We're gonna be in Hebrews chapter
10, both hours, if you would like to turn there. And while you're turning there,
I will bring up a very good piece of information. We moved down
here on the 16th of August, I believe, is that right? 16th of August,
two years ago. And we had our first service
in this building on September the 11th. And so in the bulletin,
you'll see that that Sunday following the 15th, we're gonna try to
have a fellowship dinner. We're thankful, so thankful for
the Lord's time we've had together and trust that he'll keep us
for many, many more years. Hebrews chapter 10. Here in our
text, we have a declaration of something that is impossible,
of an impossibility, declared by the writer of Hebrews, but
from the Lord. And the impossibility is that
we could be saved by our works, by our works. This is cemented
with these two words that's put in this text. It's cemented by
these two words, not possible. If God says something's not possible,
We'd be wise to know exactly what it is. The Lord said, this
isn't possible. We would be wise to heed, to
hearken unto his voice. And I pray that he will cause
us to do so this morning. Let's read our text, Hebrews
chapter one, I'm sorry, Hebrews chapter 10, verses one through
four. For the law having a shadow of good things to come and not
the very image of the things that can never with those sacrifices,
which they offered year by year, continually make the comers there
unto perfect. For then would they not have
ceased to be offered? Because that the worshipers once
purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those
sacrifices there is remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the
blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. It's not possible. I've titled this message, The
Remembrance of Sin. The Remembrance of Sin. Naturally,
we have understanding of good and evil, naturally. We inherited
this natural understanding from our father, Adam, who in the
garden, him and Eve, both partook of the fruit, and therein entered
in good and evil, the knowledge of good and evil. All of Adam's
offspring, which I'll go ahead and just say this, every person
that's ever been on the face of the earth, other than the
Lord Jesus Christ, is Adam's offspring. They have knowledge
of good and evil. They have knowledge of it. In
Romans chapter two, verse 14, it says, for when the Gentiles,
which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in
the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves,
which show the work of the law written on their hearts. He's
saying the Gentiles, they don't have the law, but they show forth
the law written on their hearts, their conscience also bearing
witness, and their thoughts, the meanwhile, accusing or excusing
one another, accusing or excusing one another. This is evidence
of all men having knowledge of good and evil, good and evil,
wrong and right. But what cannot be understand
naturally is sin and holiness. That can't be understand naturally.
Sin and holiness are not something that a man can come to the conclusion
of on his own. Here's why, 1 Corinthians 2.14,
the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them
because they are spiritually discerned, spiritually discerned. He doesn't say here that the
natural man sometimes receives the things of the spirit, he
says cannot. The same word that we saw before
where he says it's not possible that the blood of bulls and goats
would purchase from our sins, that's not possible. It's not
possible to receive spiritual things, carnally speaking. Nothing we do in the flesh merits
anything in the spirit. And that is so important that
we understand that. And I believe we do. But to anyone
else that may ever listen to this, it's so important to understand
that nothing that we do, it's not possible for it to merit
anything spiritually. Without exception, nothing that
we do. I can't pray a prayer and gain
something spiritually. It doesn't work that way. I can
ask my heavenly father, and you can too, your heavenly father,
Lord, give us this day our daily bread, and he gives us bread,
did I merit that? No, I asked him according to
his will. According to his will, I didn't
merit anything. Yet mankind strive to make penance. strive to make penance of their
wrong, they try to right their wrongs. And they say, well, we
can merit things spiritually by doing this or doing that.
I was talking to someone two days ago. And they were Catholic
at one time, he says, Well, I'm not Catholic anymore. I'm like,
Well, what are you? And he says, Well, I just quit going to mass
and quit going to Catholic Church. But We took all these, I can't
remember the word he said, I should have looked it up, but all the
ordinances and all the certain ceremonies that you have to do
to become more and more better in the Catholic realm, if you
understand what I'm saying. Anyways, she said, well, I did
all of them, but he only did two of them. And I thought, you're
still Catholic. If you're telling me that, you're
letting me know that you have some righteousness based upon
that. And I looked at him and I said, did you know that doesn't
mean anything to God? As a matter of fact, he calls
that iniquity. Iniquity. They never heard that
before. I said, Jesus Christ is the one the Lord accepts,
not you and I. We can't do anything in the flesh
to merit something spiritually. We were recently down I may have told this story already,
but there's a man that came around making balloon animals. And I
knew him walking up, it wasn't going to be for free. You just
know, he's going, because the girls are like, yay, a balloon.
I'm like, it's not for free. And I was like, well, how much
are they? And he said, well, they're for
free, but we're taking donations. It's like, OK, you're guilting
me into giving it, and you're calling it not OK. I said, well,
what for? And he said, for charity. We're
missionaries. And I said, missionaries to where?
And he said, Kentucky. And in my mind, I thought, I
can tell you three or four churches that are in Kentucky, and you
can just about get to every one of them, depending on where you
live geographically. But he said that they were raising
money to go and they were going to do humanitarian efforts. They
weren't going to go there. They didn't know. They don't
know the gospel, so it couldn't have been a gospel mission. It was
to go and help somebody build a porch. It was to go and help
somebody fix drywall in their house. That's good. I mean, that's
not a bad thing to do if that's what you want to do. Don't put
the name of God on it. Don't do it for righteousness. We can't
do anything in the flesh that merits anything spiritually before
God as righteousness. We can't. We can't. I'm not saying don't be humanitarian
to your fellow man, but don't do it as part of our righteousness.
God will not have it. God calls it iniquity. He hates
the workers of iniquity. Mankind strive to make penance
when they realize that they can see the law. and they can see
that it says they're guilty because of sin, and they have a conscience
that convicts them, and therefore they try to fix it, but they
really don't understand sin because sin is not what we do. Sin is
what we are. The mountain of sin that we are, we can't comprehend that. Can't
comprehend that. Nothing we can do to take it
away or make one's sin disappear. No, the problem is with these
I'm speaking of is that they, they can make the wrong, they
believe they can make the wrong in themselves right by doing
something, by doing something. I'll use the example as a scale.
So many people believe on judgment day that as long as they've been
good to people, as long as they've done this, or maybe they've had
their church name in a church on the registry, they're considered
a member. They try to go there. They try
to help others. They've done this and that. That when they
get to heaven, the scale will be there and God's going to put
all their good on one side and all their bad on the other side.
And if the good outweighs the bad, he'll say, enter in. But
what they don't realize, and I've said this even recently,
is all the good and all the bad's gonna go on the same side because
God doesn't see the good as good that we produce. He sees it all
as bad. The one that we will be compared
to is the Lord Jesus Christ. The one that we will be compared
to is the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll never measure up. Never
measure up. And therefore, these men that
believe all this good that they're doing, that's why he said in
that verse that they accuse and they excuse. Turn with me to
Romans 2. Romans 2. I just wanna read two
verses here. I read this earlier, but I want
you to see it as well. Look at verse 14 and 15 of Romans
2. For when the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature
the things contained in the law, these having not the law are
a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written
in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness in their
thoughts, the meanwhile accusing or else accusing one another. Here's the problem. We cannot
do something to take away our sin. We cannot. So naturally,
well, first of all, it's completely contrary to the scripture. If
we could, Christ would have never had to come and die. If we could
do anything to take away our sin, if we could do anything
right before God, Christ would not have had to come and die. What does the scripture say about
that? Well, the soul that sinneth, it shall die, Ezekiel 18, 20.
That's straightforward, isn't it? If the soul sins, it dies.
There is no other, you can't fix it. You can't fix it. Men
say, but I can fix it. I can, no we can't. And all we
can do in approaching the law is compare ourself to others.
We can accuse them of not living the life that we are to justify
ourself, or we can excuse ourself because we're not as bad as this
one, or we're not as bad as that one. That's what he's talking
about here. Accusing or excusing, that's what men do. That's what
men do. Men try to accuse others to justify
self based upon what you see. We have an account of that in
the scripture, and I've used it recently, but for the sake
of how parallel it is with this message, you remember the Pharisee
that stood up in the temple? There's a article in your bulletin,
a little article about this, and it's talking about religion,
and it says evidence of religion is points to self, doesn't it?
Points to self. That's the evidence of all false
religion. It points to self and says, look at me. What did the
Pharisee do? He said he prayed within himself. God, I thank
you. I'm not like as other men are.
I'm not an extortioner. I don't do this. I don't do this.
I tithe, I fast. I'm not even like that publican
over there. And what did the publican say? He would not even
lift up his eyes unto heaven, but beat upon his chest, saying,
God, have mercy on me, the sinner. And the Lord said, one of these
went home justified. One of these went home justified. And this
is the whole picture here that men are thinking they're doing
is getting them more and more righteous, but it's not. It's
condemning them more and more. It's the opposite. The way up
is not up, it's down, isn't it? John said he must increase and
I must decrease. It's not what we have done, it's
what he has done. And every time we go to the law,
there's the remembrance of sin. If we go to the law for justification
in and of ourself, every single time the law will say guilty,
guilty. If we go there for justification,
because I've kept this and I've done this, it'll say guilty.
But every time we flee to the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no
remembrance of sin. He put it all away. He put it
all away for the sacrifice of himself. There's the good news
of the gospel. That's why we flee to him. We don't go to the
law for justification. We flee to Christ who is our
justification. How do we know that those sins
don't exist? Well, he tells us, Jeremiah 31,
34. I will forgive their iniquity
and I will remember their sin. No more. No more. We do not approach the law for
our justification. We come to Christ who is our
justification before God. We plead the blood that is our
justification. We don't go to the law and try
to work and try to fix the bad that we are and hope that the
good outweighs the bad. No, we see that we're wretched. We see that we're vile. We see
that we're sinners from the top of our head to the bottom of
our feet and we need to substitute. We come to Mount Sinai, there
is only guilt and shame. There's only the remembrance
of sin. We don't come to Mount Sinai, we go to Mount Moriah.
Mount Moriah was the mountain that Abraham took Isaac upon.
And what was seen in that mountain? Grace and mercy. He said, Father, where's the
sacrifice? He said, the Lord will provide
himself. did provide himself didn't he he provided for himself
and he provided himself the sacrifice the Lord Jesus Christ and as
the knife was about to fall upon Isaac the angel of the Lord spoke
up and said harm not the lad harm not the lad there is a substitute
cult in the bushes back there. They looked up and saw the substitute,
the lamb, the goat, the ram caught by the horns. It's a picture
of our Lord being caught by our sin, the curse of our sin. That's
what the thorns represent. And who was offered then? The
ram was instead of Isaac. Isaac, you can live now. Why?
Because there's a remedy. There's another sacrifice. And
that's the same for the Lord's people, the sacrifices the Lord
Jesus Christ. We're going to hear the second
hour that the Lord does not delight in sacrifice and burnt offerings.
We're going to hear the title of that's what is acceptable
unto the Lord. And this hour, it goes hand in
hand because it's the verses right after this, but only what
the Lord provides is he pleased with. If God doesn't provide
it, he's not pleased with it. God's just pleased with God.
God is only pleased with God. Therefore, we must come begging
for what God is pleased with the blood of Christ, the work
of Christ, Christ himself. Not saying, look at me, look
at what I've done, but say, look to him, look to him, Lord, cause
him to be my substitute. We do not come seeking our own
righteousness by doing, we come seeking Christ who is our righteousness. Isn't that true? Come seeking
Christ who is our righteousness. Understand coming to the law,
I wanna narrow that down so we understand exactly what I mean
by coming to the law. You have a moral law, how you
live your life, moral law. You have a civil law, how you
treat others. And you have a ceremonial law. And this is what we're finding
in our text right here, more of the ceremonial law, the sacrifice
and the burnt offerings. But they all go hand in hand
as the law. Moral law, people justify themselves by looking
at what they're doing. Civil law, people justify themselves
by how they're treating others. And then ceremonial law is what
they do in taking ceremony, such as the Lord's table or whatever
ceremony they partake in. It's the only one we observe,
so we have baptism as well, but those ordinances are ordained.
I just gave that as an example. None of those, however, none
of those, keeping any of those as part of righteousness will
amount to righteousness. Keeping those for part of righteousness
amounts to iniquity. Christ is the only one that kept
the moral law perfectly. He's the only one that kept the
civil law perfectly. He's the only one that kept the
ceremonial law perfectly. You and I can't do that. It's
not possible. Doing these or keeping these
for righteousness can never make the doer clean. Never can. Doesn't make one righteous. It
only reveals our iniquity. It only adds to the mountain
of sin that we're charged with. But hear what our Lord says.
Psalm 85 too. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity
of thy people. Thou hast covered all their sin. Thou has forgiven the iniquity
of thy people. Thou has covered all their sin.
You know what that means? There's no more remembrance of
sin. If you're in Christ, there's no more remembrance of sin. How is that possible? By the
blood of Christ, the precious lamb of God, the work on Calvary's
cross, when he offered himself up to the father and the father
was pleased to redeem every single person given to Christ. Isaiah
43 25 says I even I and I like when the Lord says that I even
I. Am he that blotted out that transgression
for mine own sake and will not remember that sins. There is remission of sins for
those for whom the Lord Jesus Christ died. There is forgiveness,
there is grace, there is mercy, and there is no remembrance,
no remembrance of sin. Now you and I remember the sin,
don't we? We think on it, we grieve on it, not as we all.
But we're often grieved at the decisions we make. I love the
fact that every time our adversary accuses us before the Father,
that he just points to the blood and says, what sin? It ain't
there anymore. It's gone. It's gone. I love that. That
means that Satan's a liar. Every time he accuses me or you
to God, he's a liar. He's lying. He says, well, they've
done this and this and this. No, they haven't. The blood's washed
it away. It's gone. There's no remembrance
of sin anymore. That's good news. And that takes
the sinner out of the equation. He did every bit of it. That's
the glorious part of the gospel is it didn't depend upon me and
you keeping a ceremonial law, keeping a moral law, or keeping
a civil law. He did it. He did it. Everyone he loves, he put all
the sin away by dying in our room instead. Those were our
nails that they nailed him to that tree with. That was our
cross that we deserved. The wrath of God that fell upon
Christ, that was the wrath due us for our sin. The death that
he suffered should have been our death. It was due to us. But he took it. And he willingly,
obediently laid his life down for his people. Not as an attempt
to redeem, not to try and hope that we'll let him redeem. No,
he successfully redeemed every person that he died for. The
shame that he bore, that was our shame. The sin he was made
to be, that was my sin and your sin. Now he says in Isaiah 43,
25, I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for my
own sake and will not remember thy sins. anymore. There's no
more remembrance of sin. It's gone. Scripture says he
took the handwriting of ordinances that were against us, that were
contrary to us, he took them out of the way Nailing them to
his cross. There's no more a handwriting
of ordinances that says all the things that we've done wrong
and bad, all the sins that we've committed, all the sin that we
are. He took it out of the way, nailed it to his cross, and he
blotted it out. It's gone. You know what the
record reads now? Clear. Perfect. Holy. Righteous, justified, sanctified,
glorified. There's no remembrance of sin
anymore. There is no remembrance of sin if we are in Christ. He did it by his own blood, didn't
he? He blotted them out. No wonder Isaiah said this. Or
the Lord said to Isaiah, tell my people this, comfort ye, comfort
ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. We don't have
to fight anymore. We don't have to strive anymore.
The sin's gone. Our iniquity is pardoned and
she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. Double. What is that double?
Well, it's goodness and mercy. It's mercy and grace. Righteousness
and holiness, there's several doubles in the scripture and
it's every one of them, isn't it? It's every one of them. We've
been given life in Christ, life in Christ, and it's in him we
live, move, and have our being. And it's eternal life, eternal
life. No more does the law say guiltiest
as perfectly righteous are those who are in Christ. There's no
more remembrance of sin. And one of the writers said, who
is a God likened to thee that pardoneth iniquity, that pardoneth
iniquity, that redeemed his chosen people, that saved us by his
grace? I love grace, don't you? You
know grace. The ones that are here today,
you all know and tasted grace. It's by grace are you saved through
faith in that not of yourself. I love that. I love that it's
not complicated. Grace. God saves us by grace
alone. And we don't add anything to
that. I love that. I can't take anything away from
that. For by grace are you saved through faith in that not of
yourself. That completely removes the sinner out of the equation.
It's not me plus, it's not the Lord plus the blood plus my life
equals salvation. No, it's God plus God equals
eternal life for his chosen people. Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his mercy. I love mercy. Mercy's
not getting what you do deserve and grace is getting what you
don't deserve. That's the double. What do we receive? What did
we receive? We received eternal life by the
Lord Jesus Christ. We received the forgiveness of
sin. That weight of sin that you bear,
that blackness that you see in yourself, there's no remembrance
of it before the throne of God. If we are in Christ, he put it
away. He put it away. Not because of our works. Not
because of us doing the law, but all by his finished work.
Therefore, there is no remission of sin. In closing, go back to
our text, Hebrews chapter 10. I want you to, He's speaking factually about
everything that was in the past and what it was. But in Christ,
we're going to see this, what we have in Christ. And it's based
upon what they didn't have off of those old sacrifices. But
here's what we have in Christ because these new sacrifices.
Let's read this. For the law having a shadow of good things
to come and not the very image. Now we have the image now. You
see that? The image of Christ. Of the things
can never with those sacrifices, which they continually make year
by year, the comers there unto perfect, but because we have
the image and his sacrifice, those that are in Christ are
made perfect by his singular sacrifice. And we find that here
because then it says, for then would they not have ceased to
offer it. He was offered up once, once. And he entered once into
the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us, once.
And it ceased. Then he goes on to say, because
that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience
of sin. And that's what we have in Christ.
Our conscience is purged. We have a clear conscience before
the Lord. If we are in Christ looking to Christ, we have a
clear conscience. He purged it. Scripture says
when he had by himself purged our sin, he sat down. Verse three,
but in those sacrifices, there is remembrance again made of
sin every year. For it's not possible that the
blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins, but with this
sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ, what he accomplished, there's
no more remembrance of sin, because it was possible. It was possible,
and it is possible that his blood would take away the sin of his
people, and it did, and it did. And look in verse 10 at what
we have in him. We'll see this next hour too, but by the witch
will, his will, We are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ, how many times? Once and for all. There's no
more remembrance of sin to those who are in Christ Jesus. Christ
hath made his people perfect. Christ hath made his people perfect.
He was offered one time and he is now seated. He's purged our
sin and he sat down. Therefore we have a clear conscience
before God. We have a clear conscience before
God. I love when he, we've heard this three times now, but I love
he says their sin and their iniquity will I remember no more. How
is a God that can't forget anything? I think about that. You talk about a conundrum for
the human brain. How does a God that can't forget anything, knows
everything all the time, gonna say, your sins and your iniquity
will all remember no more. That's the power of the blood
of Christ. That's what it accomplished.
That's what it accomplished. It put them away. They're gone. They never happened. They're
gone. They don't exist. They don't
exist. There's no more remembrance of
the sin of God's chosen people. His blood's taken them all away.
His death brought us life. His resurrection is proof of
our justification. He is now seated as the successful
sovereign savior as his people. He has no remembrance of our
sin. And you know why he did that? Because of grace, according
to his own will and good purpose. The grace that was given us in
Christ before the foundation of the world, not because of
what me and you've done, But because he chose to show mercy
and grace to a bunch of wretched sinners, then there's no more
memory of that sin anymore. Let's pray. Father, thank you
that there is no more remembrance of our sin. What comfort. Bless this to our understanding
and for your glory. In Christ's name, amen. Let's
take a break.