Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the book of Hebrews, the chapter
that we read part of, Hebrews chapter 7, and reading from our
text, verse 22, where we started our reading. Verse 22, by so
much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. Hebrews 7 verse 22. What is upon my spirit for this
evening is looking upon Jesus as our surety. We may look upon the Lord as
our great high priest or upon our saviour, redeemer, our rock,
our shelter, our elder brother, bridegroom about this evening
to look upon him as our shorty. A shorty is one that was so illustrated
with the case of Judah, that Judah had agreed, and he was
on that condition, that Jacob let his son Benjamin go, that
if Benjamin had anything to pay, anything that was laid upon him,
any accusations, any debt that he had to pay, that Judah would
step in the breach and pay it for him. A shorty is one that
only comes into play when the person that they are shorty for
has nothing to pay at all. They're a guarantee as it were,
a backup, a complete one to rest upon when one has nothing else to rest upon. And so when Judah
was in that position, that Joseph, and of course he didn't know
it was Joseph, Joseph was determined that Benjamin would stay with
him. Joseph had had planted that cup
on them, really, they weren't guilty of stealing it. But the
things that came upon them brought their true guilt to mind. This may happen many times in
our lives too. We may be accused of things that
we haven't done, we're completely innocent of. But rather than
standing up and saying we're innocent of it, God reminds us
of things that we really have done. Many times I've thought
in my mind, when I've been accused of that way, friend, what you're
accusing me of is completely untrue. But if you really knew
about me, if you really knew about my sins, you've had a lot,
lot more to say than what you have had to say. And these brothers,
they remembered those many years back, what they had done to Joseph,
and they remembered their sin. And all the things that they
went through brought those sins from long ago. remembrance. Do you know what that is? To
have the sins of our youth brought to remembrance. Sins that many
years haven't extinguished the pain, the guilt, the sense of
what we have done. Well Judah, when he realised
that this was what was going to happen, he told Joseph what
he'd agreed. He told Joseph that he was the
shorty. He told him that he would stand
in Benjamin's place, so that Benjamin could go back to his
father, so that his father didn't die. Well, if we'd have read on into
the next chapter, Joseph then makes himself known to his brethren. It's a beautiful chapter, that
following one. Read it at your leisure, Genesis
chapter 45. But the word of God warns us
against being a shorty, especially in the book of Proverbs. We have several places where
we are warned against it. In verse six, sorry, Chapter
6, Proverbs 6, verse 1. We read, My son, if thou be shorty
for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger,
thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken
with the words of thy mouth, do this now, my son, and deliver
thyself. When thou art come unto the hand
of thy friend, go humble thyself and make sure thy friend. The warning is that in being
a shorty, he is in danger of losing everything himself. And we have the same in the 11th
chapter of Proverbs and verse 15. He that is shorty for a stranger
shall smart for it. And he that hateth shortyship
is sure. The Word of God is saying to
us, if you be a shorty, especially if it's a person you don't know,
you were smart for that. And if you hate it, if you keep
right away from being a shorty, then you'll be short. Then you
won't have someone to take away your head. Imagine if I it went
down the street of Cranbrook. And I said to someone, I'll be
shorty for you. And that person then, and we
got a letter from the lawyers and saying, this person is defaulted
on a loan and they owe 200,000 pounds. And so we had to again,
sell our house and to pay that debt for a total stranger. And our whole life, is ruined
as it were, we lost our house and everything just because I
made myself a shorty for a stranger. And this is, the shortyship is
an agreement, a contract, a promise. If that person cannot pay, we
will pay. We will stand in the place. And we have it in Proverbs 17
as well. Verse 18, a man void of understanding
striketh hands and becometh shorty in the presence of his friend. So the very strong word warning
that we should not do this. Now when we think of those warnings
given to us, knowing what shall happen to us, how we shall smart
for it, what it shall cost us, And especially there is highlighted
a stranger. And yet we read in our text that
Jesus was made a shorty. And if Jesus was made a shorty,
and a shorty for his people, he was not made a shorty for
a stranger. He is not made a shorty with
the thought, His shortyship might be needed, or it might not. He knew it would be needed. He knew he would smart for it. He knew the cost before he became
a shorty. And you see the love, the love
of the Lord, the kindness and mercy of the Lord for his people,
when he gives us warnings that in our lives we don't ruin our
lives in that way, he willingly did so. willingly, knowing that we would not have
anything to pay and could not pay it at all. So we have those
warnings and yet the revision in Christ as a surety for his
church, for his people. We have in our text a comparison,
a better testament, What was the other testament? The old testament or covenant
was of the law. But here is the gospel, is a
comparison between grace and works. The better testament is
grace, a covenant in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
what Christ has done. By works, it is the deeds of
the law. And we know, and Paul says this
very clearly in Romans 8, what the law could not do, in that
it was weak through the flesh. God sending his own son, And
in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemn sin in the flesh, that
the righteousness of the law, that it might be fulfilled in
us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. It is better one must condemn,
the law must condemn. Cursed is everyone that continueth
not in all points of the law to do them. All have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. Whoso offendeth in one point
is guilty of all, that all the world might be brought in guilty
before God. It is better then, because under
the law of Moses, man is condemned. Under the gospel, under grace,
there is life, there is hope, there is mercy. We have a very striking comparison
between these two, when Paul writes to the Corinthians, his
second epistle to them, and chapter three. And through that chapter,
he compares these two covenants, as it were. We have in the third
verse, For as much as ye are manifestly
declared to be the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written
not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God." Now he gives
this comparison, not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables
of the heart. He's comparing the tables of
stone of the law, and then the fleshy tables of the heart of
the people of God. And then he speaks of the ministers
of the Gospel in verse 6. God who has made us able ministers
of what? The New Testament. What does
he say of that ministry, of that testament, that better testament? Not of the letter, but of the
Spirit. For the latter killeth, but the
Spirit giveth life. And what he means is the latter
of the law kills. The apostle Paul, he said, when
I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came,
sin revived and I died. When God brings his holy, pure
law into the heart of a sinner, It condemns that sinner. It brings
him in guilty. Many don't think that today,
and it doesn't work that way with them. But at the Judgment
Day, when the hearts of all men are made known, and that holy
law is then opened, and we are tried by that law, then we will
see what we do not see now, if we don't. And we'll see that
we are guilty, and that there is no answer, that condemnation
is upon us. Again in Romans 8, there is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, but those
that are not in Christ Jesus, there is condemnation. But then
he goes on comparing in verse seven of the third chapter, second
of Corinthians, If the ministration of death, written and engraven
in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could
not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his
countenance, which glory was to be done away, how much or
how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious. He says the law, the giving of
the law was glorious in the way the mountains smoked, the trumpets
sounding long, the voice of the Lord. It was a great thing, but
he said that's to be done away. How much more glorious is the
gospel? And then in verse nine, he says,
if the ministration of condemnation be glory, How much more doth
the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory? For even that which was made
glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory
that excelleth." And so he's speaking of that which is done
away, taken away in our text, says, by so much was Jesus made
a surety of a better covenant. A better covenant. Our text begins with this word,
by so much. What is meant by that? Well,
over the old covenant, we had the Levites, we had the priests
after the flesh, but they were made priests because they were
the line of Levi and of Aaron. It wasn't by the decree of heaven
or by an oath that they were made priests. But with the Lord
Jesus Christ, it is emphasized that it was an oath. In verse
21, we have, for those priests were made without an oath, but
this, The Lord, with an oath by him that said unto him, the
Lord swear and will not repent, thou art a priest for ever after
the order of Melchizedek. And so by so much, by the fact
that one was by an oath and the other one was not by an oath,
and he's referring back to Psalm 110 and verse 4 where we have
this, the Lord hath sworn and will not repent thou art a priest
forever after the order of Melchizedek. This is speaking of our Lord
Jesus Christ. It is the Word that our Lord
questioned the scribes and the Pharisees and asked them. He
quoted the first verse of this psalm. Remember, psalms are written
a thousand years before Christ came. Psalm of David, the Lord
said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine
enemies thy footstool. And our Lord's question to them
was, If Christ be David's son, how is he his Lord? And they
could not answer him. They could not answer. But David's Lord was Christ. Before Abraham was, I am. The eternal God, Jehovah, Father,
Son and Holy Ghost said unto the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
my Lord, David's Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make
thine enemies thy footstool. David, the same as Abraham, saw
Christ's day and rejoiced at it. He is the eternal God from
the beginning, right from the beginning. When man was first
formed, let us make man in our own image. The Trinity. I want to look to the Lord's help
this evening. Three points. Firstly, looking
upon God's plan. Remember the desire was looking
upon Jesus as our surety, but first, Looking upon God's plan. We have in our text the, looking
at the Levitical priesthood and the Old Testament and then the
Better Testament and in the type of Melchizedek. So, looking upon
God's plan. And then secondly, looking upon
Jesus' suffering in our place. as a shorty. And then thirdly, looking upon
Jesus as our shorty in time, in time. Now second point is
looking back at Calvary, but then not that the Lord is suffering
now, but the blessings of the shortyship that are known in
time. But firstly, God's plan. The Apostle Paul had said to
the Hebrews when he first introduces Melchizedek that this was a deep
subject. He says in chapter five and Verse
9, he says, And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal
salvation unto all that obey him, that's the Lord Jesus Christ,
called of God, and high priest after the order of Melchizedek. And then he says this, Of whom
we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye
are dull of hearing. and that they had need of teachers
to teach them the first principles. So in one sense it is a difficult
subject and I want to try and put it in a simple way. Melchizedek was a character from
the Old Testament, from Genesis 14. We have Abraham going to
rescue his nephew Lot that had been taken captive with the kings
of Sodom and Gomorrah. He rescued him and all his family. And afterwards, when he was coming
back from that battle, there met him Melchizedek, who blessed
him. And he was king of Salem. And Abraham gave him tithes of
all. The apostle summarizes it here. in the first part of this chapter
seven. But what is used in scripture,
and use this, remember the inspired word of God, the account in Genesis,
what actually happened was brought about in providence by God. What David wrote in Psalm 110
regarding Melchizedek, inspired word of God, and what we have
here, In Hebrew it's the inspired word of God as well. And the
thing about Melchizedek, we are not told where he came from,
we're not told his father, we're not told his birth, we're not
told his death. Of no doubt, of course, he had
a father, he had a birth, he did die, he was a man. But these
things are not said about him. and only that was said that he
was King of Salem, which is King of Peace. And so the Apostle
takes this, without father, without mother, without descent, having
neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto
the Son of God, abideth the priest continually. And so that picture
is of the Lord. Instead of like thee, Priests
under Levitical law that were born, they died, another took
their place. Here is a priest of which he
is always a priesthood because we don't read of a birth or a
death or anything. And we read the Lord Jesus Christ. He, although when he came to
this world, he was born as a man and he died as a man. Yet he
is the eternal God with no beginning nor an end. And so we have him
as the heavenly high priest. And again, it reinforces the
divinity of Christ, the eternal life of Christ, denied by many,
Many so-called cults or religions deny that the Lord Jesus Christ
is the true God. John in his epistle says, this
is the true God and eternal life. Very, very clear, I am my father
of one, says our Lord. But when we look at God's plan,
we have Abraham, and then from Abraham was to come Isaac, Then
from Isaac became Jacob. Jacob had 12 sons, and one of
those sons was Levi. And when the tribes were distributed
in the land of Canaan, when they came out of Egypt, we have Levi
not given any portion because Levi was the Lord's portion.
They looked after the tabernacle. They offered the sacrifices.
It was through them came the law of Moses. And that law written
with the tables of stone came through Levi. And it is very important in the
comparison that is here that we understand this because the
promises of Christ and the blessings that were given to Christ from
Melchizedek were before Levi. In fact, several generations
before, before ever the Levitical order was ever established and
set going, we have the gospel, we have that already there. We
already have the priest, like Melchizedek. And then we have
brought in, when Israel is established as a nation, we have the covenant
of the law. And Paul explains why the law
was given. He said the law was from Adam
until Moses, Why was it? Because men died. That's why
the law was there. But sin is not imputed when there
is not law. We need laws in this land to
bring people up to the courts. If there's no law, you can't
condemn them. So the law had to be written that men might
be condemned, that men might be brought in guilty. We're still
under the law, but it needed to be written down and established. And so that was brought under
the Levitical law. But then we have this. Melchizedek
was not a Levite. He was not under that law. And so it says, it's very evident
that there is another arrangement, another testify, another testament,
that is not of the Levitical one. And he said if there is
a change of priesthood, if there's a change in your priesthood from
Levi to Melchizedek, there is a change of law as well. And he says it's very evident
our Lord did not come from Levi. He came from Judah. And no mention
at all was made by Moses concerning priesthood with the tribe of
Judah. And so what the apostle is emphasizing
in this, that under the priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ, a priesthood
that never ends, it's an eternal priesthood, we are not under
the law of Moses. We're not under that. A change
of law, a change of priesthood. And that is very, very clear.
Those that are safe, those that are believers, those under the
Lord Jesus Christ, we're not under the law. We're not without
law. We are under law to Christ. It's
not a liberty to sin. Sin is the transgression of the
law of God. And our Lord Jesus Christ came
to obey that law, to fulfil that law, to make it honourable. But
having done so, he removed it away, the condemnation, nailing
it unto his cross. And so the arrangement of our
Lord in Melchizedek is a beautiful, it's a blessed arrangement. I
also love the same type of analogy when we're thinking of the cities
of refuge. Because those cities of refuge,
those who had killed a man unawares, could flee to that city so that
the revengers of blood, the families, couldn't kill them out of revenge. And then they, once they had
refuge in that city, their case could be held by the judges if
it was an accident. They must then stay in that city
of refuge until the death of the high priest. And then when
the high priest died, they could go back to their own home. But
in our Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ has died, but he lives. So we
have a situation where those who have fled for refuge, they
are both free and they have a place of refuge. that never changes. They don't need to go from that
place of refuge. And they don't need to be captivity
either, because the high priest has died, but lives. And these are beautiful types
and comparisons of the superiority and the blessing of Christ as
our great high priest, high priest that never changes, Jesus Christ,
the same yesterday and today and forever. We'll want to then
look, that is God's plan. God's plan is to bring in a better
testament, not under Moses, not under Levi, but one that is an
everlasting priesthood that precedes the law, and the blessings are
solely in Christ who has fulfilled the law and made it honourable.
Delivered us from the curse of the law, be made a curse for
us. Well then secondly, looking upon
Jesus' suffering in our place. Imagine how Isaac must have felt. He'd been bound, He was put upon
the altar, Abraham doing this at the command of God. The knife
raised up to slay his son. And then the voice of the angel
saying, Abraham, Abraham, slay not thy son. And he showed him
a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. So there is spotless
ram, not its coat torn. And it was offered up in the
stead of Isaac. And as Isaac looked upon that
ram being slain, that could have been me, that would have been
me. As he saw the flames leak up, that would have been me.
It was in his place. You think of right through the
history of the children of Israel. When a man had sinned and he
was to bring a lamb And he was bringing him to the door of the
tabernacle. He was to lay his hand upon that
head. It was to be slain. It was then
to be offered up a sacrifice for his sin. He was to identify
with it. He was saying, it is my sin. It is my guilt. But this animal,
this spotless animal, and it had to be spotless as a type
of our Lord, is to suffer in my place, is to die in my place,
and are realising that there is this substitute. When we think
of looking on our Lord as our surety, we look upon one we could
not pay the debt, we could not do it. You know when Ruth besought
Boaz that he would cast his skirt upon her, that he would be shorty
for her, that he would redeem her. He said, there's one closer. But you know that man, he said,
I cannot redeem. It will destroy us. It's my own
inheritance. And that's like you and I. We
cannot redeem ourselves. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission. And we would lose our own lives.
We cannot save ourselves. We cannot save a brother. We
are like those that need a surety, because there is no other way
that we shall have life. We cannot pay the debt. We cannot,
by our own works, merit the favour of God. We cannot save ourselves. We are in debt. We are under
condemnation. We need a surety. And the Lord
Jesus Christ on Calvary is that surety. Again, we have in the
Psalms, beautiful Psalm 80, Let thy hand be upon the man at thy
right hand, the Son of Man, whom thou madest strong for thyself. God the Father made strong for
himself the Lord Jesus Christ to be a surety for his people,
and he has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Awake, O sword, against
my fellow, and the wrath of God was to fall upon him. The sacrifice of our Lord was
a propitiation for sin, a wrath-ending sacrifice. And so when we look
upon Jesus as our surety, we look upon him suffering in Calfree,
at Calfree. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Thou pierced my hands and my
feet. The sufferings of the Lord, in
the garden, sweating great drops of blood, his disciples forsaking
him, his back torn, we had that in Psalm 129, the ploughers ploughed
upon my back, they scourged, they whipped the Lord Jesus Christ. The physical sufferings were
great, but the sufferings of his soul greater. And that which
he endured was in the place of his people. You think of the
two that were there before Pilate. One was Barabbas, and he was
there for murder and insurrection. And then there was the Lord Jesus,
spotless and innocent. One of them could go free, and
the multitude desired the murderer to go free and Christ to suffer. But with the short issue, There
is a very direct, we see, this is my debt. This is what I cannot
pay. And this is the Lord Jesus Christ
paying my debt. You say, when do we view the
Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary? There's several ways we view
Him there. We view Him in the Word of God.
because we have a testimony, the word picture of what has
happened. Many of us, we read articles
in the newspaper or the news. I don't think any of us could
say that there are not times that we've read an account of
someone's sufferings or what's happened and it's profoundly
moved us. It has. Sometimes we felt angry. Sometimes we felt extreme sorrow
or sympathy. We haven't seen what's happened,
we've only read about it, but it had that effect on us. And
we have the Word of God. In the testimony of many witnesses
of Christ's sufferings, his very utterances on what happened to
him, we have also in the ordinances of God's house that God himself
has chosen, our Lord Jesus Christ instituted. Baptism, being buried
with him by baptism into death and risen again in newness of
life. We see in that ordinance the
Lord Jesus entering into death as our surety in our place. We have it also in the Lord's
Supper. The Lord says, Not only this
do in remembrance of me, but as oft as ye do this, ye do show
forth the Lord's death till he come. And we are showing forth. I, if I be lifted up above the
earth, would draw all men unto me." It's not that we lift up
the wafer or anything like that. The Lord's Supper is not another
sacrifice. It is an ordinance. It is an
ordinance. of which the Lord has instituted
to show, not just in words, but in emblems of the bread and the
wine, his own sufferings. So when we view the Lord's Supper,
may we be looking upon our surety in our place at Calvary. In the third place, looking upon
Jesus as our surety in time. And it is the realising of this
that not only was it at Calvary that the Lord has stood in our
place, but that he has made known what he has done in time. We so need that personal application. In one sense it is as we In our
second point where we are viewing through the ordinances and through
the Word and through the preaching, I determined to know nothing
among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But it's actually
walking it out. How many times have you and I
as believers have been brought that we have nothing to pay?
We've no answer. We can't make amends. our backslidings,
our sins, those things of which we must come before the Lord.
And we've only a plea of mercy. The debt must be paid. We know
it has been paid at Calvary. But to feel again the liberty,
to feel again the preciousness, we have a surety. The devil will
say, your sinned against light, sinned against knowledge, there's
no hope for you, there's no restoring, there's nothing, there's no way
that you can make amends, you can't pay your own debt. But
this priest here is an everlasting priesthood, and his shortage
ship is everlasting. And the Lord reminds his dear
people shows himself as their shorty and what he has done at
Calvary. He doesn't need to pay the debt
again, it is paid. But dear friends, we need to
be reminded it is paid. We need to see it again. And
we often forget. And as often as sins come upon
us, we need those fresh views. of the Lord Jesus Christ coming
like Judah did, I will be surety for him. I will pay the debt. Or better, I have paid the debt. I have made up all that this
poor sinner shall ever be accountable for right to his dying day. The Lord Jesus Christ ensures
that there can be no condemnation upon his people. What if it was
said, well, that applies to when you're called by grace, but well,
who knows that by between that time and your death, there might
come something and you've lost your salvation. There must be
a provision. that ensures that those debts
that cannot be paid by you and I are met by the shorty, and
they are. And the views that the Apostle
Paul had of that as he sets it forth in Romans 8, that begins
with that beautiful word, there is now no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jesus. He comes to the end of that and
he says, I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord. What beautiful words is this.
What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who
can be against us? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth." And
we have this ever-living intercession at the right hand of God opened
up to us there in Romans 8. And so may we, with the word
that is before us here, by so much was Jesus made a surety
of a better testament, view our Lord Jesus Christ, look upon
him, Look upon his plan, the plan that places him as our shorty,
and look upon him at Calvary's suffering in our place, and look
upon him as oft as sin defiles. Remember, he has an everlasting
priesthood. He is our shorty, not was our
shorty, May the Lord add his blessing.
Amen.