We do have some folks who are
recuperating from surgery. And we continue to remember Brother
Ronnie Gray and Teresa Pennington, that God would strengthen them. And we have others who are out,
several are out tonight because of viruses. and that sort of
thing that has stricken several in our congregation. And pray
that they'll be strengthened and be back with us very soon.
Go with me to Hebrews 10. Once again, that portion of scripture
that Joe read to us. And I wanna talk to you for a
little bit this evening about the successful sacrifice. the successful sacrifice. And I want to begin this way
by asking and then answering this question, what did it take,
what did it take for God to save sinners in a manner consistent
with his law and justice? What did it take for God to save
sinners in a manner consistent with his law, and justice. I'll give you five things. Number
one, it took the purpose of God. If you set out to do something
of great significance, I doubt that you would ever begin to
do it without a purpose. If a builder is going to build
a house He will have a purpose, he'll have blueprints and so
forth so that the builders or the construction people would
know exactly what it is that the one who has hired the builders
needs to do. There will always be a purpose,
a purpose. Well, from the very beginning,
God had his eternal purpose. And his purpose in salvation
was, first of all, to magnify himself, to glorify himself in
this salvation. You may be certain of this, that
which God has done and that which God is doing, he has his own
glory and honor at heart first. And then he has the good of his
people at heart. This purpose of God in salvation
necessarily meant the entrance of sin into his creation. As to exactly how God brought
that to pass, I cannot tell you. But I know that all things are
of God. And in his eternal decree, he
purposed that there come into existence that which is called
sin, and then God purposed to do something about it. Now, all
of this included the purpose of God regarding the existence
and then the fall of Lucifer, the existence and then the fall
of Adam, who was the representative of the entire human race. And the purpose of God included
the election of a people unto salvation. You may be certain
of this, if God's going to save sinners, he set out to save specific
sinners. It wasn't a general salvation. It wasn't a universal salvation. It was the salvation of the people
that God had ordained to save before he ever made the world.
This matter of our salvation was an issue of eternal importance
with God. And he purposed to save his people
in a manner that honored his integrity and his wisdom and
his justice. God's choice of a people under
salvation was an unconditional choice. It was not based upon
what God foresaw that these people would do, but really only His
own will and purpose were concerning this choice. And He purposed
to save a people. Salvation is not left to the
purpose of man nor to the will of man. It never has and it never
will. It's all dependent upon the purpose
of God. What did it take to save sinners? God's eternal purpose, and that
purpose included a suitable sacrifice for sin. I said the title of
the message is The Successful Sacrifice, and God purposed that. Because God can't save a sinner
any other way other than satisfying His law and His justice by successful
sacrifice, and that being the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus.
What does it take to save sinners? Well, it took the eternal purpose
of God. And secondly, it took the providence
of God. Everything that God purposed
to do before the world began, and that was everything. Everything
that God purposed to do before the world began, His providence
is bringing it all to pass. So that everything happens according
to the will of God, according to the purpose of God, and it's
carried out with exactness and precision just exactly the way
that God has ordained. The scripture says, for of him
and through him and to him are not just most things, not just
things that are pleasant to us, but all things, all things are
of God in his providence to whom be glory both now and forever. God brings everything to pass. And that includes the time and
the preacher and the very message that you heard and the work of
the power of the Spirit of God in your conversion. What did
it take to save sinners? What did it take to satisfy God?
His purpose, His providence, and thirdly, it took His great
power. Not the power of the sinner because
we're powerless. We have no ability. You might
be certain of this, if a sinner is going to be saved, that sinner
will be saved according to the purpose of God, by the providence
of God, he'll hear the gospel, and then it will be by the power
of God, that is the Spirit of God working through the gospel
message that creates within us a new heart, a new nature, That's
according to the omnipotence of our God. It took the power
of God to quicken unregenerated sinners. It'd be foolish for
anybody to say that we quickened ourselves or we gave ourselves
life. We can't give ourselves life.
Can death give itself life? Can a dead sinner regenerate
or quicken himself or herself? Well, the idea is preposterous.
If we're going to be made spiritually to live, then one who has life
must give us life. Our Lord Jesus said, you must
be born again, but he didn't say anything that you could do
to be born again. And he says, it's the spirit
of God who moves where he wants to and when he wants to. It took
the power of God. Salvation is not what man has
to do with God or what man can do to satisfy God. Salvation is by the omnipotence
of God, the power of God. We are powerless, but thank God
He has all power. And He uses the gospel, which
is the power of God, unto salvation when accompanied by the Holy
Ghost. Then sinners are quickened and
saved. There must be the gift of spiritual
life. There must be the gift of repentance. There must be the gift of faith. There must be the gift of righteousness
freely imputed to us through the obedience of our Lord Jesus
Christ. What did it take to save us?
The purpose of God, the providence of God, the power of God, and
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. One equal with God had to be
made like the ones that He came to save. He had to be made a
man for the suffering of death. Our Lord Jesus never relinquished
His deity. He never gave up that authority
He had as God. but he joined his deity to our
humanity. And thus he was the God-man. God over all blessed forever
the man Christ Jesus. And it took the perfect sacrifice
of Christ to save us. And really, that's what Hebrews
chapter 10, especially the first half of the chapter, is all about. And I would say this, I would
venture to say this, that the first half of Hebrews chapter
10 is one of the clearest statements of gospel truth regarding the
salvation of sinners. You just cannot improve upon
this And as you look through this portion of Scripture, as
we're going to briefly do tonight, these first 17 verses, it is
very obvious to anybody who honestly handles the Scriptures that this
salvation that is of God is based upon a successful sacrifice,
and that being the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. In preparation for this message,
I did some reading, as I always do, and one author said God could
have saved sinners any way he wanted to, but this was the means
by which he settled on the salvation of sinners, that is, the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ. I do not agree with that and
to me that flies in the very face of scripture and it's an
insult to the wisdom of God in sending his only begotten son
into this world to live and then die to satisfy justice and to
save poor sinners. If there was some other way that
God could have saved sinners, to suggest that is to suggest
that the death of the Son of God was a needless tragedy, and
that's heresy. There was no other way but this
way, to satisfy God's integrity, God's wisdom, and
God's justice. Another writer said this. He said, God could have saved
everybody or saved nobody. Well, I disagree with the last
part of that. I do not believe that God could
save nobody. And I'll tell you why. Because
the Bible says God is love. And love must be expressed. Love must be manifested and the
love of God was manifested in sending his son into this world
to die for poor sinners. Now he could have saved everyone
had he so chosen to do so. And our Lord Jesus would have
had to have suffered no more than He did suffer in order to
save everybody. But He didn't purpose to save
everybody. There was a remnant according
to the election of grace. And God manifested His love toward
us. Toward us. in that while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us. So I do not believe that
God could have never saved anybody. He had to save somebody. I know we didn't deserve it,
but it's the very heart and character of God. God loves and God hates. Now we cannot measure God's love
by our love. I know that. And we cannot measure
God's hatred by our hatred. But God's love is a perfect love
and his hatred is a perfect hatred. And both of those characteristics
of God are eternal characteristics. Those He loved, He's always loved
them. And those He hates, He's always
hated them. I'm thankful that He loves some. And the way you can determine
whether He loved you or not, is if you've been brought to
bow to and believe on and rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Savior of sinners. And if you rejoice in him, you
can say, God loves me. He's always loved me. The scripture says, having loved
his own which were in the world, he loved them to the end. I have known couples who divided,
who divorced, and one would say concerning the other, I just
fell out of love with them. I used to love them, but I don't
love you anymore. Well, that may happen with people,
but that don't happen with God. And no matter what you do as
a child of God, you cannot, you cannot kill God's love for you. Not that you would ever try to,
but I'll tell you, believers throughout the generations of
time, believers have done things that embarrassed us, embarrassed
them, brought shame on us, But I tell you what, they didn't
bring any shame upon the character of God. And they did not kill
his love for them. He loves us though we misbehave. He loves us though we sin. He loves us though we wander
away from him. He loved David. when David was
in the arms of Bathsheba, didn't change God's love for him. God loved David when he had Erica
killed on the battlefield. Make no excuses for David, but
I tell you what, we can praise the love of God for him. and
praise the grace of God and the forgiveness of God and the righteousness
of God freely imputed to David. Well, let's look here in Hebrews
chapter 10 because this is such a powerful declaration of the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll break this down into
three points. And the first is our Lord Jesus
came because there was no other way for sin to be put away. He
is the perfect sacrifice for sin. In verse 1 it says, for
the law, and that's the totality of the law, having a shadow of
good things to come and not the very image of the things, can
never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually
make the comers thereunto perfect. That law that God gave to Moses
with all of its rituals, with all of its sacrifices, with all
of its ceremonies, and there were a bunch of sacrifices required. When God gave the law to Moses,
there was the law regarding daily sacrifices, a morning sacrifice
and an evening sacrifice. There were the sacrifices concerning
the Passover to be observed once a year. There were the sacrifices
that the high priest brought to pass or the sacrifices that
they offered on the Day of Atonement. There were the sacrifices of
an animal that was required when a baby was born, when a mother
was to be ceremonially cleansed, when a child reached a certain
age. There were more sacrifices ordained
in the Old Testament than you could ever remember or me either. It was just one sacrifice after
another. But the Scripture says here that
those things could never make the comer thereunto perfect. He further says in the second
verse, for then would they not have ceased to be offered? Because
that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience
of sin. If those animals' sacrifices,
like the sacrifices of Abel, the Scripture says he offered
the firstlings of his flock. This he did often. And all the
way through the Old Testament, animals were killed, thousands
upon thousands upon thousands of them, but they never put any
sin away. They never satisfied God. God
in his justice demanded death for sin. That's what the Bible
says. For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord. It says here, for the law having
a shadow of good things to come. What are those good things? Good
things to come? The full and free forgiveness
of sins. There was just a shadow of that
in the law. The free and gracious imputation
of righteousness to a guilty sinner. That was also pictured
in the sacrifices offered in the Old Testament. Justification
with God, peace with God, All of those good things pictured
in the law through the animal sacrifices, those things were
never made real to a sinner until Christ came and died. And the fact that He died for
our sins, there's our assurance of salvation with God. God's
sacrifice died. The sacrifice of the Savior was
to the Father, to honor Him, to satisfy Him, to put away the
issue of sin, to answer for our sins. The Savior came and He
died for our sins, and thereby God was satisfied. Those Old Testament sacrifices
could never put away sin. Don't miss the argument of the
text. If they had put away sin, then
the worshipers would have had a peace in their heart that their
sins had been purged. But they could never have that
peace that we have because the sacrifice that they offered was
just the sacrifice of an animal. And the only blood that would
satisfy God had to be the blood of a man. But it had to be the
blood of a sinless man. And it had to be the blood of
a sinless man who was also God. And nobody could qualify for
that except the Lord Jesus Christ. They could never put away sin.
Didn't matter how many sacrifices they offered. Didn't matter how
much blood was shed. He didn't put away sin, he says
there in verse number three, but in those sacrifices, there's
just a remembrance again made of sins every year. Every year
on the day of atonement, animals died. Guess what? You know what's going to happen
a year from then? Adam was gonna die again. Aaron,
the high priest, and his son who took over after he died,
he'd do the same thing on the day of atonement. And after him,
another high priest. After him, another high priest.
And all of those sacrifices could never put away sin. It just reminded
people sin still existed. God wasn't satisfied. And so it says in verse four,
it's not possible. It just is impossible that the
blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. It's absolutely
impossible. Because the blood of an animal
is not the blood that we need. The blood that we need is the
blood of the God-man. And that's the only blood that
would satisfy a holy God. That's why we preach over and
over again about the bloody death of the Lord Jesus Christ, because
that's the only thing that would pacify the justice of God. That's why those of us who attended
that funeral that I made reference to this morning, that's the reason
we just kind of hung our heads. It was a shameful thing for the
preacher not to mention the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You
see, it's like the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ so satisfied
God that Paul refers to it in Ephesians chapter five as a sweet
savor to God. A sweet savor. That means it
delighted God. It satisfied God. It smelled
good as it were to God. As the smoke from the Old Testament
sacrifices ascended to God, that didn't pacify Him. That didn't
satisfy Him. That didn't appease His justice. But when the Lord Jesus Christ
died, God was satisfied. And the only real satisfaction
and assurance that any of us can have of our salvation is
in the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
our hope, he's our life, and he's our assurance. How do you
know salvation's forever, Jim? Because of who died, who took
my place? The Son of God. The carnal sacrifices couldn't
put away sins. So here's the second thing I
wanna show you from verses five through nine. Christ came as
our representative and substitute. In verse five, it begins with
the word wherefore. Because there was no other way
of atonement, no other way of redemption, no other way by which
God could be a just God and a savior, Christ had to die. It's the only way God could forgive
sins and declare us to be righteous. It says here, wherefore when
he cometh into the world. What a miracle of grace, when
he cometh into the world. In Isaiah 9 we read, for unto
us a child is born. He was born. Unto us a son was
given. He's the son of God he was given.
Who can understand the mystery, the mystery of godliness? And
that's exactly what Paul calls it in 1 Timothy 3. Great is the
mystery of godliness. Can you explain that? Can you
even comprehend that? We can barely enter into this,
but we rejoice in the truth that God was made manifest in the
flesh. And when He cometh into the world,
the Scripture says here, He said as He was coming, as the Divine
One was coming into the womb of Mary, When He cometh into the world,
He said this, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not. Speaking to
the Father. Here's the Son of God, our substitute,
our representative. He's speaking to the Father and
He says, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not. That didn't
satisfy God. That's what Christ is saying.
That's what the Son of God was saying to the Father. Therefore
a body, a body thou hast prepared me. He says in verse six, in
burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure,
you had no satisfaction. That didn't satisfy God, not
at all. God ordered all of those sacrifices
and offerings as a picture, as pictures of, our Lord Jesus Christ
and his sacrifice for sin. But all of them together didn't
satisfy God and didn't meet our needs, didn't meet the needs
of the Old Testament saints. And so the Savior continues in
saying in verse seven, then said I, lo, look, behold, I come. In the volume of the book it
is written of me, in the book of God's eternal decrees, and
in the book of the Bible. It is written of me, the Bible
is written of Christ. And he came to do God's will. That's what the last statement
of verse seven says, to do thy will, O God, to do God's perfect
will, to do God's redemptive will. He often spoke about having
a work that he needed to finish. He came to accomplish the work
of God. So in verse eight, we read, above
when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering
for sin, thou wouldest not, neither hath pleasure therein, which
are offered by the law. Then said he, Lo, Lo, I come
to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
he may establish the second. And that word taketh, taketh
away, he killeth. He killed the first, and implemented
the second. He killed the first covenant,
the covenant of works. He did away with it. He abolished
it as the eighth chapter of Hebrews in the last statement of that
says. He took away the first, took
away the first covenant. He took away the first altars. We don't have an altar in here. People have told me, well, you
know, I went to the altar and prayed through. Did you go into
heaven? Because that's where our altar
is. Our altar is not a thing. Our
altar is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He took away that first
altar. He took away that first tabernacle. He killed it. It's of no value
anymore. If somebody wants to find a piece
of the wood of that first tabernacle or temple, it's useless. He killed
that. That's done away with because
the true tabernacle has come. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. He tabernacled among us. He is the tabernacle of God.
He killed the first priesthood. There's nobody offering sacrifices
of blood to God anymore. All of God's people constitute
the priesthood. We're kings and priests unto
God. He killed all of those old things. And he established, made first,
the second, himself, himself. And so then we get to verse 10.
And from verse 10 through verse 17, we read that Christ died
once and sanctified his people. I
know that the Roman Catholic Church, they keep on celebrating,
as they say, the mass, which is really a killing of the Lord
Jesus Christ over and over and over again. But notice verse 10. By the which
will, that is by the will of God, We are sanctified, made
holy, made righteous through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. He suffered once. He died once. He was humiliated once. He was
brought to death's door and entered into death once. Once. You say, well, how could
the death of the Lord Jesus Christ in that one death, how did that
save all the people for whom he died? It's because of the
virtue of and the glory of the one who died. God's beloved son offered once
for all. He says in verse 11, and every
priest, thinking back to the Old Testament now, and remember
the book of Hebrews is written to, it was first written to Hebrew
people, that is the Jewish people, several of them who were being
seduced to go back to the old covenant, to the old sacrifices,
to the old priesthood. Well, he now addresses this fact. He says, in the old time, every
priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same
sacrifices for sin. And he insists upon this again,
which can never take away sin. But some of them were going back
to that. They're killing lambs again. I was reading the other
day. An acquaintance of ours passed
away in another state, and I knew her from many, many years ago in Bassett, Virginia. And she was married to—she and
her husband, I'll say, actually introduced Nancy and And they denied the effectual atonement
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and believed that one of these days
when Christ comes back, then he'll rapture the church, be
a seven years tribulation, and then Christ will come back a
second time, and then he'll establish his kingdom in Jerusalem and
reinstate the sacrifices. Can you believe that? Start offering the sacrifices
all over again? Rebuild the temple? Well, that
is preposterous. One offering. One offering for
sin. Forget about the animals now.
God's sacrifices die. He emphasizes again, those animal
sacrifices can never take away sins. What would be the use? And you see, this is the mistake
that some of the Hebrews were making. But what would be the
use, how tragic to Ignore Christ and His sacrifice
and go backwards, backwards to animal sacrifices. Don't you
find that stupid? That's foolish. But there are
a lot of people who believe that. That when Christ comes back,
the temple will be rebuilt and people start offering sacrifices
all over again. Impossible. Those animal sacrifices
didn't do any good the first time. It sure can't do any good
the second time. And you see the priests, and
this is what Paul emphasizes, every priest stood daily ministering,
offering oftentimes the same sacrifice. They couldn't put
away sin. But verse 12, but this man, oh,
what a man. After he had offered one sacrifice
for sins forever, he sat down on the right hand of God. Why
did he sit down? Because his work of redemption
and reconciliation was over. He didn't sit down because he's
tired. He didn't sit down because he
was fatigued. He sat down at the right hand
of God because his work as our Redeemer and reconciler and Savior,
that work was accomplished to the satisfaction of God. And
God raised him from the dead, Christ ascended, and he's been
exalted. In fact, verse 13 says, from
henceforth expecting, anticipating until his enemies be made his
footstool openly, before all the universe. For by one offering,
and this is the reason for his exaltation, because by one offering,
there's the emphasis again, by one offering, he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified or set apart. And then in verses
15 and 16, he talks about the covenant that brought all of
this to pass. 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 and in their minds while I write them." The gospel of
the grace of God, if you're a believer, it's written on your heart. It's impressed upon you with
indelible grace. You've been saved by the power
and the mercy of God. And knowing that, you're not
gonna go back to trying to satisfy God some way or other. Christ said, this is the covenant
that I'll make. And you see, Christ came and
he fulfilled the covenant of grace. He's the surety of the
new covenant. And he writes it in our hearts
and in our minds. If you're a believer, God's written
his gospel in your mind and in your heart. And when you hear
something different from the gospel of pure, free, and sovereign
grace, in your mind you'll say, uh-uh, that's not right. And
when you hear somebody miss the blood atonement of the Lord Jesus
Christ, you say in your own heart, shame on you. You miss that which
glorifies God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy
Spirit who convinces his people of the successfulness of the
work of Christ. And the last thing that I'm gonna
deal with here, it says in their sins and inequities will I remember
No more. No more. You know, I grew up in an independent
premillennial Baptist church, if you know what premillennial
means. If you don't, that's all right. My family, up until I
was about five years of age, I went most every Sunday to a
a Methodist church with my grandparents. And then, when I was about five
years old, my dad made a profession of faith, and we became faithful
to that Baptist church. On Wednesday nights, our pastor's
wife would teach all the children and young people. I don't know
how she did that. She managed to instruct from
all school age children. That's a broad age group. And she taught us Bible stories,
taught us the books of the Bible, taught us to memorize the word
of God. We were in church Wednesday night,
Sunday morning and Sunday night, and of course Sunday school on
Sunday morning. But I never, I don't remember
having ever heard any preacher or Sunday school teacher ever
expound on Hebrews chapter 10 just like it's laid out right
here. Now they may have and I didn't understand or I didn't get it.
But I don't remember anybody really dealing with the first
part of Hebrews chapter 10. Do you remember years ago, This was actually started in
the late 1800s, but it was resurrected in the 90s. You remember that
WWJD? And they had the cute little
pastel bracelets, you know. What would Jesus do? And that
was kind of to make you feel guilty about you hadn't lived
right. So what would Jesus do in that
circumstance? I'll tell you something far more
important to consider. What did Jesus do? Not what would Jesus do, but
what did Jesus do? And that's what they don't know.
They don't know what he did. I'll tell you what he did. He
put our sins away. And therefore, God says, their
sins and iniquities will I remember no more. And you know, I grew
up under this system of religion that when you die, you go to heaven
if you're a saved person, but at the last Judgment, then believers
are gonna have to be judged and they'll have to answer for their
sins. And depending on how many sins you committed, your rewards
in heaven would be diminished. But God says, their sins and
iniquities will I remember no more. Let's be honest. We remember some of the glaring
sins. We do. I especially think about
my sins in false religion. And I remember my sins as a young
preacher. Preaching at campfire services
and things like that. That's where we learned all them
choruses, didn't we, that we sing, right? I remember officiating
at services where we had bragamony meetings, I mean testimony meetings. And I'm sorry for the things
that I said, for the false gospel I presented. But you know who
doesn't remember? The Lord doesn't remember. And I not only have a slate that
is absolutely clean in His eyes, I have a positive, imputed righteousness
established for me by my Savior. And you do too. Because you see,
when you start talking about rewards, that smells of works. There's a stench to that. In
fact, everything we do has got the stench of sin to them. But the Lord did remember them
and never will remember them again. That's the very power
of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. What could ever erase the memory
of God as it were? This sacrifice. by the Lord Jesus
Christ. I want us to sing a closing song. If you would, get your songbooks,
hymn number 112, Blessed Redeemer, Blessed Redeemer, 112.