jude says we were sanctified,
preserved, and called. Now Jude was not just throwing
words out. He wrote by inspiration and he
gave the order exactly as he was inspired of God to give it.
So that here Jude is telling us that first we were sanctified
by God the Father. Chosen by God from the mass of
humanity as the objects of his love, mercy and grace. separated
from all the rest of humanity, separated from all the rest of
the human race, sanctified by God the Father. Before the world
was, God separated me to himself as his own. Wondrous grace. Before the world
was, God separated you to himself as his own. He said, I will be
their God and they shall be my people. And having sanctified
us, we were preserved. What a word, preserved, kept,
kept, preserved. My dear wife, as you know, for
many years, we raised about everything we ate. She canned vegetables. And she canned green beans. And she'd put up preserves. And
she'd canned tomatoes. She may have lost some, I don't
remember it ever happening. But I know we've had green beans. We had for a while. I helped
put them up. We had had them a while. And
she was always very careful. Pull that top back, and she'd
taste one before she'd give it to me. But never lost any, because
they were preserved. Very meticulously put away and
sealed. Sealed, preserved, so nothing
would happen to them. They wouldn't spoil, they wouldn't
rot, they wouldn't go bad. As long as the seal wasn't broken,
if they were well preserved, you could open it up years from
now, they're preserved. But there's always the possibility. That's with her beans and yours.
That's with her tomatoes and yours. Not with God. Preserved. Kept by God in Christ,
though we fell in our father Adam. kept by God in Christ through
all the ages of human history, preserved. God preserves this
family line and destroys that one. Why? Because in this family
line, There's a man to be born June 10, 1950, in Bladen County,
North Carolina, on a sharecropper's farm, Don Fortner, whose name
is written in the book of life, preserved, and hell can't stop
it. Preserved in Jesus Christ. Preserved, though you come forth
from your mother's womb, speaking lies. Preserved. Preserved in Christ. and called. So that the appointed time of
love, God's people are called. Who? Those who were sanctified
before the world began. We were secretly set apart by
God as his own in his eternal covenant of grace. legally set
apart from the rest of mankind through the shed blood of Christ
redeemed by his blood at Calvary. So that when Christ died at Calvary,
he paid the price for those people preserved in him and sanctified
by the Father, setting them apart from the rest of humanity. He
said, I'm a good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep, not the goats, the sheep, and then call. so that we are manifestly set
apart, called, cut out from the rest of the crowd, cut out from
fallen humanity, cut out from Adam's fallen race, cut out from
family and friends, cut out from this part of society, cut out
by God's grace, called, called to life and faith, manifestly
now sanctified by God. Every believer has been eternally
sanctified completely set apart by God and for God. What does that mean? That means
that we belong to God. We belong to God. We belong to God. Several months ago, I called
my friend, Kevin Thacker. New Jersey now is a member of
the church there at Ewing where Brother Clay Curtis is pastor.
I've known Kevin almost all his life. He served in the military
for 12 years and he and his wife and family settled in New Jersey
and I called and asked him if he'd go out to San Diego and
fill the pulpit for me, something out there. This is what he said
to me. He said, Brother Don, I'll go
anywhere and do anything I can, wherever I'm needed, whatever
I can do. We chatted a little bit, hung up the phone. I said
to my wife, I said, God's going to use him. God's going to use
him. That should be the attitude of
every heaven-born soul. You're not your own. You're bought
with a price. Therefore glorify God in your
body and in your spirit, which are God's. Let us consecrate
ourselves continually to God our Savior by whom we've been
sanctified. It also means that we're under
God's care, under the protection of heaven,
sheltered beneath his wings. He encamps around us. He's a
fire round about his people. Turn to the 91st Psalm. Let's
read several verses here, maybe the whole Psalm. Psalm 91. Psalm 91. He that dwelleth in the secret
place of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the
Almighty. I will say of the Lord, he is
my refuge, my fortress, my God. In him will I trust. Surely he
shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from the noisome
pestilence. He shall cover thee with his
feathers and under his wings shalt thou trust. His truth shall
be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid of the
terror by night, nor for the arrow that flyeth by day, nor
for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction
that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy
side and 10,000 at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh
thee. What? These things won't come
near one of God's people. Can't touch us. But pastor, you've had some physical
sickness. Many of our friends have physical
sickness. That's what I said, can't touch us. Can't touch. No disease can touch me. No bullet
can touch me. No pestilence can touch me. It
can touch my body, but not me, not me. Read on. Only with thine
eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because
thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most high
thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee. Neither shall
any plague come nigh thy dwelling. We'll come near you. I've had
my mind a good bit on Enoch and Elijah. Enoch was translated. Elijah was called up into heaven
and did not taste death. And I'm gonna tell you something
about God's people. None of them ever taste death. Don't taste it, don't taste it. Our Lord Jesus said, he that
liveth and believeth on me shall never die. Never. But what happens when a believer
leaves this body, when his body ceases to breathe, when his eyes
close for the last time? He's translated. He enters into
life. He enters into life. He enters
into life. Oh, blessed anticipation. For he shall give his angels
charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear
thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against the
stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion
and the adder. The young lion and the dragon
shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set his love
upon me, therefore will I deliver him. I will set him on high because
he hath known my name. He shall call upon me and I will
answer him. I will be with him in trouble.
I will deliver him and honor him with long life. Somewhere in the margin of your
Bible, you ought to write this down or you write it in your notes
one, with eternal life shall I satisfy him and show him my
salvation. All right, back here in Hebrews. God's elect who were set apart
by God in eternal election, were sanctified by God the Son in
redemption, perfectly sanctified by the blood of Christ when he
died as our substitute. By one offering, we're told,
He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Back up
in verse 10, he says, by the witch will, that is by Christ
doing the will of God, we are sanctified through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. In Christ Jesus, every
redeemed soul is sanctified. Of him, Are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. So that Christ and Christ alone
is our sanctification. We have been and are forever
sanctified in Jesus Christ. Believers are addressed throughout
the epistles of the New Testament as saints. Now this is what I
want you to see and rejoice in. The Lord Jesus has so thoroughly sanctified
us that all sinners who believe on Him are looked upon by God
as holy, treated by God as holy, declared by God to be holy because
they are holy. God, Rex, God doesn't pretend
you're holy, he makes you holy. He doesn't pretend you're righteous,
he made you righteous. He doesn't pretend you're sinless,
he made you sinless. With his spotless garments on,
I am as holy as God's own Son. And then the Lord God, by his
marvelous free grace, at the appointed time of love, makes his own to be sanctified
in the experience of grace called regeneration, the new birth. In the new birth, through the
instrumentality of gospel preaching, God, the Holy Spirit, effectually
applies the blood of Christ to the hearts of God's elect, purifying
their hearts and their consciences, giving us a new nature, a holy
nature, This is called regeneration. It's called the new birth. It's
called sanctification. Look at 2 Thessalonians 2. Let's
just look at two or three passages more. 2 Thessalonians 2, verse
13. We're bound to give thanks all
the way to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you
by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now again, observe the order
of the language. God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation. That's election. He's chosen
you to be saved through sanctification of the Spirit. That's the new
birth. That's regeneration. and that which follows regeneration,
not what proceeds regeneration, but what follows regeneration,
belief of the truth. And believing the truth is evidence
that you have been called by the gospel to the obtaining of
the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. By these things, Peter tells
us, we are made partakers of the divine nature, having escaped
the corruption of the world through lust. Being born again, God puts
in us a new nature. A new nature, a new man, created
in righteousness and true holiness. And that new man is Christ in
you, the hope of glory. Therefore, John writes to us
in 1 John 3, whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. For his seed remaineth in him,
and he cannot see it, because he is born of God. I've told
you about this incident in the past, but it will bear repetition.
And maybe some preachers who were there then will hear it
and God will help them. Several years ago, I was asked
to go up to Grand Rapids, Michigan and hold some meetings and I
went up and preached. And the first night I preached,
I preached from 1 John chapter 3. And there were lots of reformed
legalistic preachers there, Presbyterian and Baptist and others, who had
heard about Fortner. And they came to hear what kind
of poison I was spewing. After the service, one of the
preachers made arrangements for us to have lunch together. I
said, I don't want to go, I know what they want. They want to
have roast pork for lunch and all that. Don't like the taste of it. But I went.
And we sat down in wherever it was, some kind of a deli or something,
another crowded place. And folks started asking questions. And I tried to eat and trying
to be nice and not get into a fight with all the horns sticking out
and daggers. But you can't press it. They just kept pressing.
And finally, I spoke to the young fellow who kept asking most of
the questions. He seemed to be the chief spokesman
for the Pharisees. And I said, you just told me
that you'd been saved for 10 years, and you seem to be chief
spokesman here. I said, I wanna ask you a question.
And I had the attention of everybody in that restaurant. My voice
can be heard over most roars, and folks were listening. I said,
are you more holy now than you were 10 years ago? And that place
got so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. I mean, folks sitting
there with their food on a fork, sandwich in their hand, waiting
to hear what he said. And he paused for just a few seconds,
and he said, well, honestly, I'd have to say I am. And after
folks gasped a little, I said to him, Steve, if that's so,
then either you or I won don't know God. One of us don't, because I'm
not. Are you? Which of you? Which of you has
less trouble with sin now than you did 30 years ago? Which of
you? Well, I don't drink like I used
to, that's easy. That's easy, you can go to any
place in the country and get help with that. That's no trouble.
I don't smoke dope like I used to, that's no trouble. If it
costs you nothing, you can quit anything. You can quit anything.
Oh no, you gotta have some milk. I've seen it in my own family.
I've seen it. I've seen drunks sober up because
it got to costing too much, nothing else. You can quit stealing,
you can quit cheating, you can quit most anything outwardly.
That's not any trouble. I'm talking about what goes on
inside you. Earl Hart's one of the finest
men I've ever met in my life. I'll never ask you to tell me
what's going on inside you right now. Which of you is less sinful now
than you were when God first saved you by his grace? A preacher,
you know we're not. And you know you're not. You
know you're not. Our holiness is Christ the Lord. and the only thing good in you,
the only thing good in me is that man created in righteousness
and true holiness, Christ in you, that new man by which we
are sanctified in the sweet spirits of God's grace. Created new creatures
in Christ Jesus, born of God, born of God, His seed remaining
in us so that we cannot sin. We are born of Him. And then
in this 14th verse of Hebrews 10, the Apostle Paul, I think
he's the writer of the epistle, speaks of a sanctification perfect,
a perfection accomplished. He tells us, by one offering,
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. By our Lord's
offering, we're made perfect before God, perfect with God,
perfect in union with the Son of God, perfected. You might read it like most do.
That means completed. That's good enough. That's good
enough. Completed is perfect. Perfect. God gives a law in Leviticus
22, 21 concerning anything offered to Him. Anything. Doesn't matter what it is. God
says it shall be perfect to be accepted. There should be no
blemish in it. Perfect. Perfect to be accepted. No blemish. And Jesus Christ
has made us perfect. Perfect in himself. Perfect with God. Even giving
us a perfect nature. You remember the Levites in the
Old Testament, like all the furnishings of the tabernacle in the temple,
all of them went through various washings. And they were made
specifically for God, separated just for God. All the cups and
saucers and the candlesticks and all those things in the tabernacle
and temple, they were just for God. They were to be used for
nothing but the service of God. The priest lived continually
in the tabernacle, in the temple, used for nothing but the service
of God. Hey, if you dared to use them
for something other than the service of God, you did so courting
your own damnation, asked Belshazzar. He went and got the furnishings
of the temple, the cups and the plates and the saucers that they
had taken from Jerusalem when his father ransacked Jerusalem
and said, bring them here. Let's use these things in our
debauchery. And God killed him for it. God
killed him for it. The Levites, even before they
were born, The Levites were separated under God. They were separated
as his priest. But those things that had been
ceremonially separated must also be ceremonially cleansed with
blood. You remember the Levites, like
Aaron's sons, when they were about to be consecrated to the
priesthood, had to have blood right here, and right here, and
right here. They were already Levites, they
were already separated to God, they were already sanctified,
but they weren't fit to serve until blood was applied. So it
is with sinners saved by God's grace. We who are gods, saved
by God's grace, being sanctified by God the Father in election,
and sanctified by God the Son in redemption. sanctified by
God the Spirit in regeneration as He sprinkles our hearts with
the blood of Christ and dedicates us to God, makes us fit for God, fit for God. Oh, what a word,
fit for God, fit for God. That's what it is to be perfected
in Christ Jesus. And now we walk with God our
Savior in this world as perfected ones, perfected ones. What does that mean? You remember
in Romans 14, the apostle tells us, Whatsoever is not of faith
is sin. Now I suspect most of you got
here tonight by driving a car or a truck. I suspect you stuck
a key in the ignition, cranked it up, put it in drive, and here
you came. I don't imagine any of you believed you were gonna
get here and got here. Obviously, that is not what Paul's
talking about. But driving your truck, if you
don't do it by believing, then it's sin. No, that's not what
he's talking about. That's not what he's talking about. Whatsoever
is not of faith is sin. The plowing of the wicked is
an abomination to God. Not of faith, not of faith. The
sacrifices of the wicked, Isaiah chapter one, is an abomination
to God, not of faith. The most devoted service, The
most devoted sacrifice made by men in religious and charitable
causes is an abomination if not by faith. Not by faith. But what's by faith? I just wiped my nose. It's called serving God. It's called serving God. Go. Enjoy life. God now accepteth thy works. Go, my brother, my sister, you
Levites, sanctified, perfected in Christ Jesus, and in the totality
of your life, consecrate yourselves to God. Lindsay, you're worthy to do
that, and you can't do any less. Worthy to serve God in everything,
with everything, all the time. Anything else is sin. That's what it is to live by
faith in Christ Jesus. Perfected forever. Perfected
forever. I think about it a lot. I do
my best to preach it to you. The Lord will perfect that which
concerneth me. And we will begin, as we enter
eternity, to understand the glorious grace He revealed, perfected
forever by Christ Jesus. Amen.