Good to see y'all out this morning. Happy birthday to Trish. 29 again. Remember those who requested
prayer. Kathy Robinson hadn't heard anything
yet, so we don't want to talk much about her situation. Remember
the names of Tammy Fisher, Lee Parks' family. I continue to
remember the prayers of John Queen also. Today we'll observe
the Lord's table after the morning message and then we'll have dinner
and go after that service. Speaking of worship service,
we have number 222, there is a mountain, a hill, a road, a
fountain, and a river. There is a mountain, Filled with the hope from the
angels' face. And shepherds by, beneath the
flood, Their shepherds will be strayed. lose all their guilty stains
lose all their guilty stains and sin is born to redeem them
all lose all their guilty stains The dying King rejoices with
sin, and thou canst be free of sin. And there may I, O love
that's deep, wash all thy sins away. wash all my sins My gracious passion I'll never
lose it now. Kill all the banks of Georgia,
the sacred Singapore, We say to Singapore We say to
Singapore We're all in the best of terms of mind We say to Singapore
If this is true, I think I saw the strength I've grown
because of you. Believe me, thanks be to God. And shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. and shall be till I die. For this we'll sacrifice our
life's agony for thee. Then in the noonday streets,
I'll sing my heart to say, I'll sing my heart to save. I'll sing my heart to save. When in a hopeless meager strife,
I'll sing my heart to save. We're going to observe the board's
table. Verses 1-18 is the reason why. For the law, that is the Old Testament in
its fullness, having a shadow of good things to come, and not
the very image of good things, can never, when those sacrifices
which were offered year by year continue, But in those sacrifices there
is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not
possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.
Wherefore, when he, Jesus Christ, cometh into the world, he says,
Sacrifice an offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared
for me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin thou hast no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the
volume of the book it is written of me, to do thou will of God. Above, when he said, Sacrifice
an offering, and burn offerings, and offer it for sin, thou wouldst
not do the exaltation thereof, which are offered by the law.
Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away
the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily
ministering, and offering oft times the same sacrifices, which
can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice, which sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God, from henceforth expecting, till his enemies were made his
witnesses. For by one offering he hath perfected forever, the
inner sacrifice. whereof the Holy Ghost also is
a witness of us. For after that he said before,
this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,
saith the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts,
and in their minds will I write them. And their sins and their
iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of
these is, there is no more offering. Our Father, We thank you that we are privileged
to be given faith to read such words and understand them. We
thank you, Father, that you have shown us, by your grace, the
miracle of the salvation you wrought for your children by
the substitutionary propitiatory work of Jesus Christ. We are
thankful that you have given us understanding, and given us affection for these
things. Father, help us to worship you
as we consider these things today, and as we take them on the street.
We pray for those who are sick, those who have lost loved ones,
especially with heart That's what we should do with
them, comfort them, strengthen them in Jesus Christ. We know
their hope is in Christ, and we are thankful for that. Pray
for the others that you mentioned in the prayer list. Pray that
you're with them. Pray that we can do that. The shut-ins are
not able to make it. But you comfort them, strengthen
them, help them in Christ. We pray for ourselves this time. We are thankful that we can say
such things. Our sins have been remitted by
Jesus Christ. They've been purged. They've
been put away. And you'll remember them all. We're thankful. We're thankful for that. Help
us, Father, to worship this man. To bring honor and glory to your
name. to honor you and glorify you for what you've done for
us, and for who you are. Help us now to pray in Christ's name. Amen. And number 14 in
your booklets, hand-given to you without your name, be interested
in this. I am. you can't pursue. Amazing love, how can it be that
somehow you want to die for me? Amazing love, how can it be Let
every conscience cry for peace. His mystery of immortal thought,
who can explore his strength? be tried. In praise of his Lord's cherubim
pride, who shall the gift of love divine. Tis by sea or land
or door, Amazing! How can it be That Thou,
my God, shouldst die for me? The stone of man, so free, so
in the night, he prays. In his chair, above the dark,
he bent o'er his own chosen place. She is mercy all, remission free. O my God, if I am not Thee, Amazing
love, how can it be? ? That thou, my God, shouldst die
for me ? ? For my freedom's the spirit of
faith ? ? That shall be a shield and a feature of mine ? ? And
I didn't feel it ? ? The wind being great ? ? I'm more than
I can claim with light ? ? My dreams fell apart ? ? My heart
was breached ? ? I wish the world went forward ? Amazing love,
how can it be, that Thou, my God, shouldst thrive for me? ? If he is mine ? ? Alive in me
? ? If I could be free ? ? To hold him high ? ? Justice divine
? ? Bold I approach ? ? To eternal
glory ? O say does that star-spangled
banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the
brave I pray, Father, again, that we
approach in the blessed name of Jesus Christ, who indeed is our salvation.
For God, who died for us, how can we even begin to explain
such a wondrous thing? Jesus, mercy on us. Thank you,
Father. We return to thee that which
you give us. This is your solution. Thanks
be to you. so so Paul wrote this letter. And the book of Hebrews is to
set forth Jesus Christ as better than all the Old Testament types,
whether it be the priesthood, the law, the ceremony, the high
priest, the sacrifices offered unto God, Christ is better than
all of them. The Hebrews had what would be
called traditional salvation. That is to say, when they were
born, they were a hero. They were a Jew. And therefore,
they were the chosen of God. Therefore, they were okay. They
were okay. Many still practice some sort
of traditional salvation, but they're gone when Catholics have
christened a child. That's why Romanism is called
christening, because they christen the child and they believe that
puts the child in the body of Jesus Christ. And therefore they
are saved. Now they are confirmed that they
are 12 years old, but they only confirm what they believe happens
in the poem. I was subject to some sort of
traditional salvation, but was never called that because they
taught You walk down the shipwalk, and
then the crutches are going to go and get you down in front.
But I was a Baptist before I was born. And I was on the church
road. My booties were there. Though
I was not that born, just a James child. So traditionally, I was
always a Baptist. And I always, though I wouldn't
tell you because I didn't know, Being a Baptist meant nothing.
I felt like being a Baptist meant something. It meant something
to God. So I was always suspicious of
Brother Cranford down the street who was a Baptist. The Hebrews believed that being
born a Hebrew meant that you were a child of God. And so what
Paul is dealing with here, to the Hebrew Jew, is like saying
two and two is not four. So systematically, beginning
with chapter one all the way through the end of this book,
he takes the elements and have confidence in, and shows
them that they are fulfilled and honored in Jesus Christ,
but they are set aside. That's what is meant by this
verse here in this passage. It says, He takes away the first,
and is that old covenant which all these things were. Those
were a shadow of things to come, good things to come, but they
weren't the substance they were. They never, with the sacrifices
offered, ever purged someone of their sins or made someone
perfect before God. They just couldn't do it. Because
they were natural men offering natural beasts or a natural altar. And it was of no value in the
taking away of sin. However, it was valuable in pointing
to, one day, this other life of God, this perfect sacrifice
of God, coming forth into this world and doing what was pictured
by all of those things, but never accomplished by any of them.
Now in this chapter that we just read, he's setting forth the
differences of the priesthood. Because he's talking about the
Day of Atonement. Now the Day of Atonement in the
Old Testament pictures and typifies and signifies the day of Calvary,
when the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins. That's
what it pictures. On that day, the most holy day
of all, the High Priest, with the names of all the tribes of
Israel on his breastplate, on the altars, on his shoulders,
went before God in the Holy of Holies, that 15 by 15 foot cube,
where God met one time a year with one man. He didn't meet
with people. He met with the one man as the
representative of the people. And that man took a censer and
filled that room with smoke, stood under the curtain. Then
he crawled under the curtain with a rope tied to his leg.
In case he died in there, they would tell him to play dead and
drag him back out. He went before there with the
blood of a lamb, and when he went in there, he took his soup,
and he dipped it in that basin of blood, and he sprinkled it
all over that place, the mercy seat, over himself, over the
walls, everything in there was covered with blood. And there
God met with him. And for one year, millions of
the people were atoned for, but they were not put away. What
atonement? It means covered. Our sins are covered for one
year. What do I mean? That God couldn't
see them because he was seeing the blood of Jesus on the land. So they were covered. Now the
New Testament word, the word atonement is in the New Testament
twice. Once in Romans chapter 4 and
once in Romans chapter 5. The one in Romans chapter 5 means
reconciliation. The word atonement refers to
the Old Testament in chapter 4. But they say that the atonement
is not the theme of the scriptures. The theme of the scriptures is
that there is an actual purging of sin, or putting away of sin. And that is called propitiation,
or satisfaction, or appeasement toward God. Now, that is mentioned
here in the text that I read to you. When he says, above,
when God offers those who are not satisfying to Him, There
was no propitiation. He said, no, they didn't do anything. I'm coming. And the volume of
the book is written to me to do thy will, O God. He'd taken
away those Old Testament sacrifices, that Old Testament priesthood,
that law. He'd taken it all away and established
this other covenant. The covenant promised in Jeremiah
chapter 31. The covenant he made with his
people. And in that covenant there was not a problem. There
was a propitiation. Now the only way propitiation
can occur is that if God is satisfied for sin. And the only way God
can be satisfied for sin is if He sees no sin. There is no other
way. If He sees sin, He must punish
it. He must punish you. So here the Lord makes this distinction,
a very important distinction between that old priesthood,
which was of the tribe of Levi, and this other priesthood, where
Jesus Christ was a great high priest, were the only priests
that ever came from the tribe of Judah. Jesus Christ, the Lord
of the Priests, came from that tribe. So, we have this sacrifice being
made, and our Lord says in verse 18, now where remission of these
is, there is no more offering for sin. Where remission, what
is remission? Remission is, the word means
to be, to think of something to be put away. To be done away
with, to be put somewhere where it can't be found. that remission
is spoken of in reference to Christ's walk on Calvary street
by His one offering, the offering of self for sin. He died, He
shed His blood, He died in the womb instead of His people, and
that was the propitiation, that was where sins were remitted.
Now He speaks of that in one sense over in Hebrews chapter
9, where He says in verse 12, neither by the blood of goats
and camels, but by his own blood he entered once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Now that holy
place was the holy place not made in heaven. So it wasn't
talking about the tabernacle, and it wasn't talking about the
temple. It was talking about the heavenly Jerusalem, the heavenly
city, the church of the living God. He went into the holy of
holies. What does that mean? Is there
actually one of those? I don't know. But what it means
is he went with his own blood, not the blood of bulls and goats,
not the blood of calves and heifers and lambs, he went with his own
blood into the very presence of God. as a representative of millions
of people, a great high priest with the names of all his elect
upon his breastplate and the aspects upon his shoulders, he
offered his blood to God and God accepted that blood and was
satisfied with that sacrifice. And he said, well, when the mission
of this ends up, there's no more sacrifice. No need. Something must be different from
those Old Testament sacrifices and this new one. They couldn't
take away blood, they took away sacrifice. In fact, it's spoken of in the
very first chapter of this book, and set as a particular time
in history, with a particular word, the word QUINN. Look at verse 3 of chapter 1.
Who being the brightness of his glory, Jesus Christ, the express
image of his person, the image of the invisible God of open
devotion, and upholding all things by the power of the Lord of his
power. Underline that word QUINN. Because that makes a date, a
time, a specific thing. Whenever it was. We don't know
when it was. We know it was 2,000 years ago. But when means that
then something happened. What happened? When He had purged
our sins. Purged our sins. What does that
mean? He put them away. He satisfied God for our sins. He purged our sins. And after
He did that, because He had fully purged Him, He sat down on the
right hand of the Father. That's a position of accomplishment,
a position of victory, a position of honor and glory for what He's
done. But like God has set forth in Philippians chapter 2 when
He said He was obedient even to the death of the cross, wherefore
God has highly exalted Him. And given him a name that is
above everything, the name of Jesus, every knee should bow
and every tongue confess that he is Lord, to the glory of the
Father. Why is he there at your right
hand? Six times in the Old Testament and the New Testament that phrase
is used, at his right hand. Hebrews 12, looking unto Jesus,
the author of many of our faiths, with joy set before him, endured
the cross, despising the shame, and is now sat down. on the right
hand of the Father. He put our sins away. He purged our sins. It says in
chapter 10 that if any of those Old Testament sacrifices had
purged sin, it says that in what we just read, there would be
no more need of a sacrifice. He said, but those sacrifices
just kept on going on. Thousands and thousands of lands a crimson tie, a veritable coagulant
finger that pointed to one sacrifice, and that sacrifice was the Lord
Jesus Christ. This was part of this new covenant
that was made. The priesthood was different.
You know, old priests, they did it. They did their duty. They
did what they were supposed to do. They followed the law to
the T. They did what they were supposed to do. But we know that
that followed through to a B. the Old Testament era, when you
read Malachi, I don't know what was going on, the priests were
liars, the pastors were liars, Jeremiah, the prophets were liars,
and we know that all this was going on until the end. But they,
on the Day of Atonement, this was a big, they meant business.
Day of Atonement. They put on their robes, they
put on their mitre, they put on, they slid that lamb, they
went under that curtain, and they offered the blood of God. all settled with this word but beginning in verse 12 of chapter
10, but this man, as opposed to all those other men that preceded
him in priesthoods and prophets, this man, this one man, something
different happened. There was no atonement made here.
Somehow God Almighty, whose eyes are too pure to be old, before
whom the sun, moon, and stars are not pure in His sight, can
look at Stan Crow, can look at Sylvester, can look at Fred,
and say there ain't nothing wrong with them. Ain't no sin in them. So without sin, how in the world
can that be? Where remission of these is,
there is no more sin. No more sacrifice for remission
of these sins. This man, after he had offered,
Jesus Christ was the final and glorious sin offering to God. He was that burnt offering. He
was that peace offering. He was that meal offering. He
was that water poured out. He was all of those things in
the Old Testament, where all the prophets gave witness to
the end. after He had offered one sacrifice, one, His death,
His life, His blood, one sacrifice for sins, whose sins? The sins
of His people, His elect, His chosen, His bride, His church,
His sheep, His people. One sacrifice for sins, never
to be repeated forever. what he did, he sat down, he
drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank,
he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank,
he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he
drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he
drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank,
he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he
drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he
drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank,
he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he
drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank, he
drank, I know we say that, and we think
it's cool. I don't want to say that about
myself. God said that about you. He has perfected, perfected interesting
words there. Stileo in the Greek language
means perfect. It's used in other places in
Scripture. It's used three times in John chapter 19, until the
one time it's accomplished. Another time it's fulfilled. And another time with three words.
It is finished. Same word. He has perfected. How long? Forever. It will always be perfect. He has
perfected forever. verse 10 says they were sanctified
by the blood of God. And wherefore the Holy Ghost
also is a witness to it. What does that mean? This has
already been written. This has already been recorded
somewhere in the Bible. The Holy Ghost is a witness to
it. Or after that he said before, Jeremiah chapter 31, this is
the covenant. I'm not going to leave my words
written on stone. I'm not even going to put them
down on paper. They will be put on paper. Here's
where I'm going to write my words, my laws. What's the word laws
there? It's not talking about the Ten
Commandments. We know from this very book that those are satisfied
by Jesus Christ and set aside. The words of God, the laws of
God are written in the hearts of His people. They're written in the minds
of His people. They know the Word of God. What does that mean?
They know it when they hear it. It's not a surprise to them.
When they hear it, they don't question it. You can't convince
them otherwise. He says, and their sins, which were meant for them, and
their iniquities, which would feel hell-free. This was the promise made in
Jeremiah 31. If you want to look there, this is what Paul is quoting here in chapter 31 of Jeremiah. Verse 31 says, Behold, the days
come, saith the Lord, I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according
to the covenant I made with your fathers in the day that I took
them out by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt,
not according to the sign of my covenant, which my covenant
they broke. They broke it anyway, it's breaking
when you said it. Although I was good to them, they weren't good
to me. I was a husband to them. But this shall be the covenant
I'll make with you, the house of Israel after those days, saying,
Lord, I will put my law in their hearts, in their inward parts,
and I'll write them in their hearts. I will be their God. That's the one. That doesn't
say they'll let me. They'll untie my hands. If he'll
vote for me, if he'll make a decision for me, he says, this is what's
going to happen. I'm going to make a covenant with him. I'm going to be the
governor. And they're going to be my people. And they shall
teach no more. They're going to want to know that everyone in this
neighborhood, every man and his brother, they know the Lord. They're all
going to know that. Everyone's going to know me.
This is eternal life, you see. But they know the true and living
God. They shall know me from the least
of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord. For I will
forgive their iniquity. I'm going to do that. I'm going
to forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no
more. That's the covenant. God says, I'm going to do that.
Reckoning got done. He said it got done right here
in Hebrews chapter 2. And their sins and their iniquities
are out of our hands no more. Now what remission of these is?
What? These what? Sins! Remissions
of sin is where sins have been put away. Where God has been
satisfied for sin. No other sacrifice will ever
be made. No sacrifice from us. No sacrifice
of the one's table. This is not a sacrifice we're
taking. We're not already there and God will remember us. I want
to remember what happened here. And we were perfected by the
blood of Jesus Christ and He put away our sins and God was
satisfied with my being there and He's always satisfied that
He won't remember our sins anymore. Have you really ever considered
that and hold it over your heads? You know what you are. You know
what goes through your old wretched head and heart? You know that
down deep you're just blacker than a thousand midnights down
in a sucker's swamp. You know that. And yet, can you
believe it? God says, I know it. I'll remember their sins no more.
That means that one doesn't remember that when he came to earth to
offer the sacrifices necessary to put it away, All the people in this room,
we ought to walk around and smile on our faces, and enjoy our hearts. I know not many of us can make
a split in our step even though we're students. We all ought to walk around,
but first you'll have to change. The door to the who's God has
been thrown open and you have been set free. Why? Because there's nothing wrong
with you before God. I'm saying the very law of God,
the holy law of God, the searchlight of God's law can scan you from
the top of your head to the sole of your foot. You know what's
so exciting? I find no fault here. No sin here. I can't have anything
to do with this person because I was made to become transgressors. And there are no transgressions
here. They're forgotten. I don't remember
their sins no more. Many people came out of Mormon
church before the Reformation. or after the reformation. A lot
of people call me and say, you're a reformed Baptist. I say, I'm
not a reformed Baptist. I'm not a reformed Baptist. They say, well, you believe in
reformed doctrines. I know what they mean. I'm a Calvinist. I
believe in the Bible. I'm a Calvinist. Yes. But you're
just a reformed Baptist because they're still holding on to the
law. Part of that reformed doctrine, except for in the Baptist church,
maybe except out of the Baptist church, I don't know. Part of
that reformed doctrine is to take this table and make this
happen. Roman Catholics call it transubstantiation. What that is, that means they
believe that when you drink that red and that wine, they believe
that it actually comes from the body of Jesus Christ. It's due
to his body and his blood. Transubstantiation. So you're
actually eating the body of the blood of Christ. What is that? The body of the blood speaks
of the dead. It speaks of the dead. That goes
against Hebrews 10, doesn't it? The remission of disease, there
is no more sacrifice. Those who came out of the Reformation,
born of the human hearts, the Presbyterians and the Lutherans,
all those who came out of the Reformation, they're headed back
that way. This is what you're talking about these days. They
believe in something called a compensatory stage. The concept of satiation is when
you eat this bread and drink this blood, this wine, this act
is actually spiritually becomes the body and blood. It becomes
a sacrifice. But from a mission thesis, there
is no sacrifice. So when we take over this table,
we do it in remembrance. We know there's no sacrifice.
This is not a sacrament. so-called, and somehow grace
comes down to his help. We're stating the fact that he
said this. We're stating the fact that Jesus
Christ, when he offered his body, he was from Jesus Christ, it
put away our sin. And we can rejoice, and rejoice
again, when we're aware that this is the gospel. a new birth, by the Spirit, through
the blood and death of Jesus Christ, revealed to us in time,
by the Spirit, through the teaching of the Gospel. We rejoice, as children of God,
not because we've done something bad, but because this man, after
he was an unsacrificed Christian, was very legally affected by
the liturgy of God. Let's receive the Lord's Prayer. The next night, our Lord was
betrayed. He took bread and prayed. He refused disciples. He said,
this is my body broken for you to do this in front of me. And
he took the wine. And after he blessed him, he
said, this covers that new covenant in my blood, by my blood. He said, oh, the next you eat
this bread and drink this cup, you'll be sure of what? I'm dead. I'm dead. This is why we're saying, let's
remember that day. It affected us before God. To replace God we never ever
do correction. No charge can be laid against
us. There is therefore now no condemnation
of the iniquity of Christ Jesus. By and large, God is satisfied. Son, and all who are in His Son. God's not mad at you. God still
has a smile on His face, because of the death of Jesus Christ.
God will bless the elders for the way you've been, for the
way you've been through life. God will bless them, because
that's the most blessed part of this time. Father, as we protect
this table, and we consider it, and we obey it, of your work
on our behalf. We consider that our Savior was
made to be sin for us, and he knew no sin. He did so that we
would be made the righteousness of God. Fully satisfying all
your demands, we came into this world to do your will. Your will
is pure color. You would be the God of your
people, and they would be your people. You will remember those
things from now on. We thank you that we can do this
as a body of believers, as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
together. Thank you, Father, Christ. Okay. On the night I was betrayed,
he took bread. Bread of the Passover feast.
He broke it. He introduced his disciples.
He said, take, eat. This is my body. It will come
to you. So I'm going to let you do this. I'm going to let you
do this. On the same night, he took a cup. new covenant in my blood. Lord, let's eat this bread, drink
this cup, and be sure to walk my way until I come again. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. Amen. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and peace,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. The Lord said to his disciples
when they were getting ready to leave this earth, they said,
by this shall men know Get you on my side. That's your love. God bless you.
About Tim James
Tim James currently serves as pastor and teacher of Sequoyah Sovereign Grace Baptist Church in Cherokee, North Carolina.
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