So he's infinitely superior to
the prophets. He's infinitely superior to the
angels. And then thirdly, he's infinitely
superior to Moses. We get into the third chapter.
Look at chapter three and verse three. For this man was counted
worthy of more, more glory than Moses. And Moses was a great
man. God used him. chose to suffer persecution with
the people of God rather than to endure the pleasures of sin
for a season. And we know there are pleasures
in sin, but that's only for a season. And Moses said, I'm on the Lord. I'm on the Lord's side. I'm God's
man. I'm God's servant. I believe
God. and he dared to side himself
with the people of God. And of course, he killed the
Egyptian soldier who was punishing one of the Israelites' servants.
And the Israelites then were fearful of him, and Moses ran
for his life. He was a brave man. He was a
faithful minister to Israel. He led them through 40 years
of wilderness journeyings. But Moses was just a man used
of God. And at that, he was a sinful
man. And he showed he was a sinful man when he disobeyed God. God
told him to speak to the rock the second time. First time,
God said to get water for Israel, hit the rock. That picture's
Christ crucified. Our Lord stricken and smitten
of God and afflicted. Waters of salvation, they come
out to you and me. Drink and live. With joy shall
we draw water out of the wells of salvation. Our Lord said,
he that is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. You thirsty?
You thirsty for the Savior? Come and drink. That's what we
say, isn't it? You come freely, without price,
without money, without works, without having done duties. You
come and drink. of our Lord Jesus Christ, come
free. That's what, when Moses hit that
rock the first time, according to God's will, that's what that
picture, the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. Second time
they were thirsty, God said, now speak to the rock. And Moses
was angry. Sometimes preachers get upset
with the congregation. And he kinda got upset with the
congregation. He said, must I fetch you water
from the rock again? And he just reared back and he
hit it. And water did come out. And he
did this in association with Aaron. And God said, that's gonna
cost you now. That little temper tantrum you
just threw. What did Moses manifest at that
time? That he was a sinner. At that
time, he was a rebel. We got to have one who will represent
us, who will lead us all through our wilderness journeys, all
the way into the Promised Land, which Moses couldn't do. Because
Moses, you see, represents the law of God. The law can't lead
you to eternal joy and happiness. Only the Savior can. Our Lord
knows the way through the wilderness. That's what the old song said.
And we follow. Gotta have somebody better than
Moses. Our Lord Jesus is infinitely superior to Moses. Look at verse 3. of chapter 3,
"'For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, insomuch
as he who hath built the house hath more honor than the house.'"
You see, Moses, he's just a part of the house. He's one member
of the building of God. The one who builds the house
is the Savior. He said, I will build my church. and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it. Of the foundation can no man
lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus our Lord. He is the chief cornerstone.
He's the rock on whom we build. He's a rock on whom the church
of God stands fast forever. He's infinitely better than Moses. And then fourthly, he shows us
that Christ is infinitely superior to Joshua. because of Moses'
rebellion, it was Joshua who led them and led the Israelites
into the land of promise. And though he was faithful in
so much as God called him to lead the people across the river
into the land of promise, it says in verse seven of chapter
four, Watch this, 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 Jesus, that is
Joshua. You see Jesus, the name Jesus
of the New Testament means the same thing and is the
same word actually in the original as Joshua in the Old Testament. He's the great deliverer. Joshua
delivered the people into the land of promise, but he couldn't
give them rest. Oh, they had rest for their bodies
for a little while, but it wasn't a permanent rest. If he had given them permanent
rest, he would not have spoken of another day. You see that
in the verse eight? If Joshua had given them rest,
then would he not afterward have spoken of another day? Look at
verse nine. There remaineth therefore a rest
to the people of God. And I would refer you to that
center margin column. If you have notes there and it
says, the keeping of a Sabbath. There remaineth therefore the
keeping of a Sabbath." Well, what is that? You asked the wrong
question. It isn't what is that, but who
is that? Our rest is Christ Jesus. Now
listen to what the Savior said. He said, come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you, what did
he say? Rest. Rest. Are you burdened with sin? Burdened
with guilt? Your conscience weigh heavily
upon you as it charges you Imperfection, yea, even sinfulness? Do you
long to have some rest in your soul, some peace? You know what
the Scripture says in the Old Testament? There is no peace,
saith my God, to the wicked. To the wicked you'll never have
peace, not in this world, and absolutely not in the world which
is to come. The only peace, the only rest
that a poor sinner can have in this world is to rest in and
find peace in that one who is the peacemaker, Christ Jesus,
who made our peace by the blood of his cross. I've said it a bunch of times
before, you can't make peace with God. The only one who can make peace
with God has got to be God. and yet he's got to represent
our interests. And that's Christ the Lord. We
find in the Lord Jesus an everlasting rest. He is our Sabbath. I have friends who recognize
Sunday as the Christian Sabbath. And I believe if you'll read
Romans chapter 14, you'll find that those who still acknowledge
there to be a literal Sabbath, they're called the weaker brethren.
But don't be so quick to write them off. I'm fearful that we
tend to do that. If somebody doesn't see eye to
eye like we see, Well, they're lost. Just toss, let's throw
them under the bus. That's the language of the day.
Throw them under the bus. I'm not going to do that to a
person who says, I love Christ Jesus. He's my hope. He's my
assurance. He's my peace. He's my salvation. He's my righteousness. And I'm
not, I believe they're witness. I believe they're testimony.
And though they still hold on to a day, I'll call them brethren. Unless they said keeping the
Sabbath or keeping the seventh day or the first day of the week
as a work before God, unless they said that's how they're
accepted by God. If they say that, well, that's
wrong. That's wrong. But you see, those
of us who understand the gospel thoroughly, as much as God has
revealed it to us. We understand our Sabbath is
Christ Jesus. What was the law of the Sabbath? Thou shalt do no labor. Thou shalt do no work. Rest. Rest. Can you rest in Christ
Jesus? Oh, that God would enable you
to do that. It's very interesting the way
this is worded in verse 11 of chapter four. Let us therefore,
let me back up to verse nine. There remaineth therefore a rest,
a Sabbath, a keeping of the Sabbath to the people of God. We do keep
a Sabbath. That's Christ Jesus. Now look
at verse 10. For he that is entered into his
rest, he also hath ceased from his own works as God did from
his. What does that mean? Our Lord
Jesus did the work of redemption God sent him to do. He reconciled
his people to God. He established for us a perfect
righteousness freely imputed to us, to everybody who believes. And he fully put our sins away.
And then he rested. He rested from the work of redemption. And he said, into thy hands,
Father, into thy hands, I commend my spirit. His spirit went back
to God. He rested from the work of redemption. Now watch this, verse 11. Let
us labor therefore to enter into that rest. It's unusual language. Let us
labor to stop laboring. That's really what he's saying.
Let us labor to stop laboring. And the reason this is worded
in this way is because it is ever the tendency, the direction
of the carnal mind to think, if I do something for God, God
will show me more favor. God will be more pleased with
me." Now, as the children of God, we seek to honor God in
our lives, in our everyday lives, worshiping Him, walking in fellowship
with Him, seeking the will of God, bowing to Him, being contented
with His providence. But none of those things must
be leaned on or depended upon for acceptance with God. And
we must not think that as we seek God's will in our lives,
as we seek to walk before him, following the example of our
Lord Jesus Christ, walking in compassion and tenderness and
in mercy and in faithfulness and prayerfulness, we must not
think, as we are enabled by the Spirit of grace to do some of
those things, we must not think that God is thereby more, more
pleased with us and that we're more accepted with God. God doesn't
accept you. Please listen to me. God doesn't
receive you. He's not pleased with you. He doesn't show favor on you
because of anything, anything you've ever done or doing or
shall do. We're accepted in the Beloved. That's what the Scripture says.
It's His faithfulness. It's His work. It's His labor
before God. It's His death. It's His substitution. It's His sacrifice. It's His
person. God is not more inclined to bless me if I do
something good. I've already been blessed. I've
already been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. I wish people would understand
that. Certainly we seek to work and
labor in the cause of God and truth. We seek to walk in this world
in an exemplary way, to indicate to people around
us, God is most important to us. We love Christ Jesus. He's my Lord. I'm his servant. But we must never think that
our walk, or our talk, or our, as the scripture calls it, our
conversation, makes us more acceptable to God. Our Lord Jesus Christ,
he is our acceptance. If you get that, You got right
theology. You get that, you got right doctrine. He's our rest. We rest in him. So I say, labor to stop laboring. Labor to stop laboring. Constantly
fight against the fleshly tendency to think, the more I do for God,
the more he'll do for me. That's the doctrine of the world. That's the doctrine of false
religion. Do for God and he'll do for you. Now, may God do for us. That's what we need. We need
God to do something for us. Yes, indeed. Be careful, don't
put anything in competition with Christ. There is no rival to
him. No rival to his substitutionary
sacrificial death. And then we come to these last
few verses of chapter four. Seeing then we have a great high
priest. You know that expression great
high priest is only used one time, it's right here. You go back in the Old Testament
and you'll find that God ordained for Aaron to be the high priest
of Israel. But he wasn't a great high priest.
That word great must not be attached to the name of Aaron. Aaron was
no great high priest. He was a sinful high priest.
That's what he was. And our last study in Exodus
revealed that. while Moses was up on the mountain,
and Joshua was up there too, and Moses is receiving the law
of God from the Lord. He's up there 40 days and 40
nights, and the children of Israel become a little antsy, and felt
like they needed to do something, and they all go to Aaron, and
Aaron makes them a god. He becomes an idolater. He leads them in idolatry. That's
astounding. I tell you what, even the servants
of God can make some real serious blunders. That's why we must never put
a preacher, any preacher, I don't care who he is, I don't care
what his name is, don't put a preacher on a pedestal. He's just a man
saved by grace. esteem them highly for their
work's sake? Yes, the scripture says that.
But don't you put a man in a position that he's got no right to occupy.
There's only one who's in charge of the church. There's only one
who sits on the throne. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. Worship Him. Don't worship a
man. And this is a good time for me
to kind of put this in here. The only way to come to God is
through the man, Christ Jesus. Not through some other man. We were, of course, in the islands. We were on the island of Oahu.
Very strong presence of Mormonism there. One afternoon, one of
the men of the group there took us out riding, and they've got
a big acres and acres of land that the Mormons own there. They
have a university there. They have a big theme park there. Their own luau, they have that
there. Mormonism. But you see, Mormonism,
just like Catholicism, just like Episcopalianism, They have a
priesthood, and you go to what I call the top dog of the religion,
and then he presents you to God. Don't you get suckered in by
that kind of junk. That's just not right. We have
one mediator, one great high priest, That's the Lord Jesus
Christ. Don't let anybody get in between
you and Christ. You understand? You must take
care. If you care for your soul, if
you want salvation, which is only in Christ Jesus, nothing
must stand, nobody must stand between you and the Savior. Nobody
can take you to God. Nobody can present you to God
but His only begotten Son. You understand that? There's
one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. You don't go to an earthly priest
and say, pray, pray for me. I need you to represent me to
the Lord. Don't do that. That's devilish.
It really is. It's horrible. I can't denounce
it enough. You go to God through Christ
Jesus. See, there is a way to God. And that's what this passage
is all about. There is a great high priest.
There is one who represents the interests of folks like you and
me to God. That's the God-man in Christ
Jesus. He is the great high priest.
And He is touched with the feelings of our infirmities because He
was a man. And though He was a man without
any sin, yet He did have the infirmities that are due to sin
because He took part in our nature. Therefore, He got weary. And
he got thirsty. And he got hungry. And he knew
about sleep deprivation. He knew all of those things.
Because you see, he took part in these infirmities and so he
is touched with the feelings of our infirmities. You don't
have a high priest who cannot be touched with what you're going
through. Isn't that wonderful to know?
He's touched by the feelings of our infirmities, of your infirmities,
your sickness, your disease, your need, emotional needs, mental
needs, physical needs, financial needs, family needs. He's touched
with the feelings. He's not without feelings. He's not like an idol who just
sits there and can't move and can't breathe and can't do anything. He's your living reigning savior
who's touched with the feelings of your infirmities. Now that
ought to help you. That ought to help you. He was tempted in all points
as we are, but he never sinned. He never sinned. So let's go
to the throne of grace to find mercy and a help in time of need. What's the motivation? We have
a great high priest, that's why. And he says there in verse one
of chapter five, every high priest taken from among men is ordained
for men in things pertaining to God. Aaron was. He was taken from among men. The word taken indicates that
which is snatched away. Aaron wasn't any better than
any other man in Israel, but God snatched him away and said,
you're going to be the high priest. He was a man. Our Lord Jesus
had to be a man. He had to be a man. Taken from
among men, Psalm 89, God said, I've exalted one taken from the
people. He's taken and ordained by God
for men, that is, on account of men. Why'd God choose Aaron? Why'd God choose Aaron to be
the high priest over Israel? Well, it was because God ordained
that he'd be the representative. They didn't have a representative.
We've been studying the tabernacle. The people, they could come into
the outer court a little ways and present their sacrifices,
but they couldn't go in the holy place. They never saw the table
of showbread. They never saw the golden candlestick.
They never saw the altar of incense. Only the priests saw those things.
And only one man, the high priest, Aaron, went into the Holy of
Holies to see the Ark of the Covenant with the mercy seed.
But you see, Aaron was the representative of all the nation of Israel.
And in their representative, they did go in to the presence
of God. And in our representative, Christ
Jesus, the great high priest, we go into the presence of God. And he offered gifts and sacrifice. He offered the burnt offering,
he offered the peace offering, he offered the sacrifice that
put away sin, the sins of his people, and the sacrifice was
of himself. Look at verse two. who can have
compassion on the ignorant. I sure am thankful for that,
aren't you? Because in things spiritual, I'm ignorant. There's
a whole lot I don't know about, oh, various occupations and so
forth in this world. But I'm absolutely, altogether,
totally ignorant of the things of God, unless somebody teach
me. And our Lord Jesus, he is compassionate
upon ignorant sinners. And if you think you know it
all, and no compassion for you, that's the problem with the Pharisees.
They thought they knew everything they needed to know. They couldn't
teach them anything. And our Lord never had a merciful
word for them either. I'll tell you what, somebody
come along and say, Lord, I don't know. I'm so ignorant." Well,
he's going to teach. You get ready to get instructed.
When the Spirit of God makes you to see your ignorance of
spiritual things, ignorance of God, that you have no knowledge
of God, the Lord's going to step in and say, I'm going to teach
you to know God because to know God is eternal life. It's to
believe on His Son. And look at verse three, and
by reason hereof, he ought as for the people, so also for himself
to offer for sins. Aaron had to offer sacrifice
for his own sins, not our Lord Jesus. And he says in verse four, no
man takes this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God
as was Aaron. And so he says in verse five,
so Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest. He
didn't volunteer. God said, I choose you. That's
what God said. Behold mine elect, God said. And he was our representative
in the covenant of grace before the world began. He was our representative
doing business with God 2,000 years ago when he lived and died
and rose again. He ascended back to heaven. He's
there now. He's still our representative
before God, our great high priest. And he'll always be our representative. We have a great high priest. The Father chose him. Verse 5,
so Christ glorified not himself, to be made a high priest, but
he said in him, thou art my son, today have I begotten thee."
God chose him. As he said in another place,
you're a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, not
after the order of Aaron, but after the order of Melchizedek,
and we'll study more about him on another occasion. This is
a man who was without father, mother, without beginning and
without end. Our Lord's a priest after the
order of Melchizedek, who was king of Salem, king of peace. He says in verse seven of our
Lord Jesus, in the days of his flesh, he offered up prayers
and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him and
was able to save him from death and was heard then that he had
feared. Our Lord submitted to the will of God. He was reverent
toward God and he prayed to be delivered from death. And the
Lord delivered him from the clutches of death. He arose again. God
raised him from the dead because Christ did everything God demanded
of him. God's faithful servant. It says in verse 8, though he
were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. He learned. That's a mouthful. I'm gonna be preaching this evening
from the second chapter of Luke because as I studied this, I
went back to that passage of scripture where our Lord Jesus
went into the temple when he was 12 years old. And he learned. He grew in wisdom, the scripture
says. And in favor with God and men. I can't comprehend how he could
grow in favor with God and men, how he could learn, how he who
is God could learn anything. He knew all things as God, but
as a 12-year-old boy, he's learning. You can't comprehend that, can
you? I know you can't. You gotta be God to fully comprehend
the things of God. But I'll tell you this, verse
nine says, being made complete, he became the author of eternal
salvation unto all them that obey him. He is called of God
and high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Do you obey him? What does he tell me to do? Look
and live. That's what he says. God now
commands all men everywhere to repent. That's what Scripture
says. And God commands you to believe
His Son. That's a gospel command. Don't
be disobedient to the gospel command. May God enable you and
me and all of you out there to be obedient, to rest in Christ
Jesus. I've told you the story before,
but I'll kind of mention it again. There was a lady when I went
to Almonte. She was struggling, struggling,
struggling, crying. Never could get any peace. And
after several weeks of hearing the message of the gospel of
grace, she came up to me, kissed me on the cheek, and said, I'm
resting. I found peace in my soul. I'm resting in Christ Jesus.
You want peace within you? Now you can't make peace with
God. But if you want peace within that everything's alright between
you and the Holy God, rest in the Savior. Can you do that? Labor to stop
laboring now. And just rest. Let's turn to
118. I believe that's the song. When
I survey the wondrous cross by Isaac Watts. A beautiful song. I look forward to seeing you
this evening. Let's sing the first and the
last stanzas. Verses one and four, 118. Stand please. Verses one and
four. When I survey the wondrous cross,
? On which the Prince of Glory died ? ? My richest gain I have
but lost ? ? And more content of my soul ? Were the whole realm of nature
mine, Then were the present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine. He meant my soul, my life, my
all. You're dismissed. Have a good afternoon.