all other ground is sinking sand. If you turn in your Bibles to
Mark chapter 15, we have been following the path and the words
of our Lord Jesus in that last weekend, especially of late,
as He spends that time upon the cross. And we've looked at many
of those seven sayings from the cross, all of them deeply significant,
all of them deeply reflective of who our Saviour is and how
He saves His people. And it came, it comes at the
end, doesn't it? Verse 36, someone ran and filled
the sponge with sour wine. They thought he was calling out,
and he called out in thirst. Put it on a reed and offered
it to him to drink, saying, let him alone. Let us see if Elijah
will come to take him down, even at the end. of this trial on
the cross. They are still mocking him. And
Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and John 19.30 tells us that
that loud voice was, it is finished. Cried out with a loud voice and
breathed his last. Luke tells us that he had one
last word and we read it in Psalm 31 verse 5 after calling his
father my God my God He then, at the very last, his
last words are, Father, into thy hands I commit, commend my
spirit. He began his words from the cross. Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do. He had three hours on that cross,
it seems, suffering at the hands of men and Satan, and in three
hours of darkness, suffering from the hand of God. But his
word, Father, is now symbolic of the fact that the work is
done. He's now back and going back
to the bosom of his father. What a remarkable word it is,
father. I was blessed with a father who
never showed me anything other than love. And I loved him deeply
in return. But in the Lord Jesus and through
the Lord Jesus, We have another who is Father. We are not to
call anyone on earth Father. That doesn't mean that you young
ones shouldn't call your father, Father. And it certainly doesn't
mean that you shouldn't treat them with due respect. But we,
as God's children, call God our Father. Abba, Father. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus
uses that term 17 times. In his upper room discourse when
he's saying farewell in a sense for a time for his disciples,
he uses that word 51 times in those few chapters. And he who had been in the hands
of men, in the hands of sinners, in the hands of sinful men, in
wicked hands, it says. Now, he has finished that. He was, for that time, as a suffering
servant, in their hands. Now, he's in his father's hands. They who thought they had Him
in their hands shall soon be in His. Once they cried, Away
with Him! Someday He will say to them,
Depart from Me. We see in this last cry His submission
to His Father, His perfect submission, His perfect trust in His Father. We see again, as we've seen all
throughout any study of the Lord Jesus, that He was a unique man. There never was a man like the
Lord Jesus. There never was a man with a
birth like the Lord Jesus. There never was a man with a
life like the Lord Jesus. See, He laid down His life. It wasn't taken from Him. He has the power, He has the
authority to lay it down. Your lives will be taken from
you. I lay down my life. He lays it
down for his sheep. I lay down my life, John 10.17,
that I may take it again. No one takes it from me. I lay
it down of myself. I have power. I have power to
lay it down And I have power to take it again, this command
I received from the Father. His death was no ordinary death. It was He who lay down His life. And remarkably, Hebrews 9 says
that for us men, it is appointed for us to live once and die,
and then the judgment. For the Lord Jesus, it was reversed. It was judgment first. And for
all of God's children, His judgment was our judgment. His judgment
came before His death. And He shows us and points us
to the place of eternal security. The only place, we just sang
about it, in the hands of the Father, is the only place of
security. This is a world of shifting sands,
and this is a world of frustrations, no matter how much we try to
build, We are met with frustration all the time. He's one who builds
and finishes. We build that we might have to
rebuild and rebuild and rebuild. He finishes. But in everything
the Lord Jesus did, every act of his from before the foundation
of the world to his birth, his life, his death, everything he
does, he does as a representative, to represent those the Father
has given him. He calls them, my sheep, my bride,
my family, my people, the ones that you gave me. He says He's
lost none of them. So when the Lord Jesus commended
His Spirit into His Father's hands, He did something which
is even more remarkable for us. Whose spirits did He commend
into His Father's hands? God, God's children. are one with the Lord Jesus. Your spirits, brothers and sisters
in Christ, were commended into the hands of the Father as the
Lord Jesus died on the cross. And they were accepted by the Father. our Father now. We are one with Him. We are one with Him in His flesh. He was made to have flesh. He was made like His brethren,
made flesh and blood. He was made that way that He
might suffer, that He might be perfected, through suffering,
says Hebrews 2.10, that he might suffer and bleed, that he might
suffer temptation, that he might be bruised by his father, that
he might receive the stripes which heal us. He was made flesh
and blood to suffer shame and ignominy. He was made flesh and
blood so that he could die. Turn in your Bibles to Ephesians
chapter 5. You probably know the verses
I'm going to really well. But it's good for us to see that
God says these things. They aren't
the words of man. husbands love your wife love
your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself
for her that he might sanctify and cleanse
her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present
her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their
own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself,
for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes
it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of
his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this reason, a
man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery,
but I speak concerning Christ and the Church, one flesh, the
life in His flesh that He lived was our life. The righteousness
that He wrought, the holy righteousness that's acceptable to God is our
holy righteousness. This sin bearing death is bearing
our sins. This holy thing conceived in
the Virgin's womb is the holiness without which no one will see
the Lord. And at the end of his ministry,
in that flesh, he commends his spirit and ours into the hands
of his Father. What a place for us to find our
refuge. John 10, 29, my father which
gave them to me is greater than all and none, no one is able
to pluck them out of my father's hand. No one is able to pluck
them out of my father's hand. It's the place of eternal security. just as Noah was put in the ark
and shut in by God, and all the storms of the rightful holy wrath
of God beat upon that ark, and Noah was secure. We are kept, says 1 Peter 1.5,
we are kept by the power of God. As I said earlier, It's a sign
of communion restored with God. And communion with God is by
faith, by trusting God alone and not
ourselves. Faith is not affected by the
things of sight. We read often the testimonies
of dying saints and it's remarkable how God fulfills His promise
to come and to be with them and to comfort them in the hour of
our greatest need on this earth when all of what our bodies can
do amounts to nothing. There is just one place Isn't
it? There is just one hope. There
is just one rock. There is just one refuge. There is just one hand that can
carry you through that day. And it's a reminder that for
God's children, we have just one home. We have one place of
safety and refuge. and that's in our Father's hand,
in His sovereign hand, in His everlastingly loving hand. Death will come, and come soon,
as it does upon many. In some sense, we all ought to
be mindful of what Amos says prepare to meet your God. There is just a veil between
us and God, the veil of our flesh. In verse 38 of chapter 15 of
Mark, then this veil, the veil of the temple, was torn in two
from top to bottom. This is heaven's response to
the death of the Son of God. Heaven's visible response to
what has just happened on the cross. Hebrews 10 makes it really
clear what this veil in this temple really means. Hebrews 10 19 having therefore
brethren boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus
by a new and living way which he has consecrated for us through
the veil that is to say his flesh and having a high priest over
the house of God let us draw near with a true heart in full
assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled and our bodies
washed with pure water. The veil represents the Lord
Jesus. Let's turn in our Bibles back
to Exodus 26 and we'll read about the construction of this veil. It's interesting to think how
massive the veil was in that temple. If the veil in that temple
was laid out, it would not fit in this room. You would have
to knock the end walls out for it to fit here. It was a huge
veil. It was a most remarkable thing. the tearing of this veil. Let's
read in Exodus 26 and we'll see that the veil in verse 31 is
to be a veil woven with blue, purple and scarlet thread and
fine twined, fine woven linen. It shall be woven with the artistic
design of cherubim. You shall hang it upon four pillars
of acacia wood overlaid with gold. The hooks shall be gold
upon the four sockets of silver. And you shall hang the veil from
the clasps. Then you shall bring the ark
of the testimony in there behind the veil. The veil shall be a
divider for you between the holy place and the most holy. You shall put the mercy seat
upon the ark of the testimony in the most holy. You shall set
the table outside the veil and the lampstand across from the
table on the south side of the tabernacle toward the south.
You shall put the table on the north side. And you turn back in Exodus 26
to verse 1, and it talks about the making of the curtains, the
10 curtains of the tabernacle. Fine woven linen, blue, purple,
and scarlet thread with artistic designs of cherubim. You shall
weave them. And then there's a screen, there's
a door to the tabernacle. And it's woven of blue, purple,
and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen, made by a weaver. All of this is symbolic of our
Lord Jesus. The veil, of course, is a covering. It's a veil of separation. We think of veils and we think
of wedding veils and that nice lacy effect. But the veils that
these people are talking about are the veils like the veils
of Muslim women, which are meant to hide and to shield. And the
veil in the temple was a thick, heavy, heavy curtain. It conceals. You see, the veil, according
to Hebrews 10.20, is His flesh. The glory of who the Lord Jesus
really is was concealed by His flesh. And just for one moment,
with three witnesses on that Mount of Transfiguration, just
for a little while, that veil was removed. And what did those
men see? What did Peter, James and John
see? They saw one who was indescribably
glorious. And they saw one who took away
all sense of who they were. They were beside themselves. not knowing what to say and not
knowing what to do. They had the veil removed for
just a little while. He was revealed in his glory,
just like he was revealed to Isaiah in the temple. And Isaiah calls out, woe is
me. or I am undone, I am unraveled,
I have seen God. He saw the Lord Jesus in His
glory. This veil of the temple came
between the people and the glory of the Divine Presence. It was
a separation. It was a separation that God
had put there. You do not approach God. You do not even look upon God
unless you go behind this veil. And you go there in God's way,
through God's mediator. You go there as the people of
Israel did. You go in there represented by
a priest on just one day of the year. And if you go there and
you present something to God which is unheard of, Authorised
by him, people meet what happened to Nadab and Abihu, the sons
of Aaron. They took a censer and put fire
in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the
Lord, which he had not commanded them. So fire went out from the
Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. And Moses
said to Aaron, Leviticus 10.3, This is what the Lord spoke,
saying, By those who come near me I must be regarded as holy,
and before all the people I must be glorified. Aaron and his brothers
were commanded by God not to weep and not to mourn for Nadab
and Abihu. They were to acknowledge that
what God had done was right. It's a veil of covering, it's
a veil of conceals, it's a veil of separation. And it was made with these remarkable
qualities, wasn't it? It was made of fine linen to
signify the purity. As it represents Jesus, it signifies
the purity of His holy nature. That holy thing that Mary had. It's fine and it's not mixed. It's the righteousness of God. And it's twined together. God and man woven together. Intimately woven together. And the colors represent our
Lord Jesus. The blue represents the heavens. He came from heaven. And the
scarlet represents man. Adam means red earth. He was a man born of a woman. And what do you get when you
mix blue and scarlet together? You get the colour purple. blue from heaven, scarlet from
the earth, and the combination of two, perfect humanity and
perfect divinity woven together. And as we remarked earlier, these
same colors are on the door, the door into the tabernacle,
the meeting place of God with man, is the Lord Jesus. And when you were inside that
tabernacle, all of the curtains were a fine woven linen, blue,
purple, and scarlet. It speaks of God's sovereignty. all around that tabernacle, every
little thing in it, represented the Lord Jesus. He will never leave us nor forsake
us, and His sovereignty surrounds us. And this curtain, even the
one in the tabernacle, is so large that it took four pillars
to hold it up. pillars of shitting wood overlaid
with gold. They symbolise the divinity of
our Lord Jesus. Hidden from sight, but sustaining
that perfect man was the God, God-man. And it was hung directly
in front of the mercy seat, that mercy seat which represents the
Lord Jesus, And it separated the Holy of Holies from that
place just outside where the altar and the candlestick were,
which represented the Lord Jesus again. But it separated God from
man. And at the same time, this curtain,
this veil, represented He and He alone who can reconcile man
to God. There is no access to God except
through this veil. Only through the Lord Jesus do
poor sinners have access to God. He is the way, He is the door,
and He will never leave us nor forsake us. What must have the
thoughts of those priests been? The Lord Jesus, outside the camp,
with the high priests and so many others there, mocking the
Lord Jesus, making sure that his death was real and his death
was public and his death was shameful. And at the same time,
the Lord Jesus uttered these cries. At the same time, He died
in the temple. There was the priest taking that
blood of that lamb for the evening sacrifice and presenting it to
God. You see, in Mark 15, 38, it says,
then the Lord Jesus died, then God responds. And there was this
priest with this lamb's blood and with this lamb's body burning
on that altar. And there before him is this
huge curtain, and it is just bigger than we can imagine. A
big, thick curtain, and I haven't had much to do with fabrics,
but you ladies would know, if you're going to make a curtain
that's 20 metres high, the top of it is going to be remarkably
strong. And if it's going to be so thick
that it can support that weight over that distance, It's a huge
curtain, and there, as you are presenting this blood, this curtain
was torn from top to bottom. A remarkable act of an invisible
hand of the invisible God. It could only have been torn
by God himself. was torn in two, from top to
bottom. It was torn from heaven and the
tear reached down to earth. It couldn't have been men's doing.
If men were going to tear the curtain, they would have torn
it from the bottom to the top. These priests must have been
frightened like Isaiah was frightened. To look into the Holy of Holies
was to die. And there they were with this
huge curtain before them just being ripped asunder. It signifies that God had done
these activities. Wicked men, wicked hands, had
crucified the Saviour. But whose hand was behind it
all? He was a willing sacrifice, and
His Father, in holiness and justice, slew His Son. It was His sword
that awoke against the one who is His companion. Our Saviour
died by the will of God, as it is written in the Word of God. It was God who made Him who knew
no sin to be sin for us. And the veil was torn down the
middle right in front of the mercy seat, right in front of
the Ark of God, right in front of the place where the Shekinah
glory, the glory of God was seen. And there was not a thread left
in the way. It just signifies, doesn't it,
that God makes the way into the presence of God. Sovereign grace
alone can begin a work, and sovereign grace of God alone must finish
the work. It's not the work of men. It is finished, said our Saviour,
and heaven responds by opening this way. Sin has been put away. Justice has been satisfied. The righteousness God requires
has been established. It's as if the temple itself
in response to what's happened, tears its robe. And that robe, with the cherubin
on it, over that mercy seat, reveals now there is a way in. The law has been fulfilled. The promises of God have been
fulfilled. All that kept man separated from
God is now completely taken out of the way. There is not one particle and
there is not one remnant of anything left between sinners like us
and God. We now can go into that place,
that holy place, with boldness, with confidence, with full assurance. And to not go into that holy
place with boldness is to presume that our Saviour has not done
enough. We go into the very holy of holies
with God. The Lord Jesus' prayer, that
high priestly prayer in John 17, is answered, manifestly answered
as that veil is torn. And the glory, this was the place
of glory, and the glory which you gave me I have given them,
that they may be one just as we are one. I in them and you
in me, that they may be made perfect in one. and that the
world may know that you sent me." The religious world of the
Jews knew that God had done something remarkable. In Acts 6 we read,
"...of many priests who became believers." How many of the priests
who witnessed the events that day. These events were the things
that led them, by the grace of God, into the arms of a Saviour. the world may know that you have
sent me, and you have loved them as you have loved me. Father, I desire that they also
whom you gave me may be with me where I am, that they may
behold my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before
the foundation of the world. Everything, every barrier is
taken out of the way by our Saviour. Love is left. And it was His death the death
of the Lord Jesus that opened that new and living way. It was this death that brought
in that new covenant and took away the old. It speaks and reveals
the power of a better sacrifice, of precious blood, not like the
blood of bulls and goats that can't take away sin. And it gives
open, easy access. The high priest had to get in
behind that veil, but he couldn't go through it, and he couldn't
go under it. He had to go around behind it
to get in. But the Lord Jesus in his death
tears it apart and says, to his people, come in. That place which was the most
dangerous and the most fearsome place on all of this planet. That place where God alone would
dwell. And you couldn't approach God
without blood. Blood for your sins and blood
for the sins of the people. That now is the place of rest
and the place of peace for all of God's people. The veil has
been taken away. And this torn veil speaks of
entrance into the true tabernacle. The tabernacle that was made
was made with a pattern that was seen on the mountain. Turn
to Hebrews chapter 8. Now this is the main point of
the things we are saying. We have such a high priest who
is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in
the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle
which the Lord erected and not man. Not man. He makes the old obsolete. Just listen as I read on and
listen to what God established for us. Every high priest is
appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, therefore it is necessary
that this one also have something to offer. For if he were on earth,
he would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the
gifts according to the law, who serve the copy and shadow of
the heavenly things. As Moses was divinely instructed,
when he was about to make the tabernacle, for he said, See
that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the
mountain. But now he, the Lord Jesus, has
obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as he is also a mediator
of a better covenant which is established on better promises. For if that first covenant, that
Mosaic covenant, had been faultless, then no place would have been
sought for a second. But finding fault with them,
behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
not according to the covenant I made with their fathers in
the day when I took them by the hand and led them out of the
land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant,
and I disregarded them for this, says the Lord. Listen to God's
promises. For this is the covenant that
I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says
the Lord. I will put my laws in their mind
and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they
shall be My people. None of them shall teach his
neighbor, and none his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For all
shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest. This is eternal life, that you
know God. Who makes that way open for people
to know God? They shall know Me. For I will be merciful to their
unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds will
I remember no more. In that he says a new covenant.
He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete
is growing old and ready to vanish away. It's made obsolete. God will. And because of that
will, that will of God, we now come into the presence of God
by a new and living way. And we come through a veil, that
is His flesh. And having that high priest over
the house of God, we draw near with a true heart, in full assurance
of faith, not assurance of our work, having our hearts sprinkled
and our bodies washed with pure water. Isn't it remarkable that
God opens a way and man, by his activities, wants to close the
way? What do you think the priests
did later that day? They got the needle and thread out, didn't
they? And they started stitching. And they stitched and stitched
and stitched. For the next 30 years, they stitched, didn't
they? And for the last 2,000 years,
they have been stitching and stitching and stitching. Turn to 2 Corinthians 3, and
you'll see what they do in their stitching. You see, they won't accept the
beauties of the New Covenant. This New Covenant, not of the
letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills. What had
these men done? They'd just done their killing,
hadn't they? And they spend their days, these
legalists, killing the glory of the Lord Jesus before His
people. The letter kills, but the Spirit
gives life. It's a ministry of condemnation,
legalism, verse 9. And it's passing away. But unlike
Moses, verse 13, who put a veil over his face so the children
of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing
away, but their minds were blinded. For until this day, the same
veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament. Because the veil is taken away
in Christ to try and come some other way. with Jesus plus your
works, is to have minds blinded. But even to this day, when Moses
is read, when Moses is preached as the way of sanctification
and the believer's rule of life, when Moses is read, a veil lies
on their heart. What a wonderful nevertheless!
When one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. As I close, let's turn to Hebrews
chapter 6. We started talking about a rock
to build your life upon, a refuge, a place of peace and
a sanctuary. We talked about entering the
presence in Hebrews 6. Verse 17, thus God, determining
to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability,
the unchangeableness of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath that
by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie,
we might have strong consolation. Are there people here who need
strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of
the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor
for the soul, sure and steadfast. I've had very little to do with
boats and waves and rocks and things, but I do remember a time
a few years ago when I was out with Gary and we went out past
the heads of Jervis Bay and then down the coast and went into
this little place where it seemed like there were rocks all around
and I couldn't believe that they'd parked this boat so close to
these rocks. And it was all very well for
them because they jumped overboard with their wetsuits on and went
chasing fish. And I was left in this boat thinking that all
it needs is the tiniest tug on this thing. What do you do? I
didn't know how to start this thing. I didn't know how to drive
it. I didn't have a wetsuit. And it took me 10 or 15 minutes
to be reconciled to the fact that there was an anchor. There
was an anchor that held. Remarkably, it held. I don't
know why it did. The waves were big and the rocks
were nasty, but the fish were really good. But it held. It
was remarkable. But see, where is your anchor?
The anchor can't be in the boat. The anchor can't be in yourself. It can't be in your doings. It
can't be in your feelings. It can't be in your religious
activities. We want a refuge. It's Christ
Jesus. We want to lay hold of a hope
that's set before us. What's the hope set before us?
Just in a little while, all this will pass away. And there will
be that veil, the veil which is our flesh at the moment, will
be taken out of the road. And God's children will be in
the presence of the Lord Jesus. And we will be like Him. And
it's sure, and it's steadfast, and it enters the presence. It enters the presence of Almighty
God. It enters the throne room. We
have the right, children of God, to go boldly into the throne
room of heaven, where millions of angels and millions of saints
worship God Almighty. We have a High Priest forever. He's finished His work. He's
finished His work here on earth, but He remains a high priest
forever. Do we need someone to represent
us before God? To deal with our sins before
God? We have. that high priest, and
he's the forerunner, verse 20. Where he goes, we go. Where he leads, he takes all
of his people. He will never leave us nor forsake
us. He's gone there. All of God's
children must go there. He's a high priest forever. Let's pray.