They stand over here. Turn to Hebrews 5. Let me get this adjusted over here.
Hebrews 5. The title of the message is The
Qualification of Christ as our High Priest. Is he qualified
to be the High Priest of God, OUR High Priest? Not just anyone
could be a High Priest. It had to be SOMEONE who was
CALLED of God, APPOINTED of God, ANOINTED of God, TO BE THE HIGH
PRIEST. the Lord Jesus Christ. It was
the high priest. But it became so corrupted by
that time it became more of a political office than what God set it up
for. Man always corrupts everything.
Man corrupts everything. All you have to do is read history
and it gets corrupted. You know, when the apostles went
out, when they went out preaching the gospel. They preached the
gospel, didn't they? And then it didn't take too long
before it became corrupted. Men came along and started preaching
another gospel. Now the high priest stood between
God and the people of Israel. HE WAS THE ONLY MEDIATOR BETWEEN
GOD AND MEN. GOD SET HIM UP. GOD GAVE US A
MEDIATOR. GOD GAVE US A HIGH PRIEST. EVERYTHING
WE NEED TO STAND BEFORE GOD, ACCEPTED, EVERYTHING WE NEED
TO BE SAVED, WE HAVE IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. WE HAVE IT ALL. GOD PROVIDED ALL OF IT. The high
priest was the only one allowed in the Holy of Holies on the
Day of Atonement. When he went in there with the
blood of Atonement, anyone else would have gone in there, they
would have died. Even he, when he went in there, had a rope
tied to his leg, and he had bells on the bottom of his garments,
and those bells quit ringing. God killed him and they'd pull
him out of there, but they were not allowed in the Holy of the
Holies, only the high priest, only the high priest. If anyone
usurped the office of the high priest, they suffered severe
punishment from God, severe punishment. Remember Saul? God took the crown
from his head Because instead of waiting on
Samuel, he offered up incense. He played the part of the priest
and it wasn't given to him. It wasn't given to him. What
about King Uzziah? He did the same thing. He became
lifted up with pride. He thought because of who he
was, he could officiate the office of the priesthood and God struck
him with leprosy. What about Uzzah when he reached
up to touch the Ark? God killed him. God killed him
because only the priests were allowed to touch that Ark, nobody
else. These are just a few examples
of how severe it is. I'm having trouble with this
pad. I'm going to have to go to my
notes. I don't know why it's going off on me. Everything is
going off on me today. It's sickening. My right eye,
my vision left me a while ago and it's coming back, but anyway. But here in Chapter 5, listen.
The writer begins to set forth the qualifications of the the
High Priest and he applies these qualifications to the Lord Jesus
Christ and we truly need to lay hold of this, we do. It's great
comfort to us especially in time of need. When we have infirmities,
we have troubles, we have heartache, we have pain, we have one who
can identify with us, we have one we can go to. When we sin,
we don't say we have sin, we sin, we have one we can go to. We have an advocate with the
Father, we have a high priest with the Father. God has provided
that for us. Now he says here in verse one,
every high priest is taken from among men, not angels. AN ANGEL CANNOT IDENTIFY WITH
ME. NO ANGEL CAN IDENTIFY WITH ME. NO ANGEL CAN HAVE COMPASSION
ON THE IGNORANT AND THOSE OUT OF THE WAY. THEY CAN'T DO THAT.
HE MUST BE ONE OF US IN ORDER TO REPRESENT US. AN ANGEL CAN'T
REPRESENT A MAN. A MAN REPRESENTS A MAN. IT MUST
BE ONE WHO CAN IDENTIFY WITH US LIKE IN US IN EVERY WAY WITH
OUR INFIRMITIES. And we have that in the Lord
Jesus Christ. In all our afflictions, He was
what? Afflicted is what it says. He
was afflicted. He knows what it is. He knows
what it is. So every high priest is taken
from among men. And he's ordained FOR men. The Lord Jesus Christ was ordained
for us. He was appointed for us. He's
given to us. in things pertaining to God,
that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices." Now here's a
question, does this man meet God's requirements? Does this
man, Jesus Christ, meet God's requirements? And really from
chapter 5 to chapter 10, the priesthood of Christ is dealt
with, and it's dealt with I want to say in death, but as much
as the writer here could, as much as he could deal with it,
because he said here, he said, For when for the time you ought
to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again. He
said, he was talking about Melchizedek, he said, But I can't say much
about him because you're so dull of hearing. You're so dull, you
SHOULDN'T be dull of hearing. Should we ever be dull of hearing?
Should we ever come here dull of hearing? God speaking to us,
the Word of God read to us, and to be dull of hearing? That's
bad on our part, that's on us, that's on us, not being prepared
to listen to God when we come. But does this man meet God's
requirements for the high priest? Well, we see here in the Word
of God, and we'll see this as we go on through Hebrews, He
has what God requires. First of all, He's a man. Jesus Christ is a real man. Pilate said, Behold the man! It behooved Him to be made like
unto His brethren. He's called bone of our bone
and flesh of our flesh. He's our elder brother. And this man has something to
offer. Here it says gifts and sacrifices
for sins. He has that. You know there were
gifts offered, there was grain offering, there was flour, there
was different gifts. Not every gift was offered with
blood. What does this man have to offer? What does the Lord
Jesus Christ have to offer? He has more to offer than all
the priests before Him. Here's what he has to offer,
a perfect life and a perfect sacrifice. Aaron never offered
that, nor the priests that followed him, none of them offered that
ever. But the Lord Jesus Christ by one sacrifice offered Himself
up for our sins. He had a perfect life and He
has the blood of atonement that actually does put away sin. ALL
THE BLOOD THAT WAS SHED FROM ALL THOSE ANIMALS NEVER PUT AWAY
SIN. Can you imagine how much blood,
if you could measure the blood, how much blood flowed over those
millenniums from those animals, and not one sin was ever put
away. BUT BY THE SACRIFICE OF ONE MAN,
JESUS CHRIST, HE HATH PERFECTED FOREVER THOSE WHO WERE SANCTIFIED,
SET APART, AND HE DIED FOR." He perfected them. We are perfected.
He has made us perfect. We are perfected in Him. And
then listen here, to be a fit high priest, he must be one who
can have compassion. Now I believe this was lost over
time because the high priest in the day of our Lord had no
compassion. He had no compassion. The Pharisees,
they had no compassion. They were hard. Man, they were
hard. It took that adulterous woman, they threw her down at
his feet. What does the law say? The law says stone her. Let's
see what you're going to do. I tell you what, I tell you what
he's going to do. Her high priest is going to officiate for her.
Her high priest is going to offer up the great sacrifice for her
sins. Her high priest is going to satisfy
the law concerning her. Her high priest is going to give
unto God everything God demands. That's what he's going to do.
They didn't realize that they brought her to her High Priest,
to the High Priest of God, the one God ORDAINED FOR HER and
for every one of His elect. God ORDAINED HIM FOR THEM, US,
HER. God ORDAINED and He brings us
to Him and He brings us to God. He brings us to God. He represents
us before God. He stands in HE STANDS BEFORE
GOD ON OUR BEHALF, WHO CAN HAVE COMPASSION ON THE
IGNORANT, IGNORANT OF GOD'S TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS. Paul, that's what
Paul said in Romans 10, that being ignorant of God's righteousness,
going about to establish one of their own. Paul just described
himself, he just described himself. He was one of them ignorant of
God's righteousness and went about to establish one of his
own. ignorant of God's true righteousness,
ignorant of the true character of God, and sins of ignorance. You go
back to the Old Testament, there was offering for sins of ignorance. Our Lord is the sacrifice, the
offering for our sins of ignorance. I suspect that I have a lot more
sins that I don't know about than the ones that I do know
about. I mean just this day. Just this day we have more sins
that we don't know about than the ones we do know about. You
say, well, I shouldn't have said that. There's a whole lot of
things you shouldn't have done today or thought or said. But our high priest, our high
represents us before God and by His sacrifice He's put all
of that away. These are the things I think
on as I've gotten older. I need Him. What's that song? I need Thee every hour. I need
Thee every hour. Who can have compassion on the
ignorant and on them that are out of the way? Brethren, we
were all out of the way, weren't we? Christ said, I'm the way. Most people here followed another
gospel at one time, didn't you? You're out of the way. But here he's talking about one
who can have compassion on the ignorant and I'm no doubt Aaron. Aaron, you know, could and some
of those priests, but after that priesthood went on for a while,
it just became so corrupt. But it's got to be one who can
have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the
way, for that He Himself also is compassed with infirmity."
It's like someone, it's like you go through something, you
go through something, a heartache, and someone sits down beside
of you that's gone through the same thing, and they can just
put their arm around you. They don't have to say a word,
do they? You know they feel what you're
going through. You know they feel it. Without compassion, it would
be nothing but cold service to men and God. That's all it would
be. It would just be going through
the ceremonies and through the motions, which is what happened
until the Lord came. And now we have, we have the
high priest who never gets cold. who never gets indifferent to
us, who never gets harsh and says, I can't believe you did
that. You ought to know better. You
ever say that to somebody? Well, after you live a while
and experience some things, you're not so apt to say that. Because there's a lot of things
I've done I ought to know better. and listen to Lamentations 3.22
It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because
His compassions fail not. You know, our compassions do
fail, they do. And we can have compassion on
someone and not be able to really do anything about it. Not so
with our Lord. When the multitude of 5,000,
that's not counting the men, the women and children. When
there was a multitude of 5,000, you know what he said? I have compassion on them. Every
time, now listen. Every time our Lord has compassion
on someone, He does something about it. Every time. See, we
can have compassion, but there's times we can't do anything. We
can feel compassionate toward them, but every time our Lord
has compassion, every time He does something, He does something. Then the reason that we listen
the reason he's taken from among men is because of this He himself
was compassed with infirmities as our Lord as I already quoted
to you in all of our afflictions. He was afflicted He had to come
into this world Become a man and taste everything I taste
It says he tasted death for every man doesn't it? That's everyone
he represented. We know that BUT HE TASTED DEATH
FOR EVERY ONE OF THEM. HE TOOK OUR DEATH. HE TASTED
OUR SORROW, OUR INFIRMITIES, OUR HEARTACHES. THIS IS THE KIND
OF HIGH PRIEST WE HAVE. WE HAVE ONE WHO CAN BE TOUCHED
WITH THE FEELING, IT SAYS, OF OUR INFIRMITIES. YOU THINK NO
ONE KNOWS WHAT YOU'RE GOING THROUGH? OH YES THERE IS. YES THERE IS. You're never alone. He's never
left his children alone. You may be laying in a hospital
bed someday and nobody in the room, nobody in the room, but
there is somebody in the room. He's there. The Lord's there. He's always with you. He said,
I'll never leave you nor forsake you. So when you feel like you're
alone, I'm telling you the Lord's with you. The Lord's with you. And then in verse 3, And by reason,
and because of this, because of this infirmity, the high priest,
such as Aaron, had to offer sacrifice for himself as well as the people,
because he was sinful too. And every time Aaron offered
a sacrifice for himself and other high priests offered a sacrifice
for themselves, they were reminded that they were no better than
the people they represent. But we have a great high priest
WE HAVE A HIGH PRIEST WHO KNEW NO SIN! WE HAVE A HIGH PRIEST
WHO'S PERFECT! Now, I can't... Verse 7 and 8
are deep verses. We'll get to that in a minute,
but they're deep verses. Now, concerning the priesthood,
no man takes this office, this honor, to himself. No man. All those who were priests
were called of God, as was Aaron. A man is called to it, he is
appointed to it by God. And here's the argument he's
making, here's the argument. So also Christ, the Lord Jesus
Christ, glorified not Himself, but He made a high priest. You
know the 33 years he was on the earth and especially when he
grew up and you know it became into manhood not one time did
he ever walk into the temple and exercise exercise the priesthood
he never he never moved the high priest over out of the way and
took over he didn't do that He didn't do it. He never made Himself
a high priest and He never made Himself our high priest. God
the Father made Him our high priest. He didn't do that. He
didn't take that honor to Himself. It's like being called to preach. Now a man who's truly a preacher
is called to preach. He doesn't make himself a preacher. Nobody makes preachers but God. THERE WAS NO HIGH PRIEST EXCEPT
THE ONES GOD APPOINTED, AND HE CALLED THEM, AND MADE THEM A
HIGH PRIEST. So also Christ glorified not
Himself, for He made a high priest. But He that said unto him, Thou
art my Son, today have I begotten thee, over in Psalm 2 verse 7,
God said this. Well, this same one who appointed
him, the same one who said, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten
thee, is the same one who said, You are a priest forever after
the order of Melchizedek. You're the same person, God. God called him His son, and He
said, I made him a priest, and I made him a priest after the
order of Melchizedek, which is a different order than that of
Aaron. Aaron was of the Levitical priesthood. Christ came from
the tribe of Judah where nothing was ever said about the priesthood. That was the kingly tribe. But
our Lord is the King-Priest. He's King-Priest upon the throne. WE HAVE IN CHRIST WHAT NO OTHER
PRIEST HAD. WE HAVE PROPHET, PRIEST, AND
KING ALL IN ONE PERSON THAT NEVER HAPPENED IN THE HISTORY OF THIS
WORLD, IN THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH THAT NEVER HAPPENED EXCEPT
ONE TIME, JESUS CHRIST. HE IS PROPHET, PRIEST, AND KING. HE'S EVERYTHING. HE'S EVERYTHING. Now the Apostle here argues the
legitimacy of Christ's priesthood by the way He diligently fulfilled
His OFFICE in verse 7 and 8. And I tell you what, He DID fulfill
the OFFICE! You know, it's one thing to hold
an office, it's a whole other matter to fulfill that office. HE FULFILLED THE OFFICE OF PRIEST,
HIGH PRIEST PERFECTLY. Aaron made a cast. They were just sinful men. They
represented the perfect high priest. They were just representations
of it. And none of the representations
were perfect. The types and the shadows were
just that. They were types, shadows, and pictures. But they had their
limitations. David was a king. He was a man
after God's own heart. But look what he did with Bathsheba
and her husband. Solomon said the wisest man ever
lived. 700 wives. And he made groves to them and
let them worship their gods. and boy did he fall into trouble
toward the end of his days. But listen here, these two verses
are deep, they are deep, deeper than I can comprehend. Who in
verse 7, Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up
prayers and supplications, WITH STRONG CRYING AND TEARS UNTO
HIM THAT WAS ABLE TO SAVE HIM FROM DEATH AND WAS HEARD, IN
THAT HE FEARED. THIS IS SPEAKING OF THE LORD
JESUS CHRIST. THAT'S WHAT VERSE 7 IS SPEAKING
OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, WHO IN THE DAYS OF HIS FLESH ON THIS
EARTH, WHEN HE WALKED ON THIS EARTH IN THE FLESH. I THINK IT'S
SPEAKING OF THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE, WHEN HE CRIED WITH STRONG TEARS
Now in that verse we hear where it says he was heard that he
feared he's not he's not talking about a fear here of this the
like a slave of a master going to beat him but it's talking
about the fear of a son of respect and reference of all and he proved
that that kind of fear by his obedience and he was obedient
in everything He's the only obedient person ever walked on this earth. He was an obedient child. He
was an obedient teenager. He was an obedient adult. He
was obedient to his father. He was obedient to his parents. He was obedient to the civil
government. Peter, he stopped Peter one time talking about
taxes. OF ALL THINGS TO TALK ABOUT, HE'S TALKING ABOUT TAXES,
AND HE TOLD PETER, I'M JUST GOING TO PARAPHRASE IT, GO PAY YOUR
TAXES SO THEY WON'T BE OFFENDED, GIVE UNTO SEIZURES THE THINGS
THAT ARE SEIZURES, PAY YOUR TAXES, AND HE DID THAT, HE DID THAT. He was heard, listen, He was
heard for the holiness and righteousness of His life. In my margin it
says the piety. And this strong crying shows
the weight of our sins. It shows the weight of our sins.
He bore our sins in His body on the tree. He felt the weight
of it, no doubt the guilt of it, the heaviness of it. And He knew He was about to stand
before God His Father and be judged. And he knew what was
coming. He wasn't asking here to be spared
from the death of the cross. He said, for this hour I came. For this hour I came. But I do know this. THAT HE SAYS HERE THAT WHO IN
THE DAYS OF HIS FLESH WHEN HE HAD OFFERED UP PRAYERS OF SUPPLICATION
WITH STRONG CRYING AND TEARS UNTO HIM THAT WAS ABLE TO SAVE
HIM FROM DEATH, HE WAS RAISED FROM THE DEAD BY THE POWER OF
GOD. AS A MAN HE LAY IN THAT GRAVE
HIS BODY WAS DEAD, BUT HE WAS RAISED BY THE SPIRIT
OF GOD. And He knew He could save him
from that grave. Do you know anybody can save
you from death? Only God. Only God can save us
from death. He can save us from death through
the blood and righteousness of that man, Jesus Christ. We can
be saved from death. Do we not cry to Him who can
save us from death? Do we not do that? We do. though he were a son the son
of God that's what he's saying though he were the son of God
yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered not
that he was ever disobedient but he was obedient it says even
unto death even the death of the cross CHRIST ALWAYS OBEYED HIS FATHER.
THE SCRIPTURE SAYS THAT HE GREW IN WISDOM AND STATURE AND AS
A MAN HE LEARNED, LISTEN TO THIS, HE LEARNED THROUGH SUFFERINGS
OR EXPERIENCED THE RESULTS OF TRUE OBEDIENCE. IF YOU AND I HAVE TRUE OBEDIENCE
TO THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, WE WILL SUFFER IN THIS WORLD. WE
WILL SUFFER. See, our Lord never backed down
like we do. Whenever it was time to stand
up, He stood up. He never cowered down. Remember once they said,
You don't want to go to Jerusalem, they want to kill you there.
Don't you know that? He never backed down from it.
He was obedient to His Father's will and He suffered for it.
And if we live in obedience to God's will, we'll suffer for
it in this world. But too many times we cower down,
way too many times. And His obedience, listen, was
perfect to the end. and being made perfect verse
9 that doesn't mean he was imperfect or anything was lacking it doesn't
mean anything was lacking here's what it means in being made complete
he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that
obey him listen in john 19 he cried it's finished he's talking
about redemption REDEMPTION IS FINISHED! Here in this verse,
here He is FINISHED as the PERFECT HIGH PRIEST! He's the PERFECT
SAVIOR! We have in Christ, through His
obedience, through His life, through His death, we have the
PERFECT SAVIOR! That's what we have. BEING MADE COMPLETE. for Jesus
Christ to be the perfect Savior of sinners, He must die. Well, first of all, He's got
to come into this world. He's got to live a perfect life. He's
got to suffer. He's got to die. He's got to
be buried. He's got to rise again. He's got to send back to the
Father, be seated at God's right hand. Now we have a COMPLETE
FINISHED SAVIOR! You see it? I see it. We never
had that in any other priest. We never had that in Aaron or
anyone after Aaron. We have that in this man, Jesus
Christ. We have the perfect, the complete
Savior and High Priest, Mediator, Representative at God's right
hand. We have Him. And now that He's
complete, He's the perfect Savior, HE IS THE AUTHOR OF ETERNAL SALVATION! He's not going to die again.
And those whom He saves are saved forever. Those whom He died for,
their sins are gone forever. My sins are gone. Do I feel my sins? Yes, I do. Do I feel sinful? Yes, I do.
I do. But my sins, according to the
Word of God, are gone. Gone, gone, gone. They've been put away by the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our High Priest. And His salvation, He's the Author.
It began with Him, and it will end with Him. HE'S THE AUTHOR
NOW LISTEN OF ETERNAL, ETERNAL SALVATION. You know Bev, back
before I heard the gospel, the place I went, they believed in
what they called ETERNAL SECURITY of the believer. Some people
don't. Some people believe you can be
lost and saved. You can be lost. There are people
that believe that. I think the United Baptists believe
that. But they were LOST or SAVED, you know, depending on your conduct.
LOST and SAVED, LOST and SAVED. That's not ETERNAL SALVATION.
That's not. Everyone whom Jesus Christ has
saved ETERNALLY, you CANNOT be lost again. And that has NOTHING,
NOTHING, NOTHING to do with you and me. It has everything to
do with God the Father and God the Son. for me and for you none
of it's on us it's all on him we have a high priest passed
into the heavens jesus the son of god who's before god he represents
us before god he's he's ordained for men and things pertaining
to god righteousness The BLOOD OF ATONEMENT! SATISFACTION
TO THE LAW! We have a HIGH PRIEST! As it says in chapter 4, we have
a GREAT HIGH PRIEST! And there is not any more! Catholicism
is nothing but DEVILISM! That's all that is! I think the Pope calls himself
Pontifex Maximum. I wrote it down but it kept going
off. You know what it means, the greatest
high priest. What ignorance, what foolishness! There is only one high priest
and there is no other. There's only one priest that
represents us, nobody else. I wish I could say this to the
whole world, I wish the whole world could hear this. Jesus Christ
is the only High Priest appointed, anointed of God and nobody else. Does He have the qualifications
to be the High Priest? Absolutely! And we'll see more
of that as we go through Hebrews.