Hebrews chapter 10, we'll begin
in verse 19. 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 and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us
hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for cause
He is faithful that promised." Children of God have unbelief. I'm going to hunker down, somebody
might hit me. Children of God have unbelief. Not in our new
man. Not in that new nature that's
born of the Spirit. But in that old man, that old
man's only unbelief. I have a great concern, a grave
concern for those that say, I never doubt. Oh, I have no fears, ever. I never have any trials. They've been saved their whole
lives, ever since they can remember. Every day is a summer. All the
roses smell good. Oh, this is wonderful. Every
day. I have some strong concerns. And according to God's Word,
the life of a saint in this world is a hard one. It's a hard one. There's pain in this life, in
this body, in these hearts. in our minds, there's troubles,
there's hard times, inside and out. And the inside ones hurt
a whole lot more than the outside ones. Y'all gotta take a whippin'
sometimes. You and I are us. Us, sinners
born of Adam, we have a reason, we have a need to draw near to
God, to beg for mercy. Why? Because outside and inside,
we are unclean. We're evil. We think that of
ourselves? I mean, we mean it. I'm evil. Evil is what we are. Look here
in verse 22. Having our hearts sprinkled from,
from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Our hearts need to be sprinkled
from an evil conscience. That ain't something on the outside,
that's on the inside. That's what we're born with. Because our
conscience is evil. Our bodies need to be washed
with pure water because we are dirty in the flesh. Outwardly,
it's just filthy rags. Our actions, our walk in this
world. Thanks be to God, we're told
to draw near to our King, to draw near to Him, to His throne
of grace. We're told to draw to that throne
of grace with great confidence. Boldly come to Him. The faith
we are given, that we possess right now, you who He's given
it to, we're told to hold on to that faith fast. Hold on to
it tightly, securely. Don't let it go. Possess it. You know why we're told to draw
near? Because our instinct, born of Adam, is to draw away. It's
to shirk away. Do you know why we're told to
have great confidence, have some boldness? Because our nature
is to fear. You know, while we're told to
hold fast that profession of faith without wavering, that
means to hold on to Christ without wavering. Christ is our faith.
We looked at that the other night, didn't we? Hold on to Him without
wavering because we're so prone to wander, so prone to leave
the God that we love, that God that first loved us, our first
love. So prone to turn to Him. You know, while we're told the
reason for all this is for He is faithful that promised. because
we forget the faithfulness of Christ. What's that in plain
terms for people? We don't believe God. We have
unbelief. That first statement I first
started off with shocked you. Is there proof? We do. Believers are afraid in this
flesh when we look to ourselves instead of Christ. We are afraid
and anxious when we look to this world and not to Christ. And
we are sad or mad. We are either sad or mad when
we look to others in this flesh. Do you ever get frustrated? At
the grocery store? Anywhere? Church service? Driving
down the road? And we look there instead of
Christ. One of those old writers said, when I look to my Redeemer,
the dove of peace flies and lands in my heart. But then when I
look to my heart, or myself, or my brother, or the stranger,
or this world, or anything else, that dove of peace flies away.
I want to keep it. How do we keep it? To the one
that gives it to me. Look to Him. But when we look to Him only,
we draw near. to Him, truly. Truly near to
that throne of grace. When our eyes are fixed on our
Lord, we can't look at ourselves. When our eyes are fixed on Him,
we can't look at a brother. When our eyes are fixed on Him
alone, we ain't going to be mad about it. And we ain't going
to be sad about it. Oh, what joy and peace. What
comfort. Looking to Christ could be worded
this way. Coming to His throne of grace. Drawing near holding
Him fast. That's looking to Him. To the
unbeliever, the unregenerate, the one that the Lord's never
done a work in, I have a word for you tonight and I want you
to pay attention. To the believer, I have a word
for you tonight and I want you to pay attention. We need to
pay attention. We need to be reminded over and over to come
to the Lord's throne of grace. We need to be reminded of why.
Why we need to and why we can't. Why we're able. We need to be
reminded of our full assurance that we have. That we've been
given. We need to be reminded of the faithfulness of Christ.
Who He is and what He did. What's done. How often I don't
look to my Redeemer. How often I'm not coming to His
throne of grace. There's not business hours set,
is there? If I wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning, go to His throne
of grace. The Lord's there. Turn back just a page or two
there to Hebrews 4. I'll try to keep you in Hebrews. Hebrews 4 verse 14. We've just
been told this almost exact same thing a couple of chapters before,
haven't we? We need to hear it again. That's
why it's in chapter 10. Look here in Hebrews 4 verse
14. Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed
into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our
profession. Look at verse 16. Let us therefore
come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy
and find grace to help in time of need. If we could read backwards,
I learn everything backwards. I've just got a backwards head
on me, I guess. If we could read things backwards
and understand them backwards, here's how that would read. We
are in need. What do we need? We need grace.
The gracious mercy of God Himself. That's the kind of grace we need.
It comes from His throne of grace. When we receive mercy, we hold
tightly to our profession of faith. What's our profession
of faith? It's who our profession of faith
is. Cross Jesus, the Son of God is our profession. Where is He?
Where's He at? He's passed into the heavens.
What's He doing there? Being our high priest. That's how it works, isn't it?
Having Christ as our high priest is an important thing, almost
to message that, our high priest. But this is eternally important. The term high priest to us modern-day
Gentiles, to us that grew up in America in this century, that
kind of goes in one ear and out the other. That's something that
went on in the old-timey church. But this is serious business.
A high priest is much more than that. God does not change, and
what He taught His people through these things does not change.
We're going to see some things that's tied to this. First off,
we see the holiness of God. When we see His holiness, His
power, His might, who He is, His nature, the natural man runs. We run to hide. We like to think
high in our minds. Oh, I found God and I sought
Him out and I did this and I did that. The nature we're born with
runs from a holy God. So the scriptures tell us that
they'll pray that the rocks and the hills fall on them. Put something
between me and Him because they don't have Christ. Put something
between me and Him. Rocks and the mountains ain't
going to do it. They draw away, not to. By nature,
we don't run to God. In the garden, Adam, who was
made in the likeness of God, who was morally innocent, didn't
even know what sin was. You sinned, Adam? What's that?
Never heard such things. He walked with God. Whenever
his nakedness was revealed in his eyes, when the Lord opened
his eyes to sin, he hid from God. Do I think I'd do something different?
What does a child do whenever they do something wrong? They
hide it from their parents. Adam, perfect man, in the image of
God, hid from God when he sinned. He drew away. Something had to
be between Adam and God. It was animal covering. Who made
that? God did. Adam tried to make it
out of fig leaves, didn't he? Dried right up. Who put it on
Adam and Eve? God did. There had to be a mediator. Something had to be between a
sinner and a holy God. That's what happened to the children
of Israel, wasn't it? God gave word to Moses at Mount Sinai. And they drew back. They said,
we don't want to talk to God. We don't want Him talking to
us. Moses, you do the talking. You talk for us and talk for
Him. And we're going to go hide back there. You be the go-between.
You be the mediator. Something's got to be between
us. It said in Exodus 20, and all the people saw the thunderings
and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountains
smoking. And when the people saw it, they removed. They stood
afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak
thou with us, and we will hear. But let not God speak with us,
lest we die. Boy, the Lord taught them something,
didn't He? Can't be in His presence. There's a holy God ruling and
reigning this universe. And in and of yourselves, by
yourself, whatever you conjured up, you don't want to be in His
presence. You ain't gonna make it. You
don't want to meet Him without a mediation, without something
in between. We must have a mediator. We must
have a high priest. A representative that's accepted.
So what did the Lord do? He said, I'm going to describe
this to you. He's going to give Moses a word. Y'all going to
walk through that wilderness, I'm going to give you a tabernacle
while you're there. The Lord gave the children of Israel and
us today this physical picture of the tabernacle. He instructed
Moses just exactly how to construct it. He said, this is exactly
how it must be made. It's going to be just a physical
picture of who God is, how he saves man. There's a whole lot
there. It's amazing. It's amazing to
me. And it keeps being amazing. You know what the color patterns
and all those garments, that means something. Oh, it's amazing. It doesn't
get old. But in this tabernacle, the Lord told Moses, He said,
you have an outer wall, eight foot high, all the way around
that thing. There's going to be a perimeter. to be a white linen. That declares
from the get-go the Lord's righteousness, His holiness. It's a warning. Stay out. You can't come in here.
Holiness is inside of these walls. And there's one gate. Only one
way into this perimeter. It's on the east side. Cross
the door. He's the only way, like our brother
just read, for his people to come to the Father. Christ is
that door. He's God's righteousness and
He's the door coming in. You walk in, there's an altar
there for burnt offerings. Sacrifice that God provided Himself. Christ is our sacrifice. Walk
a little bit past that. There's that big old bronze laver.
Wash hands and feet. Passing through Christ, seeing
Him as our sacrifice. Being showed that, now we're
clean. We're clean and entered the holy place. Go into the holy
place. On the left-hand side, there's
a candlestick. Oh, it's a candlestick. Christ
our light. Look over to the right table,
the showbread. Is that in case you get hungry? You need a snack? No. Christ, the bread of life. Right there He is. What's in
front? There's three things in that
first holy place. What's in front? The incense altar. 24-7. Incense is burning there. That's what the priest's job
was. You keep that incense going. What's that? That's the 24-7
Christ interceding for us in prayer. Then the veil. It hung between
the holy place and the holiest of holies. And some people, oh
man, it's five inches thick. Oh, it's 12 inches thick. You
know how thick that veil was? It was thick. That's how thick
it was. Give me 60 years, I'll tell you.
It was thick. That was what was written to
when our Savior gave up the ghost. Tore it apart. What separated
us from that holiest of holies? He tore it in half when he said
it was finished. That separated Everything from
the holiest of holies, through that veil, that was the most
holy place. That's where the ark was. Where
the Shekinah glory of God was seen between those cherubims
above it. Above the mercy seat. That's the same word propitiation.
Inside that ark, about the size of a suitcase. That was the broken
law. God's holy, perfect law, broken. There's Aaron's rod that bloomed.
There's a little cup in there, some of that manna from heaven.
And then on top of that was that solid gold piece, cherubims facing
each other, covering their eyes, covering their feet. And once
a year that high priest, God's ordained man, would go in with
that incense, with the prayers of Christ, and the blood from
that sacrifice, and pour the blood on that broken law. What a picture. No one was ever allowed in that
place, in the Holy of Holies, but the
high priest once a year on the Day of Atonement. That's the
only time he was allowed in that part. He would go in there, picturing
Christ, His sacrifice for His people. Even way back then. The gospel hadn't changed. The Lord hadn't changed. He's
teaching us something through this. All that, a picture of being
in the presence of God. That's what it took. In our natural
state, in our sinful selves, we are not welcome in there.
Not the prophets. The prophets weren't welcome
in there. Not anybody. The kings. Kings weren't welcome in there.
None of the people. They were not allowed in the
holies of holies. And we can't do it by ourselves.
In this day and in days past, men attempt to come to God. to
draw near to Him by themselves. It offends me and it's flagrant
and blasphemous. I talked to God and He said this.
My buddy, the man upstairs, you don't know what you're talking
about. I want to warn you. If you hear anything I say this
evening, hear this. God is holy. You cannot come
into His presence without a mediator, without a high priest. And that
priest must have been ordained, acceptable, and he must have
that blood sacrifice with him that God provided and that God
approves of. If not, there will be eternal
death and eternal separation. There's nothing else. Are we
sure? Are we positive? Do I know this? We have an example,
don't we? Didn't try this nowadays. King
Uzziah, in old days, he was not one of God's ordained high priests.
He was a king. He was a king. He was up there,
wasn't he? Doing good. Oh, business was booming. Building
buildings left and right. He was successful. He was successful
in one thing, thought he'd be successful in everything, didn't
he? He went into the tabernacle.
That's the same as the temple. Same things took place there.
Same veil was there, and he wanted to just burn incense at the altar.
He wasn't going all the way in, so I just wanted to go burn incense.
He was strong and mighty, and boy, he could just do it by himself,
couldn't he? Then what happened? A high priest
came to him, Azariah. And Azariah, the priest went
in after him, and with him four score priests of the Lord that
were valiant men. The high priest and 80 other
priests went in to this king, their king. And they withstood
him, and they said unto him, It appertaineth not unto thee,
Uzziah. This ain't gonna work out good
for you. Don't do it. To burn incense to the Lord.
But the priests, the sons of Aaron, that are consecrated to
burn incense, only for them, only ones the Lord says. He's
pleased in. They told him, they said, Go
out from the sanctuary, for thou hast trespassed. You need to
go tell King that. You're King. You're trespassing.
Beat it. I'm doing this for your good.
Neither shall it be for thine honor from the Lord God." The
Lord ain't going to bless this. And Uzziah got mad. Oh, he was
wroth. He was angry. He said, you can't
tell me what to do. I'm a king. And as he said it,
as he said that, leprosy started, didn't it? Where'd it start?
On his forehead. Why? That's wickedness in high
places we looked at the other night, wasn't it? He had a good
idea. I told a man one time, I said,
sir, I don't think, and he said, you're right, you don't. Should have kept my mouth shut,
shouldn't I? Good ideas of a man, isn't it?
You cannot in your flesh, I don't care how sincere you are, I don't
care how great you're doing, how moral you are, it doesn't
matter. You cannot approach God by yourself. It doesn't matter what the preacher
tells you. The presence of God is not open to a son of Adam.
Apart from one thing. Apart from one thing. that he
is represented by a suitable priest, a God-ordained representative
with an appropriate sacrifice, an acceptable sacrifice. Paul
told Timothy, for there is one God and one mediator between
God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. Mary ain't the mediator. The
Pope ain't the mediator. The preacher. Oh, I've heard
some people brag on preachers. They ain't the mediator. It will
do you no good. The words of another, mommy and
daddy, being believers, ain't gonna help you. It will not be
what allows you to enter into God's presence. Only Christ our
high priest, carrying his own intercessions, his own prayers,
his own supplications, and his own sacrifice, his own blood.
Our master said, like our brother read there in John 14, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to me but by the
Father. We're not welcome. On our own,
we're not invited to come into His presence except through the
mediator. And that mediator has been designated. He's been ordained
by God Himself, and it's the man, Christ Jesus. That makes
our text a little more understandable, don't it? After seeing that,
seeing the picture in the garden, the picture of Mount Sinai, the
picture in the tabernacle, this mediation, this high priest.
Look here in Hebrews 10, verse 19. Speaking of that holiest of holies,
it says in Hebrews 10.19, having therefore brethren boldness to
enter into the holiest, right into God's very presence, 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
that he tore, and having a high priest over the house of God,
let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Let us, that's what he says,
what a thought. Who is that? Whosoever. God hating rebels. The very ones
he had to bleed for. Let us. Let us come there. It says, let us therefore come
boldly, come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain
mercy and find grace to help in time of need. That's what
it told us in Hebrews 4. Let us come boldly. This is good
news. This is glad tidings. We can
come boldly to that throne of grace now. Now. And instead of receiving death,
eternal death, we receive mercy because of the death of our substitute,
because of the blood of Jesus. There is grace there right when
we need it. It ain't a moment too late, it
ain't a moment too soon. It's sufficient. It ain't too
much to puff us up and it ain't too little to let us die out.
Right there at that thorn of grace. We don't draw near, we don't
hold our faith fast, we don't have full assurance when we're
trying to, we don't worship God. We're living this world looking
to ourselves. Looking to ourselves. We have
to be looking to Him. Turn back a little bit to Hebrews
chapter 3. Hebrews 3 verse 1. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers
of the heavenly calling, consider, think about this, meditate on
it, spend some time chewing on it, Consider the apostle and
high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. Boy, what good
advice. Don't consider how much you know.
Don't consider what your feelings are. Don't consider an experience
you had way back when. Don't consider your baptism.
Don't consider, well, I took the Lord's table. Don't consider your emotions.
Consider our High Priest, Christ Jesus. Look to Him. When we consider
Christ our High Priest, let's meditate on some things. Meditate
on Him. Three things I want to cover
real quick. First, who is He? Who is this High Priest the Lord
has provided for Himself? Turn back just a little bit there
to Hebrews chapter 1. Hebrews 1 verse 1. Our great High Priest, consider
Him. He's greater than all the prophets. It says here in Hebrews
1.1, God who hath sundry times and divers manners spake to our
fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken to
us by His Son. God has spoken to us. He's spoken
to us through the prophets, the priests of old, and now He's
spoken to us by His Son. We have the Word of God. We have
the words of our high priest recorded. That's something. A God we offended, spoken to
us by His Son. He's much more worthy than the
prophets and the men of old. Hebrews 3.3 it says, for this
man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses. A lot more
glory, a lot more worthy. Christ, the Son of God, more
worthy than any other prophet. He is God, Immanuel, God with
us. Look down at verse 8. But unto
the Son, He saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever, a
sepulcher of righteousness and a scepter of thy kingdom. Who
is our High Priest? Almighty God Himself. Who said so? God Himself said
so. It says, Thy throne, O God, is
forever and ever. That's who our high priest is.
That's who our go-between, us and the God we offended is. Who
ordained him? Turn over to Hebrews 5, verse
1. It says in Hebrews 5, verse 1, For
every high priest is taken from among men. Christ became a man. He was born of a virgin. He lived
on this earth as a man. He was bone of our bone and flesh
of our flesh. He was taken from among men,
wasn't he? Look in verse 4. And no man taketh this honor
unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.
Aaron didn't volunteer for the priesthood. The sons of Levi. They didn't volunteer for their
task given to them. That seems like I could do that.
That's a good idea. I'll just go do that for a while. No. Read on, verse 5. So also Christ glorified had
not himself to be made a high priest, but he that said unto
him, thou art my son, today have I begotten thee. He was commanded,
He was made, wasn't He? Verse 6, And He saith also in
another place, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. We've got self-made priests in
this earth today. We have church-made priests.
They get together and vote on it, and we'll make this one right
here do something. That'll be our go-between. Let me tell you
something. Our great high priest is God, appointed by God and
chosen of Him. He said, this is my beloved Son
in whom I'm well-pleased. That's the accepted go-between.
His Son. He said, this is my Son. Hear
ye Him. He's Lord of all. That's our
prophet, our priest, and our king. To the Son, He saith, Thy throne,
O God, is forever. Who is our High Priest? The Son
of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Who appointed Him? The Father
appointed Him. He said, This day have I begotten Thee. And
He said unto them, Thou art a priest forever. He's the one that declared
it. What did He do and where is He now? Turn over Hebrews
chapter 10 verse 9. Hebrews 10.9, Then he said, Lo,
I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
he may establish the second. We could stay there for a long
time, couldn't we? He took away the first Adam, he was the second
Adam. He took away that first high priest, that was a picture,
and he is the high priest. Took away that old covenant of
works and law, and those things, he fulfilled it with the law
of grace. Verse 10, by the witch will we
are sanctified through the offering of the blood of Jesus Christ
once for all. He's made us holy as He's holy. And every priest standeth daily
ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can
never take away sins. Don't that happen in our day?
We've got to do better. We've got to do some more holy
living. We've got to clean up outside the cup. You're making
the same sacrifice every day. Christ sanctified His people
once for all. If a man understands that, if the Lord gives him ears
to hear that, you want to walk right in this world. You don't
want to bring reproach on the Lord. Verse 12, But this man,
after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at
the right hand of God. What did he do? He made his people
holy as he is holy. Upheld the Father's honor and
obeyed His law and walked perfectly upright before Him, full of trust
and full of love. And then he sat down at the right
hand of God. How do we know these things? That's in English. That's in black and white. We
can read them. We don't understand it most of the time, but we can
make words, make some grunts and sounds, can't we? How can
somebody know this? How can a light bulb come on
and say, How long has that been there? Look at verse 15. Whereof
the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us, for after that he had
said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after
those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their
hearts. You're going to know about grace because someone put
it in your heart. And in their minds will I write them. It's
going to be on your mind all day long. You're going to be
out cutting grass, and that's all you can think about. You've
got putting a window in, Thomas, and you think, what my Lord did
for me. You didn't do that, He put it
there. What's the result of that? Verse 17, and their sins and
iniquities will I remember no more. There's got to be blood to get
rid of sin, the remission of sin. We can't be in a holy God's
presence. We have a high priest. He was
successful. And our sins and our iniquities,
He'll remember no more. Put away. It's good news to get
sin and iniquity in you, don't it? Verse 38, Hebrews 10, 38.
Now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my
soul shall have no pleasure in him. He told us to draw near,
didn't He? Draw nearer, Son of Grace. You're going to go do
it by yourself? He may draw back. My soul shall have no pleasure
in Him. But we are not of them who draw back into perdition,
but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. We draw near
to that throne of grace. That's our only hope. That's
it. The man in Christ Jesus. We come
to Him. Hold on to Him fast. Like Jacob
Brasler. I ain't gonna let you go till
you bless me. I may limp for the rest of my life, and that's
fine. But I ain't gonna let you go. Hold fast to Him. Do you
hold fast to Him? You hold fast to something else.
Who's your priest? Who's your go-between? Who ordained
your priest? What sacrifice does your priest
bring? And where is he now? Does he make an intercession
for his people? Is he ruling and reigning? All the armies
of heaven and of earth, every molecule that floats through
this place, or is he trying to do something? My high priest,
the high priest, is on his throne. He's it. Our only hope and all
our hope. Amen.