Tell you what, turn to Romans
chapter 12 and then put something there to hold your place and
then turn to Galatians chapter 5. That's about how to work prayer. Father, we thank you for this
beautiful morning that you've given to us today. And we thank you
once again for the ability and the blessing to be able to come
and to meet with the church. Father, we are so grateful for
all that you've done for us. We need your help this morning. We need your spirit to guide
us today. Father, I pray that you would
be with us. that you would give us ears to
hear and eyes to see, and that you would give us understanding
and enlightenment of your word. We pray that Christ will be exalted
in our worship today. We pray for these brethren that
are here. Lord, we pray that you would teach them by your
word, that you would give me the ability to minister the word
of God to them, Father. But we know that it's the spirit
that is the teacher. And so I pray, Lord, that you
would just give them understanding, give us all understanding of
who you are, what you've done for us. We're so grateful for
the salvation that you've given us in Christ. We are so grateful
for the forgiveness that we have through the blood of Jesus Christ,
and we have a righteousness that's been given to us. And Father,
we know it's all by grace. We know that it's not of any
merit of our own, any works of our own. It's not even by our
own belief that we receive these things, Father, but you give
it to us freely. And Lord, that you've given us
the measure of faith to trust it, and what you have done is
enough before God. And Lord, we just pray that the
Spirit would continue to preserve us in that faith, that you, as
you give us that measure each day, Lord, that you would give
us to look into upon Jesus, who is the author and the finisher
of our faith. And Father, we just pray now
today that you would be glorified in all things. It's in Jesus'
name we pray, amen. Well, brother, I again, I want
to thank brother JC Fulton, who was here with us last week, uh,
uh, for preaching. And as I mentioned last week,
um, I hadn't, you know, JC texted me yesterday or that morning
and said that they were coming up and, uh, I asked him kind
of on the spot, you know, uh, Hey, would you like to preach
when you get here? And, uh, We kind of went back and forth a
little bit just to, you know, well, I don't know. Well, it's
all right if you want to. Well, I hadn't prepared anything.
Well, that's OK. Don't worry about it. Just whatever
the Lord leads you to preach. And so he came and, you know,
so we didn't discuss anything. He came and preached whatever
the Lord had laid upon his heart to preach. And as I mentioned
last week, what he preached in Romans 12, was a very great segue
into the passages of scripture that we are going to look at. And that's a segue meaning an
entrance into, not the little thing that you drive. The verses that we're going to
be looking at today in Galatians chapter five, and I don't know
if we'll actually get to those verses because I do want to go
back and recap some things that J.C. had said or had mentioned. and look again at Romans chapter
12, because I think Romans chapter 12 is a great passage of scripture
that we have to understand a little bit whenever we're looking at
the passages that we have, or vice versa. The passages that
we are looking at today can shed light upon what we see in Romans
chapter 12. But let's go ahead and read our
verses here in Galatians chapter 5, we're at verses 16 and 17. And matter of fact, I'm probably
just going to go ahead and read down to verse 26, because we're
probably going to deal with this whole section as a whole, but
especially dwelling on 16 and 17 and 18. It says this, I say,
then walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of
the flesh for the lust for the flesh lusted against the spirit. So it says there. walk in the
Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." What
is the lust of the flesh? Well, the lust of the flesh is
the lust against the Spirit. It says, for the flesh lusts
against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And I'm going
to deal with those as we get to that, what we're talking about
here. It says, and these are contrary, the one to the other. And here's what's weird. Because
it's saying both sides. One towards the other. It's contrary.
The flesh lusts against the spirit. The spirit lusts against the
flesh. And these things are contrary one to the other. That means
that what this wants and what this wants are completely opposite
of each other. And it says that these things
are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot do the things
ye would. And we'll get into depth on that
later on. But keep that in your mind. You
cannot do. That's the reiteration that we've
been hearing over and over through Galatians and other parts of
the scripture that we've been pulling in as we've been looking
at this. Are we still under the law? Do we have to keep the law
for righteousness and acceptance or even preservation? Is the
law something that we have to do to become more holy by keeping
and obeying and all those things? Is that what Paul has been teaching?
But we've been seeing overwhelmingly that no, we cannot do the things
that we would. Paul said in Romans chapter seven,
I cannot do the things that I would. Why? Because the flesh is not
profitable and it can't do anything pleasing to God. And it's always
doing the things that I don't want to do. And then in my spirit,
it wants to do the things of God, but I cannot do the things
of God because my flesh is weak and I cannot do it. And he said,
there's this war going on in my mind and in my body between
my flesh and my spirit. The spirit is holy and blameless
and sinless and desires the things of God, but my flesh is weak.
It cannot do it. It's enabled, unable, enabled
to do it. It cannot do it. And so I cannot
do the things that God requires. I cannot do them. or that God has said, that God
has put down in his law. I can't do those things. So,
he says, but if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under
the law. Now the works of the flesh are
manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness,
revelings, and such like, of the which I tell you before,
as I have told you in times past, that they which do such things
shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance. Against us there is no law. and
they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections
and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let
us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain
glory, provoking one another, envying one another." So we see
here before us today in verse 16 it says, walk in the Spirit,
And ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. And so the
question remains again, is what does it mean to walk in the spirit?
What does it mean to walk according to the truth, to walk according
to the gospel, to obey the gospel, to obey the truth? All these
phrases that we've been seeing throughout the scripture, what
does that mean? Is it saying that we are to walk
according to the law? that we are to walk according
to the Ten Commandments, to the moral law, to the civil law,
to the ceremonial laws. All the laws that's in the Old
Testament that's been given by God, all the commandments of
God, those things are together as one. The Bible never does
separate those out into separate little pieces of law. This is
the ceremonial, this is the civil, this is the moral. This has gone
away, but this is still intact. The Bible has never disseminated
those things apart from each other. They are together as one
law, one body of commands that God has given and those bodies
of commands condemn the sinner. They show that we cannot keep
God's law. They are there to manifest the
inability in natural man to be able to provide a righteousness
acceptable to God. That was the reason. In Romans
chapter 5, the Bible says that the law came in that the offense
might abound. The reason from the very beginning
with Adam that God gave Adam a law, do not eat of this tree. The reason he gave him that law
is because Adam was created of the earth, earthy. He was created
natural, not spiritual. He was created natural. That's
1 Corinthians chapter 15. And in that he is made not spiritual,
meaning that he cannot keep the things of God. He cannot understand
the things of God. He is a natural man, and the
natural man cannot do spiritual things. And so Adam, from the
very beginning, was made as a vessel that would and did bring forth
sin and death. And God gave him a law because
the law was there to manifest what was inwardly, what was already
in Adam to begin with. And that is the fact that natural
man desires and seeks after his own righteousness. Man tries
to put himself up in the place of God just as Adam did. Remember
the serpent said, you can be as God. If you eat this fruit,
you're going to know good from evil. You can be as God. And
so what was the lust of Adam? Whenever Adam heard God say,
don't do that, And then he heard the snake say, half God said,
you're going to be just like God. That's the purpose. He doesn't
want you to do this because he knows you're going to be like
him. And what did Adam want? Adam lusted after being like
God. He wanted to perform his own
righteousness. And so what did he do? He ate
of the tree. And whenever he ate of the tree,
God opened his eyes to see the difference between good and evil.
And he realized that he was evil, that he had done wrong. that
he was naked and so what did Adam do? Did he go to God and
seek forgiveness? Did he go to God and seek God's
way of making up for that? No, what did Adam do? He went
and hid himself and tried to cover himself. He tried to make
things better by providing himself his own righteousness or his
own covering. So he sewed for himself a suit
of fig leaves. Was that acceptable to God? It
wasn't. No, God came and he saw the fig
leaves and he seen that Adam's eyes had been opened and he told
him, you know, this is not acceptable. The fig leaves aren't acceptable.
But let me kind of spark your thought here a little bit. Did
God remove his fig leaves? What did he do? The Bible says
that he killed an animal and he took the skins and he clothed
Adam with them. He never did say he took off
the fig leaves. He didn't tell Adam, take your fig leaves off.
Here's another coat. Now, the Bible says that God
clothed him with that. There still remained the fig
leaves. But God covered the fig leaves with the coat that he
provided. And that shows us, brethren,
that in this flesh, we still have the natural man, this flesh
that desires to make itself righteous before God by some sort of activity. by being good, by following the
rules, by following the law, by doing something that we think
will be provided to God and God will say, hey, I accept that,
well done by good and faithful servant. But yet, those fig leaves God
has not accepted and will not ever accept. Matter of fact,
if we come before God and that's all we have is fig leaves, and
we don't have a clothing that God has provided for us, God
will say, as He did in Matthew chapter 7, He will say, that
Parker made you doers of iniquity, for I never knew you. That's
what will happen. So we know that inherent in man
is this inability to keep God's law. God's law was there for
the purpose of shining the light on man so that those who are
the children of grace, who have been born from above, having
the Spirit of God in them, causing them to know the depravity of
their flesh, to know the inability of their flesh, God has provided
the Spirit of God there as a convicting principle that is telling them
that they are sinners and that they cannot do what God has commanded,
that they cannot keep this law and that he takes that and from
that he points them to Christ and what Christ has provided
for them. The good news. The good news
that yes, you cannot keep it, but guess what? Here's a substitute
that did it in your place. You see, the natural man can't
see that or understand that. They may get the facts here.
There are a lot of people out there in this world that call
themselves Christians And they believe Christ died for me, and
His righteousness is mine. And I can go to heaven because
Christ died for me. But yet they spend their whole
entire time trusting in what they've done. I remember back
in January 4th of 2001, I knelt at an old-fashioned altar, and
right there I was saved. And so they go back to their
experience of whenever they give their life to Jesus Christ, They
go back to an experience of whenever they prayed some prayer, or they
went through some baptistry, or they joined some church, or
they did some sort of an act before God, and they say, because
of that, I know that I am saved, and that because I did that,
you know, God's given me salvation. And now, from that point on,
I'm living my life for Jesus. I'm doing my best to do what
He tells me to do. And, you know, whenever I'm bad,
God's not happy with me and I break fellowship with Him and He turns
His back where He doesn't look towards me and I have to repent
and come back to Him and I have to keep this level of work, I
have to read my Bible, I have to pray, I have to do all these
things so that I can progress and become more and more Christ-like,
more and more holy, that I can grow in grace and knowledge,
which are two different things, by the way. being holy and growing
in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. That's not the
same thing. So people begin to call themselves Christians, and
they do all this stuff, and they're not looking to Christ alone.
They're still looking to what they've done. I know that I'm
saved because of what I did. I know I'm staying saved because
of what I believe and because of what I did back there. I can't
lose it. You know, a lot of the Baptists,
they'll say, hey, I can't lose my salvation. Once saved, always
saved. It's kind of funny, by the way, side note. Kind of funny,
those people that don't believe in sovereign grace, they don't
believe that God has elected and that God has sovereignly,
by irresistible grace, brought us to believe on Jesus Christ. They'll deny that. Oh, God would
never force us to be saved. He's a gentleman. I've heard
that by Adrian Rogers, by W.A. Criswell by other men. Oh, God's
a gentleman. He would not force us to be saved. He would not force us to come
and believe that he would not overstep our will. He would not
do that. He's a gentleman. But they'll turn around and say,
well, once we're saved, I can't ever lose that salvation because
God won't ever let me go. God won't let me walk away. God
won't let me turn my back. God won't let me walk away from
the faith. God won't let me deny Him, that
He keeps me, He makes me stay. Also, it's okay for God in His
sovereignty to make you stay saved, but He can't make you
saved. That don't make sense. See, it's not biblical. It's
inconsistent. It's unbiblical. So in this salvation, in this
keeping of salvation, the natural man wants to do something. He
wants to provide for himself his own righteousness. And we've
learned that that is not what walking in the Spirit is. Walking
in the Spirit is not walking in the works of the flesh. The
works of the flesh are the things that we do outwardly. The works
of the flesh are the things that we do And we think that because
we do that, God is now pleased with us and accepting of us.
And so that's what we need to do. And if we don't do that,
then God is not pleased with us. But brother, turn back, if you
would, to Romans chapter 12, because Brother JC brought up
something last week that I think is really good for us to understand.
Now, there may be a little bit of difference between what me
and Brother JC thinks about these sets of verses not much, but
there may be a little bit, and maybe there isn't. Maybe I just
misunderstood a couple of phrases that he mentioned, and I'm not
going to dissect and everything, because we do have mostly everything
we believe is in accord with each other. Somebody just needs
to get through to that guy about his eschatologies all. If he's
watching, he's going to laugh about that. Romans chapter 12,
let's read those two verses that he read last week because it's
very pertinent to what we need to know to understand what we're
looking at in Galatians. It says, I beseech you therefore
brethren, now that word therefore is very important, he mentioned
that last week too. You can even start the verse
out with therefore at the very beginning. Therefore I beseech
you brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is
your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world,
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye
may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of
God. So here, if you'll notice, number
one, if you'll notice here, it says, be not conformed to this
world, but be transformed, not by the walking in obedience to
the commands, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You need to think
differently, and that's what J.C. brought out last week. And
he said that the therefore, what was the therefore therefore?
We always say that, preachers always bring that up, Whenever
you see the word therefore, you want to find out what the therefore
is there for. But what does therefore, what
does the word itself therefore mean? It means everything that
I said before, I'm bringing all that to a summation that all
that has relevance to what's going on here now. Right? Now, this phrase here, present your
bodies a living sacrifice. People think that that means
that we're to take this body, we're to present it to the Lord,
and that we are to be a living sacrifice, meaning that we die
to ourselves daily, and we continue to walk in God's commands, and
we do what God tells us to do. And that's not what this verse
is meaning. That's not what the Bible has told us already about
this whole subject. Dying daily doesn't mean that
I put off myself and I die to myself and I do what God wants
me to do, that I'm yielding myself. That's not what that's talking
about. We'll talk about that one of these days as well. But
let me just start out with this saying. I don't have everything
figured out. I still have a lot to learn in
the scriptures. God has only given me the light
that he's given me. What little bit of infinitesimal
light that he's given me to understand things. And I need a lot more
light to understand a lot more things. But what light he has
given me, that's what I know. And I only know what I know.
And looking at this scripture, knowing what I do know is that
the Bible cannot be saying that these bodies can somehow buy
us be offered up to God as a holy, acceptable sacrifice to God. And I want to tell you the reason
why. Because we've got to understand,
because this is where people go whenever we preach that salvation
and the gospel and justification and sanctification are all in
Christ. Whenever we talk about that the
way that we walk in our living is to be by faith, alone, trusting
in Christ alone for our salvation, that looking to His righteousness
and not our own righteousness is what walking by faith or walking
in the truth, walking in the light, walking by the Spirit,
all these phrases we're talking about, that that is not us being
obedient to the law. It's not that. We have too many
places in Scripture that tell us that it's not that. So then
whenever we come here, if we're preaching those things, teaching
those things, everybody wants to say, well, what about Romans
12? Romans 12 tells us that we are to present our bodies a living
sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto the Lord, which is your
reasonable service. The way you serve God is by giving
your body over as a living sacrifice and be wholly and acceptable.
unto God. But brethren, we have to interpret
scripture in light of scripture and not by our philosophies or
our theologies or our man's doctrine. We have to look at what the Bible
says and interpret that in light of what the Bible says. We know
for a fact, number one, that Christ is the only sacrifice
that is acceptable for God. Christ is the one sacrifice. It is by His one offering of
Himself, and He only offered Himself once, and by that offering
has perfected every one of those whom He has sanctified. Turn
with me. Keep your hand there in Romans
12, but look with me at Hebrews chapter 10. Listen, it doesn't matter what
I think. It doesn't matter what Brother J.C. thinks or any other
preacher thinks. It doesn't matter what you think.
It doesn't matter what John Gill thinks or Gilbert B. Mead. It
doesn't matter what John Calvin, Westminster Confession of Faith,
Baptist Confession of Faith. It doesn't matter what any of
those things say. I don't care how many years of
history that men have been saying that's what this is saying. If
God's Word contradicts those things, we should reject the
teachings and traditions of men and go by what God's Word says. If God says present your body
a living sacrifice, but then it turns around and says, wait
a minute, there's only one sacrifice that's acceptable unto God. He
doesn't look at the sacrifices of bulls and goats. He doesn't
look at the obedience of man because the obedience of man
is faulty and short of the glory of God. So what is that talking
about in Romans chapter 12 when it says, present your bodies
a living sacrifice? holy and acceptable unto God.
It can't be meaning that. Well, look in Hebrews chapter
10 and look down with me, if you would, at verse 10. Well, let me just jump back here.
And I'll tell you what, maybe I should just start at verse
1. Start at verse 1. It says, for the law having a
shadow of good things to come. So the law was a shadow. of good
things to come. It wasn't the substance of it.
Jesus Christ was the substance of what the law was shadowing.
So if we're here and we're thinking that anything can happen by the
law, you're wrong. If we look out there when the
sun is shining and we have that bird feeder out there and the
sun is shining and that shadow is cast and you see that perfect
silhouette shadow of that bird feeder, And the bird comes and
flies and lands in that tree and says, hey, there's a bird
feeder down there. And he flies and tries to land
on that shadow. What's going to happen? He's
not going to land on anything, is he? He's just going to go
right straight to the ground. He's not going to be on the bird
feeder. He's going to be on the shadow. Is he going to be able
to even eat any bird feed? No, because there ain't nothing
in there. It's a shadow. Brethren, if we go to the law
thinking that we're going to gain righteousness, if we go
to the law and think that we're going to become holy by keeping
the law, which is the shadow of the substance, then we're
sorely mistaken, just like the bird. We're just going to fall
away to the ground. He says here, for the law having
a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the
things. Now listen to this. can never
with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually
make the comers thereunto perfect. So whether we're looking at the
Old Testament where they were trying to keep these laws and
whenever they were broke they had to bring these sacrifices,
make these sacrifices by the priest unto God, it never made
them perfect. All it did was say, see there,
you missed it again. Now the next time you do it,
you've got to be back here again tomorrow with the sacrifice.
You've got to be back here again tomorrow with the sacrifice.
Daily, over and over and over, the priest's job was never done.
He was killing animals all day long. People was having sacrifices. It was showing forth that they
can't keep the law. It could never make them perfect.
And so it says here that these things can never, with those
sacrifices which they offered year by year. So do you think
if they could not, by their sacrifices, breaking the law, taking their
sacrifices, presenting them to God. Do you think you, by your
sacrifices, by your trying to keep the commands, are going
to do anything different than they did? No. It cannot make
the comers there unto perfect. You say, well, we're not trying
for perfection. We'll get perfection at the end. We're just trying
our best. to be righteous before God. Brethren,
God is not going to accept that righteousness. Whenever you try
to do that, that is self-righteousness, which is unrighteousness. You're
trying to establish a righteousness of your own, and in doing that,
that is sin. You are sinning before God by
trying to create a righteousness. You reject the righteousness
of Christ, that has already been given to you and you're trying
to establish a righteousness of your own. That's why Paul
in Galatians told those Galatian believers, he said, you have
begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?
Can you by the flesh continue to be made perfect or to be something
or produce something unto perfection before God that he would accept? And it was said in a sarcastic
or in a In a, what's the word I'm thinking about? Anyway, it
was said in a way that was to lead back to no, you can't. You're
not gonna gain anything by doing that. By the deeds of the law
shall no flesh be justified. And listen, by the deeds of the
law shall no flesh be sanctified because we're also sanctified
in Christ Jesus. So we cannot be made perfect
by the law. It never was intended for that
purpose. Is the law good? Yes. Is the law holy? Yes. But it wasn't given to us as
a rule of life. It was given to us as a condemnation
unto death to condemn our sin. And the law condemned our sin
in the flesh, in the flesh of Jesus Christ. Our sin was condemned
In Christ Jesus, there is now no more condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus, because Christ Jesus took our condemnation. He took our sin, all the sin,
and the law keeping and the breaking of the law that we did, just
like these in the Old Testament. They tried to keep the law, they
broke the law, they had to have a sacrifice to cover the law.
Christ did that, but he did it once. One sacrifice, that sacrifice
was acceptable to God. We'll see that here in just a
second. He said, for then would they not have ceased to be offered,
because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more
conscience of sin. See, now we're not talking about
the acts of sin, we're talking about the conscience of sin.
One of the things that happens whenever we're born from above,
whenever the Holy Spirit of God is in us, is the Bible, or excuse
me, the Spirit, teaches us that we are hidden. Another thing
that it does is it convicts us of sin when we have sinned so
that we will confess that to God as sin and that we still
need His grace and forgiveness and His blood to cover us because
we cannot do anything before Him righteous. But another thing
that the Spirit does is the Spirit, just like it says right here,
it cleanses our consciousness It gives us a thinking of what
Christ has done that we no longer have to perform a righteousness
before God because He is our righteousness. It clears our
conscience. But the old law, the Old Testament,
all that stuff that was given before Christ came, even though
it was effective before Christ came because Christ's salvation
is the same before as it is after His death, the way people are
saved, But in that old covenant system, they had to bring the
sacrifice, bring the sacrifice, bring the sacrifice. And if you
had to every day bring the sacrifice, reminding yourself and everybody
around you, I'm a sinner. Guess who sinned yesterday? Here
I am with my sacrifice. Here I am with my sacrifice.
Here I am with my sacrifice. your conscience would never be
clear. Why? Because the law was continually
condemning you. The law was there saying, you
missed it, you missed it, you missed it, you missed it, you
missed it. Guess what? You missed it again. It's not
even noon yet and you've missed it 29,000 times. See, the law
is there to condemn. It's not there to make righteous.
It's there to show and manifest our inability, not to give us
ability. And so he says here, if that
would have been good, if the law keeping would have been perfect,
if that system would have been intended for that, then the people's
conscience would have been made clear because they would have
done what God had said. God would have provided that
salvation for them. cleared their conscience, and
they would have went right back about their business. But what?
What happened the very next time they sinned? Well, now I've sinned
again. Now I've got to come back here with another sacrifice.
Verse 3. But in those sacrifices there
is a remembrance again made of sins every year. That's what
I was just saying. Those sacrifices was a reminder
to everybody that we missed the mark. For it is not possible
that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Now let me stop there, brethren.
If it's not possible that the blood of bulls and goats can
take away sins, that was their reasonable act of service. Their
reasonable act of service was to present to their priest a
sacrifice that he would sacrifice on their behalf. If that does
not clear their conscience, and if that does not take away sin,
if that does not make them perfect, then brethren, your obedience
to the law, or your trying to be obedient to the law, is not
going to be accepted either. Just like these. It is not going
to be possible for that to take away your sins. So your trying
to obey the law is not going to make you less and less sinful. Just like third, taking sacrifices
to the priest did not make them less and less sinful. It just
showed how sinful they were because every day they're still here
sacrificing things to God by the priest. Same thing here,
brethren. If we try to keep the law, all
it's going to do is day by day by day completely tell us You're
not able. You're not able. It's not going
to make you less sinful. And people are preaching that
if you will read your Bible, if you will pray, if you will
yield yourself to God, if you'll give yourself over to Him, if
you'll let go and let God, then He will guide you and lead you
and you will become less and less sinful as you obey God's
order. If you see what God tells you
to do, obey it. And the more you obey God, the
less and less that you will want to sin, the less and less you'll
sin. Well, brethren, I hear the Bible,
and I take God's word over my word, over man's word, over my
carnal thoughts, I take God's word, where it says that it is
not possible that the sacrifices, let's just kind of condense the
blood of bulls and goats, that the sacrifices of man should
take away sins." Look at verse 5, "...wherefore when he cometh
into the world, he saith, Sacrifice..." Now listen, "...sacrifice and
offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me." So there is a body that was prepared
to be the sacrifice. There is a body prepared to be
a sacrifice. He said, I don't want your sacrifices,
but whenever I come in the world, God has prepared a body for me,
and I am going to be that sacrifice. Look at verse six. In burnt offerings
and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure. God has
not had any pleasure in anybody trying to sacrifice something
for their sin, as a removal of their sin, as a covering of their
sin, on exchange for their sin. God has not had any pleasure
and has not accepted that, not ever, nor will He ever. So what
do we see? Then, verse 7, then said I, lo, lo. Not that low. Then said I, Lo,
I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to
do thy will, O God." Who's the one that's come to do the will
of God? Christ. Everything in the book is written
about Him. Lo, in the volume of the book,
everything in God's Word is written about Him. All those commandments,
as we've seen, is a picture of Christ, is a shadow of the substance
which was Christ. He said, lo, I come to do thy
will, O God. Above, when He said, sacrifice
an offering and burn offerings and offerings for sin thou wouldest
not, neither has pleasure therein, which are offered by the law. Anything you offer by the law,
whether it's bulls and goats or whether it's do this, do this,
do this, do this, do this, do this, do this, do this, whatever
it is, drink that, don't drink that, eat that, don't eat that.
He said, Those things are not pleasing to God. You say, well
it had to be pleasing to God because He commanded it. Absolutely,
He did. And sometimes God predestines,
ordains, decrees, commands things that are not His pleasure. You say that don't make any sense. What about Christ dying? Was
that sinful? Absolutely it was. Was those
men in their mockery and blasphemy and their lying about Christ,
their false accusations, was there spitting on him, their
ripping out of his beard, the whip-frogging him with the cat-and-lion
tails, the beating him with a staff? Was that sinful? Was there exchanging Barabbas
for Jesus? A sin, absolutely it was. But God says that God decreed
that from the foundation of the world in His eternal counsel.
That He decreed everything that took place on that. He said, Then said He, Lo, I
come to do Thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
He might establish the second. He takes away the first covenant
that He might establish the better covenant, the new covenant. Now look at verse 10. By the
which will? Now what will are we talking
about? The will of God. Verse 9. Then
said He, I come to do Thy will, O God. The work of Christ and
His ministry in the flesh on our behalf as our substitute
and our surety, that's what he's talking about,
by that will. The will that Christ would come
and be the substitute for the people that God before the foundation
of the world had sanctified and preserved in Christ Jesus. Those
who God had before the foundation of the world set His love upon
and where He said, I have loved thee with an everlasting love
and He'd give those people to the Son. He wrote their names
down in the Lamb's Book of Life and that He gave them to Christ
and they were in union with Christ Jesus even before they were manifested
in the flesh. They were given to Christ Jesus.
And the will of God was that that man who stood for us as
our substitute, as our surety, as the Lamb slain before the
foundation of the world would come in time and redeem those
people who were born in Adam, born of the same love, and come
out of that love as still sinners by nature, but out of those people,
he would redeem those people to himself once again. and that
in doing so he would take, and although that man was still by
nature a child of Adam, he would put inside that vessel of clay,
that vessel that has been cleaned on the inside but still putrid
on the outside, he puts in a treasure that cannot sin. He puts in a
treasure that is righteous, that is holy, that cannot break the
will of God, that cannot go against the will of God, that is perfect. And that's on the inside. But
what we are by Adam is still on the outside. He says, by the which will we are
sanctified through obedience to the law. Is that what that
says there? It says no. Through the offering
of the body of Christ Jesus Christ once for all. Now that word for
all there is added, but the phrase for all there doesn't mean for
all people everywhere, head for head, without exception. It's
once for all time. He has offered that body once
for all time. So whenever he died on the cross,
that right there was what the basis of, for all the people
in the Old Testament, they were saved because of what Jesus Christ
would come and do in time. They got it just like we got
it. It was delivered just like it's delivered to us. They trusted
in Christ as their salvation, as their righteousness, as we
found in Abraham's testimony. so that they are saved, we are
saved, both sides of the cross, but both sides of the cross was
saved based upon what was done on that cross and what was done
on that cross was already decreed by God before the foundation
of the world to be their salvation before God ever created anything.
That's why it's called eternal covenant, an everlasting covenant. That's why we call it eternal
salvation. That's why we have eternal life.
Because the life didn't start when Christ died. The life didn't
start whenever we first believed. The life didn't start here. The
life began back before the foundation of the world. And that life was
hid with Christ, or hid in God, in Christ Jesus. We already had
the life. The life was already delegated
to us. who we are. Michael Smith, who
I am as a child of grace, is not this flesh. This flesh is
gonna dissolve and be nothing. But who I am in Christ Jesus
is who I am on that inward man who existed and lived as life
before the foundation of the world in Christ Jesus. I have
my life in Christ, just like Eve had her life in Adam before
she was ever brought forth out of Adam and manifested. We have
life in Christ Jesus like a spiritual thing, a non-corporeal thing,
a non-tangible touchy thing. It is a spiritual thing. That
life, who we are in the Spirit, was in Christ Jesus before the
foundation of the world. And He, like Adam, is our head. He, like Adam, had His bride
taken out of Him. We are brought out of Christ
and we are manifested before others as His people, just like
Eve was manifested out of Adam. And so Christ has done that once
for all time, whether it's all time back to Adam, all time going
forward to the last day, He has provided one sacrifice and once
for all time. There is no more sacrifices that's
going on. Because this is the only sacrifice
that matters. Because this is the only sacrifice
that satisfies God. No other sacrifice is going to
satisfy God except the work of Christ Jesus. And he says, by
the which will we are, not will be, but are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all. Verse 11, and every priest standing
daily, ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices
which can never take away sins. So here again, in the Old Testament,
making those sacrifices cannot take away sin. In the New Testament,
you present yourself as a sacrifice and trying to keep the law is
not going to take away your sins. It's not going to make them less
and less and more and more holy. This is clear as day in the Word
of God. So we have to interpret Romans
12 by the rest of Scripture that is very clear that we cannot
provide a sacrifice unto God that He requires, that He is
pleased with, that He is accepted with. So God, because we cannot,
His people, cannot provide anything, and I would say with everybody
else, We have a mind that we would want to do that, we would
want to be right and holy, but nobody can provide a sacrifice. So what did God do? God provided
that. Isn't that what he told Abraham?
Whenever he came down to talk to Abraham, and what did Abraham
do? He believed God, that God was going to provide for him
a righteousness outside of himself, and it was called the seed. That
he was going to provide a seed who would be Abraham's righteousness. And that that man, that he looked
forward and he saw Christ afar off, he saw Christ and what did
he do? He believed God that that was
his righteousness and not what Abraham was going to do. But
what did Abraham go right out and do? He tried to make a righteousness
of his own. So what did he do? He laid with
his handmaiden and he had Ishmael. See, there's the natural man
trying to do things in his own work. But the spiritual man believes
on Christ. Abraham had the nature of man,
had the nature of Christ. He had that in him. And they
warred against each other. But the flesh didn't profit anything.
Because what happened? He told, take Ishmael and Hagar,
his mother, and they have to be cast out. They're to be cast
out. They're not part of the promise.
And just like us, the spiritual man is to be the one that we
think about, is the one that is the center of our attention,
and I don't mean to take away from Christ, but what we're talking
about here. The inward man, because the outward
man has to be cast off. The outward man has to be cast
out, just like Ishmael and Hagar, because they are products of
the flesh, and they cannot please God. They cannot. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his
footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected,
here it is, for by one offering, by one sacrifice, he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. And we've already learned, we're
the ones who have been sanctified. We were sanctified by God the
Father and preserved in Christ Jesus before the foundation of
the world. We talked about that two weeks ago. So that sanctification is in
Christ Jesus based upon what He did on the cross. That's what
solidified everything for us as our substitute. He solidified
all of the blessings of God, all of the gifts of God, all
of the things that have been given in Christ Jesus or that
is good and gifted by God is because of what Christ Jesus
has done. And it says that he is perfected then. Now, let me
ask you, if you try to keep the law, Does that make you more
perfect? How can you build upon perfection? If something is perfect, how
can you make it perfecter, more perfect? If it's perfect, it
means it's without flaws. If it's perfect, it means it's
matured to its fullest extent. If it's perfect, it means that
it is not lacking anything. So if we're perfect in Christ
Jesus, if He has perfected us already by His death, then there
isn't any more perfecting as far as becoming more holy. So all these people that believe
in progressive sanctification have erred in their understanding
of God's Word. God's Word has said that that
sanctification is in Christ Jesus. It's not in our law keeping.
Now look, if you would, verse 15. Whereof the Holy Ghost also
is a witness to us, for after that he said before, this is
the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith
the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts and in their
minds will I write them. And their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Now where remission of these
is, there is no more offering for sin. So our sins have been remitted,
brethren, by the blood of Christ. There has been remission of sin.
And it says here, where remission of sin is, or where remission
of these is, meaning sins, there is no more offering for sin.
Christ was the offering for sin. So that means there's no more
offerings that is out there that's available for you to do for your
sins. Why? Because God's offering...
Matter of fact, go back to Abraham again. Remember, not only did
he tell Abraham that he was going to be his righteous, remember
when he had Isaac and he took Isaac and he said, I want you
to take Isaac up on the Mount Moriah and I want you to bind
him by hand and foot and I want you to put him on top of that
altar and I want you to plunge a knife into his heart and I
want you to offer him as a burnt sacrifice. And Abraham probably
was thinking in his mind, wait a minute, this is the child that
you said that the promise was going to come by. that my lineage
was going to come from, that the Messiah was going to come
from, the seed that you told me was going to be my righteousness
was going to come from Isaac. And you told me that this is
the promised child and that I would have all this seed or these people
of my lineage like the sands of the sea or the stars of the
sky. And you're not even going to
tell me to take him up on this mountain and to kill him as a
sacrifice? You see, Abraham had been taught of God from whenever
he had Ishmael. So he tried to take things into
his own hand with Ishmael. But now Abraham, by God's teaching,
had learned to trust the Lord. The Lord said Abraham was going
to be the child of promise. And if he tells me to take him
up onto that mountain and to sacrifice him, that's what I'm
going to do because I'm going to trust that God knows what
he's doing. And what God has said, I'm going
to trust. So if I take him up there and
I plunge that knife in his heart and burn that boy up, that God
will raise him from the dead because he promised that this
boy would be the child of promise, that through this child, I would
see all these things. And so as they went up on that
mountain and Isaac was walking along, carrying the sticks and
whatever on the way up. And remember, this was a young
child. This was a young man. And he's
walking up and he knows, hey, we're supposed to be offering
up a burnt offering here, but it's just me and dad and some
woods. Where's the lamb? Where's the
sacrifice? What are we going to do? And
so, Isaac asked Abraham, I know that we're going up here to make
a burnt offering, but where is the, where is the sacrifice?
Where's the lamb? And Abraham said, God will provide
a sacrifice. God will provide a lamb. And
whenever they got up there, Abraham got Isaac laid out upon the altar,
bound him up, prepared the sticks, and was just about to shove the
knife into him to kill him for the burnt sacrifice. And God
stopped him, said, stop. Over in the thicket. There's
a ram stuck. There's your sacrifice. And so
he didn't have to sacrifice Isaac. That was God's plan altogether,
was to prove to Abraham the faith of God. It wasn't to see if Abraham
would do it. It was to prove the faith of
Christ in Abraham. It was to prove that Abraham
had faith and trusted God that even if I had to kill my son,
God's still going to be going to keep his promise. And brethren,
listen, for us, God has provided a sacrifice. He's provided a
sacrifice. We don't have to be that sacrifice,
just like Isaac don't have to be that sacrifice. Isaac being
sacrificed to God would not have been acceptable to God anyway. Everything that we do as a living
sacrifice is not going to be pleasing to God. So there has
to be another living sacrifice, another body. Who is our body
that we offer as a living sacrifice when we come into the presence
of God? It's the body that was prepared for us, which was Christ
Jesus. He is the body that is prepared
for us. God, can you believe that? God
in His everlasting love for His elect and His love for them in
the redemptive work that would be Christ Jesus prepared a body
for Himself to inhabit and to come and to die in. He offered Himself a living sacrifice
for us as a substitute. And whenever we come into the
throne room of God, whenever we have sinned, and whenever
we have doubts, and whenever we are feeling like we cannot
do what God wants us to do, and that battle of the flesh is there,
and we desire the things of God, we desire holiness, we desire
righteousness, we desire obedience, but yet we find that it's not
there, and we go to the throne room of God where He tells us
that you can come into the throne room of God, and that you can
boldly come, to the throne room of God and present your supplications. We don't come alone. We come
because there is a living sacrifice for us that is there. We have one who is living before
us who is our sacrifice. Christ Jesus. And the Bible says
that he ever lives to intercede for us. So that whenever we come
into that throne room of God, we don't have to come and be
cowardly. We can come boldly because we
have been clothed in righteousness. We have been clothed in the work
of Christ Jesus. He was our sacrifice. And we
have been made perfect in Christ Jesus. And we can come before
Him and we can say, we have sinned. And God says, I have removed
that sin. That sin is no more there. Don't
worry about that sin. It has all been taken care of
by my blood. Where there is remission of these,
there is no more offering of sin. Having therefore, brethren,
boldness, to enter into the holiness by the blood of Jesus. Now here
it is, by a new and living way which He had consecrated for
us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. How do we
come by a new and living way? A new and living way. Now, he's
saying that there is a new and a living way. What's the opposite
of new and living way? Old and dead. Old and dead way,
right? And old and dead way. We don't
come by the old way, we come by the new way. We don't come
by the dead way, we come by the living way. Now, why do I bring
that up? Well, brethren, I bring that
up because the new and living way is speaking of, not by the
old letter. The old way, by the old letter,
by the law, can't do anything. Look if you would with me before
we jump there at Hebrews, I'm sorry, 1 Samuel 2.2. I kind of got ahead of myself just a little bit, so I'm going
to backtrack just a hair. There's a couple of things I
wanted to point out before I got down to doing it anyway. In 1
Samuel chapter 2, and look with me at verse 2. It says, There is none holy as the
Lord, for there is none beside thee, neither is there any rock
like our God. So when Paul says, to present
your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto the
Lord, is there any way that you can present
your body holy before God? What does it say right here?
There is none holy as the Lord. None. Now, there is not shades
of holiness. You're either holy or you're
unholy. You're not holy-ish, okay? You're holy or you're unholy.
The Bible says that we are unholy. That's talking about our flesh.
That's talking about who we are in Adam. We are unholy. So if Paul is saying, present
your body, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable. Is he saying
that there's something that we can do in our body to make it
holy so that we can present it before God? Well, it can't be
because there's none holy as the Lord. Look at Isaiah chapter
54. Again, brethren, we have to interpret
Scripture in light of Scripture. Isaiah 54. And sometimes we may
not know what the answer is. But if we interpret Scripture
by Scripture and we see, we may not know what it is, but we can
definitely know what it isn't saying. We may not know fully
what it does say, but we can know what it's not saying. What
we've already seen, we know that it's not saying to present your
body as a living sacrifice because there are no sacrifices acceptable
for God except for Christ Jesus. By the one sacrifice, He has
perfected them for all time. And now he's saying to be holy. Well, the Bible here and in many
other places says that we're not holy. Isaiah 54. Look with
me if you would down to verse 17. No weapon that is formed against
thee shall prosper. I'm not in the right spot. Isaiah 54, 17. No weapon that
is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that
shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the
heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness
is of Me, saith the Lord." See, their righteousness is in and
of themselves. They don't make themselves holy. Them in and
of themselves is not. God doesn't impute His righteousness
to you and then start imparting righteousness in your flesh so
that your flesh can start becoming more holy. The flesh is always
going to be unholy. It's never going to be holy.
That's why it has to dissolve and die and go back to the dust
where it was created from. And that's why the new body that
will be given to you at the resurrection will be given to you because
that body is created perfect and holy and righteousness in
the image of Christ Jesus. We will be conformed to the image
of Christ whenever we receive the body, likened to His spiritual
body and not this earthly atom body. That is just flip. She
cannot produce anything righteous. So it's never about us producing
a righteousness. It's always looking to His righteousness. And what was His righteousness?
His righteousness was Him fulfilling the will of God. That's what
we just read a while ago. I've come to do Thy will, O God.
In the volume of the book, it is written to me. I have come
to do Thy will. What was the will of God? That
He would come as the substitute in obeying the law for His people
for dying as their sacrifice and then rising for their justification. That, brethren, is where righteousness
comes from. Look at Romans chapter 7 again.
Romans chapter 7. I quoted from this just a few
minutes ago, but look if you would at Romans chapter 7 and
verse 14. Again, this is the chapter where
Paul is in that consternation of the flesh and the spirit,
and he says in verse 17, he says, Now then, it is, excuse me, 14. For we know that the law is spiritual,
but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow
not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that I do."
Why? Because that inward man is perfect
and it wants holiness and righteousness and the will of God, but the
flesh can't ever produce it. Remember, we read at the very
beginning of this in Galatians 5. He said, if we walk in the
Spirit, we will not, or excuse me, that the flesh lusts against
the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, so that ye cannot
do what ye would. Well, this is Paul saying it
again in another letter to another group of people. Say the same
thing. Now then, it is no more I, or
excuse me, verse 16. If then I do that which I would
not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then, it is no
more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that
in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For the will is
present with me, that's the inward man, But how to perform that
which is good I find not, that's the outward man. So brethren, if Paul says present
your bodies as a living sacrifice, there's only one sacrifice, that's
Christ. There's only one living sacrifice,
that is Christ Jesus our intercessor. Holy, there's only one who's
holy, that's Christ. But what about this being disacceptable
before the Lord? Well, Paul also taught about
that. Look at Ephesians chapter 1. Are we made acceptable by our
keeping the law? Are we made acceptable by our
trying? Ephesians chapter 1 verse 6. Now, of course, we see everything
that's gone before this, that has nothing to do with you as
far as your efforts. or your work or your participation.
Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who hath blessed us with all what? Spiritual blessings in
heavenly places in Christ. According as He has chosen us
in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love. We were chosen before
the foundation of the world We were given gifts before the foundation
of the world, blessed with all spiritual blessings and heavenly
places. Well, who was born? I wasn't born yet. How could
he be giving me that? Well, he did it to us in Christ
Jesus. Remember, we were in Christ. Our life was hid in Christ with
God before the foundation of the world. We were there in life
form, in seed form, just as Eve was in Adam before she was brought
forth. And just like with Eve, she was
blessed with Adam. Whenever God made Adam and He
blessed Adam and He said, He's good and He blessed him and giving
him everything in the garden to live by, except don't eat
of this one tree. The blessing was on Eve as well
because she was in Adam. But if you look there, The reason
that He put us in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the
world and blessed us with all spiritual blessings, we were
sanctified by God. We were preserved in Christ Jesus.
We were justified. We were sanctified. All those
blessings that are in Christ Jesus was given to us before
the foundation of the world, and God declared them, decreed
them, and looked on them as such. known unto God are all His works,
the end from the beginning. The outcome of everything that
God has decreed and purposed, He already looks at them as though
they are already done from the foundation of the world. So He
looks at us as holy and without blame. Why? Because we're in
Christ Jesus. We've been united to Christ.
We are in Him. And He is standing as our surety
and representative. We are holy and without blame
because His righteousness has been imputed to us and our sins
have been imputed unto Him. Having predestinated us under
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to
the good pleasure of His will. Again, that had nothing to do
with any of us, none of us. But look at verse 6. To the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein What's wherein mean? He's talking about where
did this come from? It came from His grace. What did
His grace produce? He hath made us accepted in the
Beloved. Present your body as a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable before the Lord. How do we get
accepted before the Lord? Is it by our law keeping? Is
it by our trying? Is it by our obedience? No, the
Bible says that we are made accepted before God by one way, by being
in Christ Jesus. We are accepted in the Beloved,
in Him. That's how we're accepted. It's
not accepted by our performance. So presenting our bodies and
living sacrifice is to look unto Jesus the author and the finisher
of our faith, to look unto Jesus who is our life, to look unto
Jesus who is our righteousness, our holiness, our acceptance
before God. So Paul, back in Romans again,
Paul has spent 11 chapters telling us how we were elected,
how we were called, how we were justified and how we were sanctified
by God in the body of Jesus Christ. And so he begins chapter 12 with,
therefore, meaning in light of what I just said, in light of
what I just taught, or taking into consideration the fact that
you have been elected, called, justified, and sanctified, Those
are the blessings of God before the foundation of the world.
Taking into consideration these things, that word, therefore,
can also mean because you have been elected, called, justified,
and sanctified, or in the consequence of everything that went before. Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service. Our reasonable service,
if you remember, Jesus said that everything falls down, as far
as our service is concerned, falls down to two things. Love
God and love your neighbor as yourself upon these things you
fulfill all along. To love God and to love your
neighbor. Your neighbor is your brother in Christ, by the way.
The word neighbor in the Old Testament means those of the
flock. That's what that means. So, look with me at Acts chapter
13. Acts chapter 13. Hopefully nobody's checked out
on me. I'm going to run a little bit
long here. Acts chapter 13. Look with me at verse 32. And we declare unto you glad
tidings How that the promise which was made unto the fathers,
God hath fulfilled the same unto us, their children. In that,
how did God fulfill the promise? How did God fulfill the promise
of righteousness? Salvation? Was it through law keeping? Well,
no. We know that the Bible said that all the forefathers couldn't
keep the law. and keep offering sacrifices.
And it never perfected anybody. How did God perfect salvation
and righteousness? That He hath raised up Jesus
again. And it is also written in the
second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee. And as concerning that He raised
Him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption,
He said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of
David, the promises of David, the holy things of David. Wherefore,
he saith also in another psalm, thou shalt not suffer thy holy
one to see corruption. For David, after he had served
his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep and was
laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption. But he whom God raised
again saw no corruption. Be it known unto you, therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you
the forgiveness of sins." So forgiveness of sins comes through
Jesus Christ. Now look at verse 39. And by
Him, Jesus Christ, All that believe are justified
from all things from which ye could not be justified by the
law of Moses. It's by Christ that we are justified
by all things. And it says here that we could
not be justified by the law of Moses. Keeping the law will never
justify a righteousness before God. So there's only one sacrifice
that's acceptable for God, and that's the sacrifice of the Lord
Jesus. His sacrifice can be viewed as a living sacrifice because
He ever lives to intercede. And by His Spirit, He's put within
the child of grace hope. He's put in him faith. He's put
in him assurance that the sacrifice, that what Christ has done is
theirs, and they are a partaker of that. and that they are accepted in
the beloved. Now, go back to Hebrews 10 again. Hebrews chapter 10. And again, I want you to see verse
19. We read it just a few minutes ago. He said, Having therefore, brethren,
boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus Christ.
You remember, in the tabernacle, there was a veil that came down
that separated the outer part and the inner part, which was
the holiest of holies. That's where the priest went
in every year on the Day of Atonement, and he offered up the sacrifice
for the nation. And whenever he went in, He had
to go in exactly the way God had told him to dress. He had
to purify himself, go through the purification rituals that
he had to do. He had to put on all the garb
that he was supposed to put on. He had to sacrifice the sacrifice
exactly the way God told him to. And by history, we know that
there was also, they would tie a rope around his foot because
nobody could go into the holiest holies except the high priest
that year, whoever was the high priest that year. They were the
only ones that could go into the Holy of Holies. Nobody else
could go into the Holy of Holies, because that's where God and
His glory would come down upon the altar and upon the Ark of
the Covenant, and where the altar was, which is the top of the
Ark of the Covenant, and He would come down and His glory would
be upon that place. That was the mercy seat right
there. And that's where the priests would come and sacrifice and
spread the blood. was upon that altar right there.
And they would wrap a rope around his foot because if he went in
unworthy, not having cleansed himself properly, not adorning
himself properly, not performing the things properly, that God
would strike him dead and they would have to take that rope
and pull the dead body out because they couldn't go in there. I
mean, it was holy, unapproachable. Nobody could go in that was not
cleansed. That's why the priest had to
cleanse himself. He had to go through that ritual
that God told him. would be acceptable cleansing to come in. But whenever
Jesus died, that veil the Bible says was written to, it split
in half from top to bottom and it opened up the holiest of holies
where we now can come boldly before God with the blood of
Christ. That's what that's talking about.
That's what he's talking about here. Having therefore, brethren,
boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Well, let's look at what the Bible says about that also in
Ezekiel chapter 36. Familiar verses to us. Ezekiel 36. Now remember, this is a What's acceptable unto the Lord
is the work of Christ alone. Look at verse 36, he says, or
chapter 36 and verse 25, he says, then will I sprinkle clean water
upon you and ye shall be clean. See the priest, he couldn't go
into the deal without being cleansed. Now the Bible says that we, the
flesh, that inner man, he's sprinkled with clean water. He's clean. He said, then will I sprinkle
clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness
and from all your idols will I cleanse you. He says, a new heart also will
I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take
away the stony heart out of your flesh and will give you a heart
of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk
in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do them. Where
are we going to do those? We're going to do those in the
Spirit. That's the one that's been sprinkled clean. That's
what's been given a new heart, is that Spirit man, that inner
man. We have that in us. And the Bible says here that
in the inward man, we will serve the law of God. That's what Paul
was saying in Romans 7. With my mind, with the inner
man, with who that is in me, I will serve the law of God.
But with my outward man I'll serve the law of sin. Here he's
saying the same thing. I will put my spirit within you
and cause you to walk in my statues and ye shall keep my judgments
and do them. Why? Because within the spirit
man we keep the law of God. We're perfect. We cannot sin. But in the outer man all he can
do is sin. So here is that new and living
way. The old way under the letter killeth. The Bible says that
it killeth. Look in Romans chapter 2 verse
29. Romans chapter 2 verse 29. As
a matter of fact, let's look at verse 25 because in Galatians
we're dealing with the fact that they were being told that they
had to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses and be circumcised
to be saved and to keep saved. Verse 25 says, For circumcision
verily profit if thou keep the law, but if thou be a breaker
of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. And we
all know that we can't keep the law, so it don't amount for anything. Therefore, if the uncircumcision
keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision
be counted for circumcision. And we all know that we can't
provide a righteousness of our own. So we can't keep the law,
we can't provide a righteousness. We're hopeless, helpless, without
Christ. Verse 27, shall not uncircumcision, which is by nature, if it be,
if it fulfill the law, judge thee, whom by the letter and
circumcision does transgress the law. For he is not a Jew,
and this is what I want to get to, For he is not a Jew which
is one outwardly." So the circumcision isn't the circumcision of flesh.
He's going to say that. Neither is that circumcision which is
outward in the flesh. The circumcision, the reason
for circumcision was a sign of a cleansing of the flesh or putting
away of the flesh. That's what circumcision was.
It was a sign and a symbol for a putting away of the flesh or
putting off of the flesh, cleansing from God. And so here, he says circumcision
doesn't have anything to do if you can't keep the whole law.
There is no putting away of the flesh if you can't keep the whole
law, which no man can. And the flesh can't ever produce
a righteousness, and so that you will not Your uncircumcision
doesn't count for anything because you can't perform a righteousness
before God. So whether you're circumcised
or you're uncircumcised, it doesn't matter because the outward flesh
cannot do anything to make itself better, to perform a righteousness,
and it performing unrighteousness doesn't keep it from the promises
of God. For he is not a Jew. Who is a
Jew? One that has been circumcised
in the flesh. That's how they became Jews.
If a Hebrew had a Gentile that came into their camp or came
into their house, for them to do that, what was they supposed
to do? For every male, they were supposed to circumcise that man
if he was 12 days or older. Right? Or eight days, something
like that. They were supposed to circumcise
him. That's a tough way. It's already hard enough to get
people to come to church now, right? And to say, hey, you want
to convert over to be sovereign grace? Which we can't do that
anyway. Spirit has to do that. But try
to invite people to church whenever the way that you get to come
into the church is you got to be circumcised. You got to cut
the flesh. But these people that came in,
then they would be considered a Jew. Even though they were
Gentiles, they would be considered a Jew because of the circumcision.
But here Paul says, for he is not a Jew which is one outwardly. Neither is that circumcision
which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew which is one
inwardly. And circumcision is that of the
heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter. We've got an old
and dead way. We've got a new and living way.
It's not about circumcision. It's not about anything you do
in the flesh. It's not about the outward man. It's about what
is being done in the inward man. But he is a Jew which is one
inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit
and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of
God. So see, the reason God does this
is so that praise would go to God and not man. If you can clean
yourself up, your own self, or by even somebody else doing it
for you, then that is not praise to God, that is praise to yourself. In Romans 7-6, back in Romans
7 again, 7-6 it says, But now we are delivered from the law
that being dead, remember, Old dead, new living. Old dead way,
new living way. For we know that, or where was
I? Romans 7, verse 6. But now we are delivered from
the law. That's the letter of the law.
We're delivered from the law, which is the letter. When it
talks about the letter, it's talking about the law. But now
we are delivered from the law of that being dead wherein we
were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit. There's
the new and living way. We serve, how do we serve God? In the newness of the spirit
and not in the oldness of the letter or the old law. The oldness
of the law. The old covenant was law. The
new covenant is spirit. It isn't the law. We serve by
grace now. We serve in the Spirit now, not
in the flesh, not in the outward working of the flesh, but in
the Spirit. Let's look at one more verse.
That's in 2 Corinthians 3. 2 Corinthians chapter 3, starting in verse 3. I'm going to read down to verse 18. It
says, For as much as ye manifestly declared to be the epistle of
Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit
of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables
of the heart." So here he's saying, listen, you guys are our epistle. What's an epistle? It's a writing. These are epistles. This is the
epistle to the Corinthians. This is the epistle to Timothy. These are the epistles. And he's saying, ye are our epistles,
written in our hearts. He says, for as much as you manifestly
declared to be the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, and
we ministered unto you these things about Christ, and now
you have become this. But he said, but it's not written
with ink. That would be something that
you could see, right? If you had a letter written with ink.
I remember whenever I was a kid, we used to have, and now I can't
even remember how you make it, but whenever I was a kid, You
could buy these little books and when you opened them up,
you couldn't see nothing. There was nothing on the page.
But if you took certain pencils and stuff, you could color on
that and all of a sudden the picture would appear. You could
also make stuff, and I can't remember what it was. It may
have been with soap or something like that, that you could make
stuff and you can draw with your finger and it wouldn't show up,
but then it would show up if you like scribble over it or
something like that. Anyway, you couldn't see it. It wasn't
there. But if you wrote with ink, it's definitely there, right?
Okay, look what he says here. He says, but with the Spirit
of the living God, not in tables of stone, that's speaking of
the Old Testament law, but in fleshly tables of the heart.
See, it's an inward thing. It's a spiritual thing. It's
how we minister and serve. How do we serve? We serve in
the Spirit. We serve through our Spirit.
Verse 4, and such trust have we through Christ who God-worthy.
Not that we are sufficient ourselves. Now look at this and pay close
attention, brother. I know I've been long. I've been way over.
And if you're watching or listening, if you're here, hang in there
with me. He says not that we are sufficient
of ourselves. That says a lot. We are not sufficient
in ourselves to serve God in the outward way, in the outward
flesh, in the in the works of our flesh. Not that we are sufficient
of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency
is of God. How do we serve God? By looking
at the sufficiency that is in Him, which is Christ. Christ
is the sufficiency of God. He is sufficient for our righteousness. He is sufficient for our obedience. He was sufficient for our death
penalty. He is sufficient for our life. He is sufficient. Verse six, who hath made us able
ministers of the New Testament, not the old, the New Testament. Not of the letter, that's the
law, but of the Spirit. He hath made us ministers of
the Spirit, not the law, not the letter. We're not to minister
Christ by the keeping of the law, but through the Spirit. For the letter, here it is, The
letter killeth. What happens when something's
killed? It's dead, right? Old, dead, new, living. The letter killeth. The law killeth. The law condemns to death. The law brought death whenever
Paul said, when the law came in, I died. That's what it means to die daily.
Die daily isn't this encouragement for you to put off yourself,
pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and go out and try to obey God
as best as you can, as I used to preach, as I used to believe,
as I used to teach everyone. It's not even me guilting myself
to Christ so that Christ through me can do all those things. That's
not what dying to yourself is. Whenever Paul said that I die
daily or that I die whenever the law came in, I died. Dying
daily means that he found out by the law, through the law,
that he could not keep the works of God, the works of the commandments
of God. Therefore, the law condemned
him to death. And every day he found out that
the law condemns me. I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead.
I'm dead. I'm dead. When the law comes in, I die.
So the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. But if the
ministration of death, written and engraved in stones, talking
about the law, was glorious, so that the children of Israel
could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory
of his countenance, which glory was to be done away with. Remember,
Moses went up on a mountain, and he got the law from God,
and he came back down from the mountain whenever he did. The
Bible said that Moses' face shined so much that nobody could look
upon it, and so Moses had to put a veil over his face because
the glory of God had so much reflected upon Moses, and in
this law, he had to put a veil over himself. They couldn't even
look at him. But eventually, that glory faded
away. That was a foreshadow of what was to come. The law was
there for a purpose, but it would soon fade away because the old
dead way is not the way of the Spirit. It's the new and living
way. That's the way of the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit, living
in the Spirit, led by the Spirit is not leading you to try to
obey the law because that's the old dead way that kills. Verse
8, How shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious?
If there was some glory to the law, which there is because it
brings us to our understanding and our need for Christ, but
if that is glorious, how much more the ministration of the
Spirit that is within us, which is perfect. The law isn't perfect. It can't
make perfect, but the Spirit is perfect. And we have been
made perfect in Christ Jesus by the ministration of the Spirit.
Or if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the
ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. Now this is
the ministration of righteousness, but how is the ministration of
righteousness? It's not by the outward working of the old letter,
but it's the inward working of the Spirit. That's how the ministration
of righteousness is done, by the inward Spirit. For even that which was made
glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory
that excelleth. For if that which is done away
was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness
of speech, and not as Moses, which put a veil over his face,
that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end
of that which is abolished, But their minds were blinded, for
until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the
reading of the Old Testament. The veil is done away in Christ.
But even until this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon
their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn
to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away." Now, the Lord is
that Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty. Now the Lord is that Spirit.
What Spirit? The Lord is that Spirit. He's
the one ministrating the ministration of the Spirit. He's the one that
works in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. He's the
one that is working out that salvation. He's the one that
is doing all those things, those gifts that He's given you. He's
worked that out for you. And the work that is being done
inwardly, that desire to do the things of God that Paul was talking
about, That's the ministration of the Spirit of God in you.
That's Christ in you. That's Christ in you who continues to
hope upon Christ, who continues to look unto Christ, who continues
to trust in Christ for your righteousness. So therefore, brethren, in light
of all that that we just looked at this morning, in Romans chapter
12, when it says, be conformed, turn back there. I don't want
to misquote it. It says that be not conformed to this world,
but be ye transformed. It doesn't say go transform your
mind. It says be ye transformed. This
is a statement of fact. This is what you are in Christ
Jesus. You are transformed in your mind, but be ye transformed
in your mind by the being, be ye transformed, not by the working
of the law as Brother JC brought up last week, but by the renewing
of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable
perfect will of God." Who was the one that did the perfect
will of God? Christ Jesus. Who's the one who is perfect?
Christ Jesus. Who is the one who has made us
accepted? Christ Jesus. There is none good but God, right?
It's talking about Jesus. By the renewing of your mind
that you may prove what is that good, acceptable, perfect will
of God. We prove that by Christ's obedience. His obedience. What He did for us. So what is
the renewing of your mind? Just as Brother J.C. said, thinking
upon the things of what Christ has done. Thinking upon what
He has done. The Bible says that we as the
children of grace, we don't progress in sanctification. We don't progress
in holiness. We grow in the grace and the
knowledge of Jesus Christ. How do we grow? What is this
perpetual growing that we experience through the Christian life? It's
growing in more understanding of who Jesus is as our substitute. Growing in the grace of Jesus
Christ, growing in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, growing in all
that Jesus Christ is for his people. That's what renews our
mind whenever we renew our mind by thinking upon Christ. And
that, my brethren, It's what it means to walk in the Spirit.
We'll talk about that next week. I'm way over. Anybody got any
questions or comments? Father, we again thank you for
Christ Jesus and we thank you for the Word of God that is our
only rule of faith. We thank you for your majesty.
We thank you for your sovereignty. We thank you for your love and
grace and mercy. We thank you for Christ Jesus,
the life that we have in and through him. And Father, may
you be glorified through the preaching of this word today.
I pray, Lord, if the things that I've said today is in error.
I pray, Lord, that you'd bring conviction, that you'd bring
correction. Lord, I pray that you would guard
and guide the minds of these brethren that are here, that
if I would ever do preach anything in error, Lord, I pray that you
would keep them in the truth, that you might keep us all in
the truth. Lord, that you might give us a measure of faith that
we might continue to look unto Christ Jesus, the author and
the finisher of our faith. Lord, we thank you so much. Without
you, we couldn't do anything. Without you, we'd be left hopeless
and helpless. So, Father, I pray that you just
might speak and minister to these brethren's heart. I pray, Lord,
that if there's anyone here today that you, by your Spirit, has
opened up their eyes and opened up their mind to see their need
for you, that they might, by faith, repent of their self-righteousness,
and that they might believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and that
they might present themselves for baptism, and that they might
be added to the church. Lord, I just pray that you just
might bring others, Lord, to our church that are out there
that might desire to hear the truth. Lord, there's many of
your sheep that are out there that you are bringing in, and
we pray, Lord, that you would bring them here, that they might
find a place of comfort and peace and a place to fellowship, Lord,
and we just ask that you would just bring those brethren in.
We pray, Lord, that you'd be with Jacqueline this morning
as she flies to Florida and spends a few weeks down there with her
work. Lord, we ask that you would give her safety while she's down
there. Be with Brother Kevin and Alessandro
as they travel back and forth from Springfield to take her
there this morning. And Lord, they might be back
with us with Brother Ed. We don't know where he's at this
morning, Father, but we know that you do. We know all the
circumstances surrounding it, and we just pray for him that
you might continue to minister unto him, to keep him, Lord,
and that you might bring him back to us once again. And again,
we thank you for all these things. We also pray for our brother
Larry Armstrong, Lord, our brother in Christ. We ask, Lord, that
you'll be with him as he goes in for biopsy this coming week
on this tumor on his brain. And we ask, Lord, that you would
guide the doctors and the nurses, all those involved in that, that
you'd be with his family. through all of this as well,
that your will will be done. And it's in Christ's name that
we pray, amen.