Alrighty, we are in Hebrews once
again in chapter 10. Chapter 10 of Hebrews, verse
5, it says, Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith,
Sacrifice an offering that I wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared
me. And we looked at how God, the
Holy Spirit, prepared the perfect human body, the perfect human
flesh, in the womb of Mary. And he did that, and I don't
think I mentioned this, but I want to bring this up. That body that
was prepared was prepared in a virgin. One who had not been
corrupted by the seed of man. The perfect body of Christ. God had prepared that body, and
he prepared it from before the world was. He was known as the
Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, as we read in the
book of Revelation. And then not only did God, the
Holy Spirit, prepare a flesh, a body of flesh for the Son of
God, he prepared you and I, the body of Christ. That's what we
looked at last week. He prepared him a body. So this
week, I wanna look at verses five again, and all the way this
time through verse nine. So read with me if you would.
Beginning in verse five, wherefore when he cometh into the world,
he saith, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not but a body
hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, lo, I come in the
volume of the book. It is written of me. to do thy will, O God." Oh, what
a wonderful statement, to do thy will. How I wish, how I pray
that my will is lost in his. Verse eight, above when he said,
sacrifice an offering and burn offerings and offering for sin,
thou wouldest not neither hadst pleasure thou which were offered
by the law, then said he, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
he may establish the second. He says, lo, I come to do thy
will, O God. Our Lord Jesus Christ came here
as a man. He came as our mediator, our
substitute, and representative to do and to fulfill what? The
will of God. And he fulfilled it perfectly. When we read things in scriptures
about those who do the will of God, we know that in this flesh
we fail. We fail over and over and over
again. We don't preach that you shouldn't do your best, that
you shouldn't walk worthy of your vocation. We don't preach
that. We preach that we walk perfectly in our Savior, Christ
Jesus. Christ came to do the will of
the Father was to bring a better covenant. That's what we're reading
about here in chapter 10 verses 5-8. These words are a quotation
from Psalms chapter 40. Look over at the 40th Psalm and
just look at that and see where that's quoted from. Paul, here
right to the Hebrews, quotes this from Psalms. Look at Psalm
number 40. In verses 6 and 8, we see where Paul is quoting
here. It says, sacrifice and offering.
This is the 40th psalm, verse 6. Sacrifice and offering thou
didst not desire. Notice the way it speaks here. It's saying the same thing, but
it's giving it different words. He says, mine ears hast thou
opened. The writer of the psalm here,
David, he says, mine ears hast thou opened. Those sacrifices. that you required in the first
covenant, the covenant of works, the covenant that said, if you
do this, and what did man do? Man broke that covenant, didn't
he? Why? Because man can't keep it, that's
why. Man can't keep it. Mine ears
has now opened. You've shown me, you've told
me that burnt offerings and sin offerings hast thou not required.
Then, verse seven, then said I, lo, I come in the volume of
the book, it is written of me. I delight to do thy will, O my
God. Yea, thy law is within my heart. Thy law is within my heart. These are quotations that we're
seeing back in our text in Hebrews chapter 10, in which David, by
the spirit of inspiration, wrote of Christ who was to come. Even
the Old Testament figures spoke of the Lord to come. The sacrifices
and offerings of the Old Testament continued only for a set of time. And that time was until Christ
came. Look over at 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Look at 1 Corinthians
chapter 5. That Old Testament was only,
that Old Covenant was only good until the Lord came and fulfilled
it. And fulfilled it dotting every I. We're looking at 1 Corinthians
chapter 5. Look with me at verse 7. Purge
out. Cleanse out. Wash out. Therefore the old leaven that
ye may be a new lump. Wash out the old rituals of religion
that we had, that encompassed us, that indwelt us before the
Lord shined his light into our darkness. Wash that out, purge
it out, therefore the old living, that ye may be a new lump as
ye are unleavened. For even Christ, our Passover,
is sacrificed for us. is put to death for you and I.
Back in our text, Hebrews chapter 10. God never accepted them,
those Old Testament sacrifices, as a term of righteousness. We
saw that in the words of David, as David wrote under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit in a Messianic Psalm. He never accepted them
as a term of righteousness, but when the fullness of time had
come, He clothed His Son, the Lord Jesus, in a human body,
and He prepared by the Holy Spirit that His own dear Son might,
in the body of a man, obey the law and suffer sin. That's what we read in Romans
5.19. Let me read that for you. For as one man's disobedience,
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one. So by the obedience of one, our
Lord and Savior, the very one who God prepared a fleshly body
for, one shall many be made righteous.
Look over at 1 Corinthians 15, verses 21 and 22. For since by
man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive. God the Holy Spirit prepared
a body for him, the Son of God, as we read in Hebrews 10.5, a
real human body, a soul for an infinite, eternal, incomprehensible
Son of God so that he could bear our sins in his body on the cursed
tree and die as our substitute. He was voluntary. He volunteered
to do that. Turn over to Acts chapter 2.
Acts chapter 2. Look at Acts chapter 2 for just
a moment there. He volunteered for this. This
is not something that just happened because of plan B. Uh-oh, my
people fell. Now I've got to save them. Our
Lord had prepared Himself a body from before the world was. And
as we see over in Acts chapter 2, I believe it is, Ye men of
Israel, verse 22, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, the man approved
of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which
God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know,
him being delivered by the what? The determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God. He volunteered. Hebrews 6 is
telling us that in burnt offerings and sacrifice for sin as it's
had no pleasure. He knew that there was nothing
good in those sacrifices when he instituted that ordinance
back in the Old Testament days. He knew that he would never accept
those. And you know what? In those days,
God's people knew it too. They knew the same thing you
and I know. They knew that there was nothing more than a picture
of the One to come, where you and I see it as the picture of
Him who has come. We read the Old Testament instructions. We don't need to have those sacrifices
anymore, as we've already seen in chapter 8 and chapter 9 of
Hebrews. We don't need those because Christ
has fulfilled them. The One who they were a picture
of has come. Our Lord came here as a voluntary
surety, as Jehovah's voluntary servant. He came to die as our
substitute by the will of God. That's what we see there in Hebrews
chapter 10 verse 7. He said, then I said, lo, I come
in the volume of the book it is written to me to do what?
To do thy will, O God. What is the will of God the Father?
That Christ should lose none. Does that not bless you? That's my only hope for my children. That's my only hope for me. He will lose none. His name is Jesus,
for He shall save His people. Not maybe. It's not a possibility
that's waiting for you to walk down to the front of the aisle,
or to get baptized, or to accept. If Christ was waiting for you
to accept, you never would! Look over at Luke chapter 24. Beginning at verse 44, we read
these words. And he said unto them, These
are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you,
that all things must be fulfilled, which are written in the law
of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning
me. Everything. The perfectness. The perfect
righteousness that must be established. Everything that was written about
that in the Old Testament must be fulfilled. And it is in Him. In Christ. Verse 45, Then opened
He their understanding. Aren't you thankful the Lord
is merciful and opens our understanding to His Word? Our Word that points
us to Him? His Word that points us to Him.
He opened their understanding, verse 46, and He said unto them,
Thus it is written, and thus it is behoved, Christ to suffer
and to rise from the dead the third day. Oh, what grace! What mercy! Verse 47, and that
repentance and remission of sins should be preached. in His name
among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses
of these things." That's strong stuff. You know, those who say
that we just dance around on top of the water and we don't
dig deep enough, we don't go deep enough into God's Word.
Folks, I'm telling you, that's deep. God loved me. That's deep. A worm as me, He
gave His only begotten Son for me. That's deep. It says that
in order to fulfill and to bring in this new everlasting covenant
and the blessings of it, our Savior had to completely take
away The old, as we see there in Hebrews 10 verses 8 and 9,
above when he said, sacrifice an offering and burn it off as
an offering for sin, thou wouldest not, neither has pleasure now
which were offered by the law. Then said he, lo, I come to do
thy will. He taketh away the first, that's
the old, that he may establish the second. In Hebrews 10, 8,
we're reading about the prophecy again of Psalms 40, which we've
already read. Here, however, there's a slight
difference. The sacrifices are included.
That means this, it means that when Christ fulfilled them all,
He replaced them all. When He had fulfilled all those
sacrifices, He had replaced them with Himself. That's what it
means for Him to be called the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world, is that He is the Lamb. When He fulfilled the perfect
righteousness of God, He fulfilled the spotlessness of the Lamb.
Those sacrifices gave no pleasure to God, except that they were
offered in faith towards Christ Jesus. Look over at Hebrews 11.
Look with me if you would at three verses. Hebrews 11. First,
look at verse 4. by faith. That's what those sacrifices,
that's the only thing good about him is that God's people with
faith in Christ, that he would come and fulfill those sacrifices
completely. That he has come and fulfilled
those sacrifices completely. That's what it is. Faith, able,
offered unto God, a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Look over
at Hebrews 11, 17. By faith, Abraham, when he was
tried, offered up Isaac, and he that received the promises
offered up his only begotten son. Look over at verse 28. Through faith he kept the Passover
and the sprinkling of the blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn
should touch them. In John 6, verse 38, we read
these words. For I came down from heaven not
to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And
that was the will of God the Father, is that a perfect, righteous, by Him, and that's what He did. By completely fulfilling the
redemptive will of God, the Lord Jesus Christ has put away all
sacrifices, all offerings, the priesthood, and all that was
associated with the covenant. Christ is the end of the law,
is what the Scriptures tell us. He stands in the place of all
that was represented in the law. And now having Christ, we have
all things in Him. Turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter
3. In 1 Corinthians chapter 3, we
read verse 21, Therefore let no man glory in men for all things
are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life
or death or things present or things to come. all are yours,
and ye are Christ, and Christ is God. Look over at 1 Corinthians
1, verse 30. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification,
and redemption. Brother Kevin was writing with
me. We were talking a little bit this morning in text. And
he says, may God give us wisdom. If I bring before you Christ,
That's all the wisdom you need. Isn't that what it says right
here? He has made unto us, God has
made him, Jesus, unto us wisdom. There's our wisdom. I'm not a learned man. And I'm
thankful that I'm all wise in my Savior, not me. Not in what I do, not in what
I think, not in what I feel, but in Him, everything that happens
is wise. Through Him. Look at Colossians
chapter 2 with me for just a moment. Look at 9 and 10. For in Him,
in this One who gave Himself as a sacrifice, this One who
put away the first because of all the things that He For in
Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye,
you, you who are in Christ Jesus, us, those of us who Christ died
for, and ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality
and power. If He's the head of everything,
can there be anything shortcoming in us? He who was made to be
sin, for us is made of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. Isn't that what we just read
over there in Corinthians chapter 1, verse 30? So let us ever glory
in Him. A God-given and God-sustained
faith in Christ is not only sufficient to enable the most feeble believer
to overcome the corruptions of this flesh, the allurements of
the world, and the temptations of the devil, but also to give
him an easy, triumphant passage through the death into glory."
Look with me if you would at one more, back over at Exodus
15. Verse 16-18, we read this, "...fear and dread shall fall
upon them. By the greatness of thine arm
they shall be as still as stone till thy people pass over." We're
talking about the grace of O Lord, to the people Passover,
which thou hast purchased, thou shalt bring them in and plant
them in the mountain of thine inheritance in the place, O Lord,
which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the sanctuary,
O Lord, which thy hand hast established. The Lord shall reign forever
and ever. In a sense, our belief, our faith,
the faith's last work shall be the greatest yet that takes us
from this world into eternity. I've seen the glow of one of
God's children before the Lord took them out of this world.
And what I mean by that, I don't mean a blue color or a greenish
color, a glow. I'm talking about the glow of
smiling, the glow of comfort that one gives when their peace
when their peace of heart is settled in the Lord. Our bodies
may convulse with pain. We may be going through physical
pain of some kind or unconsciousness may set in. We may even have
spiritual struggles. Yet once our soul is freed from
this body of flesh, it shall be blessed with such a sight
and a sense of our blessed Redeemer as we have never had and never
could have in this mortal body. Look, one more verse, if you
would, and we'll bring it to a close. Acts chapter 7. Oh, how we cry
out, Lord, take me home. This world is not my home. I'm
just passing through. My treasures are laid up. somewhere
beyond the blue. If heaven's not my home, then
Lord, what will I do? Because I can't feel at home
in this world anymore. Look at Acts chapter 7, verse
55. And it said, Behold, this is
Stephen. This is Stephen. As they began
to throw rocks at him. As they began to stone him. Now
remember, Paul was there. Paul was holding the jackets
of those who threw the stone. Letters in his hand giving him
permission to persecute God's people. Stephen writes this,
but he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly
into heaven and saw the glory of God Jesus standing on the
right hand of God and said, behold, I see the heavens opened and
the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God. Amen.