Well, my message tonight is to
those who look for Him. Hebrews 9, verse 24, For Christ
is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which
are figures of the truth. And you find this language all
through the book of Hebrews. That's what Hebrews was all about.
He's writing to his Jewish kinsmen. And Paul, in the book of Hebrews,
takes all these Jewish ceremonies and he shows them the fulfillment
of these ceremonies in Christ. He shows them what these ceremonies,
what the priesthood had to do with Christ. Christ is our great
High Priest. He showed them what the tabernacle
had to do with Christ. That tabernacle spoke of his
body. He showed them what the sacrifices
had to do with him. He showed them what the blood
had to do with him. All of these things that was
incorporated in that ceremonial worship of ancient Israel, he
shows them the fulfillment of it in Christ. They are figures of the true,
but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God
for us. Nor yet that he should offer
himself often as the high priest entered into the holy place every
year with blood of others, for then must he often have suffered
since the foundation of the world. But now once in the end of the
world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself. This is what his coming was about.
This is what those ceremonies was about. This is what that
priesthood was about. This is what this was about,
to pin up a lamb for so many days and inspect it and watch
it. and scrutinize it. He couldn't
have any blemish. He couldn't have any spot. He
couldn't have any of those things. It had to be manifested as a
sinless, spotless Lamb. That's why Christ lived on this
earth 33 1⁄2 years. God penned Him up. He's the Lamb. God penned Him up. Penned Him
up before heaven and men. Penned Him up. scrutinized. Everybody, everybody looked at
him, examined him. The religious folks examined
him. The natural men examined him. The governors examined him. Satan examined him. Everybody
examined him. He was pinned up. That's what
all these things are about. It was about this one time in
the end of the world when he would appear. to put away sin
by the sacrifice of himself. And that sin that he is talking
about here is a sin which was laid on him and for which he
appeared to put it away. He is going to appear the second
time without sin. Now, I titled this message, Those
Who Look For Him. All of the promises, all of the
kind expressions of love and mercy and grace and all of the
comfort and rest and peace declared in the Holy Scriptures, all of
the hope of glory talked about in the Word of God is directed
to them that look for Him. Those who look for Him. Life is in a look. It's in a
look. You remember, Back in the Old
Testament, Israel had sinned. And do you remember what the
sin was when he rained down the fiery serpents? They were upset
about the way. That's what upset the folks,
isn't it? They were upset about the way. They began to grumble
about the way. Well, that's not fair. That's
not fair. And so on and so on. They grumbled
about the way. Israel was grumbling about the
way. And God caused those fiery serpents to rain down. And they
ran and cried to Moses, go up before God and pray for us. God,
take away these serpents. And he told Moses, he said, you
make a fiery serpent and put it on a pole. You hold it up. Everybody that looks will live. Some of them were sitting right
there, dying of the serpent bite. He healed that thing up. They
could see the eyes of the serpent and the tongue and they could
see every detail. Some of them, because this is
a crowd of about two million people, some of them were way,
way over there. They were at a distance. All
they could see is the glimmer. It wasn't how much you see. It
was in the look. Whosoever looketh, look on him. Those who look for him. And all
of these promises in the scripture are directed for those who look
on him. Listen to these scriptures. Look
unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am
God, and there is none else. Look. Look. Paul writes to us later on here
in Hebrews, and he said, Let us lay aside every weight and
the sin which doth so easily beset us, that sin of unbelief
and indifference and anxious cares, and let us run with patience
the race that is set before us. Now listen. Looking unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was
set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set
down at the right hand of the throne of God unto them that
look for Him." Some of you are wondering why I'm here. I'm going to tell you why I'm
here. I want you to look to Him. That's what this is about. That's
what preaching is about. That's what evangelism is about.
That's why I don't hesitate to take a call when I'm called.
If I'm able, if my health will allow me, I'll be there. By the
grace of God, I'll be there. Because I know nothing's going
to happen until somebody looks. And nobody's going to look until
they hear from God. Unto them that look for Him.
Well, let me give you several things here to think about tonight.
And the first thing is this, salvation is in a person. Let
me tell you what confuses us. The gospel is not confusing.
The gospel is not complicated. Men make it complicated. It's
lies and deceit and all the things of religion that makes this thing
complicated. He said, look unto me. There's
nothing complicated about that, is there? These men in all their
confusion, they were at the holy days and the feast days and all
these things, and they were busy and about, and rumors were being
spread, and they were being told if Christ come, they'd kill Him.
If Jesus came to this thing, they'd kill Him on sight, and
all of these going back and forth. Well, who is He? Why do you want
to kill Him for? Everything just a confused mess. Our Lord come into that mess
and He said, That's not confusing, is it?
Are you thirsty? Anybody here weary? Anybody here
heavy laden? Anybody here have guilt pressing
down on their heart? Come unto me. Look to me. Gospel is only the gospel insomuch
as what is declared is preached in connection with the person
of Jesus Christ. You can preach election and preach
a false doctrine if you preach election apart from its connection
to Christ. He chose us in Him. Isn't that
what he said? In Him. It's His worthiness that
makes that election effectual. It's not anything he saw in me. Paul said, God has saved us and
called us with a holy calling, not according to our works. Not
based on that. Not according to something God
looked down the Baptists say through the telescope of time
and saw who would and wouldn't choose Him and all that kind
of nonsense. He said that's not it. He called us with a holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to His own
purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus. before the
world begins. That's our worthiness of election
is in Christ. In Christ. You can preach predestination
and preach it apart from its connection to Christ and preach
a false doctrine. That's why so many people are
upside down about predestination. A friend of mine drove a Trailways
bus and Henry came down and held a meeting for me years ago down
in Ball, Louisiana. And he wanted to go over. He
likes to go over and see where people work and he's a people
person. And he wanted to go over there
and he did. And when you walked up there
on the front of the bus, there was a lighted sign that came
on. A certain time they rang some kind of little buzz or something
on the bus and that thing would light up and it would say New
Orleans or whatever it said on the bus. And Henry said, what's
that all about? He said, well, that's where the
bus is going. That night he preached on predestination. Predestination is where you're
headed. That bus goes east for a while, and it goes west for
a while, and it even turns occasionally and goes a little bit north,
but it's headed to New Orleans. Predestination of God's elect. They'll go this way, and they'll
go that way, and sometimes they go the wrong way, but they're
headed for glory. He has predestinated us to be
conformed to the image of His Son. You see what I'm saying? We look
to Him. Look to Him. Folks tell me all
the time, so you all just believe some are going to be saved and
some are not. I said, well, I'm not going to argue with you about
that. I said, here's what you need to do. We need to go down
to the cross and figure out what happened at the cross. Let's
go down here and look and see why Christ died. What did He
accomplish when He died? Did He die in vain? Did God disregard His sacrifice? Is God not pleased with what
He did? What did He do? Did He actually
accomplish something on the cross or was this thing just an attempt? What's going on here? Did he
actually butcher his son just to inspire men to do something?
Would you butcher your son for that? You see what I'm saying? Let's go to the cross and find
out what happened. Now, if he actually accomplished
something, did he accomplish it for somebody in particular? Or was this the whole thing just
in hopes that somebody would do something? I don't think I'd sacrifice my
son on the hopes of what evil man is going to do, would you?
I don't think you would either. I don't think you would either.
Abraham didn't think that way, did he? And God told him to sacrifice
his But he knew God couldn't lie and he knew that son of God,
if he laid that boy, dissected him and laid him on the wood
and burnt him before God, he knew God was going to raise him
from the dead. And that's how he received him. He believed
God. The gospel is the gospel insomuch
as what is declared is preached in connection with the person
of Jesus Christ. The book of Hebrews begins with
this admonition, God hath spoken unto us in these last days in
the language of his Son, by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir
of all things, by whom he hath created the world, who being
the brightness of the Father's glory, the express image of his
person, upholding all things by the word of his power, when
he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand
of the majesty on high. Now that's what God has to say
to us in these last days. It's not any decision. Brethren,
anybody in their right mind knows that a decision must be made
in order to change direction. You have to make a decision.
I come to a stop sign, that sign says stop, I've got to make up
my mind, stop, go or disregard, whatever. I have to make a decision. I don't preach that men don't
make decisions. I'm just telling you salvation
is not in your decision. Not in your decision. If God
left the decision to you, you'd never choose Him. That's what
He told His disciples. He said, you have not chosen
Me, I chose you. Isn't that what He said? That's exactly what He said.
You never would choose Me. You never would. God has to intervene. It's not in the decision, and
anybody with enough sense to come in out of the rain knows
that in order to do something different from what you do, you
have to make a decision. But you can make decisions all
day long and not be saved. Make decisions to walk aisles
and shake hands and all this nonsense. Here's what the prophet
said. He said, can an Ethiopian change
the color of his skin? He's black. He wants to be white. Does his wanting to be white
change his skin? No. Can the leopard change his
spots? No. Well, what if his free will,
what if he decided, I don't want to be spotted anymore? He's still
going to be spotted. Still going to be spotted. Then
he asked this question, can you who are accustomed to do evil
do good? Why not? Because same as the leopard and
same as the Ethiopian, your nature won't let you. You are what you
are, are what you are. He said, which of you by taking
thought can add one cubit to his stature? Salvation necessitates a change
in nature, a change in direction, and a change of mind. The Pharisees and all these men, They thought they could be saved
by reading the Scriptures. They thought they could be saved
by crawling off in a room somewhere by themselves and just studying
these things. He said, you search the Scripture.
You do. I know you do. You search the
Scripture, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they
are they which testify of me. But you won't come to me that
you might have life. You won't do it. The decision is no more, no less
than an exercise of the will. I will do this, I won't do that.
But Romans 9, verse 16 said, it's not of him that willeth.
And I told our folks the other day, what if man had a free will? What if I consented today and
said, okay, man's got a free will. It's not of him that willeth.
Free, bound or any other, it's not of he that willeth. So let's just put that issue
aside. But of God that showeth mercy. I asked a Southern Baptist man
that I worked with up in Kentucky. I said, how does God save sinners? Here's what he told me. He said,
they accept Jesus as their personal Savior and confess Him as Lord
And then they're born of God, as we told them. They exercise
their free will in their approval and acceptance of His work. And then they're born again.
But it says in John 1, as many as received Him, to them gave
He the power to become sons of God, even to them that believe
on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man." And it's not in the
water. It's not in the water sprinkled
or the water poured or the water in which we're buried. Water
baptism is our confession of faith and an answer, Paul said,
of a good conscience toward God and an act of obedience to his
divine command. It's one of our first acts of
obedience as a believer, to submit ourselves to baptism. Why do
we do it? Because He commanded it, and
He's our Lord. Church creeds are not salvation. Many are going to confess unto
Him in that day and plead what they thought they knew, preaching
in His name wonderful works and all those things. But it says
that he'll say unto them in that day, Depart from me, you workers
of iniquity, I never knew you. The Apostle Paul spoke to the
Jews back in Romans 2, verse 17, and he said, You rest in
the law, in its statutes, in its ceremonies, in its instructions. and you make your boast of God.
That is, their confession was that they were accepted of God,
that they knew God, that they were sent of God to preach and
to teach and to do these things. They were accepted and saved
of God. They were saved. They made their
boast of God. He said that you know His will,
that you approve of things excellent, agreed to all these moral statutes
of the law. That was their creed. And he
said, You are confident that thou thyself art a guide of the
blind, a light to them that sit in darkness, an instructor of
the foolish, and a teacher of babes. And he said, You hold the form
contained in the law. The form. They had the shadow,
but not the substance. They had the picture, but not
the man. They had the form, the ceremonies
of substitution, priestly work and divine service, but they
never looked to Christ. Salvation is in a person. God
appointed him, ordained him, not to take upon himself the
nature of angels, but the blessed seed of Abraham. And he set him
forth. In these precious promises, first
is the seed of woman, a representative man, a virgin-born son, God-appointed,
God-approved, God-decreed. Somewhere back in old eternity,
the triune God struck hands and pulled agreement on a covenant
of grace to save a people for His glory. And Christ both was
appointed and volunteered to the task to be surety of that
covenant. David's dying words. I would think a man that God
said was a man after God's own heart would be worth listening
to, wouldn't you? Henry said if there was any man
in the scripture that he felt comfortable with his instruction,
it was David. Because God said he's a man after
God's own heart. And he said, ìAll you guys look
on the outward countenance of man,î he said, ìbut God looks
on the heart.î God looked on Davidís heart and said, ìThatís
a heart after my own heart right there, David.î And Davidís dying
words, he said, ìAlthough it be not so with my house, yet
God hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things,
and sure.î How did he know it was sure? Because he knew the surety. That's
right. Christ is the surety. That's
what he's teaching here, Hebrews chapter 9. Talking to us about
that surety, that testator of the Father's will. And he said, this is all my salvation,
this is all my desire. When the fullness of time was
come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the
law that we might receive the adoption of sons. And as a representative
man, he obeyed the law with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength,
meditated on it day and night, loved God with all his heart
and his neighbors himself. And in his faithfulness, he wrought
out for us a righteousness that is ours by imputation through
faith, and one day will be ours in the full experience of grace.
In that day, when we see him, we will know as we are known. You think about that. 1 John 3, verse 3, And every
man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he
is pure. What does that mean? Does that
mean we can't eat forbidden meat and keep certain holy days and
all that kind of stuff? No, it means he purifies himself
in the full assurance of faith that his redemption is complete,
that his Redeemer is successful and will return to this earth
and call him out of the grave and give him a new body without
sin, without spot, without any such thing. That he'll stand
before God presented in Christ, holy, unblameable, unreprovable
in God's sight. God can't find a flaw in him
because he stands there in Christ. I don't know how to put this
any other way. I remember an old pastor from
North Carolina got up at Henry's Bible Conference one year and
he preached a message, there's a man in glory. A man in glory. And if there's one, there might
be two. There's a man in glory, a wonderful,
glorious, eternal man, a man whose presence is of divine origin,
a man who was purposed to communicate the glory of God and communicate
that glory of God in the salvation of a people. A man who is prophet,
priest, and king. A man who is the God-man. God
and man in one person. God with us. With us. For us. In us. A man coming down
from heaven. I came down from heaven, he said,
not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me. Once
in the end of the world hath He appeared. You see what he
is saying here? in a stable, in a manger in Bethlehem,
in the carpenter's shop as an obedient son, in the synagogue
going about his father's business, in the ministry accomplishing
the will of God, in the judgment hall suffering in our stead,
on the cross as our substitute, in the presence of witnesses
declaring his resurrection, on the cloud ascending up into glory. One time in the end of the world
hath he appeared to put away sin, by the sacrifice of himself. He appeared in glory, appointed
as heir of all things. He appeared once in the end of
the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And
as it was appointed unto men once to die, and after this the
judgment, isn't that what we read there a few minutes ago? As men are appointed to die as
a judgment of sin and to receive the reward of their works, which
is everlasting condemnation, so Christ died a judgmental death. But unlike men, His death was
enough to satisfy God. That's the difference. His death
was for sin, and His death was vicarious. He died for the crimes
of others. His death was voluntary. He said,
I lay my life down. No man taketh my life from me.
I give my life, freely give. His death was propitiatory, enabled
God to do these things, to be just and justify. Proverbs 17, verse 15. He that justifieth the wicked,
and he that condemneth the just, even they both are an abomination
to the Lord. What enables God to be propitious
to men is the substitutionary death, the sin-atoning death
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He hath made Him to be sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. This is the whole basis of the
ministry of reconciliation. He appeared once in the end of
the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. He
died to bear the sins of many. He was appointed to it. He volunteered
for it. He assumed our nature permanently. Have you ever thought about that? When the Word was made flesh,
He wasn't unmade flesh when He ascended back into glory. When
He assumed our flesh, He become one with us permanently. And we're one with Him permanently. He's not going to change back
into spirit. There's a man in glory. The God-man. The God-man. That's eternal salvation, that's
what that is. That's eternal justification. That's eternal oneness in Christ. "...Lived and died and suffered
and groaned on the tree as our sin-bearing substitute. And then
by the Judge of heaven and earth, before whom all that die must
appear, our Savior was raised for our justification. raised
to declare those for whom he died to be justified, all their
sins taken away, all debts paid in full, full restitution, full
redemption, cleared of all guilt. The songwriter said, Near to
God, nearer I cannot be, for in the person of his Son I am
as near as he. Can you get a sense of what he's
saying? for him, not for someone else, not for poor little Jesus,
boys. Those who look for him, the just
to satisfy and sin atoning, the Lord Jesus Christ who ascended
up into glory, successful, glorious, name given above every name,
those that look for him, shall he appear the second time. The old high priest of Israel.
You read through Hebrews chapter 9 and look at the references,
go back into Numbers, go back into those books, early books
of the Bible, and you can read in there what happened. But one
time a year, the Jews were called to Jerusalem. And they came down
there and they brought a lamb. They bring it up here and they
give it to the priest. And the priest would take it
and do after the order of the priest to the sacrifice. And
then the high priest would put on all of his garments. And on
his shoulder was listed all the twelve tribes of Israel. And
over his heart, again, was listed all the twelve tribes of Israel.
This high priest was going to enter in and bear them up. This is what it says in the Old
Testament. He was to bear them up. Their names were on his shoulder
to carry him over his heart to love him, and he was to bear
them up before God. And he took this sacrifice. These
guilty sinners brought him the lamb, gave him the spotless lamb,
and he took that spotless lamb and he took that blood. And one
time a year, that high priest, for the sins of the people, And
for his own sin, and he took that and he went in beyond the
veil where none but the high priest could go. And every eye
of Israel that had journeyed from who knows where to be there,
watched that to see if the priest, to see him come back out. And
when he came back out, he didn't have the blood with him anymore,
did he? When he came back out, he came back out, held up his
hands, and blessed the people. Now, that's what Paul is talking
about here. Under those who look for him. We know why he came. We know why he appeared. We know
where he went. He went into the presence of
God on our behalf. Has our names on his shoulder
and over his heart. And he entered into the presence
of God. And then he tells us what he
did. Are you looking for him? Everybody that has an interest
in that sin-atoning sacrifice, I guarantee you they're looking
for his return. And he said to those that look
for me, shall I return the second time? I'm going to appear the
second time to you without sin. unto salvation, unto those that
look for him. But surely you can see in this
a word of warning to those who don't look for him. Oh, there was nations and tribes
and kindreds and tongues. All had their own religion. All
had their false gods. They weren't looking for that
priest. But to those who look for him shall he return.