Turn in your Bibles to Hebrews
chapter 9. And you can also go back to where
we read in Numbers chapter 19. While you're turning, I want
to read the verses of a song, a hymn, actually written by a
modern writer, And you may have heard it, it was actually sung
here once some time ago, but it has such wonderful words. It's entitled, How Deep the Father's
Love for Us. How deep the Father's love for
us, how vast beyond all measure, that he should give his only
Son to make a wretch his treasure. How great the pain of searing
loss the father turns his face away as wounds which mar the
chosen one bring many sons to glory. Behold the man upon a
cross, my sin upon his shoulders. Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
call out among the scoffers. It was my sin that held him there. Until it was accomplished, his
dying breath hath brought me life. I know that it is finished. I will not boast in anything. no gifts, no power, no wisdom,
but I will boast in Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection. Why should I gain from His reward? I cannot give an answer. But this I know with all my heart,
His wounds have paid my rents." I'd sure be glad I could sing
that to you this morning, but I can't. But I want you to look
with me, and I want us to read beginning in verse 12. And think about the last two
lines of this hymn, because if this is a knowledge we possess,
it would surely be a God-given knowledge and a great blessing. But this I know with all my heart,
his wounds have paid my ransom." The apostle here in Hebrews 9
begins in verse 12, "...neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls
and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean
sanctify to the purifying of the flesh, How much more shall
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself
without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God?" You cannot read such passages as that in
Hebrews without seeing that there is a connection to what is said
here and to things like we read there in Numbers 19. There is
a mention of blood, there is a mention of sacrifice, there
is a mention of sprinkling, and we have in Scripture all of these
pictures and types of Jesus Christ and His work. Types and pictures,
as we find them in the Old Testament, can only picture Christ and His
work so far. Only so far. As we find in these
verses, those sacrifices were only animals, and those, even
the high priests that offered them, was only a man who was
a sinner. And so, in a verse like verse
7, we have to remember those things, and he reminds us, he
says, but into the second, went the high priest into that holy
of holies, when the high priest once every year, not without
blood, which he offered for himself." You see, that shows right there
that though he was a type and picture of Christ, that type
could only go so far. He had to offer in that sacrifice
for himself and for the heirs of the people. We can only go
so far because they none can truly picture the perfect, successful
Son of God. But we're thankful for those
types. We're thankful for these things. And we're thankful for the Spirit
of God taking them and showing us Christ and showing us the
efficacy of his sacrifice. Because the glory of Christ,
that one whose name falls off the tongues of a multitude of
people in our day in total disregard and an unholy familiarity, the
glory of Christ in his person and in his work is like a many-faceted
diamond. And I believe it is for this
reason that God has given us so many of these types, so many
of them, such as these two sacrifices that are made reference to here
in Hebrews 9, verses 12 through 14. Because if you look here in verses
12 and 13, there is a reference to the blood of goats and calves
and bulls, and these sacrifices speak particularly, I think,
of the Day of the Atonement, which is also made reference
to here, when once a year, That high priest would go into the
Holy of Holies with this sacrifice and also for sin offering. Here are all these offerings
offered up, such as that one that came to be called the scapegoat. And they show for us all of the
cost of our redemption and the satisfaction of God's justice. These are all offered up before
God, and in the presence of God, all of this blood is shed and
then sprinkled there on the mercy seat. He takes that blood, he
goes into that mercy seat, and he would sprinkle that blood
before God on that mercy seat, and God would say that an atonement
has been made. He shows the sufficiency and
the success and the completion of Christ's sacrifice of blood
before God and as it pertains to God. Look back in verse 12. Neither by the blood of goats
and calves, but by His own blood, He entered in once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." Look down
in verse 26. being unlike all those priests,
having a sacrifice far greater, But if he had been such as they
are, he says, for then must he often have suffered since the
foundation of the world. But now once in the end of the
world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself." Once. Look over in Hebrews 10 and that
10th verse, where the apostle shows us, saying, "...by the
which will," that is, the will of God, "...by the which will
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all." That's a finished, accomplished work
and sacrifice, verse 12. But this man, that is in contrast
to all those other priests that had to go in and out year after
year, but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for
sins forever, he sat down on the right hand of God. Then it says in verse 14, "...for
by one offering..." You see, the gospel is not about an offer,
it's about an offering. An offering that has already
been made, already been accepted by God, already satisfied God's
justice. "...for by one offering He hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified." In other words,
everything necessary to the salvation of his people, necessary to the
satisfaction of his justice, necessary to the establishment
of that everlasting righteousness, everything accomplished in the
dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything toward God. He made
peace by the blood of his cross. But we have not only that sacrifice
and that picture before us, we also have another picture and
another sacrifice which pictures another aspect of Christ's blood
and sacrifice. And what a wonderful picture
it is. In other words, God has not only
provided a hope and a consolation and comfort for sinners that
He saved by His grace in their looking to Christ and that finished
Word, but also in their remembering just exactly what has been done. Look down here in Hebrews 9 and
verse 13. He says, "...for if the blood
of bulls and of goats," that certainly was a reference to
that sacrifice that I'm talking about. But notice also, "...and
the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctify to the purifying
of the flesh." How much more? shall the blood of Christ, who
through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God,
purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God."
In other words, what we have in this sacrifice and in these
things described and here made reference to with this red heifer,
what we have in this sacrifice and in this type is a picture
of Christ's blood in its continual, perpetual, sin-cleansing power. So what did we find there in
Numbers chapter 19? And I say it's vital that we
see this and understand this because the truth is we fail
and we sin and we every day come under, if we are the people of
God, conviction over our daily sins. Do we not? John said, I
write unto you, little children, that you sin not. But when any man sins, that's
a contradiction in the minds of the natural men. And so he
says that we fail and we sin every day and conscious convicts,
but here is a picture of the efficacy of Christ's blood, not
only to save us, not only to establish in the court of heaven
that which satisfies and brings peace, but to bring in the court
of our conscience. that which brings peace and comfort."
You see, he alludes here to the ashes of the heifer. And this
was a part of God's law. It was separate from that sacrifice
that was offered there in the Holy of Holies. They were instructed
by God to take this red heifer and offer this sacrifice outside
of the camp then take that heifer and burn her in her entirety,
blood and everything, and throw in while she was burning cedar
wood and hyssop and scarlet." And then a man who was ceremonially
clean, he was to gather up all those ashes and put them in a
clean place, and they were to be saved and to be used on certain
occasions and times. And those times were when someone
had been rendered ceremonially unclean, that is, unable to enter
into that external Worship of God by touching a dead body,
by going into a tent where somebody had died, by touching a bone
or a grave, or picking up a wounded person in the field or a dead
person. Under those things, they were
rendered ceremonially unclean. And I know what comes in our
minds. Why? Because God said so. That is
unclean that is said to be unclean by God, and that is clean that
is said to be clean before God. You remember what the Lord told
Peter? Who looked as all these Gentiles in their entirety, just
like every other Jew, He regarded them as absolutely unclean. And when God gave him that vision
on the housetop, and He showed him those four-footed beasts,
all that were considered to be unclean by the Jews, and He said,
I can't eat those things, He said to him, and the reference
was to these Gentiles He was about to send them to, He said,
what I call clean, don't you call unclean. So here is a person. And I'm sure it happened all
the time. And he was rendered unclean because he touched a
body, had to move a body that had died, or go into a tent,
or go out, this was in the wilderness, go out in a field where somebody
had died or been slain or something like that, and that rendered
them unclean. So God gave this prescription.
If you look back in Numbers 19, Listen again to what he says.
He says in verse 2, "...this is the ordinance of the law which
the Lord hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel
that they bring thee a red heifer." Now, I could take a lot of time
trying to show you from the details of this picture how it alludes
to Christ, a red heifer. Adam was described as that one
who was made of the red earth. He has to be that which pictures
a man, this sacrifice does. And it says, bring thee a red
heifer without spot. Surely the Lord Jesus Christ,
Peter says, we were redeemed by the precious blood of the
Lamb of God without spot and without blemish. Here He is a
sinless sacrifice, holy and harmless and undefiled, wherein is no
blemish." And notice this, "...and upon which never came a yonk."
Doesn't that show us something about the voluntary sacrifice
of Christ? This particular red heifer was
to be without spot and without blemish and never a yoke put
on her that she was constrained or brought or driven in any way
to any place because Christ, as a voluntary sacrifice, He
laid down His life for the sheep. And then if you notice, it says,
"...and ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest, that he may
bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before
his face." This one was to be slain outside of the camp of
Israel. Now turn over to Hebrews again. And look at Hebrews chapter 13,
and see if this is not a reference to just what is being said there. Hebrews chapter 13, and look
down in verse 11. He says, "...for the bodies of
those beasts," whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by
the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp, that
is, outside of the camp of Israel. Wherefore Jesus also, that he
might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without
the gate." Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing
his reproach." That's a direct reference to just what is being
said here in Numbers chapter 19. And I believe that he's talking
here about the continual efficacy of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ
as it is applied to his sinning people. Now, you know, if we
did not sin, there would not be any need for the Spirit of
God to instruct the Apostle to tell us to sin not. There would
never be any warnings. There will never be any encouragements
or admonitions in the matter of our not sinning, but rather
we are like these who come in contact with the dead every day
in this world, every single day. They, by what they did, became
ceremonially unclean, And they were pronounced as ceremonially
clean before God when these ashes were taken, and they were mixed
with running water, and that mixture sprinkled on them on
the third day, and they would be clean on the seventh day. They would be able to enter into
the worship. They would be able to go back
into the camp. And this is described here in
Numbers 19 as being the water of separation or the water of
purification. He says in verse 9, "...and a
man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and
lay them up without the camp in a clean place, and it shall
be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for
a water of separation. It is a purification for sin."
Now you know and I know that no water made from the ashes
of a animal that was burned ever really does cleanse and put away
sin. It was never meant to. But it was meant to give us,
as the people of God, a picture of something that actually does,
not only before God, but in our own consciences and mind, provide
a cleansing and a purging in the matter of our personal and
daily sin as the Lord's people. Look back at Hebrews 9. And listen
to what the Spirit of God directs the Apostle to say. He says,
"...for if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of an
heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctify to the purifying of
the flesh." In other words, if that in the sight of God, according
to what He said, made them ceremonially clean, if that is the case, how
much more, how much more shall the blood of Christ Not the blood
of an animal, but the blood of a perfect, sinless man who is
God manifest in the flesh. How much more shall the blood
of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself willingly,
voluntarily, and at the command of God in fulfillment with the
will of God, offered himself without spot to God, directly
to God. How much more shall that blood,
that bloodshed, that blood offered, that blood voluntarily poured
out, that blood offered to God, purge? What does that word mean? It means to cleanse. And what
he's saying here is this, if that bloodshed has satisfied
God and washed away all our sins before divine justice, how ought
also that same blood, when applied by the Spirit of God to our conscience,
wash our conscience clean. You know what the The first response,
even to us as believers, is when we know, as we say, that we've
blown it. The sad thing is, there's so
much we don't know. But when we know that we've sinned,
when we know without a shadow of a doubt that we have sinned
in this way or that way, a multitude of ways, and not even hardly
scratched the surface of what we've actually done, but just
in those things, we know our sin. You know what the natural
response is? I'm going to make up for that.
I'm going to do better. I know I did that, but I'm going
to do this to make up for that. And the truth of the matter is,
as they recall right here in this verse, in truth, everything
that we do and especially everything that we would dare try to do
is dead works. I used to try to look at that
and try to figure out What was he calling dead works? Everything
a sinner does to try to put away their sin and to gain a right
standing before God or to improve their standing before God. And
you know what happens? It has just the opposite effect
that we by nature think it would. It just makes us more guilty
of conscience. It just makes us have pains and
pains of conscience more and more and more. And it renders
us to a position and state whereby we cannot really worship God. Just like these people in the
externals God gave, they could not go back and worship God because
they were unclean. And when we are unclean in our
conscience with regard to how we actually stand before God,
or what it is that actually puts away all our sin, we can't worship
God because only those who look to Christ Maybe I should say
it like this, only those who are looking to Christ, and to
only Christ, and to this bloody sacrifice, only those who rejoice
in Christ Jesus, they're the only ones who do worship. There'll
be a lot of people gathered today, and they'll sing songs, and they'll
have feelings, and they'll think, oh, we had a good day of worship.
Or they'll gather together and they'll think that by their decision
they came to know Christ and be saved, or by their will, or
by something that they did, they entertained these. Those people
never worshiped God. You see, as was pictured in Israel
delivered from Egypt, Moses, instructed of God, said to Pharaoh,
let my people go that they may go out into the wilderness and
do what? Worship me, because only a redeemed
people, only a liberated people, only a people delivered and set
free as that Red Sea was a picture and a type of, as that Passover
Lamb's blood on the lentils in Dorpo, Seville was a picture
of, only a people redeemed by blood can worship God. You see, this purges or cleanses
the conscience. If we, looking to Christ, trusting
His bloodshed for the satisfaction of God in all the matter of sin,
if we, looking to Him, Do that, we are found just the opposite
of those who offered those sacrifices in the Old Testament. He said
if they had thoroughly satisfied God and put away sin, they would
have had what? No more conscience for sin. No more conscience for sin. And you see, he's not saying
there that we arrive at some state where we don't care about
our sins. That's utterly ridiculous. But
we arrive at some state where it makes us totally lawless and
ungodly. No. You see, this has to do with
a matter of our concern for our sins. We know something about
God. And we know something about what
He does with sin. And we've just sinned. And we
sin every time we turn around. And ever so often we're brought
to look to ourselves and we're thinking, oh my, how in the world
could I ever be saved? How in the world could I ever
enter into God's presence? How in the world could I ever
have a moment's peace about my sin? Well, what would you have
done in that day if you were found to be ceremonially unclean? Gone to the priest or whoever's
keeping the ashes? and tell him that you've touched
a dead body, tell him that you've done all these things as would
render a man unclean under the law, what would he do? Well,
he'd get a scoop of those ashes, I guess, and go to the running
stream, mix that mixture together. He'd sprinkle you with that water,
the water of separation. What does that mean? I'm not
sure. It might mean it's the water
that ends the separation of a people from being able to worship God.
Or it might be the water of a separated people. That's what sanctification
is about, separated unto God. That water that renders a person
where they are set apart unto God, that is able to worship
God and do what? Serve God. You remember David,
I'm sure. David fell into awful sin. And if you listen to him in Psalm
51, he has some very interesting words to say. Somebody put a
heading to this psalm saying, Psalm of David, when Nathan the
prophet came unto him after he had gone into Bathsheba. Listen. Have mercy upon me, O
God, according to Thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude
of Thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions, wash me throughly
from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge
my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee,
Thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight,
that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear
when Thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, Thou desirest truth
in the inward parts, and in the hidden part Thou shalt make me
to know wisdom. Now, do you think he was looking
for some kind of outward sprinkling? Here is a believer who has sinned
and fallen, and he's calling out to God for just what that
sprinkling of the water of purification and separation represented. Purge me with hyssop. Sprinkle my conscience with the
remembrances and with that truth of Christ crucified and the fact
that when He hangs, hanged on that cross, He died for all my
sins. He said, Purge me with hyssop,
and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow. Create in me a clean heart. And I'm telling you what, in
the matter of your sin, the only thing that will deal with our
sins in our conscience is the same thing that deals with it
before the throne of God's justice, and that is the shed blood of
Jesus Christ sprinkled on our offending conscience. You remember
David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord, and
Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou
shalt not die. Oh, there were consequences,
human, earthly consequences. He said, the child will surely
die, and he did. But he said, the Lord hath put
away your sin, and you will not die. And I believe that this
is exactly what John is saying in 1 John. I want you to turn
to 1 John. He's talking here about fellowship
with God. Now there are some people who
say, you know, if you don't do this and you don't do that, then
you can't have fellowship with God. But the only place, the
only way that we have fellowship with God, he says, is in the
light. What is that? That's the truth.
That's the gospel. We only have fellowship with
God on the basis that's revealed and declared in the gospel, which
is through Christ and His mediation, which is by His blood. All right? Listen to it. Verse John, verse
7, "'But if we walk in the light,' and dear friend, If you think
that's got something to do with your conduct of life, you have
missed it all. No sinner, no matter how great
their conduct of life, could ever on that basis have fellowship
with God. It's in His Son, and that's revealed
in the light. I don't live in this life thinking
that I have fellowship with God based on anything that I do or
anything I am. I have fellowship with God in
His Son. My worthiness to come into His
presence is Christ's worthiness. He says, but if we walk in the
light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all
sin. Now, you've got to remember this
was written to believers. And he said, if we say we don't
sin, we've got a real bad problem. But he said, the blood of Jesus
Christ cleanseth us from all sin. Past, present, future. As a matter of fact, one reason
that I have a great hesitation for leaving the King James Version
is the translation of these Greek words in what is called, I believe,
the linear tense, which speaks of an accomplished and yet of
a continual action. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son, cleanseth us from all sin. It has cleansed us before God. It cleanses us, cleanses our
conscience. Verse 9. If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. If we're thinking there about
our walk of life, and don't get me wrong, believers are concerned
about their walk of life because the glory of God is involved. A thankful heart is involved.
A recognition of His playing commands are involved. But if
we're thinking of that, He says, "...and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness." Do you know of any believers who, in their
person and walk, You could say they were cleansed of all unrighteousness. You see, John's just been talking
here about the foolish notion of saying we don't sin. Well,
what is this all unrighteousness? It's all of man's efforts and
thoughts and deeds and doing as a part of our standing and
acceptance before God. He cleanses us of all unrighteousness,
imputes to us the righteousness of God in Christ, and causes
us to rest in His righteousness, not in any we imagine of ourselves. Look in chapter 2, that first
verse. He says, My little children, these things write I unto you,
that ye sin not. That's just the way it is. That's
the command, that's the goal, that's the standard. It doesn't
change. God never has diminished the
severity of sin or the awfulness of it. Just look at His cross.
Sin not. And if. or but when any man sin. We have, we already have Him,
an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. Jesus Christ the Righteous. You know, I'm sure I can be found
guilty of so much I can be found guilty in this pulpit of saying
things I'm sure I ought not to have said. I know that's shock
child, but I'm sure I have. But there's one thing I don't
ever expect to be accused of, not by God, not by Christ Himself,
and that is of making too much. of the blood, of the death, of
the sacrifice of God's Son. That's the only hope of salvation
you have or I have. That's the only ground of peace
in your conscience that you can have. How much more shall the
blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself
without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to
serve The Living God. Now there's a lot of names and
descriptions given of God in this book, but I really like
that one. I can walk by the statues and
the edifices of men and the idols of men. I can hear them talk
about their God and rejoice. that my God is the Living God.
Who do men say that I am? Christ asked Peter. He said,
you're the Christ, the Son of the Living God. We can serve the Living God who
seeks those who worship Him in spirit and in truth. who worship Him as Abraham and
all those Old Testament saints worship Him on the basis of a
God-appointed and a God-provided and a God-accepted sacrifice. Imagine you're sitting on a hill
one day and all of a sudden you see a camel band, caravan coming
across the desert. The fellow by the name of Abraham,
you don't even know who he is, but he's got his band, and all
of a sudden they stop out there in that desert, and you watch
it. And here's one servant doing this, and here's another servant
doing that, but the man who's obviously the head man, Abraham,
he goes out looking around, he's picking up rocks. He's not doing
anything to them, he's just picking them up. He's putting them in
a stack. An altar. And then all of a sudden,
he goes to the flock and he takes out that lamb out of the flock,
and he kills him and sheds his blood on that altar. And the
Bible says that he worshipped God. We preach Christ crucified,
and we worship God around Him. We are those Peter describes
as elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification
of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ. We sang that song, there is a
fountain filled with blood. That's a biblical song. Zechariah
13, chapter 1, God says, and there will be a fountain opened
for sin and uncleanness. And sinners plunge beneath that
flood, lose all their guilty stains. If you look at Hebrews
10 and verse 22, listen to what he says. After talking about
that new and living way, in the Lord Jesus. Verse 22, "...let
us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having
our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, an evil conscience,
and our bodies washed with pure water." Evil conscience. condemning conscience. That's
every conscience in every person, every sinner, that is not looking
wholly, completely to the Lord Jesus Christ and His cross death. And you know it's amazing. If
you look at this book, some of the things the Lord's people
have done, That person says, well, the Lord's people never
do this. I'll say, hold on, I can already show you where they've
done it. Just about everything. And just like Paul described
those Corinthians when he gave that long list of vile, reprehensible
sins and sinful characters, and he says to them, and such were
some of you, but you're washed for clean. I think that's the
picture when the Lord washed the disciples' feet. Peter said,
oh, don't just wash my feet, wash my head, my whole body.
He said, oh no, you're already clean. You just have need to
be washed in your feet. You walk through this world,
you're defiled of conscience in every way. You just need your
feet washed, Peter. And then we also have this truth,
and this is where I've been trying to get. We also have this same
picture in the ordinances that the Lord has given us for His
church. The first one is baptism. And
in baptism, once we confess our identification with, our union
with, our confidence in Christ, His death, burial and resurrection. One time. He entered in once
into the holy place. But then we have also the Lord's
table, and we come ever so often to it. And he says, this do in
remembrance of me. Paul said, anybody who eats or
drinks unworthily of these elements eats and drinks damnation to
himself. But my friend, if you're trying
to be worthy, or think yourself worthy, of the Lord's table,
that's the unworthiness he's talking about. This is a table
for sinners. This is not a pity party for
the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a feast. The blood has
been shed. The body has been pierced. While
he hangs there in that state, before he pours out his life,
yields up the ghost, he says, it is finished. So that no matter what the sin
of his people is, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth them from
all sin. Oh, as we take of the bread and
drink the wine, Remember His body, perfect, sinless, holy
body, the God-Man, God in flesh. Remember His bloodshed poured
out, the sacrifice God required, provided and accepted. And we
thank Him. We praise Him. And we worship
Him. May the Lord help us to do that
today. May we as sinners look to Christ
and thank God for His mercy to us in Christ.