Now let's stay right there in
Hebrews chapter 7. Brother Jim just read. And I've entitled this message,
through the name of the one mentioned here, this person named Melchizedek. You read that if you're not familiar
with the scriptures. You might read something like
that and you might say, well who in the world was this person?
Melchizedek. And why? writer of the book of Hebrews
invoked this name concerning the priesthood, and that's what
he's talking about. Well, Melchizedek is one of the
most interesting persons in the Bible. It's first mentioned in
this epistle back in Hebrews chapter five and verse six when
it's in speaking of Christ and his priesthood, the priesthood
of Christ. The Bible says that Christ, is
the prophet, the priest, and the king of his people. Those
are what we call his mediatorial offices. He's the mediator between
God and men, one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
And he's our prophet. What does a prophet do? Well,
he delivers the word of God. And Christ certainly is himself.
the embodiment of the Word of God. He's called so in the book
of John. John chapter 1, in beginning
was the Word. That's Christ. And the Word was
made flesh and dwelt among us. That's His person. God in human
flesh. God-man. That's who Jesus Christ
is. But this book here is the Word
of God because it's the Word of Christ. And He's the prophet. All the truth of God that comes
to his people comes through Jesus Christ. And then he is our priest. You know, back in the old covenant,
they had what we called the priest of Levi, the Levitical priesthood.
And you had the high priest who was a descendant of Aaron, Moses'
brother. And then you had, Aaron and Moses
were the tribe of Levi. And then you had the other priest.
And the high priest, was the representative of the nation
Israel. He represented Israel before
unto God. And you remember the story of
the holy of holies in the tabernacle. How one time a year he, the high
priest alone, not anybody else, went into the holiest of all
on the day of atonement with the blood of a lamb. And he sprinkled
that blood over the mercy seat, the Ark of the Covenant, that
box, that was made of chitim wood overlaid with gold, and
that lid that was chitim wood overlaid with gold, and he sprinkled
it. Probably some people don't know
anything about that except seeing Indiana Jones, but that's sad,
isn't it? But there was an actual Ark of
the Covenant that contained the law of God, and the priest went
in and sprinkled the blood on the Day of Atonement. And that
was all typical, it was all representative of the blood of Christ, who is
our great high priest, offering his own blood, he's the Lamb
of God, on behalf of his people to God. And that's called propitiation,
we'll talk about that in a minute. But that's Christ is our priest,
and he's our only priest, high priest under God. We don't have
any other, the Pope's not the priest. The saints aren't the
priest of God. Now, all believers are made priests
under God. It means we have free access
to God by the work and merits of our high priest. And then
Christ is the king. He earned that right through
his mediatorial work, his death on the cross. He's the king of
kings. And he rules in a kingdom. And that's his church, made up
of God's chosen people, the redeemed of the Lord, who are called into
the kingdom by faith in Christ. That's what this book is about.
Well, the writer of Hebrews is making a distinction here showing
how that old Levitical priesthood under the old covenant or the
law of Moses was inferior. Inferior to the greater and eternal
priesthood of Christ. Later on he'll tell you the blood
of bulls and goats, the blood of animals. could never take
away sin. You say, well, why did God have
them do that? It was a type. It was a picture. It was a symbol
pointing them, not to the blood of animals, but to the blood
of Christ, the Lamb of God. And I've told you the story about
a friend of mine who, before he heard the gospel, how he and
his wife decided They were religious, and they were looking for a church,
and they got real frustrated. So he just decided he was going
to sit down and read the Bible. He started at the book of Genesis,
which one would do, and he got all the way up through the book
of Leviticus, and he told his wife, he said, honey, according
to this book, we ought to be out here sacrificing lambs. And the next morning, it was
a Sunday morning, he turned on the TV, and her brother Henry
Mayhem, my former pastor, preaching, and the title of Henry's message
was, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of
the world. And he preached Christ. And then my friend and his wife
started going to the church there, and they heard the gospel. But
see, all that was just a picture. It's kind of like baptismal waters. Baptism doesn't save anybody,
folks. Water baptism doesn't save anybody. But it pictures a sinner's death
and burial and resurrection in Christ. It's a picture, it's
a confession of something greater than that water that fills up
this baptistery. It's the water of life. We take
the Lord's Supper. The bread symbolizes the broken,
suffering body of Christ, and the blood symbolizes his death. So we're not to take these elements
and put any, as one man said, salvific, power in these things. Water can't save you, wine and
bread can't save you, unleavened bread. It's Christ who saves,
and that's what the blood of animals and the human high priest
were to do. They were pictures of Christ,
but they were inferior. He says, if you'll look at Hebrews
7, And verse 11, he says, if therefore perfection were by
the Levitical priesthood, perfection, what is that? That's salvation,
that's righteousness. That's the forgiveness of sins.
In other words, if that Levitical priesthood, with all of its high
priests, all through the 1500 years that it was in effect,
and all the blood of animals, if it could attain perfection,
which it could not. He said, for in under it, the
people received, what further need was there that of another
high priest that should arise after the order of Melchizedek
and who he's talking about there is Christ. Why aren't we out
here slaying lambs? You know why? Christ has come. And that's over. We have the
perfection that Christ brought in, see? We have the actual person
and work of Christ in time. And that's called the new covenant
and the old covenant's done away with. That's what Hebrews is
gonna say, the writer of Hebrews is gonna say later. But that's
just what this is all about. But the first mention of the
Melchizedek in the book of Hebrews is Hebrews 5, 6. Listen to this
in verse eight, Hebrews chapter five. I said six. Yeah, verse
six. Look at Hebrews five, verse five.
He says, so also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high
priest, but he that said unto him, thou art my son, today have
I begotten thee. Now you remember, we read that
in Psalm 110. 110, that's what David understood. It was Christ was appointed by
the Father before the foundation of the world to be the high priest
of his people. And it says in verse six, and he saith also
in another place, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now that's the first mention
of Melchizedek in the book of Hebrews. There's only two other
mentions made of, other than Hebrews, there's only two other
places you see that name mentioned, Psalm 110 that Brother Jim read,
and then back in Genesis 14, which we'll look at, But he says
here in verse eight, look at Hebrews 5.8, though he were a
son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered,
Christ went through some suffering unto death for the sins of his
people, and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal
salvation, see, not just the earthly temporal atonement, unto
all them that obey him, called of God and high priest after
the order, Melchizedek and then if you look at Hebrews 6 and
the very last verse of Hebrews 6 verse 20 there's Melchizedek
again. The forerunner for us entered
even Jesus made in high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
So you hear you see that name and then Hebrews 7 has quite
a bit to say about this person named Melchizedek. I believe
that the writer of Hebrews was going not back to Genesis 14
to get his information, but to Psalm 110. Because there it's
specifically said by David, who I believe wrote that Psalm, King
David, that someone is coming in the future. And of course
he's talking about Christ, he's talking about the Messiah, and
his priesthood is not after the order of Levi and Aaron. His
priesthood is after another order. And he says it's the order of
Melchizedek. Now Melchizedek was a real person in history.
Turn back to Genesis chapter 14. He wasn't some kind of phantom
or just some kind of a poetic device. He was a real person
in history. And this is the account where
Abraham You remember that there was a confederation of kings
around Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham, he was in another place. But you remember Abraham's nephew
Lot was in Sodom and Lot got kidnapped by these kings and
these kings were attacking Sodom. So Abraham stepped in to intercede
and he led an army against this confederation of kings. coming
back from what is called the slaughter of the kings. Abraham
won the battle. Of course, it was God all along.
And if you look, look at verse 17 of Genesis 14, it says, and
the king of Sodom went out to meet Abraham after his return
from the slaughter of Kedah Laomar, which was one of the kings, the
confederation, and of the kings that were with him at the Valley
of Shavi, which is the Kingsdale, the Kings Valley, Verse 18, and
Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine. This is
just interjected here. This has just happened, you know,
here he is. And Melchizedek, king of Salem, appears on the
scene. Brought forth bread and wine,
and he was the priest of the most high God. Melchizedek was
a high priest. Verse 19, and he blessed him.
Melchizedek blessed Abraham. and said, blessed be Abram of
the most high God, see how early this was, Abraham's name had
not yet been changed to Abram, it was still Abram. Blessed be
Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed
be the most high God which hath delivered thine enemies into
thy hand. And Abram gave Melchizedek tithes of all, a tenth portion,
that's a tithe. And that's all that is said.
in Genesis 14 about Melchizedek, then the story picks up and goes
on, and you know the story about Sodom and Gomorrah and what eventually
happened and all that. The next time he's mentioned
is Psalm 110, when King David mentions the order of his priesthood
as pertaining to the future coming of the Messiah that is outside
the priesthood of Levi. And so it's expounded upon here
in Hebrews 7. Now, here's the question, who
in the world was this Melchizedek? And a better question now is,
what is the significance of Melchizedek? Now first of all, let me go into
this. One of the most important themes
of the Bible is the high priesthood of Jesus Christ. as I said, prophet, priest, and
king. In order to be a proper high priest, that person had
to be appointed of God, and Christ was appointed of God before the
foundation of the world to be our high priest. He was appointed
to be our surety, which means that all of the sins of God's
chosen people were put upon his account. He was made responsible. If you're a believer, Jesus Christ
was made responsible for you before the world was ever created.
Our surety. That means he took our debt.
We hadn't even sinned yet. Adam hadn't even fallen. But
that's the way God operates. What a God we worship. How great
is our God. Christ was made our substitute,
our surety, our redeemer, and the high priest. And a high priest,
in order to appease God, had to be a man appointed of God,
had to have a proper sacrifice taken from off the altar, and
the old covenant, that was the blood of bulls and goats, which
typified something great. But in Christ's case, it was
himself. He offered himself without spot. He's our high priest, He's our
altar, and He's our Lamb. You know what I'm saying here,
don't you? He's everything. When it comes
to salvation, Christ is everything. He's all and in all. And that's
what He did. He bore our sins to the cross. The sins of His people. Imputed,
charged, accounted in. He drank damnation dry by his
obedience unto death and offered himself. We're redeemed not with
corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ. There is a fountain filled with
blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. What does Emmanuel mean? God
with us. Am I right? and sinners plunge
beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. I'll tell
you, I'll never get over it. How about you? I mean, it sends
chills up my back. It really does, that I can be
forgiven, and that based on a just ground. You see, God's love is not just
a Hallmark card. It's not just emotion. It's real,
isn't it? Here in His love. Not that we
love God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation. What is that? Sin-bearing sacrifice
that brought satisfaction. That's great, isn't it? God will
not and cannot impute, charge me with my sin. I stand before
him charged with the righteousness of his son who is my great high
priest, my prophet, my priest, my king. See, that's gospel,
isn't it? So understanding the high priesthood
of Christ is important, wouldn't you say? I mean, that's something
pretty important here, isn't it? He's not only a high priest,
But Christ, you see, that Levitical priesthood, that human priesthood
under the old covenant, that's gone. That's over. Never to be reinstituted again,
folks. It would be a travesty. You know,
people say, well, in the future millennium, they're gonna rebuild
the temple and they're gonna get out some DNA and find out
who the descendant of Aaron was and make him the... Boy, we love
our myths, don't we? God says in the book of Hebrews
that those who worship at that table have no right to worship
with the people of God. Why? Because all that's been
fulfilled. It had its time. It had its place. But it's over. Why? Why is it over? Christ has come. God was made flesh. without sin,
and he's done his work. Now look to him and get your
eyes off these earthly elements. Look to Christ. And he's not
only a high priest, he is the only eternal high priest of God's
true people, both Jew and Gentile, and there is no other. There
is no other. You know, one of the things that
false Christianity has lost of the truth lies in many people's
view of, quote, getting saved, unquote. And of course, many
of you went through the motions of this false system when you
walked an aisle and, quote, got saved, unquote, by accepting,
as they say, Jesus as your personal savior. But the Bible describes
the whole of salvation as a process and a progression. Think about it, you know, First
Corinthians 118, it says, the preaching of the cross is to
them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved is
the power of God. Literally, that's those who are
perishing and those who are being saved. Now there certainly are aspects
of salvation that are one-time events. Our election, our justification
before God based upon the righteousness of Christ, our redemption by
one offering, He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.
Our being born again, our regeneration, we don't get born again every
day. We come to faith in Christ, you preach the initial repentance. We turn from our idols to serve
the living God, that's what we do. Faith and initial repentance. And these all begin the life
of faith and perseverance under glory, all by God's grace, all
by God's power, all based upon the merits of Christ's blood
and righteousness. And many people ask, when were
you saved? What they ought to be asking
is, are you saved? That'd be a better question. Now the author of Hebrews has
this in mind, having continual access to God and being brought
by God under glory. That's what salvation is. It's
not just God getting you started, giving you a jump start, or giving
you a push in the right direction. It's God saving you, keeping
you, and bringing you to glory. And that's what the high priesthood
of Christ is all about. It's bringing many sons unto
glory. Hebrews 2.10. That's what he
does. He doesn't just help you. God
helps those who help themselves. You do know that's not in the
Bible. You know, people quote junk like
that saying almost like it's like the script. No, that's not
in the Bible. I don't know who, I think John Wesley's the one
who come up with that. But it's not in the Bible. Cleanliness is next to godliness.
That's not in the Bible either. I hope you're clean. I hope I
clean up. That's not in the Bible. You see, the Bible teaches a
salvation that is complete because it is accomplished by Christ,
our great high priest. And it's eternal. It can't be
gained one day and lost the next. That's a false gospel. And you know why people say it
can be gained one day and lost the next? Because they believe
it's conditioned on them. They believe they make the difference.
If you make the difference, you're in trouble. Now, in bringing us completely
unto God, this involves a continual drawing near. It's not, you know,
people say, well, are you, well, back when I was 12, no. I don't
remember back when I was 12. And maybe it'll get worse as
I get older. But I don't care. Because right now today, I'm
looking to Christ as the author and finisher of my faith, and
that's what's important. Now that doesn't mean we're to
forget about repentance. Don't go back and hold on to
those, the bangles and the baubles of religion. They won't help
you. Paul said that in Philippians chapter three. He said, I press
forward to the mark of the high call. I forget those things which
are behind and press forward. I'm looking to Christ today and
by God's grace, I'll be looking to him tomorrow and the next
day until the Lord brings me home. And that's all about the
priesthood of Christ. Being brought into a relationship
with God through Christ that involves a whole new way of life
and living by his grace, and it's because of three things.
Number one, by covenant, by divine promise, because the covenants
contain the promises. And he, of course, thinks, this
writer thinks very, very important is the new covenant, and he'll
talk a lot about that when we get to chapters eight and nine,
and we'll see how important it is for us. But the covenant,
or the divine promises, is one of the most important ways by
which we come into access to God. Turn over to 2 Peter, let
me show you this. Now, y'all wondering when I'm
gonna get to Melchizedek? Maybe next week, but. I'm not
gonna keep you here till then though, I promise that. But look
at 2 Peter chapter one. You see, now here's what, let
me just settle your mind right now on one thing. I'm gonna get
into details about Melchizedek. But this priesthood of Melchizedek
is all about the priesthood of Christ that I'm talking to you
about today. And if you don't understand it,
you're gonna miss the significance of Melchizedek, okay? But listen
to this, this is 2 Peter 1 verse 1. It says, Simon Peter, a servant
and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like
precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and
our Savior Jesus Christ, or literally the righteousness of our God
and Savior Jesus Christ. His righteousness imputed to
us is the ground of our salvation. That's what Peter's saying there.
The merits of Christ You see, we have no merits before God. We have no earning power with
God. If you think you do, you haven't
seen your sin. The only earning power I have
with God is Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. Is that
right? The wages of sin is dead. There's
earning power. The gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. There's a gift. You know what
a gift is? You don't earn it, you don't
deserve it. And so he says in verse two,
grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge
of God and of Jesus our Lord, according, now listen to this,
according as his divine power hath given unto us all things
that pertain unto life and godliness, all things, through the knowledge
of him that hath called us to glory and virtue, whereby are
given unto us exceeding great and precious promises. promises
of God of the gospel promises of salvation And everything that's
involved with it that by these promises you might be partakers
of the divine nature that means you're brought into fellowship
with God as The Holy Spirit brings these promises to our minds and
our hearts We're brought into fellowship with God Now, how
do we attain these promises? Second Corinthians 1.20 tells
us all the promises of God are in him, in Christ, yea, and in
him, amen. And so he says, partakers of
the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the
world through lust. That's how we get out of this
messy world. We stop looking to ourselves,
we stop looking to our works, By the grace of God, we start
looking to Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. You
know that's what separates us from the world? It's not what
we wear. It's not taste, not touch, not
handle, not. It's we look to Christ and Him
alone. So that's the promises. That's
the covenant. And it's all conditioned on Christ. The gospel is the
preaching of the terms of that covenant. Salvation conditioned
on Christ, who as God in human flesh, as our surety substitute
and as our redeemer, as our high priest, fulfilled all those conditions
to secure our complete salvation being brought unto God. Secondly,
by divine redemption. The price had to be paid. If
my salvation was conditioned on Christ, what are the conditions?
Well, sin had to be paid for. Righteousness had to be established.
Fulfillment of the covenant and acceptance with God, fellowship
with God is not possible unless there's a sacrifice by which
sin is removed and righteousness is established. And the Bible
says in Hebrews 10, 14, by one offering Christ hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. And then thirdly, by divine mediation,
which is the divine priesthood of Christ, we need a great high
priest. We need a mediator. We need one
who is in heaven right now, pleading the merits of his work on our
behalf to save us, keep us, and bring us to God. And the Bible
says in 1 Timothy 2.5, there's one God and one mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Now the Levitical priesthood
typified this. But even better, the priesthood
of Melchizedek typified it. One mediator between God and
man. Now that's one of the many reasons
we know that the Roman Catholic Church is a false church, folks.
It is a tear. It's built upon the office of
the Pope, and you may not have heard this term, but in the Latin,
they call the Pope Pontifex Maximus. You ever heard that term? Pontifex
Maximus. You know what the Pontifex Maximus
means? It means the greatest or highest
priest. It literally means that word
Pontifex means to make or build a bridge. So they believe the
Pope is the greatest bridge or bridge builder between God and
man. Not so. Christ is the greatest and only
bridge between God and man. And to say that there's another
is blasphemy. Now this was typified by the
priesthood of Aaron, the priesthood of Levi, but even better by the
priesthood of Melchizedek. Now who was Melchizedek? That's
what I'm gonna get into next. But the underlying truth here
is this. that Jesus Christ, look over
here at verse 19 of Hebrews 7. For the law made nothing perfect. That's the old covenant law,
the old covenant priesthood, the blood of bulls and goats.
It made nothing perfect. It did not wash away sins. The
blood of bulls and goats could not pay the sin debt. It did
not bring forth righteousness by which God could justify a
sinner. That blood could not do it. but
the bringing in of a better hope did, by the which we draw nigh
unto God. Now what is that better hope?
Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. And his priesthood,
his eternal priesthood, even though it was typified and pictured
in the priest of Levi and Aaron, even much better in the priesthood
of Melchizedek. And we'll get into those details
next week, Lord willing. Lord willing, all right.