The night before, I had been
looking here in Hebrews 10.19, and the Scripture says, "...having
therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by
the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath
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 from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed
with pure water." And look in the night before at this word,
boldness, there in verse 19. And that word means liberty. It means freedom. to approach
God and it has a significance to being able to cry out to God,
cry out Abba Father to Him. And it's boldness to enter into
the presence of God. And all the way back I kept thinking
about that and I kept thinking about saying about this prison.
And I want to tell you a little bit about it for our lesson here
this morning. This prison, he said that these
fellows would come in to where he's preaching. And they'll have
chains on their arms and on their legs, binding them together. And then they're chained to one
another. So, I mean, there's no way they
could get free. And they come in, and they're
under 24-hour surveillance anywhere they go in that prison. And if
there's a fight breaks out or anything, you know, at various
areas, they can shut that whole little section off so that they
can't get out of there. And then the buildings are built
like the Pentagon, sort of, to where all the buildings are joined
together. And the yard where they, when they get to go out
for just a few minutes in the day, it's in the center of those
buildings. So there's no way to get free
from the inner part of those buildings. And then, just in
case somebody gets out of all that and gets out of the walls
of the prison, there's four football fields, an open field, and they
call it no man's land. And on the perimeter of the prison,
there's guards in these big guard towers, expert marksmen, and
they have the command to shoot, not to wound, but to kill. And
then once they get, if they make it past those four football fields,
they come to the wire. And there's three wires. The
first wire is just thick cable stressed out tight. And if they
hit that cable, it's not a chain link fence, it's just cable.
And it's all various heights up through there so they can't
get through it without touching it. And if they touch that wire,
it springs loose from each end to where it's connected. And
it's made so it'll coil up so fast and so rapidly it'll cut
them in half. And then if they get through
that wire, there's a chain link fence. And it's electric. And if they hit it, it'll kill
them just by touching it. Beyond that is another fence.
And at the top of that fence is four feet of razor wire. And then if they get past that,
there's another couple of football fields till they get to the woods.
And there's more towers on the other end of that. And as he
told me about that, I sat there and I thought about sinners. in prison and sin and bound in
sin. And that's just how bound we
are. We cannot get, we can't escape it. That is how bound
we are in sin and death. And they can move around in that
prison. They can move around in there
as far as their restraints will allow them to go. When it's time
for them to be able to go from place to place, they can freely
move around. But they can just go as far as
the chains allow them, just as far as the walls allow them,
just as far as the fence allows them, just as far as the warden
allows them to go, and at the times he allows them to go, that's
as far as they can go. That's the extent that our will
is free. It's bound by our nature. As I've heard Brother Scott Richardson
say, a man's free as a frog in a snake's belly. That's our freedom. We're bound by our nature. And
that's what scripture tells us. It says, even so we, when we
were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world,
under the law. The covenant from Mount Sinai
gendereth to bondage. And the law entered that the
offense might abound, that a sinner might see his sin. But the law
can't free us. It can only condemn us. That's
all the law does, is condemn us. The law worketh wrath, for
where no law is, there's no transgression. We need deliverance from the
bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children
of God. That's what we need. Now, let
me ask you some questions, children and you adults here as well.
When you children, whenever your parents catch you breaking their
rules and you're caught, how do you feel? How do you feel
when they discipline you? How does that make you feel when
you parents, If you get stopped by a police officer and you're
speeding, how does that make you feel? Do you say, well, thanks,
Dad. I'm glad you caught me. I was
breaking your rules, and I really hoped you'd catch me. I really
wanted you to catch me. Do you tell that officer, I'm
glad you stopped me. I've been speeding for miles
and miles. I'm really glad you stopped me. No, it makes us angry. It makes us angry. That's what's
meant by the law worketh wrath. We get angry. And when your parents
ask you why you broke their rule, when the officer walks up to
the window and he asks you why you were in such a hurry, what
do we do? What do we say? Have you ever
blamed it on your brother or your sister? Have you ever rattled off an
excuse? Well, that 18-wheeler was right
on my bumper. I had to, if I'd have slowed
down, he'd have ran over me. Have you ever lied? That's what we do by nature. That's all we'll do. That's self-justification. That's what we'll do. David said this, he said, Lord
enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight
shall no man living be justified. We can't justify our rebellion.
Job said, how can a man be justified with God? While the world's trying
to change the wording there that says, Jacob have I loved and
Esau have I hated." While they're trying to see how could God not
justify Esau, Job was asking, how could God just justify me? How could He justify Jacob? Have
you ever seen your parents coming and pretended like you were obeying
them? Stop doing whatever you're doing
and start acting right, so when they come in they think, well,
he's being a good boy, she's being a good girl. Have you ever topped that hill
and you see that police officer there and you hit those brakes,
slow down real fast, make it look like you've been doing the
speed limit the whole time? That's a pretense of righteousness. That's a pretended righteousness.
You know, a sinner will He'll fall into legal conviction and realize he's done
something that he sees as being sinful. And convicted, just legal
conviction in his heart, feels guilty. And so we'll try to do
something to make up for that guilt, that feeling of guilt.
And a lot of times, folks will fall into that kind of legal
conviction. It's not a spirit-wrought conviction
at all. It's just a legal conviction.
And a sinner will make a profession of faith or do some religious
act And in his mind and in his heart, he feels like, well, that's
made him righteous. That's made up for him. That's
just a pretended righteousness. God looks on the heart. He knows
our heart. He knows if it's hypocrisy or
not. And more times than not, all
the time with the carnal man, the carnal man that does that
will go years and years and years and years looking back at that
those religious acts he's done, or that he's doing, and try to
find some comfort in that, as if he's obeyed God. When you
hear me say that believers do not look to an experience, I'm
saying a decision for Christ, a profession of faith. We don't
look to that. Our baptism. Every believer wants to be baptized,
wants to confess Christ in baptism, but we don't look to our baptism
and put in confidence in our baptism. Every believer wants
to keep God's ordinances, the Lord's ordinances, but we don't
look to keeping those ordinances as any righteousness. And faith, we don't look to our
faith. Our faith. looks upon the faith
of Christ, reaches out to Christ. No, we're not looking at our
faith. Not at all. So that's what I mean when I
say we don't look to an experienced believer, we look to the Lord
Jesus Christ alone. And the reason why, brethren,
the wages of sin is death. That man in that prison, he could
start trying to be as obedient as he can in that prison. But
he's still guilty. He's still got to serve his sentence. He's got to serve out his sentence.
So, what does it take then? Those acts of righteousness that
we do, those acts of obedience we do, I don't mean to be trite
here, but that's the maximum security prison that we've got
to be freed from. That's where most sinners, that's
the sin that most sinners have to be freed from more than immorality,
because we're looking at our religion and at our righteous
works and calling that righteousness. And that's not righteousness
at all. Not at all. So what's going to save us from
that? Verse 15 here in Hebrews 10 says, Wherefore the Holy Ghost
also is a witness to us. We have to have something wrought
in our heart by the Spirit of God. And here's what happens. He said, the covenant that I'll
make with them after those days, says the Lord, I'll put my laws
into their hearts and in their minds will I write them. And
their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. And now where
remission of these is, there's no more offering for sin. You
see, we're bound in this prison of spiritual death by our own
trespasses and sins like Lazarus who was dead and who was in the
tomb and who was bound up in grave clothes. And when the Lord
came to that tomb, when He comes to this tomb, this body of death,
and speaks in our heart through the Holy Spirit. He says, like
He said there when He came to Lazarus to Him, He said, Lazarus,
come forth. And it says, Lazarus came forth
bound head to toe with grave clothes. And He commanded, loose
him, let him go, liberate him, free him. And that's what has to happen.
And when that happens, and He speaks in our heart that we have
remission of sins by the blood of Jesus Christ, that means our
sins are gone forever. For Him to write His law in our
hearts, put His law in our hearts, He puts His law there so that
we see what His law is saying. This is His law. I know that,
especially coming out of some of your background, I know that
you've been taught for years and years that the law is the
moral law. This is the law. This is God's
law right here. And we're going to look here
in our message later, but there's not a distinction in God's word
between the moral law and the ceremonial law. There's not. But when God writes His law in
our hearts, we hear what the law at Sinai tells us. It tells
us we're guilty. It shows us in the very statutes
and ordinances how that we're washed as it foreshadows Christ. But only when the Spirit of God
gives us an understanding of His law do we see Christ in those
things and understand when we look at the law, of what men
call the moral law. When we look at that, we behold
the holiness of Christ in it. We don't behold our guilt before
it, but we behold the righteousness of Christ, the holiness of our
Lord, because He perfectly fulfilled it. We behold Christ in all the
Word of God, in all the ordinances, all the ceremonies. That's what
we've been seeing all through Hebrews right here. But it takes
the Spirit of God bearing witness in our hearts before we'll ever
see it. And then we realize that in God's
heart, if it could be said that way, I have no more sin. And
by Him putting His law in our hearts, He makes us see that I'm right with God. I'm justified
before God. Holy before God in His Son. No
more sin in me. No more sin in me before God. And I don't have to mourn over
my sin anymore. I do. We do. But I'm not legally
bound in that bondage of fear and dread before God anymore.
Because I see my Redeemer now. And I see what He accomplished.
And therefore I know that because of what He accomplished, there's
no more offering for sin. God's satisfied with His one
offering. There's nothing else I can offer
God to make any more satisfaction than what He made. The gospel
that I heard preached to me over 20 years ago, and the gospel
of free salvation that I've sat under ever since, The gospel
that I started preaching 10 years ago when my pastor first asked
me to fill in for him, and I traveled around a few places preaching.
And the gospel that I preach to you today is the same gospel. It's the same gospel. If I was
looking to an experience, if I was looking to a time when
I made a profession, And the gospel I hear now is different
from the gospel I heard then when I made my profession. And
I keep hanging on to that profession I made when I was hearing another
gospel and a lie. I'd be hard-pressed to find any
comfort in it, in Christ, because I realized I didn't know Him. How could I know Him? But let
me show you here, I want to show you something about this liberty,
this boldness. It's to be made the very righteousness
of God in Christ Jesus. David said, blessed are they
whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not charge with sin. Wouldn't you say that's a blessed
man? That's a blessed man. The sting of death is sin. And the strength of sin is the
law. So then if God's not going to impute sin to me, not going
to charge me with iniquity, and if my iniquity is forgiven, then
brethren, something had to be done before the law. Something
had to be done with my sin. And that sting of death is now
gone because of what was done. Well, what was done? The Lord
Jesus Christ, when He came to this earth, look over at Isaiah
61.1. I won't read all of the verses
there, but this is what Brother Henry read when we were down
there in Fairmont. When He stood up, the Lord stood
up in the temple. They gave him the book of Isaiah,
and he read from this passage. He said, the Spirit of the Lord
God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good
tidings unto the meek. He said in the temple there,
the acceptable year of the Lord. That's the year of Jubilee. That's
the year when all our debts are forgiven. when lands are restored,
when that which was taken away is restored to a man. Look here
what he says, "...and he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison
to them that are bound." That's why he came. Now let's look here
back in our text in Hebrews 10. Verse 19, it tells us that He
is our liberty. Look here. Having therefore,
brethren, boldness, freedom, liberty to enter into the holiest,
into the presence of God through the veil. How did, you know,
the high priest could only go into that holiest of holies by
himself? And he went through that veil.
That veil separated the first room and the second room. And
only the high priest could go in there. Well, Christ is our
high priest. And He's entered in. But not
through a veil like that. Look here. It says, We have boldness
to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus. By a new and living
way, which he hath consecrated, or made new for us, through the
veil, that is to say, through his flesh. And we have a high priest over
the house of God. By a new and living way, which
he made new for us, he himself is that way. That's what we read
here. He's the way. He is the way. When you read here, by His blood
and by His flesh. His flesh. He said, a body hast
thou prepared me. And He came in that body. And
by His sinless perfection in that body. Bone of our bone,
flesh of our flesh. In that body, in His sinless
perfection, He fulfilled God's law. Walked before it. Perfect. In thought, word and deed. And
His blood. He was made sin for us. And He was made a curse for us.
And the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. And by Him laying
down His life and shedding His blood with the stripes that were
inflicted upon Him from God Almighty, the just Judge, we're healed. That's what's being taught here.
Look over at Romans Why did he do this now? The law was given so that we would see our sin,
so that the offense might abound. And by the law is the knowledge
of sin. And the wages of sin is death. So look here now what our Lord
Jesus Christ did. For what the law could not do,
verse 3, in that it was weak through the flesh. We were, just
like those prisoners in that prison, weak. We couldn't fulfill that law.
We could not bring ourselves out from under those walls and
that prison we were in. That's why He came. to preach
deliverance to the captives, the opening of the prison to
them that are bound. Here's how he accomplished it.
God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, in
His body, in His flesh, and for sin, by laying down His life,
by shedding His blood, not for His own sin, for our sin, for
the sin of His people. He condemned sin in the flesh. He condemned the condemnation.
That which had condemned us and made us guilty, He took it away. And it says here, He did it that
the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who
walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. The righteousness
of the law, the man who's blessed, He doesn't
have his sin imputed to him. He got the righteousness of God
imputed to him. He got the righteousness of God
charged to him. The fulfillment of God's law
is his freely because of what Christ did. He brought out from
under the judgment of God because of what Christ did. For he hath
made him sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him." The righteousness of God in Christ. That's what we have to be made.
If we're going to have liberty to come to God, we've got to
be as holy as God is. We've got to be free from the
law completely. Justified from the law completely
to come to Him. This is why He came. And then
it says here in our text, by His resurrected life, because
He lives. Verse 21 says, having a high
priest over the house of God. You see that high priest went
in there to that holiest of holies and he sprinkled the blood of
a lamb. He went into the holiest of holies
Himself with His own blood into the presence of God. And He purged
us from our sins by His own blood. And because He lives, I live. Because the life that I now live,
I live by the faith of Him. His faithfulness before God's
law is what my faith takes hold of. I'm laying hold of His person
and His finished work. Not anything in me. Not anything
wrought in me. It's all in Him. And He's our
High Priest right now. Right now. There is a man, Christ
Jesus, the God-man, seated at God's right hand. And He ever
lives to make intercession for His people. He, if we sin after
we know Him, after He's brought us, after the Holy Spirit has,
through the Holy Spirit, God's put His law in our minds and
our hearts. If we sin, we have an advocate with the Father.
Jesus Christ, our righteousness, He's our advocate with the Father.
We have someone pleading our case before God constantly. And you know how we saw last
Thursday, how Barnabas was a Levite? And the Levites were given to
the high priest to do his bidding. Whatever he charged them with,
that's what they were given to perform. And that high priest's
word was their law. If he told them to to take care
of these vessels or those vessels, or to kill this lamb or that
lamb, whatever He told them to do, that's what they did. Christ is the High Priest. And we've been brought by God
and given to Him, and through the Spirit, knowing Him and trusting
Him, He's our Commander. He's the one we hear. He's the
one we listen to. We follow Him and do what He
bids us. We're not under the law. We're
under grace. The law condemned us. Christ brought grace and truth
for us. The law of sin and death came
by Moses, but grace and truth came by Christ our Lord. and
we follow Him. Now, that's what Paul meant back
over there when he said the sting of death is sin and the strength
of sin is the law. He followed that up by saying,
but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ. This is what he means. If Christ
shall make you free, you shall be free indeed, Sarah. It's no
more bondage. No more being yoked. No more being whipped. If He's
made you free, you're free indeed. And when the Holy Spirit bears
witness to this in our heart, when God puts His law in our
heart and our mind, He makes a new heart that's made in the
righteousness and holiness of Christ. He makes a new spirit
within us that we didn't have. And this new spirit delights
now to behold Christ in His full, sufficient, finished redemption
on our behalf. All our perfection has been wrought
for us and we are perfect in Him. And then Scripture says
we know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully Knowing
this that the law is not made for a righteous man But for the
lawless and disobedient for the ungodly and for sinners for unholy
and profane That's saying to you and me who believe God brethren
who believe God that's saying to you and me that I If you've been made the righteousness
of God in Christ Jesus, the law is not for you. The law is not
for you. The law is for an unrighteous
man, for ungodly, for sinners to drive us to see our sin and
our rebellion. But Christ in Christ, being made
the righteousness of God. We've been freed from it. Freed
from it. Brother Mahan, I was talking
to him Saturday morning, and I was telling him about how kind
everybody had been here to us and just, you know, just been
so, such a blessing to Melinda and I, just how kind everybody
had been. And he said, the Lord's people
are gracious. And he said, not should be. He said they are. Not ought to
be. He said they are. Because if God can be dethroned,
brethren, if God the Father can count the death of Christ as
vanity, If the Spirit of God is truly irresistible, then as
long as God is God, He that hath begun a good work in you will
perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. For sin shall not have dominion
over you because of some power you have now that you believe.
No. We can't glory in sins not having
dominion over us after we're converted any more than we can
glory in being liberated from our sin before we believe. What
I'm saying is, brethren, when God can be taken off His throne,
when He can be taken from your heart, when He can be removed
and His blood counted a vain thing, Then can you turn and
go back into sin? And go back into bondage? And
go back into corruption? And go back into false religion? Because He keeps us. And it's
His working in us that makes us gracious. It's His working
in us that causes us to be gracious. This morning, there's folks preaching
this morning messages they have not preached all year long. And
the only reason they're doing it is because the Easter lilies
are in bloom. That's the only reason they're
doing it. There's more people in churches today than have been
all year long. This is the message we preach
every single time we come together. Because this is the message whereby
God works that grace in our hearts to cause us to want to follow
Him and walk after Him and be led of the Spirit of God. You
know, if somebody does something good for us. If it's the least
little thing, say you had a flat on the road or something and
somebody stopped and helped you, helped change your flat and get
you a new tire and all that. You talk about that for a long,
long time, don't you? We just go on and on talking
about it, telling everybody about this nice fellow just He came
to me. I was just a stranger. He came
to me and helped me. You want to tell people about
it. Are you thinking a strange thing that I want to stand here
week in and week out and tell you about what Christ accomplished? I don't have any better news
to tell you than what He accomplished. Don't ever get old. It just never gets old. I was talking with a brother
this week about how long and how many times. I was talking about Brother Scott
and talking about Brother Henry. I was talking about how many
times they've probably preached from the same passages of Scripture. And yet, they continue to preach
from those Scriptures over and over and over. And every time
I've ever heard them preach from it, it's just as new. And they're preaching it just
as boldly and just as fresh and just as eager to preach it as
when I heard them preach it 20 years ago. And the same thing
is for me. I just don't get old of telling
you this story because it is the wonderful story. Well, let
me finish up here. I want to bring this out to you.
Have you ever seen the police wrestling a fella to get him
into prison? They always gotta wrestle him
to get him in there, you know? Because we hate God. That's why. We hate his authority. We hate all authority because
of God. Because by nature, the carnal
mind is enmity against God. Can't be subject to the law of
God. Can't make ourselves subject to His law. And that same nature,
we see it when a man has to be wrestled into a prison. But brethren,
when that prison's been opened, You don't ever have to wrestle
Him to get Him out of there, ever. And you don't find them
coming out of there either and saying, well, what about all
these other folks that are still in prison? I'm not going to go
out until they're free. No, they're happy to be set free
and they go because they've been set free. That's how it is when
God saves a sinner. He quit saying God's divine election
is unfair and He stopped saying, What a miracle of God's grace
that He didn't show me any mercy whatsoever. Being then made free from sin,
He became the servants of righteousness. Being made free from sin, you
became the servants to God. You have your fruit unto holiness
and the end everlasting life. Because I'm doing things on my
own? Because I'm just running around
trying to add up as much fruit unto holiness as I can? Philippians
1.11 says, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which
are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. So here's
the conclusion then in our text. Has the Lord Jesus Christ made
you free indeed? Has He come to your heart and
set you free and revealed in you that by His blood, by His
broken body, the righteousness of God has been fulfilled on
your behalf? And you therefore have liberty
to come into God's presence You've not been brought into bondage
again to fear, but you've been brought to where you cry, Abba,
Father. You cry out to Him now. So then
what? Look at verse 22. Let us draw
near with a true heart. Not a heart of hypocrisy. Not
a heart of self-righteousness. Not coming partly in Christ and
partly in the law and what I've done. in a true heart, in full
assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. The psalmist
said, Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causes to approach
unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts. We shall be satisfied
with the goodness of thy house, even thy holy temple. The only
man that will come to Christ and be satisfied and content
to stay there and not mingle the law and grace is the man
who's truly been made to rejoice in Christ Jesus. He'll stand
fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made him free. He
won't be entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Not ever
again. And he won't try to entangle
his hearers with the yoke of bondage either. Alright, I hope
that will be Something you can rejoice in and maybe something
you children can take home with you and meditate on.