the book of Hebrews chapter 10.
Let's go ahead and read down through verse 14 if you'd like
to do that in Hebrews chapter 10 and begin in verse 1. We won't
look at this verse by verse, but just sort of a general view
of it. But in verse 1, for the law having a shadow of good things
to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with
those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make
the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have
ceased to be offered, because that the worshippers once purged,
once cleansed, should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there
is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not
possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore, when he cometh unto
the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not,
but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come. in the volume of the book it
is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice,
and burnt offerings, and offering for sin, thou wouldst not, neither
hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the law. Then
said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the
first, that he may establish the second. by the which will
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily
ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can
never take away sin. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins for ever, 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
for ever them that are sanctified. He said there in verse 1, For
the law having a shadow of good things to come and not the very
image of the things, a shadow, a shadow. Most of us probably
here tonight remember, I wasn't raised with a TV, we didn't have
a TV back in the day, but I remember seeing Alfred Hitchcock. Remember the old Alfred Hitchcock
shows? You remember watching that? Am I going back too far?
The old Alfred Hitchcock. You remember when he came on,
the first part of the movie came on, he had the shadow. Remember
the big shadow against the wall? And the first time you saw the
movie, you thought, who is that? You know, he had the protruding
nose and the protruding belly. And the camera backed up. And
then you saw Alfred Hitchcock. And that was his shadow projected
against the wall. And then every time you saw the
movie from then on, when it came on, you saw the shadow You knew
who that was. That's Alfred Hitchcock. And
it's the same way with shadows under the law. The law, the priesthood
and the sacrifices and the tabernacle, it was the shadow of Jesus Christ. Back then, it was probably difficult
to look at those shadows and recognize the person. because
they'd never seen the person. You and I see the shadows and
we recognize the Lord Jesus in these shadows, don't we? And
it's because we project it back and we look at Him through the
image of the New Testament. We see His person, that He's
came. And He's projecting this shadow
backwards now upon the Old Testament as we look at it. Some people
wonder how we see Christ and the shadows in the Old Testament. Well, if we've seen His image,
if we've seen His person in the New Testament, then we ought
to recognize the shadows, shouldn't we? Just as we recognize the
shadow of Alfred Hitchcock. Imagine how difficult it was,
though, for some of the saints in the Old Testament to believe
in Christ. and to live upon Him and to die
with any confidence in Him because all they had were these shadows
to look at that. You and I have the real image,
but all they had was the shadows. There are two things that encouraged
the Jews in the Old Testament and believers in the Old Testament
to believe in Christ and to wait upon Him. One was these prophecies. They had all these prophecies
or these promises which are basically the same. If you see a prophecy
of Christ, it's a promise. It carries a promise with it.
But here I read these verses to you here in verse 7. This
is the prophecy concerning the Lord Jesus. Then said I, Lo,
I come. In the volume of the book. That
is written in Psalms chapter 40. Christ said that all the
way back then. And then verse 7, Then said I,
Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me.
And he says it again in verse 9, Then said he, Lo, I come to
do thy will, O God. This is the prophecies and promises
the believers in the Old Testament lived upon. And they were encouraged
to believe in Christ and to wait upon Him and even die with confidence
by faith in these prophecies. that told before the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15
is one of the very first promises that we know for sure of the
coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He said this, The seed of
the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. Now, if you'd have lived
in Adam and Eve's day, you could have got a hold of that by faith.
But it was just a shadow. It was a promise. But wouldn't
it have been difficult to get a hold of that and live in the
confidence of the coming of Christ? But that's what they had when
they first were turned out of the garden. Then the Lord Jesus
said, Abraham, rejoice to see My day. And he saw it. We don't
know for sure if that was when Isaac was offered upon the altar
and He got him off and put the ram there in his place, that
he saw the substitution of Christ. But he said, Christ, Abraham
saw my day through these prophecies and rejoiced to see it. Jacob
called the Lord Jesus Christ that was coming, Shiloh. And
he said, Shiloh is coming. Shiloh is coming. David lived
with this assurance that God had promised him that of the
fruit of his body, Christ would come into this world. and die
and raise again. Isaiah cried out to the church
of his day and this is what he told them. It shall be said in
that day, Lo, this is our God. We have waited for Him. He will
save us. This is our Lord. We have waited
for Him. We will be glad and rejoice in
Him. That's the prophecy he gave to
the church. Christ is coming. Lo, I come. He's coming and they
live by faith in Christ upon those prophecies. Here's what
Jeremiah told the church in his day. This is the name wherewith
he shall be called, the Lord our righteousness, when he comes.
And Malachi closed the whole Old Testament by saying this,
To you that fear my name shall the son of righteousness arise
with healing in his wings. They lived upon this promise
and prophecy. Lo, I come. That's what the Old
Testament is about. Everywhere from Genesis 3.15
all the way through the book of Malachi. Lo, I come. That
was the prophecies. That was the promise that was
given to them. Look in chapter 11. And look
in verse 13. He was speaking about the saints
of old. And look what he says about them
receiving the promises of Christ's coming. These all died in faith,
not having received the promises, the promises of Christ's coming,
the fulfillment of those promises, but having seen them afar off
and were persuaded of them and embraced them and confessed that
they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. So they lived by
faith in these prophecies. If you and I would have been
back there and we'd have been believers, boy, we'd have got
a hold of these prophecies as we saw them, as they were revealed
to the prophets, and we'd have saw Christ, and we'd have believed
in Him, we'd have waited upon Him, and we'd have died in the
hope of His coming. Look at a couple of places with
me, a very premier passage. Look in Luke chapter 24. Hold
our text there in Hebrews 10 and look in Luke chapter 24. I think somewhat the Lord's Apostles
showed to us the difficulty that they had in seeing Christ in
these Old Testament prophecies and promises. You wonder if they
had never read Psalms Chapter 40, Lo, I come, I come. But they couldn't understand
much of the Old Testament at all. His Apostles couldn't. Even
after He raised from the dead, they said, We thought it was
Him. that should redeem Israel. And they were so sad and long-faced.
And after His resurrection, He meets them here on the road to
Emmaus, and He talks to two of them, and look what He says to
them in verse 25. Luke chapter 24 and verse 25.
And He said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe
all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things, and to have entered into His glory? And beginning
at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all
the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." So the Old Testament
prophecies are concerning Christ and His coming. And look what
He says to them over in verse 44 when He had taken bread and fish
and ate it. in verse 44 of that same chapter.
And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto
you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled
which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets,
and in the Psalms concerning me. Then opened he their understanding,
that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them,
Thus it is written, and thus it behoove Christ to suffer,
and raise again the third day from the dead. So the Old Testament
says somebody is coming. He's coming. Lo, I come. And they lived by faith upon
those promises and died by faith in Christ upon those promises.
Let me show you one more passage, a very familiar passage, over
in 1 Peter. 1 Peter chapter 1. And look down in verse Verse
6, Peter was talking about the saints here having an inheritance
reserved in heaven for them, and they were being kept by the
power of God. And he says here in verse 6 of
I Peter 1, wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season,
if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations,
that the trial of your faith being much more precious than
of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might
be found to praise and honor and glory at the appearing of
Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love, in whom though
now you see him not yet believe in, you rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the
salvation of your soul, of which salvation the prophets have inquired
and searched diligently who prophesied of the grace that should come
unto you, searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of
Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand
the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow."
It testified beforehand of the perfect atonement that Jesus
Christ could make for sin and His exaltation and all the elect
of God being saved and taken to glory in the end by Him. It testified. The Spirit of Christ
in the prophets testified. So when the Lord Jesus said,
Lo, I come, that was a prophecy. And the Old Testament was filled
with those prophecies concerning Him. And that encouraged the
saints of old to live by faith these prophecies and promises.
The second thing that encouraged them to believe in Christ and
look for His coming were these shadows. They saw Christ in these
shadows. When they saw these shadows,
they said, there's got to be a substance. There's got to be
an image. When they saw the priest, they
said, he's just a shadow of a real priest. And when they saw the
animal sacrifices, they said, that's just a shadow of a real
sacrifice. When they saw the priests go
in behind the veil and sprinkle the mercy seat, they said, that's
a shadow. There must be something that's
real because it's casting a shadow. They looked upon these things
as shadows. As he says here in verse 1 in
our text, the law having a shadow of good things to come, but not
the very image. But if you've got a shadow, what
does that mean? You've got an image, don't you?
If you've got a shadow of a tree, then just look back here between
the light and the shadow, and you'll see the tree. And they
saw these shadows, and man, did it ever encourage them, though
it was only a shadow of Christ. If you had never seen Alfred
Hitchcock's image, we'd have still been thinking, just who
is that? Who is this guy? We see his shape.
We see his nose. We see his big belly. But who
is that guy? And that's the way they were.
They were looking at Christ through these shadows. The question can
be asked, why did they continue to offer these sacrifices if
these sacrifices never atoned for sin? If the blood of bulls
and goats could never take away sin, why in the world would they
keep offering them? year after year. And one of the
answers is this. They saw Christ in these shadows. And they believed and were saved
and were forgiven by seeing Christ and believing upon Him in these
shadows. I want to turn to another place.
Look over in Leviticus chapter 4. Leviticus chapter 4. People have
asked the question, How were the saints saved? How
were sinners saved in the Old Testament? And were they really
forgiven? You know, that's been a question
by some. In the Old Testament, did the saints live and die forgiven? You know they did. They were
saved. You know how they were saved?
They were saved by faith in a sacrifice. Aren't we saved that way? They
were saved by faith in a sacrifice, a substitute that was to come.
You and I are saved by Him that's already come and offered Himself
a sacrifice. They looked upon these bulls
and goats and the blood of these animals and they saw Christ in
them. And they believed in the Christ
that was to come. And they were forgiven of their
sins. They didn't look and see merit in the blood of these animals.
A true believer in the Old Testament knew as well as you and I do
that the blood of those animals did not have merit to put away
sin. But when they saw those animals being sacrificed or when
they brought a sacrifice for their sin, what they were saying
is, I see Christ in this. This is Christ's blood. This
is Christ's sacrifice. And they were forgiven. That's
what Leviticus often, if you read through the book of Leviticus,
you see this over and over again, that no matter if you were a
priest that sinned, you were a leader that sinned, you were
a common person that sinned, a man or a woman that sinned,
you brought this sacrifice to the priest. He offered it on
your behalf. And the Lord says it was forgiven
them. Now look what he says here in
Leviticus in chapter 4 and look in verse 27. And if any one of
the common people sin through ignorance, while he doeth somewhat
against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things
which ought not to be done, and he be guilty, or if his sin which
he hath seen come to his knowledge, Then he shall bring his offering
a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, for his sin
which he hath sinned. And he shall lay his hand upon
the head of the sin offering, and slay the sin offering in
the place of the burnt offering. And the priest shall take of
the blood thereof with his finger, and put it upon the horns of
the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out of the blood
thereof at the bottom of the altar. And he shall take away
all the fat thereof, as the fat is taken away from off the sacrifice
of the peace offerings, and the priest shall burn it upon the
altar for a sweet savior unto the Lord, and the priest shall
make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him." He's
forgiven. Now was this real forgiveness?
Well, of course it was. Of course it was. And it was
their faith, not in the blood of this animal that they brought,
but they saw the shadow of Christ in that animal. This is what took place from
the time Abel brought his sacrifice. I'm sure his dad and mom offered
it too, we just don't have any record of it. But he offered
by faith. What does that mean that Abel
offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain? By faith
in what? What did he have to do by faith?
Well, he saw Christ in it. He saw Christ in it. That's why
we come, some of the times in the Jewish histories, they got
so out of the way, so miserably, and spiritually destitute that
they quit bringing sacrifices. They shut the house of the Lord
up and it just went in disrepair and was decaying. Why would they do that? They
didn't see Christ in these sacrifices. They didn't see Him as the shadow
that He was. Sometime, remember when they
used to bring the sick? They'd go out in their flocks
and find a cripple, and they'd bring him. Now, if a man really
believed that that was the shadow of Christ, would he bring a sacrifice
like that? And there was a time, and Isaiah
chapter 1 tells us this, when they didn't believe. They didn't
see Christ in these sacrifices. They kept bringing them. They
just brought multitudes of them. You wonder why you keep bringing
your sacrifice if you don't see Christ in it. But they did, and
here's what the Lord told them in Isaiah chapter 1. He said,
To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me, saith
the Lord? I am full of the burnt offerings
of rams, and the fat of fed beast, I delight not in the blood of
bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats." And he finally told
them, these are smoke in my nostrils. Away with these sacrifices! Why
did he say that about them? They didn't see Christ in them. And if there was no Christ in
them, then God didn't desire them Himself. He said, away with
them Himself. Not everybody, not all the Jews,
were forgiven. Not all of them were saved. Even
those who offered these sacrifices, not all of them believed. They
didn't see Christ in them. Remember Korah and Abiram and
Dothan, how they turned on Moses and the earth swallowed them
up? Two hundred and fifty of them went down into the pit alive.
They offered sacrifices, but it didn't do them any good. And
the reason it didn't, because they didn't see Christ in them.
So everybody in the Old Testament that offered these sacrifices,
they weren't saved people, but those who saw Christ. Those who
looked as the shadow, they said there's got to be an image because
these are His shadows. And they believed in the coming
of Christ and they kept offering these sacrifices. That's why
they did, because they saw Christ in them. It wasn't that they
had confidence in the blood of those animals. and bulls and
goats, but they saw Christ in them. They saw Him in them. David prayed that prayer in Psalms
chapter 51, when he sinned, "...Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be
clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than..." Was he literally asking God to come down and break off
a branch of hyssop and dip it in blood and sprinkle it? He
wasn't doing that, was he? He saw Christ in that hyssop.
He saw Christ as that little bowl of blood they dip the hyssop
in and sprinkle the person. And that's what he was praying
for. Wash me in Christ's blood. Purge me with His shadow. That's just the shadow of the
real image of Jesus Christ. That's what he was praying for.
And he believed in Christ and he was forgiven of his sins. all of his sins. But this is
why David and Solomon and all the other Old Testament saints
continued to offer these animal sacrifices. Because the real
sacrifice hadn't come yet. And they were determined to keep
it up until the real sacrifice came. This is why the priest
every day of atonement he went into the Most Holy. Why they
did that every year. Because they said the real sacrifice. This is shadows of the real sacrifice. And until He comes, we'll continue
to look to Him through these shadows. And that's why they
kept offering these sacrifices. If they never took away sin,
why did they keep offering it? Because they saw Christ. They saw Christ. And when they
sinned, They took a sacrifice. And the Lord said, You're forgiven.
Every time they sinned, they took a sacrifice. Boy, we'd offered
a lot of sacrifices. We'd have had a big herd to take
the sacrifice. We'd have always been conscious,
I need another sacrifice. I need another sacrifice. Back
here in our text, Paul is fond of using these two
words. He sometimes links them together.
As you read the book of Hebrews, you'll notice these two words,
perfect, or perfected, or perfection, and conscious, or conscious.
He links those two together. As you read through there, you
can see how he links them together. He does that here in chapter
10 in verses 1 and 2. The law having a shadow of good
things to come and not the very image of those things can never,
with those sacrifices, which they offered year by year continually,
make the comers thereunto perfect. And then he says in verse 2,
For then would they not have ceased to be offered, because
the worshipers, once purged, should have had no more conscience
of sin. Perfect and conscious. And look how he says it in verse
9 of chapter 9. He brings them together this
way. He is speaking of the tabernacle and the priests going into the
holy place. In chapter 9, verse 9, he says, These things are
a figure, they were a figure for the time being present, and
which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, which could never
make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the
conscience. Perfect as pertaining to the
conscience. I don't know if it was Pink that
I read this from or someone Pink was quoting, but They give a
definition of what this word perfect means as is often used
in the epistle of Hebrews. And he said, Perfection, the
bringing of a thing to that completeness of condition designed for it. That's what perfected means in
this book of Hebrews. The bringing of a thing to that
completeness of condition designed for it. And those shadows of
Christ, though they could never bring the conscience to the completeness
of that condition God designed for it, they continued to offer
these sacrifices. But this sacrifice that Christ
offered brings the conscience to that condition God designed
for it. Those sacrifices could not. This
sacrifice did. What is that condition that God
has designed for the conscience? A perfect cleansing? A perfect peace with God? A perfect removal of any and
all guilt and slavish fears? The foundation for that condition
is already laid in the perfect atonement that Jesus accomplished
upon the cross of Calvary. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that's in Christ. No condemnation? There's not
one speck of guilt that should be entertained upon the conscience
of any believer. Because the foundation of the
perfect peace, perfect cleansing, perfect justification has been
laid in this atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the
condition that God has purposed for the conscience. And it comes
through this perfect sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. I wish I could live, so live
by faith upon Him and His perfect sacrifice. He said down there
in verse 14, by one offering, He hath perfected. And He's speaking
of the conscience. He's laid a perfect foundation
for perfect peace in the conscience. Don't you wish you could live
every waking hour with a perfect conscience? He speaks here in verse 2 of
our text, I read to you that he said, if those sacrifices
of bulls and goats could take away sin, they would have had
no more conscience of sin. See how he says that in verse
2? Then would these sacrifices not have ceased to be offered?
Because the worshippers once purged should have had no more
consciousness of sin. You know you and I still have
a consciousness of sin, don't we? His meaning was not that
they weren't aware. If they'd had a perfect sacrifice,
they wouldn't be aware of the working of sin in them. They
wouldn't be aware of bad behavior if they committed it. You and
I have a perfect sacrifice, don't we? But aren't we still conscious
of sin? We are, aren't we? We're conscious.
If you say a bad word that you know you shouldn't say, you're
conscious of it. You repent of it. You have bad motives. Bad
thoughts? We're conscious of sin. But what
does he mean here? We don't have a conscience of
guilt because of a lack of sacrifice. Our conscience is not crying
out for something more or something better, is it? Our conscience
is clear with God because we do have a perfect sacrifice.
We don't have a consciousness that needs anything else to be
offered on our behalf. Jesus Christ is enough. All we
want is more of Him, isn't it? All our conscience wants, if
anything, is just to see more of Him, more faith in Him, more
trust in Him, to live more fully upon Him every waking hour. That's what my conscience needs
more than anything else. And everything else will flow
out of that. Peace with God. Joy. Living as
we should. Thinking as we should. Doing
as we should. Talking as we should. Everything
else will flow out of that. Live by looking to Jesus Christ
as a perfect sacrifice. And apply that to yourself. Appropriate
that to yourself by faith. That's what He tells us to do.
We're going to look at this next week, Lord's willing. But He
tells us, You're having an high priest over the house of God.
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. What is it
that gives us a clear conscience? It's this perfect sacrifice.
That's God's design for our conscience, isn't it? It begins here. And as you appropriate it to
yourself by the aid and grace of the Holy Spirit, you'll live
in the comfort and the joy of that. And when we get to heaven,
we'll live in the perfect, perfect satisfaction of a conscience
that's been perfected never anymore to know anything about sin. Sin
and sense will molest no more in that heavenly city. Greg, would you and Larry dismiss
this please?