OK. If you take your Bibles and
turn with me to Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 12. Continuing our study in Hebrews.
Looking again at chapter 12 verse 24 through verse 25. The title of the message this
morning is the blood of sprinkling. Blood of sprinkling. Let's go
ahead and read verse 22, down to our text. But ye are
come unto Mount Sinai, and unto the city of the living God, the
heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written
in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of
just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new
covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better
things than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that
speaketh, for if they escape not who refused him that spake
on earth, much more Shall not we escape if we turn away from
him that speaketh from heaven?" The blood of sprinkling. Now,
if we remember that this context, these Hebrews that the Apostle
was speaking to, these Hebrews were tempted to turn back to
the weak and beggarly elements of the law. And he says to them
in an allegory, you've not come to Mount Sinai, which is the
law of thundering and fire. You've come to Mount Zion. You've
come to grace. He said, you've come to the city
of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company
of angels and the general assembly, the church of the firstborn.
We who are believers in Christ, we have come to a mountain, to
this Mount Zion, which is A heavenly city, not physical, national,
not racial. This is a spiritual kingdom we've
come to. A heavenly church whose names
are written in heaven. And to Jesus, the mediator of
the new covenant. Christ Jesus is the mediator. The only mediator between man
and God is this man, Jesus Christ. because He alone can touch God
and touch man. He is God of very God, and He
is man of very man. He is the only One who could
be the surety of the new covenant, the covenant of grace. Christ is the mediator of the
new covenant, and He has declared that all salvation of sinners,
all hope of being accepted with God, delivered from the wrath
of God, redemption from sins, reconciliation come by Jesus
Christ. Salvation does not come by a
creed. It does not come by a doctrine.
It does not come by a denomination. It comes by a person. Paul said, I determine not to
know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Why? Because that is the power of
God unto salvation. This is the gospel message. The
gospel message is a person. It's a person. Jesus Christ. He is the mediator of the new
covenant. The Apostle, using the phrase
here, the sprinkling of blood in the context of the new covenant,
has reference to the sprinkling of blood of the old covenant. Go back to Exodus chapter 24. Look back at Exodus 24 and see
the first sprinkling of blood concerning the old covenant. Exodus 24 and verse 6. After they had offered the animals,
Moses took half the blood and put it in a basin, and half of
the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And he took the book of
the covenant, and he read it in the audience of the people,
and they said, All that the Lord hath said we will do, and be
obedient. And Moses took the blood and
sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the
covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all
these words. He read the law. He read what
God had given them. And he said, we'll do that. And
he ratified this covenant. This covenant was made effectual,
powerful by the ratifying of blood. These sacrifices were
killed. And then he took the blood and
he sprinkled it on the people and on the book, and that enforced
this law upon these people. This covenant was enacted by
blood. Paul, or the apostle here in
Hebrews, is giving reference to this, that after the old covenant
was read and ratified by the sprinkling of the blood, even
so the new covenant, the covenant of grace, The covenant of forgiveness,
the covenant of mercy, the covenant of God with sinners. This covenant mediated by Jesus
Christ was ratified by blood. The new covenant was the same
covenant that was given to Adam. It was the same covenant that
was given to Abraham. It's the same covenant that was
given to the prophets by promise. Because this covenant of God
is not new in the sense of time. It's new in the sense that the
old covenant came before, but this new covenant is an eternal
covenant. This covenant of God was eternal. God the Father purposed this
covenant by choosing a people that He would save for His own
glory by choosing an elect people, the father purpose, to save them. And this covenant was ratified
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why the Scriptures
say that he was as a lamb slain before the foundation of the
world, because in the purpose and mind of God, the blood of
Christ was already shed. It was as though it were already
done. This new covenant was written
by the Holy Spirit and sealed up in tides and shadows, but
now it's made known. The new covenant is revealed.
That which the Apostle calls in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, the
mystery of the gospel that was hid with God in eternity, has
now been revealed to us by His Holy Spirit. We who believe on
Christ know this covenant. We know we have interest. We have an interest in this covenant
because our names are written in this covenant. And they were
written before the foundation of the world, sealed up by the
Spirit of God, now openly manifest to us. How? By the sprinkling of blood. by the ratifying of this covenant
by the blood of Jesus Christ. Friends, there is none other
name given among men whereby we must be saved. Jesus Christ is the only mediator
between God and man And He is the mediator of a new covenant,
one of free, sovereign grace, one that has no mixture of our
works, no mixture of our doing at all. This covenant is a salvation
that is freely given to us. Are there any sinners? Am I preaching to sinners? Then go to Christ who is the
only mediator of the new covenant. Sinners, lost, blind, dead in
your hearts, go to Jesus, the only Savior of men. And that new covenant that was
from eternity, hidden with God, now read to you, Jesus, in order
to make it enforceable, powerful and binding both to God and man,
sealed it with His own blood. Go over to Hebrews 9. The apostle
goes over this in detail here. Look at verse 15. The scripture says, and for this
cause he is the mediator of the New Testament or the New Covenant,
that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions
that were under the First Testament, they which are called might receive
the promise of eternal inheritance. For where the Testament is, there
must also of necessity be the death of the testator. What is
that saying? Everybody here, if you have a
last will and testament. You write out your will. Well,
that will is not enforceable until you die. Until you die. And after your death, then the
will is read to the people, read to whoever you wanted to give
your stuff to. And now then the law enforces
that that stuff be given as you have directed. But as long as
you live, that will doesn't mean anything. The Lord Jesus Christ,
He is the author of this new will and testament of grace. And by his death he has put into
force his covenant. By his death. For the testament
is a force after men are dead, otherwise it is of no strength
at all while the testator liveth. Whereupon neither the first testament
was dedicated without blood, for when Moses had spoken every
precept to all the people, according to the law, he took the blood
of calves and of goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and
sprinkled both the book and the people, saying, This is the blood
of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover,
he sprinkled the blood both on the tabernacle and the vessels
of the ministry and also and almost all things are by the
law purged with blood and without shedding of blood there is no
remission. These things were patterns of
what should come. Jesus Christ has come and his
blood, by his blood he has enforced the eternal covenant of God. He ratified it. He bound it. He signed it with his own blood. This is altogether important
for us who are believers, especially for our surety, for our hope,
our confidence. I know that there are times that
my faith is very weak and it wavers. I know that my faith
is, if you were to count it, it's unbelief. My faith is altogether
nothing. But see, my faith is not in my
faith. My faith is in the faith of Jesus
Christ. My faith is in His sacrifice. My faith is in His one offering
for sin that has forever removed all my transgression. And so great was his blood that
he signed his name to it, so that every believer in Christ,
every elect child of God will be saved. He guarantees it. He guarantees
it. That's what a surety is. A surety
is a guarantee. Jesus says this, I guarantee
that all the father has given me shall come to me. And he that
cometh to me, which I will in no wise cast out. That's sure,
I'm sure of that, if I wasn't sure of that, I wouldn't preach.
There'd be no reason. But I'm sure of that. Believers, we have such a great
hope And we have such a sure covenant that God made for us
and has written by the Holy Spirit and testified by the appearing
of His Son. And by His one offering, He bore
our sins in His own body on the tree. And God exacted justice,
strict and holy justice for all my sins. This is wonderful, because now
then, God who is holy, God who is just, who has already punished
my sins in my Savior, will never come to me and demand twice payment. Never. The great difference between
The will of a dead man and the will of Christ or the testament
of Christ is this, that Jesus Christ not only died, not only
signed his name to this covenant, guaranteeing this covenant, but
when we die and our will is read, we have no power to make sure
it's going to work the way we want to. When you die, there's
no way you're going to be able to tell how. That will is going
to be executed. But our Savior is altogether
different because He is risen from the dead. He is not only
the testator of the will, the author of the new covenant, but
He is also the administrator and executor of this covenant. In other words, He gives it to
whomsoever He will. This is it. This is the gospel. The gospel is not concerning
the will of man. It is concerning the will of
Christ. If you are a believer in Christ,
it is because He has willed it so. It is an amazing thing that God would will that I should believe
on the Son of God. Was there anything in us, anything
special that God would have ever saw in us that was different
from any other human, any other sinner of Adam's race? There
was nothing We were all together born dead in sin. We were all
just like all other men. We were children of wrath, haters
of God, just like everybody else. And then God in grace came to
us. And had He not come to us, we
never would have come to Him. But now... But now we've come
to Jesus, the mediator of the New Testament, by the sprinkling
of His blood. He's ratified it. It's sure. I like this, what David said,
that the Lord hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered
in all things, and sure. Can you say that about anything
else? There is nothing more sure than
this covenant. Nothing. This covenant is one that was
ratified by the death of the Son of God who forever took away
our sins by the sprinkling of His own blood. Jesus is our Passover
Lamb who saves us from the wrath of God. Jesus is our atonement
that's reconciled us to God. Jesus is the sanctifier of His
church by the washing of water by the Word to cleanse us from
our sins. Do you need to be forgiven? Is that a question you would
ask? I know that to a believer, that's nothing. It's like, why
would you ask me? Of course that's so! We always
have this old man hanging on us, this dead, rotting corpse,
just waiting for it to fall off in the ground. But I know this, that He is both
faithful and just to forgive us our sins. When? Right now. He's faithful right
now to forgive us our sins. Confess your sins. He is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins. All who are in Christ, He's faithful
and just because Christ has already paid for our sins. Well, if He's
already paid for our sins, why do we need forgiveness? Because
we have a conscience that's defiled. This conscience constantly walking
through this world is constantly defiled by our own sin nature
that we have and by the sin around us is constantly weighing on
our hearts. And we need to be cleansed daily
of these things so that we can serve God with
a free heart, with a cleansed heart. with a heart of rejoicing,
not one weighed down by law or rules or regulations, but one
that's been set free. Set free. We've been set free. And He daily intercedes for us. This is wonderful because I need
to be interceded for every day. And He does it. His own blood
intercedes for us. And this covenant, the covenant
of God, ratified by the Son of God, is a covenant that belongs
to me. I did not consult God about this
covenant. God didn't come to me and ask
my opinion as to this covenant. This covenant was made for me
from eternity. My name was written before there
was ever sin. My name was written down in this
covenant of grace. I was from eternity in union
with His Son, not because of anything God would see in me,
but because of God's mercy. Because of God's grace, He put
me in union with His Son. And now I know. Now it's been
revealed to me. Now the Spirit of God has come.
Now he's given me faith to believe. Look back at your text. This sprinkling of blood speaks
better things than that of Abel. You remember when Cain slew His
brother Abel, God came and He said, Thy brother's blood crieth
to Me from the ground. Now what did Abel's blood cry
for? What was it saying? It demanded
justice. It demanded the death of Cain. It demanded the exile of Cain. That's what it demanded. All but the blood of Jesus Christ.
Though killed by His own creation. Though killed by His own brethren. His blood speaks better things. Forgiveness. You remember the song, I saw
one hanging on a tree in agony and blood. He fixed His loving
eyes on me as near His cross I stood. And then he speaks about
a second look he gave, and he told me, he said, I owned my
guilt and despair. It was my sins that helped nail
him there. When we see the cross, we see
our sin imputed to the Son of God. We
own our guilt. But yet His blood does not cry
for vengeance against us. His blood cries for our deliverance,
our salvation, our forgiveness. His blood constantly cries, forgive
them, forgive them, forgive them, forgive them. That's better. That's better. That speaks better
things than that of Abel. And look at this in verse 25.
See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escape not that refused
him that speaketh on earth, much more shall not we escape if we
turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. How foolish it is
when men hear of such great things, such glad tidings of great joy,
and they refuse to hear them. They refuse to hear of mercy. Now, men don't refuse to hear
about Jesus and Him dying on the cross. Men don't refuse to
hear about His blood or His resurrection. What they refuse to hear is that
salvation is completely and absolutely of God. Men will not hear this. They refuse to see that salvation
is by grace alone. Men always desire to put something
to it. Now, you can put any name on
the door you want to, but there are only two religions in all
the world. Works and grace. And Paul said that neither one
will ever be mixed together. You cannot have it both ways. Salvation is either entirely
of free, sovereign grace or it is entirely of works. It cannot
be of both. See that you refuse not the message
that God speaks, the message of grace. It's a foolish thing for men
to try to add their own works to the blood and righteousness
of Christ. Scripture says that they count
the blood of Christ as an unholy thing when you do that. When
you add anything, Paul said, if a man be circumcised, Christ
shall profit him nothing. Now, that's one aspect of the
law. That's only one part of the law. That's all they were
asking, though. They said, well, we can believe
in Christ, but you have to be circumcised. If that's so, Christ
will profit you nothing and you have no interest in this new
covenant. Because this covenant is all
of grace. All of grace. All of grace. All of grace. I'm so glad it's all of grace.
Because I have nothing to give. I have nothing God would want. But He has everything I want. He is. He is everything I want. I find it in this new covenant.
I pray God bless this to your hearts.