You all want to turn to Hebrews
chapter 4. Hebrews chapter 4 is about rest. And we're going to
focus most of our time on the last few verses, starting from
verse 12 to the end of the chapter. But before we get to those verses,
I will give you some summary, a recap, of the significance
of what we've been studying here, how it leads up to the conclusion
that we must seek God's grace at all times from the Lord Jesus
Christ on his throne as our high priest. And so I wanna read this with
you and then we will pray and let's ask the Lord for his grace
to guide us. From Hebrews chapter four, it
says in verse one, let us therefore fear. And the therefore was because
of chapter three where God gave an account of how the nation
of Israel, for the most part, because of their unbelief, fell
in the wilderness and never entered into Canaan, which signified
the eternal rest. So he says, therefore, let us
fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest,
any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was
the gospel preached as well as unto them. But the word preached
did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that
heard. For we which have believed do
enter into rest. As he said, as I have sworn in
my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works
were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spake in
a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, and God did
rest the seventh day from all his works. And in this place
again, if they shall enter into my rest. Seeing, therefore, it
remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it
was first preached entered not in because of unbelief. Again,
he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, Today, after so long
a time, as it is said, Today, if you will hear his voice, harden
not your hearts. For if Joshua had given them
rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There
remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that
is entered into his rest, he also has ceased from his own
works as God did from his. Let us labor therefore to enter
into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of
unbelief. For the word of God is quick,
or living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and
of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature
that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and
opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. 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. For
we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with a feeling
of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we
are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. Let's pray. Father, we pray that
you would help us understand your word, not just in an intellectual
or academic way, but in a way of a sinner trusting on you in
the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. And we pray that you would glorify
your name. in causing us so to trust him
and providing him and receiving us and saving us apart from ourselves
to the glory of your name. In his name we pray, amen. Now,
as I mentioned, I want to give you a little bit of a recap because
a recap of what we're going to be covering today, which is God's
rest in Christ and our need to come at all times boldly to the
throne of grace. Our need to come is heightened
by the solemn message given to us in verse 12 where it says,
the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any
two-edged sword. piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and
is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, neither
is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but
all things are naked and opened under the eyes of him with whom
we have to do." That's a concerning text of scripture, if we take
it all by itself, that God sees us, knows us, He knows our thoughts
and our intentions, and we have to do with Him. We have an account
to give to Him of ourselves, to God. And that's a concern,
isn't it? But this is why this, the reason
for this concern needs to press upon us so that we would do what
He says, which is go to Him at all times through our high priest.
So if we understand that when we see this, then we know that
we live our lives in this world and we will live them either
without concern or we will live them with the great pressing
of God's word upon our hearts causing us this concern that
we stand before God who knows us even when we hide from ourselves
and he will expose us and discover our condition to us and he will
hold us accountable and therefore we need mercy and grace and so
he exhorts us to come at all times to his throne of grace.
In chapter three and four, he talks about how the nation of
Israel fell in the wilderness because of their unbelief. And
we saw the last couple of weeks how that their unbelief was not
a mixture of faith with unbelief, but a total absence of faith.
In Deuteronomy 32, it said, there were children in whom was no
faith. And here in verse two of chapter
four, he said, the gospel was preached to them, but what was
preached to them was not mixed with faith in them that heard
it. So the absence of faith is what was the problem. And these
Hebrews to whom the writer to the Hebrews, which I believe
was the apostle Paul, but it's not important really, it's the
God, the Spirit of God speaking through his apostle. The point
he's making in verse two is that to them the gospel was preached.
And so don't be like them. Don't hear only. but believe
what you hear. Remember what Jesus told those
men in John chapter six who saw him multiply the bread and fishes,
and they said, what should we do? That we might work the works
of God. And he said, this is the work of God that you believe
on him whom he has sent. So we don't labor under a covenant
or a law that requires obedience from us in order to fulfill a
condition by which God will accept us and reward us with eternal
life. Remember the rich young ruler
who came to Jesus? Good master, he said, what must
I do to inherit eternal life? What must I do? What must I do?
That was the echo. throughout time of the heart
of a sinful man to think that even though he is utterly sinful
and corrupt, both sinful before God and corrupt in his nature,
he can't do anything. By the deeds of the flesh, no
one can be justified in God's sight. But this is ever the response
of us, naturally, is to come to God in an attempt to make
ourselves acceptable, to gain or earn his favor. But this can't
happen. Remember Moses, I mean Noah,
it says of Noah that he found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
He didn't deserve it. The one who gave him grace didn't
owe grace to him. But he found grace because of
God's goodness. And so we hear the same thing.
Ruth, in the book of Ruth, in chapter two, she speaks to Boaz,
and she said, why would I have found favor or grace in your
eyes? I'm a stranger. I don't deserve
favor from you, but I found favor and grace from you, Boaz, because
this is teaching us that grace towards us is never because of
what God finds in us, but because of his own heart of grace. As
we looked at Romans 4.25 last week, God's delivering up his
son teaches us the heart of God. It doesn't teach us anything
about ourselves except the absence of all merit. So God's grace
came to those who heard and believed, and those who heard but did not
believe, they faced then the judgment of God. In the Old Testament,
there are three ways in which God gives a picture of this rest. And the first way is in creation.
Remember, on the sixth day, God finished the work, and on the
seventh day, he rested because the work was finished. And this
is brought up in the law of God in Exodus 20, verse 11, where
it says that when you, I want you to keep the Sabbath, do no
work, in order that you might remember that in six days God
created the heavens and the earth. And on the seventh day, he rested
from all his work. Now, that was to teach us that
looking forward in promise, because all things in the gospel that
were spoken in the Old Testament were spoken, as it were, in a
parable. A parable is a lesson usually
with physical things in this life we're very familiar with,
that teaches spiritual truth and oftentimes the parable is
given in order to cloak the truth from the minds of proud men,
and yet God uses the true meaning and reveals it to those to whom
he will in his grace. The truth is laid bare before
us. We can't see it. God has to reveal
it to us. And so all the Old Testament
was like that. It was a parable. He says this in Psalm 78, I will
open my mouth in a parable, and utter things that were hid from
the foundation of the world, and yet they wouldn't know it.
When Jesus came, he spoke in parables all the time. He spoke
to them in a parable. And the disciples asked him after
he spoke the parable of the sower and the four kinds of soil, remember? The sower, and he went forth
and he sowed his seed and it landed on four different soils.
And the disciples asked him after that, Lord, what does this mean? And why do you speak in parables?
And the Lord Jesus said, the reason I do this is so that seeing
they may not see, and hearing they may not hear. But unto you,
he told his disciples, it is given to know the mysteries of
the kingdom of God. So the gospel was preached, but
it was preached in a way that the message of the gospel was
hidden throughout the Old Testament. And not until the New, remember,
was the Gospel revealed. That mystery was revealed. It
says in the New Testament that the Law and the Prophets were
until John, John the Baptist. But since he came, the Gospel
is preached and all men of various kinds are rushing into it or
trying to get into it. And so throughout the New Testament,
for example, in Ephesians 3, the apostle says, the mystery
was revealed to me now at this appointed time of God in history,
which was hidden before. This theme is throughout the
New Testament, that the mystery that has been hidden from the
ages is now made known and is revealed by God through his son,
given to the apostles to us. That's us. Imagine that. You've
lived at a point in history where we think the world couldn't be
any worse. And yet for the believer, it
couldn't be any better time to live because God has made known
the gospel. Think about that. Now, as I said,
this rest that God has for his people is typified in this parable,
if you will, of creation, God's work in creation. He's speaking
here of a rest that's eternal, that's spiritual, that's for
his people, that's given to them because of the work of Jesus
Christ. But he uses the portrait or the canvas of creation to
display all of the truth of redemption And so in this, what we see is
that creation is actually God's work within his work of redemption. And that creation is like, I
say, a picture. It's a figure. It's an example
of the true and the spiritual and the eternal. Creation, when
God created the world, he spoke. When God created his people by
the redeeming blood of Christ, he had to give him his son, who
was the word of God, and he had to lay his life down. So which
work is greater of God? In Psalm chapter 33, he speaks
about how God spoke by the breath of his mouth, and it stood fast. And he goes on to say that all
the thoughts of his heart, and therefore we should stand in
awe of him, all these things that God has done in creation,
because he's teaching us that creation in and of itself is
not an independent act of God, and not an independent isolated
work of God where God created the world, and then he decided
now we need to save this wretched fallen man that we've created
in the world. No, actually creation was a part
of, a lesser part of, a necessary part of its plan of redemption.
In order to bring many sons to glory, he had to make the captain
of their salvation perfect through sufferings, but that could never
happen until that one who was the captain was himself made
flesh and came into the world and took on a body God prepared
for him, that in that body he might offer to God That satisfaction
to His justice and that fulfillment of His law that honored God's
law and provided a righteousness for His people by which God could
bring them to glory. So that's creation. Creation
is within redemption. Redemption and creation are inseparable. There's no redemption without
a Redeemer. There's no Redeemer who is not our near kinsman and
that couldn't happen unless He was made like us who were sinful
flesh. And in creation, we see how God
brought everything out of the dark void and nothingness by
his word. And in our salvation, God created
us in Christ Jesus out of our dark, empty nothingness, our
death even. and created us in Christ Jesus
because of Christ's redeeming blood by His Spirit sent from
glory. So redemption and creation together
are meant to teach us the rest that God has for us. And then,
this is also explained throughout the scripture when God redeemed
Israel from Egypt. Remember, He redeemed them out
of Egypt, out of bondage to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians, and He
delivered them by the blood of the Passover lamb. Again, God
is teaching us how we enter into rest. It's through the blood
of the Passover lamb. We're redeemed from Egypt, and
so that in Deuteronomy 5, God tells them to keep the Sabbath
in order that they might remember that they were redeemed from
Egypt, of course, by the Passover lamb, and Christ is our Passover,
whose blood was shed for us. And this is also seen in Leviticus
16, where the day of atonement, the high priest, looking forward
to Christ, came and made atonement on that day, and the people were
to do no work but to see and praise God for his atoning work
in the high priest. And then throughout the Old Testament,
much of the time is spent on this whole land of Canaan, which
was another picture of our rest. Notice how many ways God is teaching
the gospel in the Old Testament. Everything is pointing to this.
Everything is pointing back to this center purpose of God. Creation,
the redemption from Egypt, the rest in Canaan, the Passover
lamb whose blood was shed, the serpent lifted up on a pole in
the wilderness. Everything is teaching, pointing
back to the gospel of God in Christ. It tells us many things. It tells us the importance of
the gospel. It tells us that we can't know
it unless God reveals it. And it tells us that God has
spent all of scripture to teach us the gospel. And then in these
last days, He's made it known. And He exhorts us in Hebrews
chapter 4, be careful. Be careful, He says. Fear, lest
a promise left us of entering this rest that God is teaching
us through all these things that we would fail to enter it. And
so we're exhorted to believe Christ. Because Christ is our
rest. He is our Sabbath. He is our
rest because he is our inheritance. Our inheritance is in him. And
everything is in Him. Life is in Him. Faith is because
of Him. It comes to us by His grace.
Righteousness is in Him. Our holiness before God is in
Him. Everything, our wisdom, everything
is in Christ. Eternal life is in Him. Our eternal
glory is in Him. All that God has for sinners
is in Christ. Christ himself is our rest, and
we are joined to him by God's electing purpose, and that is
evident in our life when God gives us faith in him. We come
to Christ as sinners. We don't come to him having something.
We come in need of everything. And so he says in verse 11, let
us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall
after the same example of unbelief. Rest means cessation from work. Rest means contemplating as God
did his own creation and his own work and being delighted
with it. And knowing that nothing can
be added to it because it's complete and perfect because God did it.
And so we enter into that rest when we look to Christ, when
we consider him our high priest, the apostle of our profession.
We come to God considering only Christ because God considers
only Christ for us. And we trust that he will only
consider Christ for us and in spite of our sin, he will have
mercy and grace upon us for Christ's sake. And so he says, let us
labor to enter into that rest. All of our life is a walk of
faith, isn't it? Abraham lived his life depending
upon God's promise. God promised Abraham he would
have a son in his old age, and through him Christ would come.
And through Christ who would come through Isaac, all the nations
of the world would be blessed. And Abraham's own blessing were
given by God in promise to Christ who would come through his son
Isaac. And Abraham was convinced this is his only hope. This is
his life. He looked to Christ who would come through Isaac
according to God's promise, and he took delight in it. He rejoiced
to see his day. He didn't look for the Canaan
of this world. He looked for a world to come, a city that
has foundations, a country. He looked for that country, which
was heaven. In all these things, Abraham exhibited faith and he
lived his life in patience. He did not consider his own body
dead, but he considered Christ who had come out of his dead
body. So when God asked him to, told him to take his son Isaac
and offer him up, Abraham took that knife and he was going to
plunge it into his son because he knew that Christ must come
through him and God was not going to fail to keep his promise and
that his own salvation was in his son Isaac's life and the
life that would come through him. All the nations would be
blessed according to God's promise and the name he had given to
him, Abraham, the father of many nations. And so when he lifted
that knife, he was declaring his faith in God that he would
raise his son from the dead And in raising God's only begotten
Son from the dead, He would be justified. And that was faith.
We also believe in Him who raises His Son from the dead. And that's
our rest. And so we labor this throughout
our life. We walk in the patient confidence and the expectation
that God will keep His Word and give to us because of His promise
in Christ. And this is our life. This is
our walk. This is our hope. This is everything. And then
he goes on and he gives us his warning in verse 12. He says,
For the word of God is quick, or living, and powerful, and
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and
is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. God's
word, he says here, is like a sword, but it's not just a piece of
steel. It's a living thing. It's a living,
dividing, discerning sword. It discovers. It makes known
the hidden thoughts of the heart and the intents of the heart.
Have you ever tried to hold back a sharp knife with your hand?
It's not a good idea to try that. God's sword is like that. And
the sword was invented in order to teach us what God's word is
like. It divides us. It lays us open.
We can't resist it. No man can, no creature. Everybody
is laid bare before God by His Word. The counsels of our heart
are laid bare. Our own words will be judged
by God's Word and will be shown to be the cause of our condemnation
because we knew the truth and we rejected it. That's the way
God's Word works. It says in verse 13, neither
is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, laid
completely open before him. All things are naked and opened
unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. So here we see
that God's word is not just the written word, but it's the living
word. It's the Lord Jesus Christ in
scripture who is called the word of God. So before the Lord Jesus
Christ, we all stand. He's the one with whom we have
to do. He says in Revelation 2, I think verse 23, he says
that he's the searcher of the hearts. He is. And Jeremiah 17, 9 and 10, he
says, the heart is deceitful above all things. Who can know
it? And then he goes on, he says, I, the Lord, search. I, the Lord,
try the hearts. And so the Lord is the one, the
Lord Jesus Christ, who is the living word. and nothing can
bear his penetrating eye without it being laid completely bare."
Now, what God is saying in these two chapters here is that we
must not fall after the same example of unbelief. We must
find that Christ has done all to save His people and we must
find our salvation in Him alone. We must not hold on to false
religion. We must not hold on to a religion
that requires from us in order to gain from God. We must not
think to come with our own sorrow and repentance or prayers. Our
resolve, our sincerity, our works, our consecration, nothing from
us. We must never look to ourselves
for confidence before God, for a standing, for a plea, for a
defense. Any of those things, all those
things must be abandoned. We must find ourselves under
the all-seeing eye of God. And when I was a little kid and
I would hear an adult speak to me about these things, I always
got the sense that they were saying, God knows everything
you're thinking, therefore I need to clean up my act. But the message
is not, you need to clean up your act. The message is, you
can't. And you won't, because your nature
is corrupt. You're guilty and condemned before
God. You stand before God without
a prayer, unless God does something. And that's the point here. And
so he goes on in verse 14. Seeing then, he's going back
now, he spoke of our high priest in Hebrews chapter 2 and verse
17. He said, wherefore in all things
it behooved him, Christ, to be made like unto his brethren,
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. And
then in verse one of chapter three, where for holy brethren,
partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high
priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. And here he says, seeing
then that we have a high priest. A great high priest, not just
a high priest, but a great high priest that is passed into the
heavens, not just into the holiest on earth or a tabernacle on earth
made by hands, but into heaven itself. Who is this that passed? Who is this great high priest?
It's Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our profession.
Here the word of God shines. Unrelentingly, unresistantly,
we can't resist God's word. It will discover us. It will
find us guilty and corrupt. And it will condemn us. But here,
seeing then that we have a great high priest, do you see how God,
under the dark, somber, foreboding-ness of the fact that we are laid
bare before God, Then comes this light from heaven shining again
on the Lord Jesus Christ, pointing us to him. Consider him, he says
in verse one of chapter three. Consider the apostle and high
priest of our profession. Consider him only. We have a
great high priest. A high priest is someone who
stands before God for the people. who offers to God for their sins,
and obtains favor from God on their behalf. He is a mediator, one who takes
the needs of the people to God and meets the requirements of
God for them so that God's blessings can be given to them in righteousness. God himself designed and appointed
the office of the high priest. God himself chose only one to
be our high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other
high priest. I remember Don Fortner saying,
if you need a high priest on earth or a priest on earth, you
don't have a high priest in heaven. But if you have a high priest
in heaven, then you don't need a priest on earth. And he was
right about that, very concisely stating the principle. We have
but one high priest. There is only one. And he's a
great high priest. He is the one who goes between
sinful man and a holy God, and he reconciles the two together.
He makes at-one-ment. He takes away the barrier for
God to bless us. He takes the barrier of our sin
away. And he removes God's wrath, and
he satisfies God's justice, and fulfills God's requirements placed
on us. He does it all. The high priest
does all this, and he's a great high priest. And he is not just
passed, as I said, into the tabernacle on earth, but into heaven itself.
And who is this one? His name is Jesus. God gave Him
that name. That name means He shall save
His people from their sins. God makes it clear. The issue
is our sins. God has to deal with it. So He
has appointed Jesus a man. But not just a man. He's Jesus,
the Son of God. So in this one, is both God and
man. Moses pleaded for Israel, and
God heard, it says in several places in the Old Testament,
he heard Moses' prayer, and he pardoned their iniquity, or he
didn't bring his wrath upon them. But here, the one who is our
high priest in himself is both God and man. Our Mediator is
both God and man, and in Him, the needs of God, the requirements
of God, He has no needs, but His requirements on us, and His
purpose to glorify Himself are met perfectly in the One who
is our High Priest. And so he says, let us hold fast
our profession. Don't let it go. You have but
one hope. It's the work of our high priest.
He finished the work. Remember Leviticus 16, 29 through
31? On that day, do no work. The high priest alone entered
into the holy place. He offered the blood of bulls
and goats in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, in
Hebrews 9 and 10, he offered himself to God. In the Old Testament,
in Leviticus 16, he confessed the sins of Israel over the head
of that scapegoat. In the New Testament, he owned
our sins and confessed them as his own on his own head. He is
both the High Priest and the Lamb of God. He offered Himself. Nothing more could be offered.
He's the Son of God. He purchased us at the price
of His own blood in Acts 20, 28, the blood of God. It had
that merit. And so His own blood made the
way He reconciled us to God. Don't think that we can add to
anything that he's done. Don't think that he has left
anything undone. All that God requires is necessarily
met by him because God raised him from the dead. He raised
him from the dead. That means what he had done was
perfect and satisfying and glorified God and he released him from
death and honored him by raising him from the dead and justified
his people in that. He goes on in verse 15, for we
have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. See, here's Jesus, the man, the
one who came to save us from our sins. He wasn't a high priest
who was without feelings. He had the same experiences as
we are. In fact, he says here, he was
in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Everything
that you can experience as a sinner in temptation, in guilt, in the consequences of your sin,
he himself felt. And that's amazing. Do you ever feel estranged from
God because of your own sins? All the time, don't you? Do you
ever feel like you have left, have neglected coming to the
throne of grace and therefore you feel distant and wonder at
times if you even believe on God that your prayers are even
valid at all? The Lord Jesus Christ felt the
pain of our guilt. He felt the estrangement from
God. He knew what it was like to be forsaken by God for our
sins. He took our place. He endured
the beatings from God that our sins deserve. We have a high
priest who can be touched. It's not like he can't be touched.
He can be, and he is our high priest. with all the feelings
of our infirmities, all the feelings and compassion of man, and all
the power and the holiness of God. As man, he was also holy,
but he feels what we feel, he knows what it is. And with these
two perfectly joined at all times, he is constantly there in the
presence of God, making God's a purpose of grace known to God,
and making our needs known too in himself. He offered himself,
he presents himself, and he intercedes for us according to the will
of God. It's in his own heart. He's the one who fulfilled it.
He's the one who made the way for us to be accepted, and he's
always constantly praying for us. And I want to take you at least
to one of these examples in the Old Testament. Let's look at
Numbers chapter 14. And it just so happens that this
is given here, Numbers chapter 14, when the people didn't believe
God and therefore didn't enter the land of Canaan, the land
of promise. So after Joshua and Caleb and
others, ten others, had gone in and searched the land in Numbers
14, verse 6, and they brought back their report, the ten who
didn't believe gave an evil report. Joshua and Caleb gave a good
report. And in verse 9, it says that
that Joshua and Caleb are warning the Israelites not to rebel.
He says in verse 9, he says, only rebel not ye against the
Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land, the Canaanites,
your enemies, for they are bred for us. Their defense is departed
from them, and the Lord is with us. Fear them not. Now here,
Joshua and Caleb were giving them a clear view of what they
should be seeing of these enemies in this promised land by faith,
but they rejected it. Verse 10, but all the congregation
bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the Lord appeared
in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.
Isn't it interesting that the unbelieving Israelites wanted
to kill those who brought the message of the promise. God's work was about to be done.
Their enemies were about to be destroyed and inheritance was
about to be given them. And they said, no, stone him.
Verse 11, and the Lord said to Moses, how long will this people
provoke me? How long will it be ere they
believe me? For all the signs which I have
showed to them, I will smite them with the pestilence and
disinherit them and will make of thee a greater nation and
mightier than they. Okay, this is God's response
to their unbelief. Judgment and wrath. Listen to
what Moses does. And Moses said to the Lord, he
said, then if this is what you do, then the Egyptians will hear,
for you brought up this people in thy might from among the Egyptians. And they, the Egyptians, will
tell it to the inhabitants of this land, the land of Canaan.
For they have heard that thou, Lord, art among this people,
that thou, Lord, art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth
over them, and that thou goest before them by daytime in a pillar
of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night. They heard about
all this. In verse 15, now Moses is saying
to God, in intercession for Israel, now if thou shalt kill all this
people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of
thee will speak, saying, because the Lord was not able to bring
this people into the land which he sware to them, therefore he
has slain them in the wilderness. Wow, what a powerful argument
this is. What is Moses saying? If you
kill all these people because of their unbelief, and you don't
fulfill your promise that you gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
What does it mean? The people who heard you and
saw you own these, the heathen who saw you own these people
as your people will have to conclude only one thing, you weren't able
because of their sin and their weakness. And what does that
say about God compared to the idol gods? Their idol gods, they
thought they could do all these things and they put up with their
sins somehow, they couldn't explain how, But how could God destroy
this people without bringing shame or dishonor on his own
name? And so Moses pleads as the Lord
Jesus Christ pleads. He pleads that God would do what
he said. that God will fulfill his word,
that he would uphold his word, his integrity, as God. And he
would keep his promises, because his promises did not depend on
conditions to be met by those people. But they depended solely
on God. So it's what God reveals later
on. When he swore by himself, he
staked his own reputation as God, his own Throne. his own nature, everything he
is as God, on the fulfillment of his own word. And so Moses
pleads this way. Verse 15. He said, in verse 17, and now
I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according
as he has spoken, saying, the Lord is long-suffering and of
great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no
means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children unto the third and fourth generation. Moses prays
in verse 19, pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people
according unto the greatness of thy mercy. And as thou hast
forgiven this people from Egypt even unto now. And the Lord said,
I have pardoned according to thy word. Amazing grace. This is looking forward. This
is looking forward to the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ, as
our high priest, would intercede to God for us, in spite of our
sin, and according to his eternal promises to Christ, he would
save us. And we have such a high priest.
Now what should this do for us? What should it do? In light of
the fact that God's word sees us as we are, and exposes and
discovers us, and lays us bare, and we can't escape his all-seeing
eye, and we must give an account to him with whom we have to do,
what should it do? It should cause us to go again
to our high priest. That's what he says in Hebrews
chapter four. 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. And what is that? that God has
laid on him the iniquity of us all, that he by himself purged
our sins, that the one who gave him to do this work was God the
Father, and that he delivered up his son to death and raised
him again for our justification. We come to him according to his
word, pleading that he would find a way to honor himself and
glorify himself in our salvation, because we're sinners and need
his mercy, and he's a God of mercy who promised mercy to sinners.
This is a faithful saying that Jesus Christ came into the world
to save sinners. So we come that way, don't we?
And we say, Lord, you find a way in your righteousness to forgive
me for Christ's sake. Look at Romans chapter five. It's Romans, after the book of
Acts, chapter five. He says this, verse 20, the law entered that
the offense might abound. Sin just made a bigger mess when
the law came in. It just made things worse. The
corruption of our nature appeared even exceeding sinful because
by the good and holy law of God, we were more sinful, more guilty. And then he says, so the law
entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. That's amazing, isn't it? That's
your only hope, that God's grace abounded where your sin abounded. Verse 21, that as sin, this is
the way God's grace abounded, as sin reigned unto death, that's
all we knew until the gospel came, even so, not sin reigning
by death, but grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord. How does life come? Through righteousness. What kind of life? Eternal life.
And what was the motivation in God that brought that righteousness
and gave it to us, that worked it out in Jesus Christ and gave
us this gift of eternal life? It was grace. Grace reigns like
a king, absolute in sovereignty, absolute in power, full of compassion
in Jesus, the Son of God, the man, Christ Jesus, and Son of
God, whose righteousness is impeccable. has given us eternal life in
Jesus Christ our Lord. So he says this, we come to him
who has all power. He's the sovereign. As the king,
his grace cannot fail. As the high priest, he's all
compassion and he gives us his grace because he knows our every
need. And so he says, In Hebrews 4,
verse 16, let us therefore, seeing that we're standing under the
word of God, seeing that we have a great high priest appointed
by God, seeing he has finished the work. He's done it. He's entered into heaven. He's
sat down on the throne of God. He reigns there in grace through
his righteousness to give eternal life. This is the rest, the eternal
life. We receive it from him. by considering
only his work and God's acceptance of him for us, our high priest.
He made atonement by himself on that day. He says, therefore,
let us therefore come boldly, which means without pretending,
without concealing anything, in all confidence. on the warrant
of God's own word, on the warrant on the ground of his redemption
in Christ, the fact that God receives us not for what we are,
but for what he received from Christ alone, that our confidence
is not in us, but it's in Christ, and our expectation, like Abraham's,
did not consider his own body now dead, So our expectation
is that God has done everything for us by Christ, and therefore,
in believing that, we enter into rest. He says, therefore, let
us come boldly, and this is not a one-time past event, but it's
a continuous coming. Let us, therefore, come confidently,
not hiding, not concealing, frankly, openly, unto the throne of grace. that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need. We think, how can I come, considering
what I think, considering my walk as a professing believer? How can I come? Your sin is your
claim to come by the warrant of God's word and the blood of
Christ. Mercy is only for the sinful. Grace is only for the needy.
Clothing is only for the naked. Eyesalve is only for the blind. Healing is for the sick. Jesus
Christ didn't come to heal the healthy. He didn't come to call
the righteous to repentance. He came to call sinners to repentance. So we take our place always,
at all times, as a sinner needing, at all times, grace from the
one who sits on the throne of glory, who is Jesus, the Son
of God, our High Priest, who makes intercession according
to the will of God by his own blood, and he will be heard.
The Father hears the Son, always. There's not a time when he doesn't.
In fact, he's given all power, all authority to him. All power
in heaven and earth is given to me. Jesus said in Matthew
28, 18. Everything is in his hand, that
he might save his people from their sins, that he might bring
us to God. You see how comforting this is? I have an article here
written by William Mason. And he comments on this verse,
let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we
may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. He says,
very few, comparatively, of the subjects of an earthly monarch,
that means people who are ruled by a king, are permitted free
access to majesty. This is also high. This is too high an honor to
be made common to have access to the majesty of the king. King's
courts are for the noble and the eminent. The poor and destitute,
the miserable and distressed have no admission in the court
of kings. But you poor, you distressed
subjects of Jesus, the king of kings, it is not thus with you. Your king, though ever on a throne,
where majesty and glory shine with the brightest luster, yet
grace, mercy, and kindness are freely dispensed to needy souls. Hither you are invited to come,
yea, more, to come boldly. Why? Why are you to come boldly? because you are rich, because
you are increased in goods, because you have no need. No, but because
your king knows you are poor and miserable, blind and naked
creatures in yourselves day after day, nothing to present to your
king to procure his favor, nothing to bring which deserves his acceptance
of you. But he loves your persons and
has riches for your poverty, eyesalve for your blindness,
a garment for your nakedness, a robe for your rags, and mercy
for your misery. Yea, a heaven. of grace for your
hell of desserts. Your mediator with his blood,
your high priest with his much incense always intercedes. There
can be no period of your life but what is a time of need. Who
has obtained the mercy? Who has obtained all the mercy?
Who has found all the grace which can be dispensed from His throne?
Thou art still a sinner, and wantest mercy and grace. Thou
hast still need of both. But as thou findest thy want
of mercy, thy need of grace, hither thou mayest always repair
with boldness. Here thou mayest ever expect
a rich supply, for God the Father is the fountain of grace and
mercy. Jesus thy Savior is a treasurer. All fullness of grace dwells
in Him. The Spirit, the Comforter, is
the dispenser of mercy and grace. Why then, O soul, that backwardness
and shyness which too too often hangs upon thee. What privilege
so great, what encouragement so strong, come with boldness,
yet consistently with awe and reverence. Boldness of faith
is grounded on something outside of a man, nothing in him, not
on the fervent heart of love, not on the bleeding heart of
repentance, not on the active life of obedience, not on the
suffering mind of patience, but faith fixes only on Jesus, and
the believer comes with an empty heart and hand to be filled with
the free gifts of his grace. You see how God teaches us? That
man lived back in, I think, the 1700s. God had taught him the
same thing. We can only come as sinners.
Aren't you thankful that God's grace resonates in our hearts
consistently? He teaches us, you need to enter
this rest. You can't do any work here. All
your work is rejected. Your best is filthy rags. Therefore
you come and see in all of creation, in all of God's redemption in
Israel, in all of the promise he made to that sinful nation,
in all the intercessions of Moses, He's pointing to his redeeming
work in Christ and he's telling us, you are no different than
them. You're just like the serpent
bitten, unbelieving Israelites. Look to the one lifted up on
the pole and find all grace and come to God by him at all times.
He's the only one that God will give us grace through. Let's
pray. Lord, we pray for this mercy that you've promised that
is in Christ Jesus. We need him at all times. And
we are often estranged from you in our minds, in our hearts.
We neglect coming to you. We neglect your word. We neglect
fellowship with your people. We neglect the worship that our
souls so desperately need. We neglect the joys and the privileges
and peace and knowing that our sins are forgiven because we
are neglectful and sinful people and prone to unbelief. But we
pray, Lord, that according to your great grace in the Lord
Jesus Christ, that you would rescue us even from our unbelief. Your word opens us up. It reveals
the true state of our heart. You know when we're pretending
and hypocritical. You know, Lord, the coldness
of our heart. We pray you would turn us again.
Turn us to yourself by the Lord Jesus Christ and draw us to him
to come to your throne at all times for this mercy and grace.
We need it. And He alone can give it. He
alone has earned it. He alone has it. And He gives
it sovereignly. And He gives it effectually.
Thank you, Lord, for this grace. And we praise you for your mercy.
In Jesus' name, amen.