The title of the message is,
WHAT IS THE HOLY SPIRIT TEACHING US? What is He teaching us? The apostle is reaching back
again, and he does this several times throughout Hebrews. He's
reaching back into the Old Testament, way back there. He goes back
past the temple, all the way back to when they were in the
wilderness and they had the tabernacle. And he reaches back there. And
he's not doing it just off the cuff. He's under
the inspiration here of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is
teaching us something here. Look in verse 8. This is where
the title comes in verse 8. The Holy Ghost, this signifying
or showing us that the way into the holiest of all was not yet
made manifest, while the first tabernacle was yet standing.
That's where I got the title from. What's He teaching us?
And the one thing I noticed as I was studying this, these past
few days, it would have been easy for me to get bogged down
and go to each one of these. And I thought, He didn't get
bogged down in all of this. He hurried up and got to Christ. He uses just a few verses here
and mentions these things. And that's what I'm going to
do, just mention these things. but he hurries up to Christ.
And I think as a preacher and as a pastor, the wisest thing
I can do is to hurry up and get us to Christ, get us to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now the apostle gives the purpose,
he's going to tell us this here, he gives the purpose for the
first tabernacle. It all represented the Lord Jesus
Christ It represented His true priesthood, His true work, and
that He is the true tabernacle. He said, A body hast thou prepared
me. That's the tabernacle He's speaking
of, His body. We'll see this later on in this
chapter. And this is very important, Him
reaching back here to these Hebrews And remember this, these things
were written aforetime for our learning. This is for us too.
It's like He's showing us pictures and types, and then the Lord
Jesus Christ. And then when we see Him, we
can say, Oh, I understand. I understand. I understand the
Passover. You know, if you took the Old
Testament away, you'd have a hard time understanding redemption.
You'd have a hard time understanding it. You'd have a hard time understanding
the intercession that the Lord makes for us. You'd have a hard
time understanding the priestly work of the Lord Jesus Christ
apart from the Old Testament. It's a photograph. It's a photograph
is what it is. It's like looking at photographs.
And then here's the real. Here's the real. And this tabernacle
that he's going to talk about and the things that are in it
are important because the tabernacle is where God and His people met. This is where God met His people.
This is where the cloud was over the tabernacle. It is the place of God's presence.
Where's God's presence now? God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto Himself. If you and I are going to have
anything to do with God as God, if we are going to have anything
to do with God by way of mercy, it's going to be in, by, and
through Jesus Christ of whom these things represent.
They just represent Him. And then it's the place, that
tabernacle, it was the place where the mercy seat was at. You look at this world as big
as it is, this earth as big as it is, and all the people that
was on it at that time. There was one tabernacle and
there was one mercy seat right there in Israel, right there
with the Israel of God. There was a mercy seat. Thank
God there is a mercy seat where sinners like you and me vow,
and I'm not stretching it, I'm not stretching. I'm not trying
to have some kind of shock value by saying we're vile, wretched
sinners. By nature, that's exactly...
I tell you, no matter how bad I think I am, I'm a lot worse.
I promise you, I'm a lot worse. God has never, ever let any of
us see the depth of our depravity. But I'll tell you who did see
it. The man Christ Jesus. He saw it. As he saw it, in the
garden of Gethsemane, he sweat great drops of blood. He was
made to be sin for us. He understood sin. He knew the
very depth of depravity of sin. And he sweat great drops of blood.
I've never sweat a drop of blood over anything that I am. No sin that I've ever done what
I am. I've never sweat a drop of blood
over it. He did because he knew the depth
and the depravity of sin. But there is a mercy seat. There
is a mercy seat. We're sinners. Mary Magdalene,
Rahab the harlot, Paul the Pharisee. There's a mercy seat where we
all can come to and find grace. and find grace, and find forgiveness,
and find pardon. There's a mercy seat. And Jesus
Christ is that mercy seat. He is that mercy seat. Now the
Holy Spirit is teaching us in this chapter three things. And
it's been the theme and will be the theme of this whole epistle.
The Holy Spirit is teaching us the preeminence of the Lord Jesus
Christ over that tabernacle. and over all the furniture that
was in that tabernacle, and over the priesthood, and over all
those sacrifices, He has the preeminence, He is superior,
He is far, far above them. I tell you what, He's so far
above them, He's as far above them as light is far above darkness. They're just a shadow. He has
the preeminence. He has the preeminence. And then
here's something else the Holy Spirit is teaching us here. There
was no power ever, ever at any time in any of those ceremonies
to save. Look over at chapter 10 there
across the page. For the law, the ceremonial law,
having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image
of the things, can never, with those sacrifices which they offer
year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect."
They couldn't save anyone. They never did save anyone. Everyone
whom God has ever saved, He has saved in Jesus Christ. He is
saved by His blood, His righteousness. And that will never change. That
will never change. And then He's also teaching us
that all these things have now come to an end. And here's what
He's teaching us here in our day. We don't need ceremonies.
We don't need ceremonies. We don't need people dressed
up in all this garb. We just need Jesus Christ, because
He fulfilled it all. All these things have come to
an end. They are absolutely useless. They're useless. Now, he says
here, this first covenant, or this first typical covenant,
it had a tabernacle. And it was made, listen, it was
made according to a divine instruction. God gave it. They didn't just
make this up. God gave this. This is of God. And it was made,
it says, of this world. That is, it was made out of the
materials of this world to represent the Lord's heavenly things, the
Lord Jesus Christ. How many times did our Lord give
a parable and He would use an earthly example for a heavenly
meaning? That's what it is. They have
a heavenly meaning. They're just earthly examples, but they have
a heavenly meaning. They all point to Him. And then
it has specific rules and regulations. It was not just left up to them
how to worship God. Cain thought the way he did,
bringing in the works of his hand, Cain thought that was all
right. God didn't prescribe that, and God did not accept it. There is a prescribed way to
worship God, and that way is the Lord Jesus Christ. I am the
way, the truth, and the life. He's not only the way to the
Father, which He is, but He is the way in which we worship God.
We cannot worship God or come before God apart from Jesus Christ. We can't do it. There were regulations
for the priest. There was order. There was order. I was watching a program, this
has been a few years ago, the snake handling service. They
were calling it a worship service. And they were handling snakes,
and they were just crazy. There was no order to it, it
just plumped crazy. In worship, there's order. In worship, there's a prescribed
way, the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a sacrifice, the Lord
Jesus Christ. There's blood, His blood. There's
power in the blood, we say. His blood, not just any blood.
There's no power in my blood. No power in your blood. You could kill everybody in here
and it wouldn't save anybody. But there's power in His blood.
You know why? It's the blood of God. That's
what Paul said in Acts. It's the blood of God. That's
why there's power in His blood. And then it has structure. The
tabernacle was to be 45 feet long, 15 feet wide, and 15 feet
high. God gave the exact instructions
of how this is to be built, what it was to be built out of, and
the exact dimensions. Because it represents a person. The Lord Jesus Christ. And there
was two rooms in the tabernacle. And they were separated by a
heavy veil. A heavy veil. Now in the first compartment,
it's called the Holy Place. There were three pieces of furniture
he mentions here. You notice it's not all cluttered
up. It's not cluttered up. Not a bunch of stuff in there.
It's not stuff hanging on. It's not cluttered up. There's
three pieces of furniture that's mentioned. The table of showbread. This table was made of wood.
and it was overlaid with gold. That represents the humanity
and the deity of our Lord. That's the picture. That's the
picture. And then there was the bread,
and the bread represents Christ, the bread of life. He said in
John... Let's go to John chapter 6. Over
to John chapter 6. In John 6, look at verse 48. Christ said, I am that bread
of life. Your fathers did eat manna in
the wilderness and are dead. Now you can write, if you like
to write in your Bible, you can write from where it says they
are dead. There is no life in types. There was no life in types. Never. He said they're dead. It didn't
give them life. It didn't give them life. This
is the bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat
thereof and not die. and not die. We can't comprehend.
We see people die. I've preached on several funerals.
But you know, the funerals that I have preached of believers,
they were not dead. I was just burying a body. They
were with the Lord, fully alive and rejoicing. I've never buried a dead believer.
I've just buried a body. I am, he says, I am the living
bread. Not just bread. You know, if
you take the bread in your house, leave it there long enough, what
happens? Mold. Mold starts to grow on it. You
can't, you know why? Because it's not living, it's
dead. There's no life in that bread. And you know that bread
that I eat over there at my house does not give me life. It helps
sustain physical life. But it does not give me life.
Christ said, I'm the living bread. He's the bread that came down
from heaven. He's the bread that gives life. He said that a man
may eat thereof and not die. It's hard telling how many loaves
of bread I'll eat, but one day I'll die. I'll die. I don't care
if you... I don't care what you make it
free of. I don't care if it's the healthiest bread there is.
I will die. But Christ said, He that eats
of this bread, speaking of Himself, will not die. And I tell you what, as I get
older, I want to get a hold of that. I want to get a hold of
this thing of not thinking, you know, I'm going to die. No, I'm
not. That's the attitude I want God,
by God's grace, I want to have is that I'm not going to die.
I'm about to live. I'm literally really about to
live. I'm about to experience God fully. I mean fully. I'm about to lay
down in a creepy old house. and I'm about to inherit a body
of youth and energy and strength. I asked Doris today, I said,
how's Henry? She said, oh, he's not doing
too good. She said, he can't hear, he can't speak, he can't
preach. I said, you tell him he preaches
every day. He'll preach every day till the
end of time. And I will too. They put me up on the internet. I'll preach till this world doesn't
exist anymore. I said he preaches every day. I'm the living bread which came
down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. And the bread I will give is
my flesh, it's I'll give for the life of the world. All right,
let's move on. I said I wasn't gonna get too
carried away. Well, I did, all right. And then
there's the golden candlestick. You know, I don't want to get
carried away with these things, but I can sure get carried away preaching Christ. Nothing
wrong with that. We have the golden candlestick.
This tabernacle had no windows in it. I wish I had that. Every year we had the Bible school,
you know, 13th Street, there would be Oh, good night. It was 150 kids there. Well, someone had made a replica
of this tabernacle. And every year they would bring
it out and teach from it, explain the curtain. And, you know, I mean, Henry
would talk about that curtain, talk about that tabernacle, talk
about what it was covered with. And it was really interesting
to see it in a little replica. But in this tabernacle there
were no windows. There was no windows. There was no natural, what we
call, natural light shining into it. All the light that was in
that tabernacle came from within the tabernacle. And this lampstand
was the only light. The priest would light it and
he kept it lit. He didn't let it go out. He kept it lit. Christ
said this, He said, I am the light of the world. I am. He's the light. If you and I
know God, we are going to know God through Jesus Christ. There
is no other way of knowing God except through in and by Jesus
Christ. But I think it also can represent
the church here because it says over in Revelations 1.20, I'll
read it to you, It says, The mystery of the seven stars which
thou sawest in my right hand and the seven golden candlesticks.
The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the
pastors. I'm telling you, that's all. I don't know what words to use
for this. to think that God would set me
here as a pastor, and the terminology used here is as an angel, which
is a minister. You know, angels are ministering
spirits. But as a minister, but he calls them here an angel.
And he's talking about the pastors, the pastors of these churches.
And the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.
Now, it represents Christ who is the light of the world. But
as He is, so are we. Christ Himself said, You are
the light of the world. You're the light of the world.
He's the head, we are the body. See, there's that candlestick,
that lamp stand there. We'll see here in a minute. It's
a pure gold, and then there's seven prongs up on that. And He writes here to the seven
churches. but Christ and His people are
one. As He is, so are we. He says in Revelation 2.1, Unto
the angel of the church of Ephesus write, These things saith he
that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand. That gives me comfort. That tells me He's holding me. If I'm His, if I'm the pastor
here, if He's giving me as a pastor here, He's holding me in His right
hand, which tells me that the preaching that I do, if there's
any power in it, it comes from Him. "...and who walketh in the midst
of the seven golden candlesticks." No congregation. We have local
assemblies, but no congregation. is without the Lord. He's present
with all of them. He walks among them. And this lampstand had to be
filled with oil. Well, who does that represent? This shows us the ministry of
the Holy Spirit. If the oil went out, if there
was no oil, if the priest did not keep that up, the light would
go out. If you and I are the light of
the world, it's because the Spirit of God is in us, shining forth. And the light that says we are
the light of the world, our light is the gospel we preach. It's
the gospel we preach, the gospel of God's grace. And its lampstand
was pure gold, which represents the deity of our Lord. And there
was the altar of incense. The light had to keep burning. The oil was constantly supplied,
because they were representations. They were not the actual, they
were representations. And there was the altar of incense that
had to keep this burning of altar of incense. There was a continual
sweet burning, sweet smell of incense. That is nothing more than the
intercession of Christ for us. What a sweet smell His intercession
is to God on our behalf. And then they had the second
compartment. It measured 15 feet by 15 feet by 15 feet. There
was one piece of furniture, and it was made up of two parts.
It's the Ark. We know it as the Ark. And it
was the most important piece of furniture in that building.
It was. It was three and three quarters
feet long. It was two and a quarter feet wide. It was two and a quarter
feet high. And it was made of wood. Covered with gold. Covered with gold. We know who
that represents, the Lord Jesus Christ, His humanity and His
deity. And in that ark, in that ark, there was the tables of
the law, the two tables, the ones that Israel broke. Remember
when Moses came down off the mountain and he threw them down,
he broke them, then he went back up and he wrote them, God wrote
them again, then he put them in that ark. He put them in that
ark. And it was Aaron's rod that budded.
Now, I want to give you homework. When you go home, read Numbers
chapter 16. and then read Numbers chapter
17. Read those together. Numbers 16, this is when Korah... Remember, they rose up against
Moses and Aaron. And this is when God opened the earth up,
and they went down, then He closed the earth back upon them. And
even after doing that, and God killed a bunch of them. And after
doing that, they were upset. They were upset with Moses and
Aaron for this. But anyway, to make it a short
story, they all had a rod. God had Moses to give each of
the tribes that are the head of it a rod. There's 12 of them.
And the one that budded was his priest. And Aaron's rod budded. Christ is that rod. Christ is
God's chosen priest. He's God's appointed priest for
us. And it had the golden pot of
manna. Remember that manna that they were, it came to them in
the wilderness, came every morning, that they called, after a while,
they called it light bread. They got tired of it. That was
put in that ark. That was. And then there was
this lid that was, that sat on top of the ark, that all these
were kept in. And it was made, it was a slab
of solid gold. There was no wood in it. There's
no wood. It was solid gold. And when I
read that before coming down here, I wrote down here there was no
wood, but it struck me, and that's because it's the mercy seat,
and mercy is all of God. It's all of God. That mercy is
all of God. That mercy seat is all of God. And it formed the covering for
this ark. And it was overshadowed, it says,
by the cherubims of glory. And he said, I can't speak now
particularly of these things. And I don't know why he couldn't
speak at that time, but my thought is, he didn't want to get off
in another direction. You know, he wanted to get to
Christ. He wanted to get to Christ. In verses 6 and 7, into this
first room, it's called the holy place. And here the priest, that
is the common priest, they would go in there every day, every
day, morning and evening, every day, morning and evening, accomplishing
the service of God. They would offer the sacrifice,
rivers of... I'm telling you, Thousands upon
thousands into the millions of sacrifices they offered there,
year after year after year, accomplishing the service of God, burning incense,
trimming the lamps, but into the Holy of Holies,
beyond the veil, went the high priest alone every year. with
the blood of atonement, and He sprinkled it upon the mercy seat."
Sprinkled it upon the mercy seat. Now, verse 8, and I won't get
too carried away here. It says the Holy Ghost, by all
these services, all this that went on, the Holy Ghost is teaching
us something here. He's teaching us that the way
into the presence of God was not yet manifested. That's what
he was teaching. The way into the presence of
God is Jesus Christ. But they didn't know that at
that time. Now, those who believe God, the ones whom God saved,
they were able to see beyond that. Abraham, he says, saw my day
and was glad. but it is not clearly revealed
unto them while this first one stood." Not until Christ came,
not until He came, were these things done away with. But now
that He's come, they're done away with. They're over. These
ceremonies don't mean anything. They don't mean anything. And
this is interesting, since the Israelites over there right now
don't believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, that they do
not believe He's the Savior, that He's the seed of the woman.
Why aren't they offering sacrifices? Why aren't they doing this? Isaac said, Father, here's the
wood and here's the fire. Where's the lamb? Well, where's
the lamb at over there right now? Why are they not doing it? I'll tell you why they're not
doing it. God's not letting them do it. But there's a problem now. If you
take the Bible and you understand who God is and what He prescribed
and what He set up, there's a problem. If Jesus Christ is not the Savior,
then why are you not doing what He prescribed? This first tabernacle was only
a symbol. It was only a picture for the
time present. It's just a photograph. It's just a photograph. And these
sacrifices, he says, they could never take away sins. You see
in verse 9, which was a figure, that is, was a copy for the time
present in which we were offered both gifts and sacrifices that
could not make Him that did the service perfect. God said it must be perfect to
be accepted. That couldn't do it. But the
Lord Jesus Christ, by one offering, hath perfected forever them that
are sanctified." We stand in Jesus Christ as perfect as God
is. He can accept no less. No less. "...which stood only in meats
and drinks and diverse washings and carnal ordinances imposed
on them." It was a yoke. It was a burden. I thank God
we're not under that. I thank God I don't have to go
through all that they went through. It was imposed on them until
the time of the Reformation, until the time when Christ came
and put this all away. He put it all away. But Christ, being come a high
priest of good things to come, good things, things such as real
peace with God, real forgiveness, real righteousness, real reconciliation,
real grace, real mercy, these are the good things. But Christ being come a high
priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, A body hast thou prepared." He's talking about
His body. Not made with hands. Not like they made back in the
wilderness. Not like they made that. God
formed the body of Jesus Christ in the womb of that virgin. Adam
had nothing to do with it. Mary had nothing to do with it.
God used her womb to bring forth His Son Himself and I can say
it that way too, into this world. That is to say, not of this building,
neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood,
which is the blood of God, He entered Him once into the holy
place. Not that tabernacle in the wilderness, not that holy
place, because that was entered into many times over the years.
He entered into heaven itself. Having obtained eternal redemption
for us. Having obtained it, it doesn't
need to be offered again. He doesn't need to come here
and do it again. It's done. It's over. He obtained
eternal redemption. Everyone who believes, you have
been eternally redeemed. Now that is eternal security. If you want to talk about eternal
security, it comes from eternal redemption. whom the Lord Jesus
Christ, it says, obtained. For if the blood of bulls and
goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctified
to the purifying of the flesh, if the types purified the types,
that's what he's saying, if the types purified the types, how much more On a much higher
level shall the blood of Jesus Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered Himself without spot... Not to me. Not to you. To God. Purge your conscience. from dead
works, going about doing these services, these ceremonies, doing
what you do, thinking it's your duty, and thinking you're pleasing
God, that you're more accepted. God is pleased with you and you're
accepted of God because you do these things. You ain't accepted
of God because you do anything. I'm accepted of God because Christ
did it for me. That's why I'm accepted. Now
I do what I do because of my relationship to Christ. But He purged your conscience from dead works to serve. To serve. I'm His servant. You believe you're His servant. You're not your own. You've been
eternally redeemed. You belong to Him. You and I
are His servants. And we have to get it out of
our head. What do I want to do? What do I want to do when I grow
up? I don't know. If I ever grow up, I'll tell
you. No, it's His. Lord, what would
You have me do? What would You have me do? I
was telling Tommy, it's another chapter now. That chapter is
over with, and he lost those chicken houses. It's another
chapter now. That's the way our life is. It's
like chapter one, chapter two, all the way to the last chapter.
Now it's another chapter. And it gets interesting. It gets
interesting. You know, I lost three jobs when
I was young, and the boys were young, and I lost three jobs.
They went out of business. I don't think it was my fault, but they
went out of business. And I was young, too. And I was like, oh, no, we ain't
going to make it. I mean, it was just every time it was better, every
time it got better. I didn't say I got richer. It
got better. The Lord uses these things to
wean us from this world. To wean us. To purge your conscience from
dead works doing what you do, thinking you're going to please
God, that God's going to accept you, to serve, to serve the living
God. You know, John Mark wrote the
Gospel of Mark. Paul and Barnabas had a falling
out over John Mark. You know what they had a falling
out over? John Mark did not like to serve. But later, later, he
came back. He came back. And the Lord used
him to write the Gospel of Mark, to serve.