your Bible and have turned back
to Hebrews chapter 9 look beginning with verse 24 let me read verse
24 down through verse 28 again. For Christ is not entered into
the holy place made with hands which are the figures of the
truth 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 entereth into the holy place
every year with the 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. And as it is appointed unto men
once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once
offered to bear the sins of many. And unto them that look for him
shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Now my subject this morning is
putting away sin. putting away sin. But I want
to mention the three appearances that are suggested to us in our
text here this morning at the outset before we get into that
message of the Lord Jesus Christ putting away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. Now we notice here in verse 26,
and this is the first appearance of the Lord Jesus as he came
down from heaven, being said of the Father, coming into this
world, receiving a body of flesh, living in that body of flesh,
and dying on Calvary's tree. It's mentioned in verse 26. For
then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world,
but now once in the end of the world. And we want to say at
this time that at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, this
was when, as far as the Word of God is concerned, this was
the last days. This is the end of the world.
This is the beginning of the very end of the world. And it says this, that but once
in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin. The Lord Jesus Christ put in
an appearance in this world to put away sin by the sacrifice
of Himself. So this is His first appearance
that's suggested to us here in verse 26. And then in verse 24,
after the Lord Jesus Christ had died and after he had redeemed
his people by the shedding of his blood, he entered into that
holy place, that place that's not made with hands, that place
that was made with hands, the tabernacle of the temple, that
was a type or a figure of the truth which is in heaven itself. And the Lord Jesus Christ entered
into there after his resurrection. He ascended up to heaven and
he was seated at the right hand of eternal majesty. And now he
appears in the presence of God for us. The Lord Jesus Christ
is there as our advocate. He's there pleading on our behalf,
pleading His blood, pleading His merit on our behalf. He's there, as it were, to give
in... to this earth to receive his
own unto himself. He's going to appear back here
into this world, the scripture says, without sin. Not for sin,
because he already has taken care of the sin question. The
Lord Jesus Christ has already died in order that his people's
sins be put away, that they be redeemed, and then he's to come
back then without sin to take us home to glory with a full
and complete salvation. That's the meaning of verse 28.
So the first time then, He came as a babe. He came in humiliation. He came and submitted Himself
to the will of the Father. He became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. Now, He now appears, as we've
said, as our great high priest. our advocate pleading for us.
Now in his second coming to this earth, his triumph will be evident. His victory over sin complete
and all of his enemies will become his footstool and he'll raise
the dead in power by the voice of his mouth as he raised Lazarus
from the dead in John chapter 11. All that the Father has given
him shall be made like him in a moment in the twinkling of
an eye at the last trump. He shall take many sons out from
among the sons of Adam. He shall take many sons home
to glory. Isn't it marvelous, our Redeemer,
what He's done for His people? Listen, all that the Father has
given Him, we're told in the Scripture, He shall lose nothing,
but He shall raise it up at the last day. This is the hope of
the people of God. This is the hope of the children
of God. Now this morning, I want to speak
to you primarily about this putting away of sin by the sacrifice
of Jesus Christ. by the sacrifice of himself and
this is what is suggested to us in verse 26. Now we're told
in verse 25 that the Lord Jesus Christ, as it speaks here of
the high priest, he would enter into the holy place every year
with the blood of others. But the Lord Jesus, it's not
necessary that he should offer himself often as the high priest
would offer the blood upon the sacrifice, for then, for a sacrifice,
for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world.
Now the Lord Jesus Christ suffered once for sin and that was because
he was able to make an offering that was sufficient to pay the
sin debt of all God's people. It was an infinite offering. It was an offering that would
satisfy the divine justice on the behalf of everyone of the
elect. It was a sufficient once for
all atonement. It was not necessary for him
to offer that, but one time the Lord Jesus came and offered himself. Now this message I think this
morning ought to bring joy to any here whose conscience is
troubled with sin. If your conscience today be troubled
because of your sin, and if you feel any weight of guilt because
of your having broken God's holy law, having sinned against Him,
having rebelled against Him, rebelled against everything that
is high and holy, then my friend, if you're sensitive to the teaching
of verse 27, look at verse 27, and as it is appointed unto men
once to die, but after this, the judgment. Now, beloved, sin
is the curse of the soul, and those that die in their sins,
they must face God's judgment in that day. God has appointed
a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he hath So to hear that there is one
who has put away sin, that there is one who has dealt with this
awful plague that is upon the human race, that there is one
that has stood between God, our holy God, and unholy sinners
and he's bridged the way whereby the unholy sinner can approach
a holy God. Sin has been put away. Now this message is for such
as you are, hopelessly sinful if viewed from any other aspect
except the death and merit of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so
if you be here this morning and you're cut off from God and cut
off from the life that is in Jesus Christ for the one of faith
and love, then this message ought to be especially interesting
to you this morning. If your house was on fire, and
I'm sure that you would rejoice if you were to hear the fire
truck coming down the road, because you would suspect that that fire
truck was coming to your place. Now beloved, the news of Christ
coming into this world to put away sin sounds like joy blast
to the silver trumpets of jubilee, to those who know their sinnerhood,
to those who know themselves to be sinners and in need of
everything that God Almighty in the person of His Son provided
for sinners. Oh, that today that God the Holy
Spirit would make the preaching of Christ to you to be the opening
of the prison to those that are bound. Because this morning,
if you're not in the Lord Jesus, I mean if you're not in Christ,
if your sins are not under His blood, if you have not been washed
in His blood, if you're not clothed upon with the garment of salvation,
Surely this morning you're bound in the prison of the damned,
and surely you must suffer for all eternity, separated from
God and separated from all that is blissful and holy throughout
eternity. And may God make this message
this morning rejoice your heart. Now the one thing in the text
which should be sure to hold spellbound the attention of every
trembling sinner, is this, that Christ did not come into this
world to deny the fact of human sin or to propagate a philosophy
which might make sin appear harmless and define it as a mere mistake,
perhaps a calamity, but by no means a hell-deserving crime. No, no, but to put away sin. The Lord Jesus came to put away
sin, not to deny the fact of it, not to in any wise minimize
the results of it and the futility of it, but to put it away. No,
He did not come to help you forget your sin. Now the psychologist,
he'll try to help you forget your guilt and forget your sin
and forget what you are by nature. But the Lord Jesus Christ did
not come, His work is not meant. The tutoring of His Spirit, the
working of His Spirit in the hearts of sinners is not to the
end that they'll forget their sin, but that they'll face their
sin, and that they'll feel the weight of it and the burden of
it. and feel that they're deserving of the wrath of God Almighty.
Jesus came to put away your sin, not to help you forget the fact
that you are a sinner, not to lull you into a false peace,
but to give you real deliverance from sin by putting it away and
bringing true peace Unto your soul for a sin be put away then
beloved peace peace with God peace with God Through our Lord
Jesus Christ is a lawful thing Isn't it marvelous that God has
worked it out He's fixed it up so that sinners can have peace
with him and sinners can be forgiven Their sins can be put away and
it's a lawful thing and God approves of it. God has designed the way
whereby sinners can be reconciled unto Him. Now we preach through
Jesus Christ a real cure, a sure and certain deliverance from
all the danger that now hangs over your head due to sin. We
preach it through the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to put away sin. Now I want you to note this. Putting away, what does it mean?
What does it mean when the scripture says that he hath appeared to
put away sin by the sacrifice of himself? Now this phrase in
the English version is used in reference to an unfaithful wife
when she was put away. When she was put away. Her husband
gave her a bill of divorce and she was no longer his wife. Until that divorcement was made,
she was his lawful wife, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh,
and under the law they were regarded as one flesh. They were regarded
as one. But as soon as a lawful divorce
was given, she had no relation to him any more than any other
woman had to that man. Now sin, before the Lord Jesus
Christ came, it is as it were, it was married to us. It pollutes
us. It's filthiness, we're responsible
for it. We have committed sin. It is
linked to us as to be as it were, bone of our bone and flesh of
our flesh. Our sin is ours. It belongs to us. We're guilty
and we're responsible for it before God. We're obligated before
God to be perfect and we're not. We're sinners. Every one of us
lawbreakers by nature. Rebels against God. but all the
blessedness of the fact that Christ has proclaimed in a divorcement
our sins are no longer ours any more than a woman is a man's
wife after a divorce. Face it. This is what the word
put away means. And if language means anything,
it means that when Christ has put away our sin, then they're
put away. They are indeed taken from us. Now let's look at this putting
away a little bit. I want to dwell a little bit
on it because I want you to feel the impact of what your Lord
Jesus Christ, your blessed Master has done on your behalf. If you
be in Christ, I mean if you've trusted Him, if you've been enabled
by the Spirit of God to grasp the truth of the Gospel and believe
it. Then my friend, I want you to
understand what the Lord's done about your sin. Now let's look
at this putting away. It's a very hard thing to put
away sin. A very hard thing. All the Jewish
sacrifices, and if you listen, as we read the 9th chapter of
Hebrews, if you were to read the 10th chapter and on throughout
this book, you would discover that it is a very, very hard
thing to put away sin. That all the Jewish sacrifices
could not do it. Now all these sacrifices, they
were very costly. Sometimes they used thousands
of bullets and slaughtered them in making an atonement for sin,
which could not really take away sin. Very, very costly. And after one day's atonement,
they needed to do it again next year. They had to do it again.
Even though it would not permanently take away, cancel, remit sin
and put it away, they would do it, they would repeat it year
after year. Now, beloved, let me say this
to you this morning. If sin had been put away, there
would have been an end of this suffering. The Lord Jesus, He
suffered once. It wasn't necessary for Him to
suffer often from the foundation of the world, but once, the blessed
Lord Jesus Christ would, under the wrath of God, He would die
in order to save sinners from everlasting hell, but These priests,
they had to keep offering these sacrifices year after year. The suffering never ceased. Every year, slaughtering of more
bulls and rams. Every year, the procession of
animals coming in to suffer. Well, beloved, there is an end
of pain when the debt is discharged. And the Lord Jesus Christ, He
paid the debt one time, and the debt was discharged. But all
these animals, they kept dying and dying, and the blood sprinkled
on the mercy seat, but it would not suffice. Sin, I'm saying,
is a hard thing to put away. Now there is an end of punishment
when the penalty is fulfilled. But the penalty was never fulfilled
while all of those animals were dying. There is an end of propitiation
when God is satisfied. And when Jesus died once, God
Almighty was satisfied on the behalf of all the elect. All
the elect. Jesus Christ died, bore the sin
of their own sin in his body on the tree, and God Almighty
was satisfied. God exacted from him full payment
for all of our sin, all of our rebellion. This is why David
said, Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest
not in burnt offerings. Now note, let me further say,
that no form of suffering No form of suffering in this world
can put away sin. Now, this is something we need
to face. Could your tears, the song says, forever flow? Could
your grief no respite? No. All for sin could not atone. Christ must save, and Christ
alone. Now you might be as poor as Lazarus
here this morning, and you say, I've suffered a great deal, preacher.
Poverty has overwhelmed me, and I've suffered greatly for the
lack and for the need of various things in this world. Now listen
to me this morning. All of that makes no difference
how you've suffered in poverty. This will not atone. It will
not suffice for you to go before God with the claim that you were
poor in this world. Now you might suffer as much
as Job. You remember Job said, I pour
myself in dust and ashes. Job suffered a great deal, you
know how he suffered, but yet that did not atone for Job's
sin. Nor can any form of self-denial,
however terrible it might be, put away sin. In Micah 6, verse
6 and 7, listen to these words. Wherewith shall I come before
the Lord and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before
him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Verse 7,
will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with the
thousands of rivers of oil? Listen to this, shall I give
my firstborn for my transgressions the fruit of my body for the
sin of my soul? What I'm saying to you here,
beloved, this morning is that sin is not put away easy. No amount of self-sacrifice,
even the giving of your firstborn, the fruit of your body, will
not put away sin. It won't do it. No, not before
a holy God. The slaying of all these animals,
these Jewish sacrifices, would not put away sin. It may further
impress your mind for me to say this. that holy living from this
day to the end of your life will not put away one sin that you've
already committed. Now you may keep the holy law
of God perfectly if you could. You won't and you cannot. But
if you could do so from this time forth, the rest of your
life, you would not put away one sin that you've already committed
by the doing so. Now that's how difficult and
hard it is to put away sin. Now the next thing I'd like to
say is this, that not even your death can put away sin. Not even
your death. Now death puts away a great deal,
but death never kills a single sin. Never does it kill a single
sin. Sin is immortal until the immortal
Christ comes and deals with it until Christ puts it away, sin
is immortal. Now, the death of a man cannot
put away sin. This is so brought out in the
rich man who died. The Bible says he was buried,
but no sin of this man was buried with him. No, the sin was down
on the books of God at the throne of God. His sin was not buried
with him. For in hell he lifted up his
eyes and his sins were there to torture and his sins were
there to condemn him. Your dying will not put away
your sin. It will not. Now this will shock
you, I'm sure, but let me say this. I must say it and be honest
with you. Hell itself cannot put away sin. Hell itself will not put it away. All the lost who died in the
floods of Noah's day, they're sinners still. And after all
the ages of suffering that they've endured, not a sin less is upon
them now than there was at the first. Do you believe that? Do
you believe that? That's the truth. I'm telling
you the truth. All those sinners who died in the flood suffered
in that great deluge that came down upon the face of the earth.
Listen to me! They died and went to hell, but
there's not a sin that they ever committed that they have annihilated
or paid off in the full. No, listen, hell itself. And
if you and I die and go to hell, through ages on ages may last,
and the wrath of God be poured out upon us to the uttermost,
there will never be the destruction of a single sin or a particle
of sin by that suffering in hell. It'll never be taken away. There's
never any way you can get out of hell. You're there What a
work he did, the God-man, the Christ of God. Or sins, the poet
said, unnumbered as the sand, and like the mountains for their
size, the seas of sovereign grace expand, the seas of sovereign
grace arise. Oh, our monstrous sins, our horrible
sins, the damnable sins that we've committed. There was a
difficulty indeed. in putting away these sins, but
Christ did it. He put them away. A divorce is
what it takes, and only Jesus Christ can divorce you from your
sins. Only He can put them away so
that they're no longer bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh,
so that you're no longer tied to them and obligated for them.
Only Jesus Christ can put them away. Now Christ has put away
the sin of all of his people, and this is a fact. This is a
fact. Now, if we were just a little
bit more sensitive to the great things of God, if we treasured
the riches of his grace a little bit more, there'd be more joy
in our souls to hear a statement like that. that our sins have
indeed, it is a fact, been put away. As a debt is annihilated
when it is paid, so the debts that we owe to justice were abrogated,
annihilated, and ceased to be because Jesus Christ to the utmost
farthing paid whatever his people owed. Now, if you be one of the
sheep, here this morning, one of God's sheep, Jesus Christ
has put away your sin, all of it, in all respects. And before
God, you are accepted as if you were innocent. And there's more
than that to it. You're even regarded as if you
were something more. that innocent namely actively
righteous in that your sins have been put away and everything
that Christ is has been imputed to your account and when God
looks upon his sheep upon us or when he looked upon Christ
and he appeared as we Appeared at that time in our sin and Christ
bore our sin in his own body your sin if you're in Christ
He is so put away that now you're deprived of nothing that sin
deprived you of before. Before you were in Christ, before
you were converted, before you were brought savingly out of
your depravity and lost condition. Not that we're not still depraved,
but when we were brought out of the debt that was brought
on because of sin. Before that, now we're deprived
of nothing that we were deprived of then. Well, we have this access
that we mentioned in prayer a while ago. We have that. That was once
prohibited. No man can approach unto God
except he be brought nigh by the blood. Except he come through
that new and living way that has been made for us That was
made through the veil of his flesh being rent entwined You
enjoy the favor of God you enjoy nearness to God you enjoy relationship
to God even as if you had never fallen or had taken no part whatsoever
in the fall of Adam your sin is put away and You see, that's
what I'm trying to impress upon you this morning. Now, when sin
was put away, all the effects of sin and the detriment and
the loss to us before God, it was virtually put away. from
us. It was taken from us. And so
we see that we're put in a position where we're accepted in the Lord
Jesus Christ. We're put in a position where
God no longer sees us as we stand in our sin. but sees us as we
stand in Him that's worthy. And we're worthy because we're
in Him that is worthy. Worthy of being honored as sons,
accepted as sons, and blessed as sons. Oh, the bliss of this.
Well, how did He do this? Well, the scripture tells us
it was by the sacrifice of Himself. That's what it says. He died
the death, John Gill said this, he died the death which God had
stipulated should stand as an equivalent for the sufferings
of all the guilty ones for whom he stood. That's what the Lord
Jesus did. That's what it means when it
says He did it by the sacrifice of Himself. He died the death,
suffered the judgment that all of His sheep, guilty before God,
guilty of breaking God's law, that they should suffer He stood
for us and suffered that death. Now brother, sister, substitution
is the very pith and mera of the revelation of God. This is
something that every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ ought
to understand, that the Lord Jesus Christ stood in the place
of sinners and was made a bloody sacrifice for sin. Listen to
this verse. 1 Peter 3 and 18, For Christ
also hath once suffered for sins, that just for the unjust, that
he might bring us to God, he was put to death in the flesh,
but he was quickened by the Spirit, that just for the unjust. That's substitution. He stood
in for us. He was the just one. He was made
to be sin for us. He knew no sin, but it was that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Sin was not put
away by the offering up of the merit or the works of Jesus Christ. nor by the incense of his prayers,
nor by the oblation of his tears, nor even by the presentation
of his pains and his groans before God, but by the sacrifice of
himself, the laying down of his life, his soul was sorrowful
unto death. Now the Lord Jesus Christ gave
up for you his human body, his soul, and spirit, All that constituted
himself was given up freely to the death, that the punishment
due our sin might be borne to the full. Well, bless the Lord,
as the poet said, my soul can on this doctrine live, can on
this doctrine die. And if you be in Christ this
morning, you can rejoice in this. Listen again, the poet said,
sprinkle now with blood the throne. Why beneath thy burdens groan? On my purest body laid, justice
owns the ransom paid. Bow the knee and kiss the sun,
come and welcome, sinner, come. True belief and true repentance,
every grace that brings us nigh, without money, come to Jesus
Christ and buy. Now he hath appeared then, according
to our text this morning, and we've got a valid text, we've
got a valid message, he hath appeared to put away sin finally,
totally, eternally. The Lord Jesus Christ, blessed
Savior at thy feet, here to receive a cure or die. But grace forbids
that painful fear, almighty grace which triumphs here. The grace
of God has sent a Redeemer, has sent a Savior. Now the only test
as to whether Christ put away your sins is this. I've thought
about this quite a little bit and I want you to listen to what
I'm saying here very carefully. The only test that I know of
as to whether Christ put away your sins is this. Are you done,
number one, with trying to put your own sin away. Are you done
with it? Are you finished with it? Are
you convinced you can't do a thing about putting your sin away?
That somebody else has got to do it if it's ever put away.
Every sinner here is helpless, hopeless when it comes to putting
away their own sin. I proved that to you, I've shown
you this morning that you can't do it. Now the second thing is
this, are you willing that he should have the whole, the soul,
the entire glory of putting away sin. Are you this morning one
who could walk out of this place and say, I know this, I know
I am a sinner and I know if my sin is ever put away that the
glory belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ who hath appeared to put
away sin by the sacrifice of himself. He gets all the glory.
He gets all the praise. He gets all the honor. I don't
have an inch of ground to stand on to glory in myself. He gets all the glory because
He sacrificed Himself in order to put away my sin. And then
thirdly, I want to know this morning, can you trust Him with
your whole heart? Can you trust Him this morning
with your whole heart to put your sin away? Can you do that?
Now if you can, I know you do so by divine enablement. I know
you do so by the aid of the Spirit of God. If you can trust this
morning Him to put your sin away. If you can believe that He died,
when He died, that His death to sin was your death to sin. If you can believe that, it's
by divine enablement. Can you do it? Can you rejoice? in full, complete salvation. There never was a man or a woman
yet who gave up confidence in everything but Christ and didn't
rely wholly on Christ but who had in that very fact an assurance
that Jesus loved him and gave himself for him. Whenever you
can cast yourself unreservedly on the Lord Jesus Christ and
trust him completely and thoroughly Then, my friend, in that alone
you can find assurance. Oh, how sweet to view the flowing
of our Savior's precious blood with divine assurance knowing
He has made our peace with God. Sin is gone, gone forever. Go, believer, and rejoice therein. God has through His Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, been propitiated God has been satisfied on the
behalf of all of his elect. Their sins have been put away
and God's people are free to rejoice in a full, finished work
of redemption. Our sins are put away. May God
bless you this morning. Father, we thank you for your
word and for the truth that we've been able to discuss in this
short time with your people. I pray today that your people
might rejoice and that they might be glad before thee, praising
thee, our Father, from their hearts for the great things thou
hast done for them. How great things the Lord hath
done for us in that that He's pardoned, canceled, remitted,
put away our sins. We thank Thee that we're not
going to face our sins of the judgment, that none can condemn
us because Christ has died. We thank Thee that Thou hast
justified us in and through the person and work of Your Son.
Give us, we pray, that saving faith in him and that walk in
obedience which glorifies his name. We pray it for his sake
alone, amen.