Turn with me in your Bibles to
Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13. Our text this morning is verses
10 through 14. Of Hebrews 13, let's read that. We have an altar. whereof they
have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies
of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by
the high priest for sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus
also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered
without the gate. Let us go forth, therefore, unto
him without the camp bearing his reproach. For here have we
no continuing city, but we seek one to come. By inspiration of
the Holy Spirit, the writer of Hebrews has firmly established
and reiterated and then reiterated again and again that Christ is
far greater than the Old Covenant. Christ is far greater than the
Old Covenant. It's superior in all aspects,
any aspect of it. Although the Old Covenant was
of the Lord, as we know, it was given in order to show our impotency,
our impotency, to show that we cannot keep it. And that's why
the scripture says, no flesh shall be justified by the deeds
of the law. So he's continuing the same mindset,
if you will, as we heard last week, he was talking, um, about the meats and about what
they ate under the law and how they would partake of that. But
it wasn't unto the relinquishment of sin. It never put away sin.
It didn't benefit, it didn't profit. That was the word he
used. He said they ate the lamb, they ate the sacrifice, but it
didn't profit them anything. And so now he's continuing that
by showing us that there is a sacrifice that is much better. And it is
the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is an altar where God
said, I will meet with you. And that altar is the Lord Jesus
Christ as well. We no longer are in the camp.
What does that represent? Well, that represents the old
covenant. He said, we come out of the camp now. They that are
partakers of the tabernacle can not be partakers of this altar
because this is the altar of grace. This is the altar of mercy. This isn't the altar of do. This
is the altar of it is finished. And that's where the Lord's people
go to eat. That's where the Lord's people go to feed. That's where
the Lord's people go to worship him. Although the old covenant was
of the Lord, although it was of the Lord, it was given in
order to, well, it never could bring about righteousness. It
was given to show us that we are sin. What does the scripture
say about that? It says that every mouth be shut. Scripture says, let God be true
and every man a liar. But the law was given that it
would shut the mouths of everyone, that all flesh We can't say anything
to the Lord, his law is holy. And we see that very clearly. We can't keep his law, it's holy.
Now it is extremely difficult for one that's raised in free
will, works, religion, the old covenant, to completely discredit
all the aspects of the old covenant. To discredit all the aspects.
You ever heard of the term grave clothes? Anybody ever heard that
before? I'll explain. So whenever Lazarus came forth,
he said he was bound hand and foot. And the loose said, loose
him and let him go. Henry Mahan preached a message
on that one time and he called it grave clothes. If the Lord
doesn't loose us of our grave clothes, we'll hold onto things
that are not true. But one thing that is true about
the Lord's people is we do not go to the law for righteousness
now. What happens, though, is we go to the law thinking that
it's gonna benefit us in some way, maybe benefit our standing
with God, or maybe benefit our status with God, and that's not
true. That's not true. The law doesn't profit us anything. Christ is the end of the law
because of righteousness. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness' sake. The Lord must strip us continually
and keep us looking to him alone. You know it's true if left to
ourself, we'll go right back to the law to look for justification.
We will. Our flesh hates the gospel. Our
flesh hates grace. Our flesh says, no, I want to
do something. I want some glory. I want some credit. And the Lord,
that new man, says no. No, Christ is all. Christ is
all. And the Lord causes us. We heard
back there, Greg was reading from Psalms and he said, when
the Lord said unto me, seek ye my face, then my heart said,
thy face, O Lord, will I seek. And that's how it works, isn't
it? The Lord says, seek ye my face. And only then does our
heart cry, thy face will I seek, O Lord. Some being written to here, and we
can believe, we can glean from their mistakes. We can glean
from their mistake. The reason he's having to address
this so strongly is, is they're doing something, and he's using
the dietary laws here as the example, so one would assume
that that's what they're still doing, but the scripture's not
exactly clear on that. We can learn from their mistakes
that going to the law for anything is useless, doesn't do us any
good. As a matter of fact, it's iniquity.
We don't go to the law anymore. We're free from the law. Why?
Because Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. That's
why we're free, free from the law. There are some who claim to believe
grace Yet they're legalistic in some ways, or they go to the
law in some ways for justification, or think they do. They say, look
at me, look at my life, look at what I do, look at what I
don't do. Perish the thought. It's not doing you any good.
Our standing with God can only be a good standing if we are
in Christ alone. Our standing with God does not
change based upon what we do, but what He has done. Our standing
with God is not based upon us at all, actually. It's based
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. It's based upon the blood. It's
based upon the new covenant. The old covenant was for a time
to show forth the Lord's Glory is holiness. They couldn't even
look at Moses when he came back off the mountain. You remember
he had to veil his face. Why? Because he was with the
Lord. They said that they trembled and exceedingly quaked. That's
us standing before the law. It's not gonna justify us. It's
going to condemn us. There's only death by it. There's
only death by it. Whether it's a civil law, whether
it's a moral law, whether it's a ceremonial law, which is what
he's talking about with the meats here, the ceremonial laws. None
of those profit the Lord's people. None of them profit the Lord's
people. No flesh is justified by the
deeds of the law. And I think that's what the writer
is doing here. He's taking the final acts. He's
been going through the whole book telling us the same thing
over and over again, but now he's taken the ax to give it
the root of it, the death blow. He's saying, this is the end
of it. Like this is, let me put an exclamation point on it. This
is not what saved you. This is not what sanctifies you.
This is not what justifies you. The Lord Jesus Christ is who
sanctifies you. The Lord Jesus Christ is who
justified you. That's what he says right here. Look in verse 12. Wherefore Jesus
also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered
without the gate. He is the sanctification of his
people. That ends all thoughts of progressive sanctification,
doesn't it? It doesn't exist. We're not progressively getting
better. It don't happen. It doesn't exist. He is our sanctification. He is our justification. He is
our righteousness. We clearly see here that Christ
is his people's only sanctification. We don't return to the dead works
of the law. We flee to Christ. We flee to the Lord Jesus Christ. We flee to Zion. That's what
that city's talking about here. For we have no, for here, verse
14, for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
Everything around us is dying. Christ is the end of the law.
Everything around, all the ceremonies, they're done, they're over. Everything's
going away. We have nothing continuing here. We're going back to dust,
but we seek one to come. Whatever is that, wherever the
Lord Jesus Christ is, that's where heaven is. That's what
we seek after is him and his righteousness. The writer sets forth Christ
as what the believers feast upon. He is what we feast upon, isn't
he? He told the Pharisees and John, he said, my body is meat
indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth not my
body or drinketh my blood have no part with me. You want part
with God, you have to drink and eat the blood and the bread of
Christ. And they thought he was talking
about cannibalism. They really thought, how are we gonna eat
his body? That's cannibalism. No, he was talking about spiritually,
wasn't he? He was talking about spiritually. We spiritually take
of the water of life freely. We spiritually eat of the body
and the blood of Christ. Well, he continues, he begins
this by talking about an altar. We have an altar, and that's
what I titled the message, Our Altar, Our Altar. And that's something that's so
important because that's the place of worship. Without an
altar, you cannot worship God. cannot worship. He said to the
children of Israel, whenever he made the mercy seat, which
is a type and picture of Christ as well, he said, this is where
I will meet with you. This is the only place that you're
going to be able to worship me. This is it right here. But Christ
being our altar, We worship Him without the camp. We don't have
to go into the camp. We don't serve in the tabernacle.
We don't eat the foods of the sacrifice. We eat the Lord Jesus
Christ. We feast upon Him. He's good. He's good. Let's read this again,
verse 10 through 14. We have an altar whereof they
have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle for the bodies
of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by
the high priest for sin are burned without the camp. where for Jesus
also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered
without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto
him without the camp, bearing his reproach." And what he's
saying right there is, is you're gonna receive some reproach of
men if you go without the camp. All these religions in the world
that have established themselves by doing this and doing that,
that's a camp. That's their, Old Covenant camp
that they're still in. That's what he's talking about
here. He's saying, no, you go without the camp. You come without the
camp. That's where Christ is. He's not in that. He's not in
the Old Covenant. Come out from that. But if you do, what did
the Lord say? You're going to be hated for
my namesake. That's what he said. You're going
to be hated. People hate this gospel. They don't want anything
to do with it. And they'll hate you. But the
Lord tells us this, he said, it's not you that they hated,
it's me. It's me, they hated me first. They hated Christ in
you, the hope of glory. That's what they hate. Verse
14, for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
God's people are made to come out of the camp, the old covenant,
out of the tabernacle of dead works to this altar, to the place
where the Lord said, here is where I'll meet with you. He's
not gonna meet anywhere else other than We have no other way
of approaching God but by the Lord Jesus Christ. As a matter
of fact, the only thing I got, I think I wrote, I don't know
if I put it in this week's bulletin or it's going to be the next
week's bulletin, but the only way vile creatures such as ourself
can come to God and not receive anything but wrath and death
is through Christ alone. It's through Christ alone, by
Him and through Him alone. And the only way that God can
have anything to do with vile, wretched creatures such as us
without destroying us is through and by Christ alone. See, He
gets all the glory. We come without the camp. We don't stay where that tabernacle's
at. It doesn't accomplish anything. They would spend all those sacrifices
and be covered for a year. Well, as soon as that year was
up, they had to do the sacrificing again, didn't they? And that
priest, you think about this, all the families that would come,
the priest worked continually. His work was never done. 365
days a year he had to work. I guess, I don't know if they
did sacrifice on the Sabbath. I'd imagine not. I'd imagine
not. I don't know that information. So it might not be 365, but you
understand what I'm saying. His work was never finished.
Matter of fact, there's no chair in the tabernacle. There was
no place for him to rest. That's the whole point. But this
man, after he had by himself purged our sin, sat down. His work's finished. This is
why we go without the gate, well, out the gate, this is why we
go without the temple, is because that didn't cleanse the conscience
whenever they did the sacrifices of all these animals. It didn't,
it didn't purge their conscience. They still had to bear in the
conscience. They were just covered. The Lord Jesus Christ, he's given
us genuine, true peace with God, eternal peace with God. We have oneness, we have peace,
we have hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why we don't
stay in the old covenant. God's elect don't feast on the
formal, unprofitable food. We feast on the lamb spiritually.
We drink from the fountain of living water. We know that the lies that are given in false
religion, we see through that now. They see it as poison, don't
we? See it as poison. You ever turn the television
on, you listen to a televangelist, they're talking to, I'm not using
a name, I'm just simply saying, don't have to name them, any
of them, pick one, don't listen to them, first of all. I'm just
saying if you did, you're gonna hear lies. You're gonna hear
a puny God and a real big man, but that's not true. It's not
true, it's the opposite, isn't it? We have a God that is higher
than the heavens, that is holy. He's sovereign. He has all power. Christ said,
all power is given unto me, both in heaven and in earth. If he
has all of it, that means I don't have any of it. I don't have any of
it. He has all power. And our Lord is also our altar. whereby we can worship God, whereby
we can feed upon him, whereby we can know the truth and the
truth sets us free. Rather than the lies of false
religion, we know the truth. Unlike the former, Unlike the
former sacrifices that they had to consume, the Lord said, you're
going to burn it with fire and you have to eat every bit of
it. That's what he told them. What's that a picture of? You can't
take just a little bit of Christ. You have to take him all. You
don't get to just, you can't take the scripture and just pick
and choose the parts that you like. It's what a lot of people
do. A lot of people take the portions of scripture, like,
I like this, but that over there, you ought to stay away from that.
I don't, you know, I mean, I've actually heard people say that. No, all
scripture is given an inspiration of the spirit. All scripture
speaks of Christ, doesn't it? He said, search the scriptures
for in them you think you have eternal life, but they are they
which speak of me. They speak all of it. This is him. If you
don't, you can't take John and leave out Matthew. I'm being
a little over exaggerate here, but you understand it's all of
it. We have to have all of it. That's the picture. Whenever
they sacrifice, uh, roasted the lamb with fire, the sacrifice
of fire, they'd eat all of it. Well, if you want the Lord Jesus
Christ, you're going to have to have all of him, all of him.
And in having all of him, you're going to realize, Lord's going
to make us realize we're nothing and he's everything. We're nothing
and he's everything. He's good. And we're false. He's truth. And we're the lie.
That's what we'll be made to realize. We give all glory to
the Lord. He gets all of it. Don't you
love the fact that you and I had to be made, we had to be made
partakers of his death. We couldn't decide that. We couldn't
decide to be partakers. Where were you? He asked, Joe,
where were you? And I laid the foundation of
the world. We can apply it to where were you whenever Christ
died upon the cross. Think about that. If we had to be there to
physically do something, we missed it. No, the work was between
the Father and the Son. And what took place on the cross
wasn't just an attempt to save people. It was a successfully
accomplished salvation that was wrought that day by the Lord
Jesus Christ by Himself. When His Father poured out His
wrath upon His own Son that was due us, made Christ sin for us
who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. That's why we come out of the camp. That's our altar.
That's where we worship right there. We don't look to things
anymore. We don't look to things physically.
We look to Christ spiritually, by faith. We're made to realize
because of his shed blood, there is no more sin. Therefore, there's
no need for works anymore. Has the Lord shown you that there's
no more sin? Have you been made to believe there is now therefore
no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus? Because
if he has, that means there's no more sin. You know there's
no work needs to be done. Don't do it. Don't do it. The altar is set, the table is
spread. That's why the scripture tells us, whosoever will, let
him come, take of the water of life freely. come and buy without
money and without price, leave the tabernacle, leave the former
law, leave the covenant, old covenant, come out to the altar,
come out without the camp to where Christ is. Well, how do
I do that? The Lord has to say, seek ye my face. So it's all
spiritual. This isn't physical. This is
all spiritual things. And that's what he does to every
one of his sheep. He calls us out of darkness into his marvelous
light at his appointed time. Well, we have a vast, a vast
supply. It's an endless supply, isn't
it? An endless refreshing of grace and mercy, righteousness. We have an endless supply, endless
supply, readily available to sinners. Herein we feed on his
words, his words are life, we feed on his words, we feed on
the words of life. There's no other life given other
than in Christ Jesus, no other life given. He is life eternal
for his people. We don't have to look at types
and shadows anymore. All they could do is look at types and
shadows. How many times, all they had was types and shadows.
How many times do you think that priest was really sacrificing
that lamb and actually was thinking to the promise of Christ? Some
of them may. But think about the types and
the shadows. We get to look back and see now, they had to be revealed
back then just like they do now. The Lord had to give faith to
believe, didn't he? Still does. But we don't have to look at
types and shadows. We see Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
despising the shame. But that means it didn't bother
him, didn't faze him. And he's now sat down on the
right hand of God. We have substance. We know it
is finished. We know that every person that
Jesus Christ died for has been successfully redeemed. We know
that to be true. We know that to be true. Whenever
the Lord said it is finished and he cannot lie, that means
it's finished. It is finished. I love the thought that every
person committed to his care is saved, but some of them just
don't know it yet. I like that. I like that. Now, To be without
the camp is to have peace and life, to feast at this altar,
to worship at this altar. It is God's gift of grace alone
that enables us to do this. We didn't earn it. We didn't
choose it. God chose. God enabled. God supplied. And I'm going to say this this
hour and the next, everything God requires, he must provide.
We can't provide anything God requires. We can't, we're not
capable of doing that. We are the creature, he is the
creator. So everything required for your salvation, the salvation
of God's people, God had to do it all. And that's just what
this is saying here. Tabernacle's the type of picture.
It's good, it came from the Lord, but the law was only there to
show you that you cannot get to God this way. You have to
come without the camp to an altar I'm gonna supply, not one made
with hands. Not one made with hands. You're
not gonna be able to lay your hands to it. You're not gonna
be able to sacrifice it yourself. I'm gonna sacrifice it perfectly
so that you'll be redeemed. That's what the Lord did for
his people. That's exactly what he did on
the cross. Now the contrast to that is very
simple. If you desire to serve the old tabernacle, you cannot
have part, cannot have part with the lamb. You cannot worship
at this altar if you have anything to do with that old tabernacle,
that old covenant. If you're going to that old covenant
in any way, shape, or form, you cannot have the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he's saying to us
here. Only those who are unable to look to Christ alone come
to Christ. Only those who are unable because
everyone else, they'll hold on to something throughout their
entire life. I know people that specifically
I've talked to, they say they believe this gospel And yet some
of the things that they do are evidence that they do not believe
it. I had a preacher friend of mine tell me, he said, well,
if I preach that, I'd lose my congregation. That's what he
told me. If I preach that, I'd lose my
congregation. That means your treasure's on earth. That's what
that means. That's scary. It's sad, isn't it? Very sad.
We pray for these people, the Lord would cause them to come
out from the camp, cause them to come out from the tabernacle.
It's not gonna save you. It's not gonna help you. You're
gonna stand before God with nothing, nothing. But those who are in
Christ will be standing there with his righteousness. If you
approach God with just a little bit, even a little bit of righteousness
of your own self-righteousness, you will die. You will die. That's as clear as I can be.
We can't have any righteousness of our own. You're not clothed
with his righteousness. And this is well put in Matthew
chapter 22. Turn with me there. Here we have the parable of the
king that makes a marriage for his son. And he sends the servants
out because everything's ready, the marriage is ready. The feast
is ready, everybody's prepared, we're ready to go. Go fetch the
people. So he sends his servants down
to fetch the chosen, or the ones, to invite them to the feast.
Well, they were cruel to the servants. They mocked them, and
then they killed them. And that's a picture of the Lord's
preachers. The Lord's preachers go forth and declare the truth.
The table's set, the altar's here. This is our altar, the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's what the preacher does.
Then you have those that not only mock the truth, but they
hate it insomuch that they, well, they killed the Lord Jesus for
it, didn't they? That's the whole point. Away with this man. Let
his blood be upon us and on our children. After, After they were killed, the king got his
army ready and went down there and slaughtered every one of
them that killed the servants. And that's going to happen one
day. The Lord's going to scripture talks about raining fire and
brimstone whenever he creates a new heaven and a new earth.
And we don't understand all of that. We believe it because the
Lord tells us. But one of these days, everyone that is not the
Lord's, they're going to have to suffer the wrath of God. And
it's going to be eternal because their soul is sinful. They're
not, that's why we need to substitute one that had already endured
that wrath. Everybody's going to either suffer the wrath of
God by themselves or they suffered it in Christ Jesus. The elect
of God suffered it in Christ Jesus. That's why there's no
condemnation anymore. We've died unto the law. We've
died unto sin. We've been saved, we've been
redeemed. But the, after the servants,
or he looked at the servants after that, so he told the army
to go slaughter them. They did, he looked at the servants and
said, now go out into the highways and bid them to come. Bid whosoever
to come. And that's what they did. They
went and they, they bid whosoever. So they got people to come in
for the wedding, for the wedding. During that time, they gave wedding
garments. They're supplied by the king. He says, wear this. And everybody
was supposed to wear whatever it was. I'd imagine it's the
same thing, wouldn't you? Makes sense. But look here in verse
11, whenever he comes to the wedding, it says, and when the
king came in to see the guest, he saw there a man which had
not on a wedding garment. And he said unto him, friend,
How camest thou in hither without having a wedding garment? And
he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants,
bind him hand and foot and take him away and cast him into outer
darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth for many are called, but few are chosen. Now that
may seem to some as a harsh punishment for not wearing a wedding garment.
But it is a picture of not having the righteousness of Christ,
but having your own righteousness, which is of the law, which is
no righteousness at all. That's what this is a picture
of. It's someone who did not believe the gospel, someone who
does not have any righteousness whatsoever. And yet they are
saying, my righteousness is as good as the righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. This will be the end, their demise.
This will be what happens to them if they do that. The Lord
says, bind them and cast them into outer darkness. That's eternal
torment, isn't it? So what must we do to have eternal
life then? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Believe on him. Now here's the
message. This is the call forth right
now to the marriage. This is the call forth right
now. Whosoever will, let him come in. But you have to have
the garments of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't be in the camp.
You can't be at the tabernacle. You have to come out. To the
altar, you have to come out to Christ. That's the only place
God will meet with you in mercy and in grace. If he meets us
any other way, it'll be in judgment. It'll be in judgment and death.
To reject this garment means you have no righteousness. You
cannot eat. Cannot eat the lamb. Cannot have part. Can't have
part with Christ and part with the law. It doesn't work that
way. This is life and death. What fellowship hath light with
darkness? It can't happen. It's all of
Christ or it's none of him. You're actually, if a person
does not bow to God's righteousness. They're actually declaring that
their own righteousness exceeds his. Mine's good enough. What a sad state to be in. Now
in closing, let's go back to our text, Hebrews chapter 13. Look at, we'll read our text
again, 10 through 14. We have an altar whereof they
have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. That's so clear,
isn't it? If you're serving the tabernacle, you cannot eat at
this altar. You cannot eat. For the bodies of those beasts
whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest
for sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also that
he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without
the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing
his reproach. For here have we no continuing
city, but we seek one to come. We eat outside the camp, don't
we? Lord's people are made and able to eat outside the camp,
outside of the old covenant, why? Because we were made to. The truth was revealed, the light
shone forth, and God gets all the glory in this. We didn't
make a choice one day to come out of the camp. If you're coming
to Christ, if you're believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, it's
because he caused you to, he enabled you to. Everything required,
he provided for you to come to Christ, for you to look to him,
for you to feast upon him. The only way that we can eat
is to be robed in the very righteousness of Christ, and that's what he
did. How do we know? Because we have an altar. We
have an altar. We have a sacrifice that was
slain, perfect sacrifice on that altar. We have a substitute,
a surety that saved his people from their sin. We have a successful
sovereign savior seated at the right hand of God. Thank God
we have an altar. Let's pray. Father, we ask that
you would take these words and bless them according to your
will to our understanding. In Christ's name we pray, amen.
Let's take a break.