At the same time, I have a great
heaviness in my heart for those who don't have an interest in
the Gospel, those who seem to pay little attention to what's
being preached. I wonder sometimes when I'm preaching,
I wonder if folks realize that the preacher can see who's in
the audience, you know? It's like we forget, I think,
sometimes. For those who don't see the need
of hearing the gospel, who don't see the need of God's grace,
let me first appeal to you just from a point of courtesy. Have you ever considered that
the believers that are here work very hard for the money that
they give to pay the bills just so you can hear the gospel preached?
Have you ever considered that some arrive early and set everything
up, and some stay late, take everything down, just so you
can come in and sit and open your Bible and hear the gospel
preached? Have you ever considered the
labor that goes into preparing three, sometimes four messages
a week? It takes all day, every day,
sometimes into the night, to try to get a message from God,
not just prepare a sermon, but to plead with God to give a message
for His people, for the hour in which you're to stand and
preach. And then have you ever considered
that your name, your name, your name is being brought before
God, before His throne of grace, youngest to oldest, asking God
that if it's His will that He'd have mercy on you. Have you ever
considered the sorrow that it causes? After you've studied
and you've labored and you've worked to get a message and then
you come and you get here, you think you've got a message that'll
be just, you just think it'll be just the thing that's needful.
And you get here and they're not here. Or if they are here,
they don't bother to open the Bible, don't bother to pay attention.
Don't act like they even concern whatsoever. I realize that we
have things that we have to do. I realize there are things that
come up, we get sick, other things that we can't always be here.
And I'm talking about the general course of the situation. And
I realize this, I realize this is my comfort, this is my assurance.
I know that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain
that build it. I know that except the Lord keep
the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. But as long As long as I'm preaching, if
I ever cease to have this burden for you, I'll step aside and
somebody else can preach in my place, and I should. Because
as long as I'm sent to minister to you, this is the burden I
have for those that I'm preaching to. I want you to hear the good
news of the gospel. I mean with the heart. I mean
savingly. savingly. Now, those are all
just just things that appeal to the natural reason. I mean,
that's just common courtesy right there to take those reasons and
those considerations. But there are reasons that are
much more to your own personal advantage. And those are the
reasons I want to speak to you about this morning. I have a
message here for you concerning these important considerations.
And I want you to take your Bible now, and I want you to open it.
And if you don't have a Bible to open, there's some back there
on the back, and I'll wait on you to get one, because this
is important. I want you to read along with me in your Bible.
Hebrews chapter 9. That's where we're going to be.
Hebrews 9. My subject is three certainties. Three certainties. The first
certainty that I'm going to talk about is certain for everybody
here. If our Lord doesn't return first,
this is certain for every one of us sitting here. And then
the second is certain for everybody who meets God outside of Christ. It's certain. And the third thing
is certain for all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Look
at verse 27. And as it is appointed unto men
once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once
offered to bear the sins of many. And unto them that look for Him
shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Now we're going to deal with
the context of the passage in just a moment, but let's just
look at the divisions we're going to look at here first. First
of all, death is certain. Death is certain, look at verse
27, as it is appointed unto men once to die. Death is not by
accident, it's not by chance, but it's by the appointment of
God. As it is appointed unto men once
to die. If our Lord doesn't return first,
Everyone here will die. We will die physically, every
one of us, as it is appointed unto men once to die. Here's
the second certainty, it's judgment. Verse 27, but after this, the
judgment. Death will not get us off the
hook with God. Death won't get us off the hook.
After death is the judgment. Whether you pay attention or
you don't, whether you heed the Word of God or you don't, sooner
or later, you will do business with God. You're going to meet
God in judgment. After death, the judgment. But
thirdly, this is certain, for everyone who rests in Christ
by faith, trusts in Christ, they certainly shall be saved. Everyone. Verse 28 says, So Christ was
once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look
for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Now we're going to look at the
context when we get to this third point, but let me just look at
these first two points first. The first thing we see here is
death is certain. It's certain. Verse 27 says,
as it is appointed unto men once to die. Now man is to blame for
death. Man is to blame for death. God
is life and life is of God. Death is because of man. Holy
beings never die. Death is the result of man's
sin. In the first state in which God
created Adam, he had no sin to cause him to die. Absolutely
no sin. Look at Genesis chapter 2. God
declared to Adam that death would be the result of disobeying God. Look at Genesis 2 verse 17. God
told Adam of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou
shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest
thereof, thou shalt surely die. And Adam ate it. And now look
at Genesis 3.19. God said, In the sweat of thy
face shalt thou eat bread. That means everything you do
in this life is going to be full of tribulation. It's going to
be full of sorrow. In the sweat of your face, you'll
eat bread. Till thou return unto the ground. For out of it was thou taken,
for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Now that's
why we die. Look at Romans 5. Look at Romans
chapter 5. Verse 12. Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned. Look down at verse 17. It says
there in the, let's just refer, if by one man's offense death
reigned by one. Death has dominion. It reigns. It reigned because of that one
offense. Look down at verse 21. Sin hath reigned unto death. There's no escape in it. It's
a tyrant. Sin hath reigned unto death. Look at Romans 6 and verse 23.
For the wages of sin, the payment of sin, is death. It's death. So it's appointed
unto men. Death is appointed unto men.
To the whole race. To the whole race wants to die. It's appointed unto men wants
to die. All flesh is conceived of our
first father Adam in sin. All are sinners. So therefore,
all flesh shall die physically. Every death, I mean every death,
believer and unbeliever, every death demonstrates that in our
flesh dwells only sin. Romans 8 says, if the Spirit
of God dwells in you, speaking to believers, if the Spirit of
God dwells in you, the body is dead because of sin. And it's
still going to go back to the dust. We're going to die physically.
So the death is a demonstration that everybody, all of us, are
sin in our flesh. And that's all it is, is sin.
For as in Adam, all die. That's the scripture. Now most
fear death. Most people fear death. And so
death's one of the few things there is that will get our attention. It's one of the few things that'll
make us think about the fact that we're gonna meet God one
of these days. That's why Ecclesiastes 7.2 says it's better to go to
the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting.
It's better to go to the funeral home where you have a loved one
lying there because it's the end of all men and the living,
us who go there, will lay it to his heart. We'll think about
it. We'll think about it. Anytime
somebody close to us dies, we're forced to acknowledge that we
too, we too shall face death very soon. It hits home to us.
It makes us remember that. For a while, we'll remember it.
Every year when it comes around, we'll remember it. We're so hard
in sin, we'll forget it eventually. But we remember it every year
it comes around. So it's good in the sense that
it continually makes us think about the fact that we're going
to die. We are going to die. One of the things that moved
me to preach on this, that got me thinking about this, is this
week was the anniversary of Scott and Cheryl's brother Kurt's death
back in 2006. And he's the uncle, he was the
uncle of most of these young people sitting here. And that's
what got me to thinking about it. I've never mentioned it before
to you, but it's always been evident to me every year about
this time that you're thinking about it. But I thought I would
just bring it up this time, because maybe, maybe, God will use that
to get your attention, to let you, make you face the fact,
you're going to die. You may have a lot of questions
about his death, and a lot of unanswered questions about it,
but this is certain. The time of his death was appointed
by God. It was appointed, and yours is
too, and so is mine. It was appointed by God. Absolutely. You may miss every other appointment
that you have in this earth and be late for it and not show up
on time. You won't be late for this one.
You'll meet this appointment right at the set time. It is
appointed by God. the time that we will die. And
there's no exceptions with this. There's no way to escape it.
Whether you're young, you go out to the cemetery sometime
and see how many grave sites you find out there that only,
some of them are only three, four feet long. There's no exceptions,
young and old. There's no exceptions for the
rich or for the poor, for the male or the female. You're going
to die, and I'm going to die. We started dying the day we were
born. We started dying, and we're going
to die. Man that is born of a woman is
a few days and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower
and is cut down. He fleeth also as a shadow and
continueth not. Look at James chapter 4. James
chapter 4. Today is the day for us to prepare
for that day, for the day of death. When I preach the gospel
to you, I'm not so much preaching to you about how to live as I
am about how to die. James 4.14, whereas you know
not what shall be on tomorrow, for what is your life? It's even
a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away. Now, above everything else, that
I mentioned in the beginning. This fact that you and I must
die, this fact alone, and very soon, That ought to wake us up. That ought to make us pay attention
to what God says. To hang on the Word of God and
pay attention to what He says. It should be a constant reminder
to us that we're sin. That's what we are. We're sin.
And we're going to die very soon. Remember now, thy Creator, in
the days of thy youth. Remember now, in the days of
thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw
nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. Now that's
the first certainty. We shall die. Here's the second
certainty. Not only is death certain, but
also the judgment of God is certain. Look at verse 27. And as it is
appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment. Now, think about this. If you
had committed a crime, and you're guilty, and you're going to face
the death penalty, you're going to go before a judge, and your
case is the most serious case that can be tried, and you got
to go before a judge, and your lawyer, your advocate, He tells
you, now you be at this meeting to meet with me, and I'm going
to tell you what's going to happen. And I'm going to tell you how
you can be spared when you come before this judge. I guarantee
you you'd make every meeting that that lawyer had with you,
and you'd listen to every word he had to say, and you'd read
everything he wrote in writing, and you'd read the fine print
on everything and make sure you paid attention to every word
that's spoken. You're coming before a judge.
Well, when we gather here together, this is the meeting. that the
lawyer has called, that the advocate of his people has called. And
he's telling his people through this gospel, I'm talking about
Christ, he's declaring to his people through this gospel how
it is that he's going to bring us before the judge. And so that
we don't have the death sentence passed upon us. That's what this
is. And yet Our heart is so hard
that we don't even pay attention. We don't even listen. We don't
even show up to the meeting. Now, I'm here to preach to you
that Christ Jesus who alone is able to save you from your sin,
who is the only one who can save us from our sin. He's not only
the advocate of His people, He's the judge. He's the judge. Acts 10.42, it says, He commanded
us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is He
which was ordained of God to be the judge of the quick, those
that are quickened, made alive by grace, and dead, and the dead,
those that meet Him without spiritual life. John 5, 22. Look there
with me. John 5, 22. For the Father judgeth no man,
but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." This is Christ
speaking. That all men should honor the
Son even as they honor the Father. He that honors not the Son honors
not the Father, which is sinning. Look over at Romans 2. And yet
this is the sad fact. Now you hear me telling you this.
You hear me telling you that you're coming before this judge
You hear me telling you that your case is the worst that can
be tried because you're guilty. And the death sentence is what
we're talking about here. And yet hearing, and I tell you,
this is the meeting. This is where he's going to tell
you how it is you can be spared. The heart is so hard. The heart
is so hard that we'll try to come up with any excuse we can
to get out of the meeting. Knowing, knowing this is the
case. Seeing our loved ones die and
knowing we're going to meet God. Yet we try to get out of this. Just coming to hear the gospel
preached. Look at this, Romans 2, 5. But
after thy hardness and impenitent Unrepentant heart, you treasure
up unto yourself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation
of the righteous judgment of God and the day when God shall
judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. You see, the issue is condemnation. The issue is all unbelievers
are condemned already. Already, we come into this world
condemned. All who don't believe on Christ
are under condemnation. In John 3.18, the Lord said this,
He said, He that believeth on him is not condemned. But he
that believeth not is condemned already, because he not believed
in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation. Light is coming to the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds
were evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds
should be reproved. You see, the lights come to this
place. The lights come through the gospel
to you who sit here. And yet men's hearts are so dark
and their deeds so evil and they're under the condemnation so much
so that unless God speak life into us and give us life and
light and an understanding to see our need of Him, we'll just
Put it off. We'll look at the ceiling. We'll
look at the floor. We'll look out the window. We'll
just do anything in the world to try to get it out of our mind.
And we're just treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath
and against the judgment. Let me appeal to you from another
just common sense thing. If a doctor told you that you've
been diagnosed with an illness that's going to surely end in
death, it's going to end in your death, Would you receive his
instruction and pay attention to him and do everything he tells
you to do? Would you take the medicine that
he prescribes for you and says, this is going to be the only
thing that will save you? Well, I bet we would. I bet we would
do everything that doctor said, make every appointment that doctor
set for us, take every medicine that he said to take. Because
if we don't, we're going to die. You see, we don't really believe
what the great physician's telling us. We don't believe what Christ,
the great physician, is telling us. He's telling us, you have
a terminal illness, and you're going to die. And he's telling
us, this is the only way you're going to be saved. The only way. And yet we think, he don't know
what he's talking about. and just pay it no attention.
You don't want to enter into judgment with God. The psalmist,
a believer who's made to see his sin, know what he is, said
this, enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for
in thy sight shall no flesh living be justified. It just won't happen. And yet sinners just ignore the
truth. You look for reasons to absent yourself from hearing
the gospel of Christ, from hearing the only one who can save from
our sin. If you do come, you don't bother to listen. And yet
listen to this, the times of this ignorance God winked at.
But now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he has appointed
a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance
unto all men, in that he raised him from the dead. That man,
Christ Jesus the Lord, is the one by whom this whole world
shall be judged. He's that one. Alright? So death is certain. We know
that. And then after that, judgment
is certain. Alright? Now let's look at this
third thing. This third thing is certain. For those who believe
on Christ, salvation is certain. It's certain. Look at verse...
Now let's look at the context now. Look at verse 24, Hebrews
9, 24. For Christ is not entered into
the holy place made with hands, which were just figures of the
true holy place." Pictures of the true holy place. He was talking
to Hebrews and he's saying there was a tabernacle made that had
a holy place in it, the holiest of holies. And once in a year,
the high priest went into that holy place with the blood of
a lamb. And he sprinkled the blood of
that lamb on the mercy seat over the broken law. And he's telling
us that Christ is that seat of mercy. He's telling us Christ
is the Lamb. His blood is the one who makes
propitiation for the satisfaction for the sins of the people. He's
the high priest. And he tells us here now, he
didn't go into a holy place made with hands. That was just a figure,
that was a picture so you and I can get it in our minds. But
he tells us here, but he went into heaven itself. That's what
the holiest of holies pictured. He went into heaven itself now
to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should
offer himself often as the high priest entered the holy place
every year with the blood of others. He went in there every
year and he went in there with the blood of of another. He went in there with the blood
of a lamb. But he tells us here, verse 26, for then must Christ
often have suffered since the foundation of the world. But
now Once, one time, in the end of the world, hath He appeared,
now here's what He came to do, read this with me, to put away
sin by the sacrifice of Himself. That's what He came to do, to
put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed
unto men once to die." That's why he says that, telling us
that Christ just did this one time. Just like it's appointed
unto men just to die once. Christ died once. He did this
once. And he says, and after this,
the judgment. There was a judgment involved
in what Christ did. And he says, so Christ was once
offered to bear the sins of many. Now, God the Eternal Son became
a man because those He came to die for were men. Those that the Father gave Him
to redeem were flesh and blood. So He took part of flesh and
blood. God can't die. He's life. He's eternal. He cannot die.
So God the Son could not die. Man can't redeem. Man can't make
eternal satisfaction to God. And so, but the God-man, Christ
Jesus, who is God and man in one person, he can do both. He
could lay down his life in that body that God gave him. and die. And because he offered himself
through the eternal spirit, what he accomplished at Calvary has
eternal efficacy. It's eternal in what he did.
So what did he do? He did what God the Father sent
him to do. Christ sacrificed himself for
his people. Now, He walked this earth and
He proved that He was perfect, that He was just the Lamb in
the Old Testament. They put the Lamb up and they
had to look at that Lamb and make sure, examine it, and make
sure that that Lamb was perfect and spotless and had absolutely
no blemish in it. Because if it had a blemish in
it, it could not be used to put away sin. Because that blemish
would be a picture of sin. And if a man is a sinner, he
can't do anything for any other sinner. Well, Christ proved Himself
as He walked this earth to be without sin. He's the spotless
Lamb of God, just. And so therefore, He's fit now
to offer that body that God prepared for Him. And that's what He did. He sacrificed Himself. He took
our sins our sins, the sins of many. He took those sins upon
Himself. And He bared the sins of many. And He Himself, having borne
the sins of many, justly bore the judgment of God for the sins
that He was made. He bore the judgment of God due
to those, that judgment that was due to those that He represented. And so the fact that God then
raised him from the dead after he died, after he laid down his
life, declares that for each of those many whom he represented,
this is what happened, they had their sin put away so that they
shall not die spiritually. They had their sin put away.
The only reason a man dies is sin. And so for those who He
put sin away, they won't die spiritually eternally. They will
not die. And so because He bore their
judgment, they had their judgment settled with God so that they
shall not be judged a second time for their sin. He settled
it. Now look at verse 28. unto them."
Now, each one of this many for whom He died, they're going to
be quickened to life by the Holy Spirit of God so they can receive
this good news. And He says, verse 28, unto them
that look for Him. You see, the good news is this.
The good news is that eternal salvation is in a look. It's
in a look. He died unto sin once. It's done. He satisfied justice for each
one for whom He died. It's done. There's no more offering
for sin, nothing else for you and I to offer. It's done. There's
no more work to be done by those for whom He finished the work.
All is done. Believing Christ is looking to
Christ. It's looking to Him. And those
who look to Him never stop looking to Him. We live by faith. We live looking to Him, watching
for Him, waiting for Him. And verse 28 again says, And
unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without
sin. Last time we saw Him, He went
into that tomb, He was hanged on that cross, made the sin of
His people, bearing the judgment of God for His people, and He
went into that grave. But when He's coming back, He's
coming back with our sin. He's put it away. And He's coming
back, and our Lord's assurance is, is everybody that's looking
for Him, believing on Him, resting in Him, trusting Him, He's our
righteousness with God. So that our advocate, this one
who has done all this for us and satisfied justice for us,
he's also the one who's the judge. So that in that day, when we
die physically, we'll be with him immediately and we won't
come into condemnation. Jesus said to Martha, I am the
resurrection and I am the life. And he said, he that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever
liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Do you believe that? That's the truth. And he said
this, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word,
and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and
shall not come into condemnation. There won't be a judgment for
him to come into condemnation, but he's passed from death to
life. You see, you sitting here now
that don't have Christ, You look towards death, scared to death,
fearful of it, because you know in your heart, when you die,
you're gonna come into judgment, and you're gonna meet God, and
you're gonna be found guilty. And then you'll die the second
death, which is not just a death and it's over with. It's the
worm that never dies. It's eternal suffering and separation
from God with a full, complete awareness of everything that
you could have had and all the truth that Christ is and all
the full awareness that the only one to blame for where you are
is you. But believers don't look for
it that way. By his electing, redeeming, regenerating, preserving
grace, we're looking for Christ who shall appear in all his glory
to usher us in to that eternal salvation which he accomplished
for us. And we shall be chained into
his own blessed likeness to be with him as the companions of
his heart forever. Can't even think of the bliss
of it. I can't even begin to try to try to describe it Now
sinner you sitting here listen to me This is why I tell you
take a Bible and I'm being kind to you You know what? I want
to say. I want to say hey dummy pick up a Bible and open it up
pay attention That's what I want to say. I Guess I just said it But it's that serious. If you were in a burning building,
if he was fixing to cave in on you and you were fixing to perish
in that building, I wouldn't just stand there and say, I want
to be nice and I don't want to hurt his feelings and tell him
that he's about to die and get his little butt burned up. I
would yell with everything I had or rush in there and grab you
and say, get out of here now! And that's what I'm saying to
you. And if you think that's unkind, you just have to think
it. Just have to think it. Heed this word now. Hear this
message now. Be wise now and seek to hear
the message and seek to hear Him and understand Him and know
Him while you can. That's what I'm saying to you.
And you who believe Him, look to Him. Don't stop looking to
Him. Don't let this world turn you
aside. Don't let this world make you think you got to get more
of it or you can't get by. We got to have Christ and Christ
only. Keep looking to Him because He's coming again. as quick as
a vapor vanishes in the noonday sun. And we're going to be with
him forever. So keep looking to him. All right.
Amen.