If you will, take your Bibles
and turn back to Hebrews chapter 11. The great design of the book
of Hebrews is to set forth the superiority of Christ over the
Old Testament types and figures and patterns given to men under
the law of Moses. Paul was an apostle to the Gentiles. He was a Jew. He was raised a
Jew. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was of the strictest sect
of the Jews. He was born a Jew, circumcised
the eighth day of the tribe of Benjamin. And his heart, though
God separated him and called him, to go and minister to the
Gentiles, to open a great mystery which
had been hid from the world from the beginning of time. Yet his
heart was always for his people. God saved him out of that legalism and ceremonialism,
traditionalism. God saved this man. and he wanted
his people so badly to know the gospel. He said in one place,
and I don't know, Moses said that, other than he and Moses,
I've never read of any of the other prophets ever saying that,
but he said, I could wish myself a curse from God for my people. Now that's a burden, that's a
burden. And the epistle of Paul to the
Romans, the Corinthians, the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians,
Colossians, and Thessalonians. These are all epistles to Gentile
churches. I've had I don't know how many
people when I read the book of Ephesians say, well, he's talking
to the Jews. No, there wasn't any Jews there.
He talked to the Gentiles. This was a Gentile church. And all of these epistles were
written to Gentile churches. And in those epistles, the very
basic doctrine of Christ and of God and of the work of the
ministry is set forth in the simplest of terms. These people were called out
of gross idolatry. They worshiped frogs and snakes. and people. They were coming out of gross
idolatry and witchcraft and superstition. And they needed instruction in
every area of faith and practice. You know, when Paul reminded
them in chapter two of Ephesians, he said, you remember where God
found you. Where'd he find them? Aliens
from the Commonwealth of Israel. Without God. Not an inkling of
who God was. Worshipping all these idols.
But Paul's letter to the Hebrews, on the other hand, was directed
to a people whose fathers were the prophets. They weren't ignorant of Isaiah. Isaiah was an ancient relative
of theirs. Their fathers were the prophets
who had and read the word of God and knew the word of God.
If you read the book of Daniel to a Pharisee and you missed
a comma, he'd correct you. They knew these old prophets
and their words inside out, backward and forward. They hand transcribed
the scriptures. And they were given the ceremonial
law and the priesthood so that they might worship the true and
living God. And some did. Some did. I've just read to you a whole
list of them who did. But most were ignorant of the
law. They didn't understand its true
purpose or its true end. They didn't perceive that priesthood
picturing the church the royal priesthood. They didn't picture
that high priest being Christ. They didn't understand that the
blood sacrifices of the Old Testament were but figures of the sacrifice
of Christ who must come, be born of a woman, made under the law
to redeem them that were under the law. And they didn't understand
that that holy place in a tabernacle was a picture of heaven itself.
And that high priest taking that blood, that blood ordained of
God, decreed of God, that lamb without blemish, taking that
blood and going beyond that veil. And every eye was on that door,
hoping that priest would come back out. If he'd come out, he'd
hold up his hands and bless the people. But if he didn't come
out, that meant God didn't accept the blood. He didn't accept the
sacrifice. And having established these
things in the first ten chapters of the book of Hebrews, He now
gives us a kind of roll call of these old saints all the way
back to the Garden and all the way down to the New Testament. That new age, that gospel age,
the last days, the age of revelation. And to each man and woman, he
attaches a brief statement concerning Christ and the faith of God's
elect. Go all the way back to Abel,
and Enoch, and Noah, and Moses, and Abraham. He goes on and on
and on. With Abel, it was the bloody
sacrifice which he understood pointed to a coming Redeemer.
And by it, him being dead, he still testifies. He still speaks. Fact is, I just spoke to you
about him this morning. Abel still speaks. That sacrifice
still speaks. With Enoch, it was the understanding
of the full sufficiency of the coming Christ by which he walked
by faith and so pleased God. With Noah, it was the building
of a vessel into which God purposed to gather everything he intended
to save and put it in that ark. With Abraham, a whole life ordered
by his faith in Christ. With Sarah, was being able to
produce God's promised seed. And so on, all the way through
the Old Testament, men and women who by faith, he said, subdued
kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the
mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the
edge of the sword. And they were stoned and sawn
asunder and slain with a sword and wandered about in sheepskins
and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented. Men and women, all of whom the
Holy Ghost says the world was not worthy. The world was not
worthy. Why would he say that? What is
it about these men and women that made this world unworthy
of them? Abel was just a fallen son of
his father, just like Cain. Was he not? Noah was just another
man whose imaginations and thoughts of God were only evil continually.
Abraham was an idolater. Rahab was a harlot, Lot's heart
was still in Sodom. What made these people so special
that the world was privileged to have them and unworthy to
share their time together? Because these men and women,
by faith, were declared to be the children of God. That's why. John said, Behold, what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called
the sons of God. Think about it. My soul, I look
out here and there, and there's just multitudes, and on and on
it goes, and we drove 1,700 miles, and as far as I know, there was
no Grace Churches between here and there. 1,700 miles. Why you? Why me? You ever think about that? God
intervened in your life, and God brought his candle to you,
and God brought his message to you, and he brought his spirit
to you, and he regenerated you. And he said, you're my son. And
when he did, you said, Abba Father. And you meant it. You meant it. of my soul. What a privilege. What a privilege. All these men
and women by faith were declared to be the children of God and
heirs of God, and these all having obtained a good report through
faith. Now I want you to listen to me.
I'm going to tell you something. When we say good, you know, Let's
just use a football player, for instance. This guy comes on TV
and they're kicking players, all these teams are, and they
put this guy up there. In our head, there's good, and
there's better, and there's best. Good is kind of downhill in the
way we use it. Well, he's a pretty good guy. That's the way we understand
good. And when I talk to men and read scriptures, that's the
way they perceive them. That's not what God means when
he says good. Our Lord told that rich young
ruler, he came to him and he said, good master. And he just
stopped him in his tracks. And he said, why callest thou
me good? There's none good but God. They obtained a good report.
They obtained a report equal with God. That's a good report. How good does a man have to be
to be saved? Has to be as good as God. Huh? And it ain't in you. It has to
be put in you. And it's put in you by faith.
There was only one good, and that was Jesus Christ. Our goodness
comes from him. Comes from him. When he says they obtained a
good report, he's not saying they barely made it. He's saying
that they come in with a perfect score, 4-0. You get home after a while, I
want you to look in the mirror and just say this and see if
you can really mean it. Well done by good and faithful
servants. You can't even look at yourself
in the mirror and say that. God will say it one of these
days if you're His. Huh? My soul. He can't be talking about me.
He has to be talking about something giving me through another. These all obtained a good report. This is talking about the perfect
object of their faith, which was the promised Redeemer of
God. And then he says here in verse 39, Hebrews 11, these all
obtained a good report through faith. Now watch this. But they received not the promise. What promise? What I hear people talk about
promises all the time. Talk about promises, promises. God's given us all these promises
and I claim it. Name it and claim it. That's
what the preachers are saying today. Is that what he's talking
about here? No. There has always only been one
promise. Everything else was promised
in him. Is that right? The woman seed. Everything else gonna come through
him. He's the promised one. The law was added because of
transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise
was made and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Who's that? That's Jesus Christ. That's Jesus Christ, the one
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. God gave
his promises to Abraham and his seed. He saith not to seeds as
of many, but as one, and thy seed, which is Christ. The promises
in him. God gave hope to Adam and Eve. hope for them and hope for their
children by the promise of the woman's seed, and so on, all
down through Scripture, everything God has promised to believers
rests in the person of that prophesied Redeemer, that one who was to
come. Hebrews 11, 13 tells us that
these all died in faith, not having received the promises,
but having seen them afar off and were persuaded of them and
embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims
in the earth. Well, what did they believe?
Romans 3, 24 and 25 tells us that they were justified freely
by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. Now,
I'm getting so tired of people bucking and arguing and debating
over eternal justification, calling it junk. They don't know what
they're talking about. He tells us right here that that
redemption was in Christ Jesus. And he's talking about Old Testament
saints. He's talking about before Christ
ever came. And if it was in Him then, when
did it get in Him? in eternity. Is that right? I'm not overstepping my bounds,
I'm telling you what the scripture says. And they're saying to people
today that this eternal justification denies the necessity of the coming
of Christ. No, it bounds it. It's the basis of it. He had
to come. Why? Because God purposed it
way back yonder. You know how he's identified
in eternity? The lamb slain before the foundation
of the world. Why was he slain? Slain for our
sins. We weren't even created yet. And if he slayed his son, he
justified us because that redemption is in him. And that redemption
is through the blood. That doesn't deny the coming
of Christ to die on a cross. It lays the foundation of it. And I know that that just tears
the intellectual up. That turns him inside out. He
can't add his two and two and get four. He just can't do it. Boy, he'll wrestle with that
and wrestle with that. Won't you just believe it? Huh? God said it, why don't we just
receive it? Oh my. It was not only in him, but it
was acknowledged of God in the justification of all those that
believed in the Old Testament. Abraham was justified by faith. Paul tells you that plain as
he can say anything. We can't be justified without
being redeemed, can you? He was set forth as our propitiation. God put away their sins through
a promised Redeemer who had not yet come and who had not yet
died nor had risen or ascended into glory. But they saw him
coming to accomplish their redemption and believed that he could and
that he would. And God saved them. These all obtained a good report
through faith, justified, sanctified, saved by grace through faith. Listen to this. To him, give
all the prophets witness that through his name, whosoever believeth
in him shall receive remission of sins. Was that from New Testament
saints only? No. No, they spoke that to the
people thousands of years before Christ ever came. They heard God's promise, they
understood the promise, and they believed God's promise, and they
obtained a good report. Christ said this, he said, Abraham
rejoiced to see my day. And he saw it. Now wait a minute. Abraham lived a long time before
Christ. No, he saw it. He saw it. He saw it in two ways. He saw it then by faith, and
he saw it in glory. He saw it for real. He saw it. But none of this great cloud
of witnesses received the promise, verse 40, God having provided
some better thing for us that they without us should not be
made perfect or complete. Old Testament worship was built
around a bloody sacrifice. A bloody sacrifice. A lamb must be slain, its blood
caught in a vessel and its flesh cast upon that hot altar and
burnt. It required a priesthood, it
required vessels and a tabernacle. And God went into great detail
in the ceremonial law to picture the coming, the doing and dying
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That priest must go beyond the
veil with the blood of the lamb and come out again to bless the
people. He calls them figures, types,
patterns, shadows. But you and I don't need these
things. We have the body. We have the
promised one. These all obtained a good report,
but they didn't receive the promise. He hasn't come yet. He hasn't
come yet. But now the Redeemer Himself
has come. Paul says in Hebrews 9, 26, But
now, once in the end of the world, hath He appeared to put away
sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And Christ being come a high
priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, one not built with hands, and not by the blood of
bulls and goats, but by his own blood he entered in once into
the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." What
are you saying, Preacher? I'm saying they had the shadow,
we had the body. That's what I'm saying. They had the type, we had the
antitype. They had the picture, we had
the person. They had the promise, we had
the promised woman. He purposed some better thing
for us. And when I consider the greatness
of these men, as God has set them before us in the Old Testament,
my soul, I'm not worthy to carry Abraham's shoes. But he promised
something better for me than he did for Abraham. He promised
for me to live in a day when the Christ has come and did the
will of God. and accomplished the redemption
of his elect. And God raised him from the dead
and justified us and seated him at his own right hand. Oh, you
don't think that's better than watching that old high priest
go under that veil? Oh, my soul. We have something better. What
do you mean better? How is what we have better than
what they had? Well, let me give you five things
real quick. We got a better revelation of
Christ. Man, when I think about the revelation
that we have of Christ. Abraham, he talked to him, he
showed him the types, he showed him the sacrifices, he showed
him the lamb, had him take his son up on the hill, which was
a figure of the coming Redeemer and what he had to do. God showing
through him that his only begotten son was going to die a death,
a substitutionary death for all his elect. And he took that boy
up on the hill. And in his mind, that boy was
already dead. He was already dead. God ordered
it. God wasn't going to change. That boy was dead. And Abraham
was about to plunge the knife in. And God said, now wait a
minute, Abraham. I will provide myself a sacrifice. Myself. Not with a sacrifice. I'll provide myself a sacrifice. And he looked over there and
there's a ram caught in the thicket. We've got a better revelation.
Paul begins this letter to the Jews, to his people, by telling
them that God, in various times and in different ways, spoke
to their fathers through the prophets. Spoke to those prophets
in dreams and visions and all kinds of ways, and they, in turn,
spoke to the people. But now, he said, in these last
days, he's spoken unto us, this is how that reads, literally,
in son. in the language of His Son, through
the person of His Son. Those who understand Son, they
understand God. They understand Him. And He didn't
just leave it there, but He said, His Son, whom He hath appointed
heir of all things. His Son, by whom He made the
worlds. Hard to imagine, isn't it? That
little baby laying there in that manger over in Bethlehem and
those shepherds all come and they all lay down their gifts
and they're all looking at him and worshiping God. It's hard
to believe that that tiny baby, that tiny baby created the world. Not this one, the world, all
of it. How'd he do it? He just spoke
and it was done. Huh? and you worried about whether
or not he can save your soul. What hasn't he done? The evidence
that he's laid out before us, what hasn't he done? He spared
not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall
he not also with him freely give us all things? His Son by whom
He made the world, His Son who is the brightness of His glory
and the express image of His person, His Son who upholds all
things by the word of His power. Old Colossians 2, it said, As
you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.
And he explains to you what all that is, and then he gets down
here and he says, for in him dwelleth all the fullness of
the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in him. But he don't
stop there. He said, who is the head of all
principality and power. He upholds all things by the
word of his power. Jesus Christ is Lord. He's Lord. He's seated at the
right hand of the Father. And He rules over everything
that is. And He's your Lord if you hate Him. He's still your
Lord. He's the Lord of the dead and
the living. He's Lord. And it's not a matter of you
making Him Lord. He's Lord. He's Lord whether you accept
Him or not. He's still Lord. And there's one thing that God's
gonna prove before this thing's done. Every knee's gonna bow,
every tongue's gonna confess things in heaven, things under
the earth, things in the earth. Every knee's gonna bow, and you
know what they're gonna confess? Jesus Christ is Lord. And he's
Lord to the glory of God the Father. Oh, my soul. I think about this
little piddly Jesus they preach today, I get aggravated, I can't
hardly talk. We don't know this much about
him. And yet, look at the superior revelation that he's given us. We have a better revelation of
Christ. There's no need to carry over anything from the Old Testament.
Christ has fulfilled all these things. Well, we're going to
carry over the Sabbath. Why? Christ is our rest. Huh? Don't we rest in Him? We rest in Him every day. We
rest in Him always. He said to see me is to see the
Father. In fact, He said, No man knoweth
the Father save the Son, and He to whom the Son will reveal
Him. In 1 John 5, He says, We know that the Son of God hath
come and given to us an understanding. Who did? The Son of God. That
we may know Him that's true. That we're in Him that's true.
Even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God in eternal
life. I said I was going to go quick
and I'm not. We've got a better sacrifice than they did. They'd take that old lamb and
slit its throat and catch its blood in a vessel of some kind
and then hack that thing up into little pieces and throw its flesh
on the altar and take that blood in the tabernacle. We've got a better sacrifice. They had a lamb which they pinned
up and examined over time until they were convinced that it was
without spot or blemish. We have the Son of God come into
the flesh, made of a woman, made under the law, who obeyed that
law in every jot and tittle. One who was confirmed by God
to be this lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
We have an understanding that God cannot suffer and man cannot
satisfy, but the God-man can do both. That old lamb had to be offered
year by year continually because its blood could not put away
our sins. Christ entered in one time. once
into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. We
sanctify through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all, for by one offering he hath perfected forever them
that are sanctified. And then thirdly, we have a far
superior priest. I don't know if you ever thought
about this, But Christ didn't come from the lineage of Aaron
or Levi. He could never be a Levitical
priest. Those men typified him, but he
was not a Levitical priest. The Bible said he's a priest
after the order of Melchizedek. Well, who on earth is that? Well,
Melchizedek, Hebrews chapter 7 verse 2, was a king priest. He was a king priest. He was
king of Salem, king of peace. He had no beginning of days and
no end of life. They couldn't go back with Melchizedek
and say, well, he was born on such and such a day. Get close
to his birthday. No. No, you can't celebrate his
birthday, because he wasn't born. Huh? Isn't that what it says? He's without father or mother.
He was made, now listen to this, like unto the Son of God. This is a pre-incarnate picture
of Christ, or appearance of Christ. It's Christ. Now Abraham paid
tithes to him, didn't he? And he tells us that there was
many priests because they were not suffered to continue by reason
of death. But this man, Hebrews 7, 24,
because he continueth ever hath an unchangeable priesthood. It
never changes. Never changes. Wherefore, he
is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto
God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. We got a far superior high priest. And then fourthly, we have a
better covenant. That old covenant was a covenant
of death. I see this every so often when
I'm driving along. They'll have a thing that looks
like a scroll out there for a sign that's in the shape of one of
these ancient scrolls and has the Ten Commandments all spelled
out on them. And down here at the bottom it
says the Ten Commandments are enough for me. Well, they're
too much for me. They're too much. We've got a better covenant.
That covenant is a covenant of death. You get yourself under
that law. Paul said, you that seek to be
under that law, do you hear that law? Cursed is everyone who continueth
not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.
One mistake, you're damned forever. You really want to go under that
law? That law is a covenant of death. The only thing the law,
the only thing a sinner can ever hear from the law is guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty. But I gave, but you didn't give
enough. But I prayed, you didn't pray enough. I tithed, you didn't tithe enough. I attended, you didn't attend
enough. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Oh, that old covenant. That old
covenant. What that covenant demanded,
no man could pay. No man could pay. You remember that same conversation
our Lord had with that rich young ruler. He said, Lord, what must
I do to be saved? He said, keep the law. Now this is just how ignorant
men are. This is a man who's been going to church all his
life, been tithing, giving to the poor. He was successful,
well-loved. These people thought he was the
best, I don't know the word I want. He was the best potential they
could bring to the Lord to save. If God was gonna save anybody,
he was gonna save him. And righty more, and the Lord
said, well, you keep the law. All these things have I done
from my youth up. There are people who believe
that. There are people who believe that. And the Lord said, well,
you won't have any trouble doing this. Sell everything you have,
give it to the poor, take up your cross, and follow me. Boy,
what happened to all that law keeping? Pssh, right out the
window. I put his head down and walked
away. And the disciples said, who then can be saved? Remember
what our Lord said? With man, it is impossible. It is impossible. What that covenant demanded,
no man could do. In Hebrews 8.6 it says that Christ
has obtained a more excellent ministry and therefore is the
mediator of a better covenant which is established on better
promises. Our covenant is made sure by
our surety. He is our covenant surety. He's our guarantor. I guarantee,
what God has demanded, God has supplied in our Savior. Everything demanded in that covenant
is supplied by Christ our Lord. And therefore, it's a covenant
of grace. It's a covenant of grace. He's
done all that is required. Everything God's covenant requires
of His people, He's supplied in our Redeemer. And for this
cause, He is the mediator of a better covenant. And then lastly,
we have a better gospel. We have a better gospel. Our
gospel is the declaration of the manifest Son of God coming
and accomplishing the salvation of His people. They talked about
one who was going to come. One in whom God purposed to save. They talked about that one. The
coming Redeemer. The coming Redeemer. Our Redeemer
came. What did He do? What did He come
to do? Save His people from their sins.
Delivered for our offenses. Raised again for our justification. And our Gospel is dispensed in
a better way. It's clearly understood through
the Word of God. enabled, and sends preachers,
and they're enabled in sin of God, and our gospel is attended
with the presence and power of God's Spirit. You have an unction
from the Holy One, and you know all things. God is your teacher,
I hope. And I'll tell you, it's much
better to hear these things clearly taught than it was to stand on
the outside of that old linen fence and try to figure it out.
It's a whole lot easier. He said, God hath provided some
better thing for us that they without us should not be made
perfect or complete. Their salvation could not be
complete until Christ came and accomplished the will of the
Father. And our salvation couldn't be complete. We couldn't even
identify the Christ if it wasn't for the things that God gave
to them. You see what I'm saying? Now, in all these epistles to the
Gentiles, he's teaching them things that the Jews should have
already known. And in this epistle to the Hebrews,
he's teaching his people the things that they thought they
knew, that they didn't really know. And what I'm doing this
morning is preaching to a mixture of both. Both religious and heathens. We're preaching to a mixture
of both. And so we can go to the book of Ephesians, or we
can go to the book of Hebrews, and it's equally profitable for
all who hear. May the God of all grace enable
us to see this and rejoice in it. and to declare it to as many
as will give us audience. Come and listen.