Marvelous grace of our loving
Lord. Grace that exceeds my sin and
my guilt. I am the sinner who drew my sword. There where the blood of the
lamb was spilled. Great is grace, God's grace. Grace, grace, God's grace Grace
that is greater than all our sin Sin which when seen the most
high must judge ? Burdens our soul and threatens our life ?
? Grace which was paid for in whole by blood ? ? Points to
our refuge the Lord the Christ ? ? Grace, grace, God's grace
? Grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that is greater than all
our sins. Dark is the stain that we cannot
hide. What can avail to wash it away? Look, there is flowing a crimson
tide. Whiter than snow you may be today. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that will pardon and cleanse
within. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that is greater than all
our sin. Marvelous, infinite, matchless
grace Freely bestowed on His perfect Bride She has been chosen
to see His face He to preserve her from hell has died Grace, God's grace, grace that
will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, God's grace, grace that
is greater than all our sin. I'm thankful for that. Where
sin abounds, grace does much more abound. Thank you, man. Will you open your Bibles with
me again to Acts chapter 15? Acts chapter 15. We're going to begin reading
where we left off in the previous hour. And I've titled this message,
Necessary Things. The apostles are considering
this thing of grace and law and what they should require of the
Gentiles. The sect of the Pharisees were
saying that they had to be circumcised and keep all the law of Moses.
And there are hundreds and hundreds of applications of God's law
in the Old Testament, particularly in the book of Leviticus. And
these four things that the Holy Spirit directs the apostles to
say, these are necessary things. Now, is the, Is the Lord taking
all the law of God and saying, well, you know, it's not necessary
to keep all the law, but you need to keep these four? Is that
what he's saying? I think not. The scripture says
if we're going to be under the law that we're debtors to keep
the whole law. So if what the apostles are telling
this Gentile church is that these are the four laws that you have
to keep. Then they are putting them under the whole law. There's
more to these. these four things, these necessary
things than just putting the church under the Mosaic law.
They're gospel applications. These things are necessary for
us today. That's what I want us to see.
I want us to see how these four things that the Holy Spirit directs
the apostles to tell the church in Antioch are just as necessary
for us right now as they were 2000 years ago. But let's read
these verses together. We'll begin in verse 20. But
that we write unto them that they abstain from the pollution
of idols and from fornication and from things strangled and
from blood. For Moses of old time hath in
every city them that preach him being read in the synagogue every
Sabbath day. If somebody wants to be under
the law, let them go to the one of the synagogues and they can
sit under one of those rabbis that's preaching the law. But
these are the things necessary for the church. then pleased
at the apostles and elders with the whole church to send chosen
men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely
Judas, surnamed Barsabbas, and Silas, cheap men among the brethren. And they wrote letters by them
after this matter. The apostles and the elders and
brethren send greetings unto the brethren which are of the
Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. And this was the
question, for as much as we have heard that certain went out from
us and they've troubled you with words, subverting your soul saying
you must be circumcised and keep the law, to whom we gave no such
commandment. So the apostles are exposing
this sect of the Pharisees as liars. They're saying they didn't
get that from us. We didn't send them up there
to tell you that you had to be circumcised and keep the law
of Moses in order to be saved. And we want you to be crystal
clear on that. You see what a, what a dividing
line Acts chapter 15 is. I mean, this just settles the
whole issue about this mixing law with the grace of God. We believe that we should be
saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, even as they. Read on, look at verse 25. And
it seemed good unto us being assembled with one accord to
send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul,
men that have hazard their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. These are men that have put their
lives on the line for the gospel, and they're not going to compromise
the gospel for this sect of the Pharisees. We have sent, therefore,
Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same thing by mouth."
You know, that's what preaching is, isn't it? We're just declaring
the same thing audibly that's already been written by God.
and confirming the word of God with an audible voice. For it
seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no
greater burden than these necessary things. Now someone may read that and
think on the surface that the apostles as much dissension and
discussion and debate as there was with these Pharisees have
made some sort of compromise in saying, well, you don't have
to be circumcised and you don't have to keep the whole law, but
these four laws are necessary things. Is that possible? Is that possible? that that would
be the case? No, no. So what are these necessary
things that the Holy Spirit led the apostles to write and that
we have today as necessary things for the gospel? All these laws
are found, as I said, in the book of Leviticus along with
hundreds of others. Why these four? What do these four have to do
with the simplicity of the gospel, with the clarity of the gospel, the not mixing the gospel with
law. If their whole objective is to
say that we're saved by grace and by grace alone, why would
they list these four things as necessary things to be followed
and to be obeyed? Well, I want us to see them as
they relate to the necessity of the simplicity of the gospel
of God's grace in Christ. Pollution of idols was the eating
of meat that had been offered up to idols. Now some say, well,
you know, this was a transition period and the apostles are just
trying to help the Gentiles to not be offensive to the Jews
so that they can all get along. Typically, when I'm gonna preach
from a passage of scripture, we'll go on sermon audio and
see what other men have been given to say about a passage
of scripture. And there's generally dozens,
sometimes hundreds of messages on there on every passage I ever
look up. This particular verse, verse
20 of Acts chapter 14, only has two messages listed on sermon
audio. One of them is titled, Keeping
Peace in the Church, and the other one is titled, Stay Pure,
Abstain. And I didn't listen to either
one of them, but I can tell from the title what those messages
were really all about. Is that what this, is that what
these four necessary things are? I mean, how much, how much contrast
do you need to see what, what's being, what's being done here
in Acts chapter 14, 15 in terms of establishing the purity of
the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace in the accomplished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ without any law, without any
mixture of the law, and then to have the apostles say, well,
these four things are necessary. The eating of meat, sacrifice
to idols, is an attempt We're making spiritual applications
of these things now as they relate to the gospel. It's an attempt
to find nourishment for your soul in something other than
the Lord Jesus Christ. Because everything outside of
Christ is an idol. It's an idol. Acts chapter, Psalm 115. The
Lord speaks of idols. Turn with me to that passage
a moment. Psalm 115. Psalm 115. Verse three. But our
God is in the heavens. And he hath done, past tense,
whatsoever he have pleased. He's absolutely sovereign. What
did he please? He pleased to save his people.
He pleased to choose a particular people in a covenant of grace
before time ever began. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
and fulfilled the pleasure of his father in redeeming those
whom the father had chosen. He's pleased to call out those
for whom Christ died and reveal to them the truth of the gospel
and bring them to faith in Christ, making them willing in the day
of his power. Our God is in the heavens. He
hath done whatsoever he's pleased. Who can stay his hand? Who can
say unto him, what doest thou? No, he's omnipotent. He's the only true God. Paul
went on in Corinthians to say, idols are really nothing. They're
nothing. They don't exist. They're figments
of men's imagination and yet men are drawn to them. Look at
verse four. Their idols are silver and gold,
the works of men's hands. That's what idolatry is. It's
trying to find nourishment for your soul out of something made
by man, rather than looking to what God has done. They have mouths, but they speak
not. Eyes they have, but they see
not. They have ears, but they hear not. Noses have they, but
they smell not. They have hands, but they handle
not. Feet have they, but they walk not. Neither speak they
through their throat. They that make them are like
unto them, so is everyone that trusteth in them. Now, when the
Holy Spirit tells us that these are necessary things. What he's speaking about, the
pollution of idols, is that we not try to find the nourishment
for our soul out of something that man's made. Our God is in
the heavens. He hath done whatsoever, he's
pleased. And the only true nourishment, that's what our Lord said when
he said, labor not for that meat which perisheth. but for that
meat which leadeth to everlasting life. And then he went on to
say, my body is meat indeed. And my blood is drink indeed.
Unless you eat of my body and drink of my blood, you have no
life in you. The life of the Lord Jesus Christ is our meat. He is our meat. When we partake
in the Lord's table, we are confessing that. that Christ's life is our
life, that His death is our death, and that idols are nothing, and
that the only sustenance, the only nourishment, the only hope
for our immortal soul is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ
and His accomplished work. And that's what our Lord said.
This is necessary for the gospel. not just saying, you know, the
meat that's been offered to idols, you know, you Gentiles need to
need to not eat it. First Corinthians chapter eight,
verse eight, turn, turn me to that passage. Just a moment.
First Corinthians eight. Verse eight, but meat commendeth
us not to God, for neither if we eat are we the better, neither
if we eat not are we the worse. Gentiles were offended by the,
I mean, the Jews were offended by the Gentiles eating meat that
had been offered to idols, but the Lord's saying, you eat that
meat, it's not gonna make you any worse, and if you don't eat
it, it's not gonna make you any better. You're not going to recommend
yourself to God by what you do. Men think that the sacrifice
that they make or that the faith that they have or that the repentance
that they drum up or that the decision that they come to or
that the works that they perform or that the wisdom that they've
achieved is somehow going to, these are the pollutions of idols. This is meat sacrificed to idols. Men look to the wisdom of this
world or to the philosophy or the counsel of this world to
try to figure out how to be right with God. The Lord said, don't
do that. That's a mean sacrifice to idols.
That's abstain from the pollution of idols. Romans chapter 14 verse
17 says, the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness
and peace and the joy of the Holy Ghost. How am I going to
be right with God? Only if the Lord Jesus Christ
stands in my stead and presents himself on my behalf, if he's
all my righteousness, he doesn't add to my righteousness. He doesn't
help make me righteous. He is my righteousness. I've got to be found in him,
not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
righteousness, which is by the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And everything else is the pollution
of idols. Idols are those things that are
made with man's hands and men make idols to be like themselves.
This is just the Lord saying the same thing that he said in
2 Thessalonians chapter 2, that men set themselves up on the
throne of God. And they insist that God bow
to them. And that's what a free will works
gospel is. And the Lord's saying to us,
Don't labor for that meat which perisheth. The kingdom of God
is not meat and drink, it's righteousness and it's peace. How are you gonna
have peace with God? By the pollution of idols? Is
that how you're gonna have peace with God? No. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the Prince of Peace. We have peace with God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. Only as the shed blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ satisfies the justice of God can we have peace
with God. These are necessary things. Without these things, there is
no gospel. Second thing he says is a necessary
thing. is to abstain from fornication. Abstain from fornication. Fornication
is intimate sexual relationships outside of the covenant of marriage. And physical fornication has
always been a sin and God hasn't changed his mind about that.
He hasn't, it's still the same. There has to be a covenant relationship
in a marriage union. And the scripture says in Hebrews
chapter 13 that marriage is honorable in all and the marriage bed is
undefiled. Which means outside of the marriage
bed there is defilement. And it's not honorable. And the
Lord Jesus Christ honored when he performed his first miracle
at the wedding feast of Canaan. What a glorious miracle that
was. Well, they came to him and said, we're out of wine. And,
and the Lord said to the servants, he said, Philip, those six water
pots. And they were more like bathtubs. Okay. The scripture
said they had 20, 30 gallons a piece in them. And they're
long, they're long washing basins and they do their ceremonial
washing. And you go through and you dip your hands in each one
of them to ceremonially clean your hands before going to dinner.
And the Lord said, fill them up. And they filled them to the
brim. And then the Lord told the servants, he said, now go
draw out. You know that word draw is only used in one other
place, and that's in John chapter 4, when the woman at the well
told the Lord Jesus Christ, but you have nothing from which to
draw. To take water out of one of those
water pots would have been to dip the water. But to draw it
out was to go back to the well and get it from the inexhaustible
source. What was the Lord saying? The
six water pots represent the Old Testament law. And the Lord's
saying the same thing that he's saying here in Acts chapter 15.
I have fulfillable, I'm the end of the law for righteousness.
They were filled to the brim. And then he told those servants,
now go draw out some more water and take it to the master of
the feast. The master of the feast, he tasted that wine. Oh,
he said, well, this is very strange. He said, they always bring out
the good wine first. And then when men have had plenty
to drink, you bring out the, you know, the bad stuff and you've
saved the good for last. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
wine. And he honored marriage when
he turned the water into wine at the wedding feast of Canaan,
demonstrating the truth of the gospel in what he came to do. I came to establish this covenant
of grace. I've came to establish union
between Christ and his people so that, you see, Man-made religion
is nothing more than spiritual fornication. It's an attempt
to have intimacy with God without a covenant, without a marriage. That covenant was established
in eternity past when God the son agreed with his father to
be the redeemer of his people. He said, I'll go. I'll shed my
blood. I'll satisfy divine justice. I'll fulfill the law. I will
save them. And apart from that covenant,
you see, the covenant of works can never save. God put Adam
under the covenant of works. He told Adam, if you do this,
you'll live. And if you don't do this, you'll die. That's a
covenant of works. You see, a marriage is a, A covenant
is a promise, isn't it? And what do we do at a wedding?
We exchange vows at a wedding. We make promises one to the other.
And there's equal responsibilities and obligations between the husband
and the wife in a marriage. And that marriage is only as
strong as the faithfulness of both of them to keep those covenant
vows. Is that not true? It's a covenant
of works. A man and a woman are under a
covenant of works. But the marriage that we have
with God, the bridegroom, he bears all the burden of responsibility. He said, I know you couldn't
keep the covenant, so I kept it for you. I kept it for you. I satisfied everything that God
required. And I'm going to keep you. And you're going to have wandering
eyes, but I'm going to keep bringing you back. This is the covenant of grace.
It's an eternal covenant. It's a covenant established between
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in eternity past. And there's no intimacy with
God. Apart from that, and everything else is nothing more than, well,
the prophet Ezekiel told the children of Israel that they've
committed spiritual adultery with their idols, and that's
what men do. You see, so this pollution of
idols and this fornication is the same thing. It's Christ is
all in salvation and he's in all. And anything outside of
that, is a spiritual fornication. Trying to have intimacy with
God outside of the covenant of grace. Looking to the promises
that you've made to God for the hope of your salvation. That's
what free will. That's what the free will gospel is. Well, I
I invited Jesus into my heart. I committed myself to him. I
prayed the prayer and I'm determined. And it's spiritual fornication. There's no, the covenant, the
union that we have with Christ is a spiritual union that he
made and that he keeps and that he gets all the glory for. Don't believe what society says
about fornication being okay, it's not. Has to be a marriage. But what
will damn your soul is spiritual fornication. These are necessary things and
they're just as necessary for us as they were for the Gentile
church 2,000 years ago, aren't they? What about things strangled? I mean, there was so many laws
about dietary laws in the Old Testament. You know, you couldn't,
you couldn't see a kid in its mother's milk. You couldn't mix
flax with wool. You couldn't, all these things
had gospel implications, but why this one? Why things strangled? And here's the reason for it.
A thing that's been killed by strangling has never shed blood. There's no salvation apart from
the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross. And
yet the freewill gospel strangles the life out of the truth and
without blood. And the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ is not just necessary for salvation, it is our salvation. It's all our salvation. God didn't
say, when I see the blood and your commitment, when I see the
blood plus your decision, when I see the blood plus your works,
then I'll pass by you. No, he said, when I see the blood,
when I see the blood, I'll pass by you. The shed blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ is the only hope and it's all the hope of
our salvation. Blood is not just necessary,
it is everything. Life is in the blood. What can
wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
You see, things strangled takes the blood out of the cross. It
takes the blood out of the gospel. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. No, no,
no, no, nothing, nothing but the blood of Jesus. And if you deny the effects of
the blood, you deny the blood. Let me show you that in the scriptures.
Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10, Hebrews chapter 10. We'll begin reading at verse
28. He that despised Moses' law died
without mercy under two or three witnesses. By the Old Testament
law, you disobeyed the law of Moses and you had two or three
people to witness against you, you died. Of how much sore punishment suppose
ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden underfoot the
Son of God and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith
he was sanctified an unholy thing. You see that word unholy? It
means common. That's the word there, common.
And the idea here is that if you believe If you believe that
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is a common work of atonement
for all men, to be made effectual by something you do or by a decision
that you make, then you are trotting underfoot the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and you are calling the covenant of grace a common
thing. And how much sorer punishment
shall we be? You see, this is a strangled
gospel. This is a bloodless gospel. To
say that one drop of the Lord Jesus Christ's precious blood
that was shed for the redemption of his people was wasted, it
was shed for someone that's gonna end up in hell, is to count the
blood of the covenant a common thing. It's to strangle the life
out of the gospel, and it's to have a bloodless gospel. The
only way the gospel can be effectual is if the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ actually washed away all the sins of all of God's people. That's the offense of the gospel. That's the offense of the cross.
Paul said, if I still preach circumcision, then why am I being
persecuted? Then is the offense of the cross
ceased. If I'm still giving men something
to do, to atone for their own sins, then I've got a strangled
sacrifice. I've got a bloodless Christ.
And the offense of the cross has ceased. The offense of the
cross is the declaration that what the Lord Jesus Christ did
on Calvary's cross was an accomplished salvation, that He actually,
once and for all, by the sacrifice of Himself, put away the sins
of His people. And what offends those who are
looking to circumcision is the glorious joy that the child of
God has in resting in the finished work of Christ. By one offering, he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified, them that God has set apart.
He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Without
the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. And if you add anything to the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, you deny the blood of Christ. When John saw the church in heaven
in Revelation chapter 7 verse 14, he asked the angel, he said,
who are these in the white robes? And what did the angel say? These
are they which came out of the great tribulation. And that's
what we're in right now. The great tribulation is not
some horrible time at the end of time. It's what we're going
through in this world. We're walking through the valley
of the shadow of death right now. These are they which have
washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. There's no other cleanser. There's
nothing else to wash your robe in other than the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. God says, abstain from things
strangled. Abstain from a gospel that doesn't
give the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ all the glory and all
the credit for your salvation. Abstain from a gospel that denies
the covenant, the eternal covenant of grace, the promise of God
to save a people. And don't come anywhere near
a gospel that that fornicates that union that Christ has with
his people. Don't try to get your nourishment
from the meat of an idol, something that's man-made, something that
looks like you. Revelation chapter 13 verse 8
says that we are eternally justified through the blood of the lamb
that was slain before the foundation of the world. There we're back
to the covenant. This is that we're not saved
because of a promise that we make to God, we're saved because
of a promise that God made to God. Revelation chapter one verse
five says that he washed us from our sins with his own blood. With his own blood. Things strangled is a gospel
that denies the efficacy of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
as the only means of our salvation. The only means. The Lord goes on to say that
we are not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold,
but we are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as a
lamb that is without spot and without blemish. That's what
God requires. He requires a perfect lamb. And John said, behold,
the Lamb of God, He's the one that takes away the sins of the
world. His sacrificial death on Calvary's cross, His shed
blood, and He will take that blood and He'll put it on the
mercy seat. Not a mercy seat that's here on the earth, but
the one that's in heaven. And that's what the Lord Jesus
did. Turn with me to Revelation, I'm sorry, to Hebrews chapter
five, or chapter 13, Hebrews chapter 13. Verse 20, now the God of peace
that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great
shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting
covenant. Tell the Gentiles to abstain
from meats offered to idols. Tell them to abstain from fornication. Tell them to abstain from things
strangled, for these things destroy the gospel. and will leave them
without hope. This is the blood of the everlasting
covenant. Look at verse 21, and that blood
will make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working
in you that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ
to whom be glory forever and ever. It's the only thing that
constrains us. The only thing that keeps us,
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, looking to Him, resting in Him. It's the blood that breathes
life into the gospel. Adam was formed from the dust
of the ground. Then God came and breathed life
into his nostrils, and he became a living soul. There is no life
without the blood. Life is in the blood. Things
that are strangled have been taken their breath away from
them. When Ezekiel preached to that valley of dry bones, And
they began to come together, and the scripture says, as he
preached the gospel, bone to bone and sinew and flesh, and
they began to stand. But as of yet, there was no life
in them. Why? Because the breath of the
Spirit of God had not yet come. Prophesy to the wind, priest
of the Spirit of God, and when he comes, what's he gonna do?
He's gonna point them to the blood of Christ. Things strangled
is the gospel without the efficacy, the necessity, the singularity
of the blood of Christ for all the hope of our salvation. That
blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat. Just as Aaron put that
blood on the mercy seat, so our Lord went to glory, presented
his blood before the father. Fourthly, the Lord tells us to
abstain from blood. Now that's the eating of blood
or the drinking of blood. So abstain from that. It's probably a good thing not
to do that. Probably not too healthy. I know there are some
places in the world, I remember I lived in Cuba for a few years
growing up and I remember watching a Cuban man one time catch a
sea turtle and he slit the throat of that sea turtle and drained
its blood out right there on the beach into a cup and drank
that blood because he believed that the nature and the strength
and the spirit of that sea turtle came into his body through the
drinking of blood. And there's people all over the
world that do that. And the Lord's saying, don't
do that. But here's the most important part of this. Here's
the most important part of this. The blood that the Lord Jesus
Christ shed on Calvary's cross was not for you. It's not for
your consumption. He didn't make the offering of
his sacrifice to us. He was offering up his life to
his father. The blood was for his father,
it wasn't for us. Not for us to drink the blood,
to try to get the spirit and the nature of God into our lives
by drinking the blood. The blood was offered up to the
father. Leviticus chapter 13, will you
turn with me there in your Bibles? Leviticus 13. This is where all
of these laws are found. Leviticus chapter 17, I'm sorry.
Leviticus chapter 17. Verse 3, what man soever there
be of the house of Israel, of the house of Israel. that killeth
an ox or lamb or goat in the camp, or that killeth it out
of the camp, and bringeth it not unto the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation, to offer an offering unto the Lord before
the tabernacle of the Lord, blood shall be imputed unto that man.
He hath shed blood, and that man shall be cut off from among
his people. to the end that the children
of Israel may bring their sacrifices, which they offer in the open
field, even that they may bring them unto the Lord, unto the
door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest,
and offer them for a peace offering unto the Lord. And the priest may sprinkle the
blood upon the altar of the Lord. at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation and burn the fat for a sweet savor unto
the Lord." When Abraham was leading Isaac up on that mountain and
Isaac said, father, here is fire and here's wood, but where's
the sacrifice for the burnt offering? And Abraham said, son, God will
provide himself a sacrifice. What the Lord Jesus Christ did
on Calvary's cross was he was offering up his blood and his
life to his father. To his father. The blood's not
for us. It's for God. God said, when
I see the blood, I will pass by you. Turn with me to Hebrews
chapter nine and we'll close. Hebrews chapter nine. I want
you to see this. Verse 11, for Christ being come
a high priest of good things to come by a greater and more
perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not
of this building, neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls
and goats and the ashes of heifers sprinkled the unclean sanctified
to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood
of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without
spot to God. The Lord Jesus Christ wasn't
offering himself to you. He wasn't saying, you know, this
is my offering to you, won't you accept it? He was offering
himself to God in accordance with that eternal covenant of
grace that he agreed to in eternity past. The blood was sprinkled on an
altar that we've never seen before. Not an altar made with the hands
of man, an altar in heaven. And he hath obtained, read this
verse again. Verse 14, how much more shall
the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself
without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God? The only way I can have a clear
conscience is to look and believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has
put his blood on that mercy seat and that God is satisfied with
him, that I'm justified in Christ, I'm perfect in Christ. I have
no sin. These things are necessary for
the gospel. Abstain from the pollution of
idols, from fornication, from things strangled, and from blood. These are the things that men
do in trying to earn favor with God, and they destroy the gospel
of God's grace in Christ. Our Heavenly Father, we ask that
you bless your word and that you would enable us to believe
you to rest our hope in Christ. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. 232. Let's stand together. 232. We'll sing this without music. Christ our Redeemer