The last two verses of chapter
9 and then the first ten verses of chapter 10 in the book of
Hebrews. And as it is appointed unto men
once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once
offered to bear the sins of many. And unto them that look for him
shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. For the law, having a shadow
of good things to come, And not the very image of those things
can never, with those sacrifices which they offered year by year,
continually make the comers thereto perfect. For then would they
not have ceased to be offered because that the worshipers once
purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those
sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the
blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins, Wherefore, when
he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering
thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt
offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
Then said I, Lo, I come. In the volume of the book it
is written of me to do thy will, O God. Above, when He said, Sacrifice
and offering, and burnt offerings, and offering for sin, thou wouldest
not, neither hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the law.
Then said He, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away
the first, that He may establish the second, by the which will
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. Now last week we spoke about
the fact, that I believe is a fact, that the last verse in chapter
9, though it is often applied as speaking about the second
coming of Christ, which He shall come in the very end of the age,
and he shall come to redeem that which is his, as he told his
disciples, if I go away I shall come again. While that is often preached from, from this passage
of Scripture, I do not think that primarily that is what this
passage of Scripture is speaking about. But rather in the context
of the passage that he speaks about when he shall appear the
second time, is having reference to exactly the same second that
is mentioned here in verse 9 of chapter 10. And where it says,
Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God, he taketh away
the first, that he may establish the second. Now we have to keep
in mind as we keep saying who this book is written to and what
it is in their mind that they have been taught all their life
concerning the first tabernacle, concerning the temple, concerning
the covenant that was given to Moses, how this was that first
thing that God showed unto them. And he is pointing out the very
superiority of Christ over all those things that were given
in Moses, which the Jews, of course, revered Moses as being
the great prophet from God, and yet now that the Gospel has come,
the writer of Hebrews is pointing out to them that Jesus Christ
is a greater prophet. than Moses, that he came to not
undo what Moses had done, but he came as the fulfillment of
what Moses merely testified to and was an illustration of. So
everything that we find in that which Moses gave was merely an
illustration of that which Christ would come to fulfill as that
One who all that Moses spoke of pointed to. Everything. that Moses was in Moses was really
about Christ, though the veil, the Scripture says, was upon
those people that they couldn't see that. And even that veil,
the Scripture says, is upon them even unto the present day, because
they would go about to establish their own righteousness in the
law. They think that by being a Jew
that they have a leg up, that they are in some special place
before God. But he says here that he that
looks unto Christ shall he appear the second time without sin unto
salvation. There is a second coming of Christ
that is not in reference to the second coming of Christ in the
end of the age when he comes to receive that back, but it
is a coming of Christ as he came as from the Holy of Holies as
He came as our Sacrifice. And the man that looks unto Him,
he appears as that Savior. Because remember the chief thing
as we go on into chapter 10, it says, For the law having a
shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of those
things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered
year by year continually make the comers thereto perfect, For
then would they not have ceased to be offered, because that the
worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of
sins." Now, he plainly points out, and this is done about three
different times in these chapters we've been looking at, pointing
out the fact that the problem with the sacrifices that were
made by Moses or under Moses' law was that it couldn't do anything
for the conscience because it was a continual offering. And
it was something that everybody that made that offering or had
anything to do with it knew had to be done again. It was not
a putting away of sin, but it was merely that which could only
remind them of sin. But when Christ came the second
time, That is, when he came in the reality, not in that which
was a type and foreshadow, but in the real deal, then he put
away sin. The law had just merely a shadow
of good things to come. It was merely a picture. It was
merely a type. It was merely a foreshadowing
of those things, but not the very image of the things. It
was not the actual putting away of sin. Because they could never
with those sacrifices, which they offered year by year, continually
make the comers thereto perfect. For then, if they had, if it
had done the job, if the high priest, when he went in to the
Holy of Holies, with the blood of bulls and goats, if it could
have taken away sin, why would he need it to do it again? He
wouldn't. And you see, that's what we preach
in the gospel of Jesus Christ, is that when he went in, He solved
the problem. He paid the price. He made the
full and free sacrifice and it was completely done. And those
that look to Him, they see Him without sin unto salvation, not
as one coming back from an offering of sin, but rather as one who
completed the job. He did the work. He is that one. who comes from that place of
offering as one who has the benefit in his hand. He comes as one
who has the result with him when he comes. And then it says, but
in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins every
year. Just reiterating the same thing,
for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should
take away sins. Not possible. Now, if Christ
came the second time without sin unto salvation, if he has
fulfilled the law, if he's done it, then what would be the purpose,
as some of these great prophets tell us in the present day, of
a rebuilding of the temple? in Jerusalem. What would be the
point of that when that which is perfect is come? There would
be no reason to reinstitute the blood sacrifices. It would serve
no purpose because we look to Christ who has satisfied that. And it could have no use whatsoever. Wherefore when he cometh into
the world, of course this is speaking of Christ, he came with
the full knowledge that the Lord did not want sacrifice. Now you remember when Saul was told to kill Agag and
the Amalekites and not spare any of them. And when he came
back from the battle and he met Samuel, and Samuel said, Did
you do what the Lord said? And Saul said, We did. We did it. And Samuel said, well,
what meaneth then this bleeding of sheep that I hear in my ears?
And then Samuel said something, and Saul said, well, if we thought
it was such a waste to destroy all these fine sheep, I mean,
we'll offer these to the Lord. And Samuel said to Saul, the
Lord's obedience is better than sacrifice. that the Lord isn't
interested in sacrifice. Now, we know that without the
shedding of blood, according to what Scripture says, there
is no remission of sin. I mean, that's found in the Scripture.
But it's not that the Lord has a regard unto a fluid that's
made up of red and white corpuscles and flows through the veins. That's not the thing. The Lord's
not interested in the blood. The blood is merely that which
shows the life of the victim, is it not? Because the Scripture
says the life is in the blood. And so that which the Lord had
regard to from the beginning is not the blood. It wasn't all
the blood that was poured out and the Lord was saying, man,
I'm really enjoying seeing this blood poured out. That wasn't
it at all. But that which he was pleased with was that which
was ordained from the beginning, was that Jesus Christ would come
into the world and pour out His blood, pour out His life as an
atonement for the sins of His people. Now that was that which
God had regard to. And that's what the Lord Jesus
says here, "...sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but
a body." Thou hast prepared me." It's not the blood. It's not
the sacrifice per se. But it is the body, that is,
that man might be that one who would be the atonement for the
sin of his people. Now could the Lord have created
a world in which there was no sin? Of course He could have.
I mean, sin didn't take God by surprise, did it? Of course it
didn't. I mean, everything happened in
the world exactly according to the purpose of God. And the Lord... There's no cosmic law that's
out there that says the Lord couldn't just say, I forgive
their sin, if it pleased Him to do that. But it didn't please
Him to do that. It pleased Him to manifest the
glory of His grace in the giving of His Son as a sacrifice for
sin, and that He might be both just and the justifier of them
which believe in Jesus. In other words, there is no cosmic
rule that demanded that God caused blood to be shed for the remission
of the sins of his people. But it pleased him to do that.
It pleased him to show that. It pleased him to do that in
keeping with his own law that he gave to men and said, The
soul that sinneth shall die. And the only way that that sin
could be expiated under that law was by the shedding of the
blood of an innocent victim who stood as a substitute for those
for whom he died. And that is what the Lord Jesus
Christ did. And He said, A body hast thou prepared Me. In burnt
offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. All of those things, the Lord
had no pleasure in it. It was not the thing He delighted
in. Then said I, Lo, I come, and the volume of the book it
is written of Me, to do thy will, O God. Now that's a very interesting
and very important passage of Scripture right there. He said,
Lo, I come. Now who's speaking? The Lord
Jesus Christ. But who is He? He said, I and
the Father are one. And he said, Lo, I come. He says,
I am going to accomplish the redemption of my people according
to the purpose that I purposed from before the foundation of
the world that men might see and rejoice in that which I have
accomplished in their behalf. He said, Lo, I come. In the volume
of the book it is written. What does he have reference to
here? Well, we think of this, this is the volume of the book,
is it not? I mean, there is not another
one. John said if anybody added to it or anybody took from it,
he would be accursed. He said this is it. And what
does this book testify? From page one to the end. In the volume of the book, it's
written. It's written of Christ. It testifies
of Christ. It is written of me, he said.
In the volume of the book, it is written of me. Now, if we
don't ever get anything else out of anything I ever have preached
or taught, I want you to get that. This book is about Jesus
Christ. It's about the glory of the eternal
God It's about the redemptive work which He has set forth to
do from beginning to end. There's not another thing there.
I mean, you could preach on a lot of things in the Scripture and
miss the whole Scripture if you don't preach on Christ. I don't
care what else you preach on. I remember a fellow telling me
one time he knew this guy had 42 messages on angels. 42 messages on angels. I don't know
if there's 42 messages on angels in the Scripture, but I can tell
you this, there's 42 million messages on Jesus Christ, because
that's what the volume of the book is. The Lord didn't send
us down here to study about angels. I mean, that's fine. If you want
to know about angels, that's okay, but I'm not going to spend
my time worrying about angels. What I want to know about is
Christ. And brethren, that's what the volume of this book
is. It's about Christ. Now, an interesting note on this,
the word that's translated, the volume of the book, what that
word literally means is knob. And what it has reference to
is the knob that was on the end of the dowels that went through
the scrolls. You know they had the scrolls
rolled up on a dowel and at each end of that dowel was a knob
that was called the volume. He said that in the volume of
the book, not just the book but in the knob, the knob that it
is rolled up on, Like a fellow said one time, and I believe
this is true, he said, I believe the Bible from cover to cover,
and I believe even the cover, because it says the Holy Bible.
And that is what he said. He said it is the volume of the
book, it is the whole thing, from the knob out there on the
end of the dowel that the scrolls rolled up on, till every word
that is on the page. It is of Christ, the volume of
the book. It is written of me to do thy
will, O God." What did the Lord Jesus Christ say? He said, I
came not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent
me. Now, dear brethren, the Lord
Jesus Christ was our example, was He not? And He said, I want
to do the will of my Father which is sent Above, when He said, Sacrifice
and offering, and burnt offerings, and offering for sin, thou wouldest
not, neither hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the law."
Nothing that the law ever did caused a man to be enhanced before
God. Nothing that a man could ever
do. took the Ten Commandments and
he made the decision and he had the power somehow or other to
keep every word of it until the day he died, it would not amount
to a hill of beans. The Lord does not have pleasure
in that. That is not that which the Lord has pleasure in. What
the Lord has pleasure in is not offering for sin, but it is in
the one who offered himself without spot and blemish before God.
You see, that's the one in whom the Lord takes pleasure. Who
shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? He that hath clean
hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity,
or sworn deceitfully. Now that leaves me out in myself. Probably you too. And yet a lot
of people spend a lot of time trying to tell folks how to do
that. Oh, don't lift up your soul under
bandage here, or swear deceitfully. Now brethren, we know that we
certainly, by the grace of God, desire not to be deceitful people.
But you're not going to please God by not being a deceitful
man. The only thing that's going to
please God about you is if Jesus Christ stands between you and
the law as your substitute, as that the Father sees you in
the Son and sees the Son in you. Now that's the thing that pleases
Him, is Jesus Christ. May we be found in Christ because,
dear brethren, there's no other place of salvation There's no
other hope for a man. He's not in doing a bunch of
good deeds. And I'm not opposed to anybody
doing good deeds. I want you to do as many good
deeds as you can, but I don't want you to ever think that one
good deed that you do is pleasing in the eyes of the Lord. Because
all of your righteousnesses, the Scripture says, are as filthy
rags in His sight. Not just your sin. Now people
look at that like, Like, well, God's displeased with our sin. No, God's displeased with your
righteousness. Why is that? Because it's imperfect. As good as it might be, it's
imperfect. And that which he hath pleasure
in is the perfections of Christ. That one who knew no sin, neither
was guile found in his mouth. That one who walked before the
Lord perfectly from the day one, and he fulfilled every jot and
tittle of the Lord's law. And the Lord said, I am pleased
with such a man as that. He has not lifted up his soul
under vanity. He has not sworn deceitfully.
But he has done my will. Then said he, Lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
he may establish the second." Dear brethren, the Lord Jesus
Christ has come into the world to establish that which the law
was only a type and foreshadow of. He has taken away the first
covenant that he might set forth that which is forever and true. by which will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Now, there is a doctrine that goes around, and it is a very
prominent doctrine, and it's what they call the doctrine of
sanctification or progressive sanctification. that a man gets
saved by coming to Christ and then by the work of the Spirit
in him, he is progressively sanctified. Now what the Scripture says here
is by the which will, by what? By the which will. Whose will? God's will. The sanctification
of God's people is by the will of God. By which will we are sanctified,
how? Through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all. How is a man sanctified? Through
the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. There is no other way.
You see, what is sanctification? I remember when I was growing
up, there used to be, and I suppose this denomination or whatever
is still around, but people with every now and then you get some
old, he's been sanctified. Oh, he's sanctified. Well, dear
brethren, I'm here to tell you that all of those who are in
Jesus Christ have been sanctified. There is nothing that can add
to that. or take away from it, because
what it means to be sanctified is to be set apart, to be put somewhere different
from somebody else. And that happens according to
the will of God, which He willed before the foundation of the
world, the Scripture says, when He chose the people in Christ.
And He gave them to Him. And Jesus Christ came into the
world and He poured out His blood in their behalf. And He sent
His Spirit into the world to illuminate their mind and heart
and cause them to believe. So that they look unto Jesus
the second time without sin unto salvation. They are looking for
something else. They're bound to believe in something
to rely on. If you believe in something,
you rely on it. If you believe that chair will
hold you up, you're relying on it to hold you up. If you don't
believe it will hold you up, you won't sit in it. Is that
right? Of course it is. You're not going
to sit in an old rickety chair that's, you know, the legs, you
see the legs about to fall off or break or whatever. You're
not going to sit down in that. But you see, what a man believes
in is what he relies in. And if a man believes that somehow
or other he has some sort of ability to be righteous before
God, and he sets about to perform that, he is relying in it. But
the man who has fled the refuge for Christ, he has no other hope.
than that which Christ has done. And He said, Lord, if you didn't
pay the price for my sin, I'm lost. I'm undone. I have no hope. As Job said, though He slayed
me, yet will I trust Him. I can't do anything else. As
Peter said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of
eternal life. And we believe and are sure that
thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. We're not
hoping that He is. We believe that He is. We're
not thinking, well, maybe the blood of Christ takes away the
sin of His people. We know that it does. The only
doubt that creeps into the people of God is to whether or not They
might be numbered among that number. But oh, the sweet ministry
and testimony of the Spirit of God is that He causes us to believe. And I'm telling you this, that
a man can't hope in Christ, he can't believe in Christ, he can't
rely in Christ unless the Spirit of God opens his heart to do
so. And He does do that. And what
a sweet testimony of God's mercy that He will not have any of
those to be ashamed who have fled to Christ for refuge. Those
that are turned away from His face in the day of judgment will
not be those who have fled to Christ for refuge. There will
be those that stand there and say, Lord, haven't we done many
wonderful works in Your name? And He shall say unto them, Depart
from me. I never knew you. Oh, may the
Lord give us grace this day that we might be not faithless, but
believing.