The first hour we are going to
be looking in the book of Hebrews chapter 9. Hebrews chapter 9
if you would like to turn there. Hebrews chapter 9 and we are
going to read verses 6-10. Now when these things were thus
ordained, The priest went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing
the service of God, but into the second with the high priest
alone, once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself
and for the errors of the people. The Holy Ghost, this signifying
that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest
while as the first tabernacle was yet standing, which was a
figure for the time then present in which we're offered both gifts
and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service
perfect as pertaining to the conscience. which stood only
in meats and drinks and diverse washings and carnal ordinances
imposed on them until the time of reformation. Having indicated
previously as we looked last Sunday about all these elements
that are in the temple and how their purpose, or I guess their
purpose, what their purpose was for the service of God and unto
God. All these gifts and all these sacrifices and all the
things that they had. The first thing that the writer
brings to our attention is these were not ordained of men. This
was ordained of God. But the spirit bore witness with
all of these things that the way was not yet made for us to
enter the holy place. The way was not yet made. So I've titled this message,
The Way Made. The Way Made. Often men want
to have objects. They want to have ordinances. They want to have different things
that they can attach to that remind them of God, that make
them think of God, perhaps, that make them think of biblical stories,
perhaps, or whether they be trinkets. The best example I can give you
is cross necklaces. Men and women, you see those
all the time. You go out in town, if you're
looking for them, you could probably find one on somebody. I looked
around this morning and don't see any. That's why we can, I
can use that one. Nobody's going to get mad at me, but it's their,
their graven images. That's what they are. They're
graven images. They're not doing the, you're not glorifying God
with that. You're glorifying self. Look at me. Look at me,
that's all that that is. And some people have, whether
it be pictures or whether it be nativity scenes, we always
had nativity scenes growing up. It's all graven images. That's
all that it is. It doesn't bring the Lord any glory. It doesn't
bring the Lord any honor. We glorify the Lord by preaching
his gospel. That's where the Lord meets with
us. That's where the Lord meets with us. Men think that all these
things that they're doing represents a good thing. It's because our
flesh desires to see something. Flesh desires to see something,
to touch something, to feel something, whether it makes them feel good
about something they've done or something they've accomplished.
But the only elements that the Lord's ever ordained are the
elements that we observe here. There's two of them. You know
what they are. It's the Lord's table, which we try to take the
first Sunday of every month. Try to take the Lord's table
the first Sunday of every month for the purpose of confessing
that it's His blood alone and it's His body alone that is our
righteousness before God. That's what we're confessing.
That's what we're confessing. It's not that we are becoming
holy by eating it. No, we eat it because the Lord
has made us holy. The Lord has ordained that element,
those ordinances, given us something where we can confess that Christ's
blood and his body is all. Now it's clear throughout scripture,
brethren, that baptism always precedes the Lord's table, always. When Peter was preaching, he
said, repent and be baptized. When Philip preached unto the
Ethiopian eunuch, he told him to repent and be baptized first. And then we see after that, we
partake in the Lord's table. Baptism always precedes the Lord's
table. Meaning, if you don't wish to
confess Christ in baptism, you shouldn't partake in the Lord's
table, you shouldn't. I'll tell you why, because Matthew
10, 32 says, whosoever therefore shall confess me before men,
will I confess also before my Father which is in Heaven. But
he that denies me before me in Him will I also deny before my
Father which is in Heaven." Now I want to make this clear because
we are talking about ordinances this morning. These are old ordinances
that were written right here. I'm talking about the new ordinances.
We never do baptism or taking the Lord's table as any part
of our salvation. We any part of our salvation. We do it because the Lord hath
saved us. Because the Lord hath called
us. And we have a desire because of that by faith to confess Him. And that desire, he has given
us the ability to confess in baptism, and then afterwards,
to partake in his table, confessing his body, confessing his blood
alone. We do this in obedience to the
command of our Lord and Savior. He told the disciples, go preach
the gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now something I
want us to understand that children should never partake in the Lord's
table because it's a holy ordinance. It's not something that we just
do. It's something that we are confessing. Children should not
partake in it. That's very, very important.
We have to keep it a sacred thing, a sacred thing. Unless the children
have been called of the Lord and baptized, then they can take
it. I know someone, Lacey confessed baptism at 12 years old. I had
no idea she was even talking to Greg about it. And she looked
at me, she said, I want to be baptized. Me and Greg's been
talking about it. I called up Greg and he said, yeah, we'll
do it this Sunday. I had no idea that was about to happen. I was
delighted. But the point I'm making, she
then could partake in the Lord's table. Children should not partake
unless they have confessed Christ in baptism first. These are the
sacred ordinances. This is what God has consecrated.
This is what God has said. Do this in remembrance of me. Do this in remembrance of me.
This is what he's given us, the ability to confess him outwardly
before men. And then when we take the Lord's
table, we're confessing him again unto him, unto him. I want to reiterate, it's not
part of salvation. So if anybody ever hears this
later on, they're thinking, well, this guy's preaching, you got
to be baptized and you got to, you have to confess Christ in
the heart. You have to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. And if you can, you will. He's the one that does
that. He's the one that gives the ability to do that. And he
gives the desire to be baptized. He gives the desire to partake
of the Lord's table. And what we're confessing in
that is he's all of our hope of eternal life. He's our only
righteousness before God's throne. And we should treat these two
ordinances with the utmost respect, the utmost respect. Now, because
it was in our text of the old ordinances, I wanted to bring
up the new ordinances that the Lord has given us. And now we're
gonna go back and look at the old ordinances and their significance.
So here in our text, the writer's talking about the former ordinances
of the old covenant. And every one of these were,
were fulfilled in Christ. Every one of these were, they
were made complete in him. They all pointed to him. They
all pointed to him, but they were fulfilled in him. He mentions
the priest. The first thing he mentions is
the priest did not dare enter in without blood. There is no
way that you and I can enter into the presence of God without
the blood of the Lamb being applied. If we do, it's certain death.
It's certain death. But with the blood, he says come. He says come. That priest could
not enter in without blood. Now first he did the offering
for himself. That's not our high priest. Our
priest never had to make an offering for himself, did he? He was perfect. He was sinless. He was separate
from sinners. He brought by his own blood,
our redemption. He didn't have to offer up first
once for himself and then for the people. But the old ordinances,
they were that the priest had to offer his, he had to confess
his sin first, offer a sacrifice and then for the errors of the
people. This was done on the Day of Atonement once every year,
as we spoke about last Sunday, and to remind, I think everybody
about it was here last Sunday, but just to remind you, the Day
of Atonement, they would make sacrifice every day, every single
day. It was sacrifice after sacrifice
after sacrifice. People would bring their animals,
but only once per year did the high priest enter into the holiest
of holies with the blood and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat.
That was called the Day of Atonement, the Day of Atonement. He tells us why all of these
ordinances were in place in verse eight. In verse eight he says,
the Holy Ghost, this signifying that the way into the holiest
of all was not yet made manifest. You and I had no chance, no hope,
no opportunity of going into the holy place and worshiping
God. We'd have died immediately, immediately. We had no right,
we had no ability, So therefore we have no hope if we think we
can approach God even now. We have no hope to enter the
holiest by ourself. By ourself. We could have never
atoned for our sins. Could never have atoned for our
sin. And it's still true, just as true now as in this, in the
new covenant, the covenant of grace, it's still just as true
in the new covenant as it was the old. We can't atone for our
sin. We need grace. That's the whole point, isn't
it? We need God to do something for us. Because we certainly
can't do it for ourself. We can never approach God with
our works. We can never offer up our blood. And the Lord won't
accept any other blood but the blood of Christ. He said, not
by the blood of bulls and goats, but by his own blood he entered
in. He's not gonna accept the blood of bull and goats anymore. We can't offer our life. I remember
somebody overheard a conversation and they were saying, well, I
live my life. I live my life for God. What
they mean was, is they're sacrificing things, and they're doing things,
and they live a certain way to offer themselves up unto the
Lord. The Lord says, no, there's only one life I'm looking at,
and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. There's only one who could live
perfectly. That's the one I'm looking to. That's the one that
we must be looking to. We must have an intercessor.
We need a high priest. We must have a high priest, one
that it can enter into that which was in the veil. We must have
an advocate. John says this, if any man sin,
if any of the Lord's people sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Only the Lord's people do have
an advocate. Only the Lord's people do have
the Lord Jesus Christ given to them. All of these old elements and
ordinances realize their fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is God's priest and God's people's priest. He's our representative.
He's our high priest, given to his people freely by his grace.
He is the way made. I titled the message, The Way
Made. He is the way made. He is the way made. I've heard
messages where men's talking about the way But Christ is the
way. The way is not what we do. The
way is not how we live. Christ is the way. The truth
is not what we say. Christ is the truth. He is the
life. Now every aspect of the ministry
seen here Every aspect of this ministry was earthly. It did
have spiritual significance, but it was all earthly ministry.
And it was all fulfilled in Christ Jesus on the cross of Calvary.
Every bit of it. Every bit of it. He's a fulfillment
of the entire old covenant. He's a fulfillment of all the
old sacrifices and offerings and gifts brought. He's the fulfillment
of everlasting life for his people. That's where it all came together.
That's where it all lighted upon was the cross of Calvary. When
he was offered up unto the father and the father said, I'm well
pleased in the veil in the temple was written twain, not holiest
of holies, that veil that separated the inner court from the outer
or the inner temple from the outer. The veil in the temple
was written twain from top to bottom, from top to bottom. He's
the fulfillment. You know what that means? That
means the work is done. He didn't leave anything for
us to do. He's not looking to you and I to offer gifts. As
some men say, you must present this. I heard a man say the verse
that talks about present your body a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. How
do you do that? Look to Christ. Look to Christ. And if you, I'll
make this statement. If somebody said, well, how do
you tell your people to live? I'll tell you to live however
you want to, looking to Christ. Live however you want to, looking
to Christ. Christ will keep his people. I don't have to tell
you how to live. We live a separate life than the world because we
grieve over our sin and we desire to see our Savior's face. We
desire to be known of him and to know him. The work's done, we know that.
There's nothing you and I could have done. There's nothing you
and I were able to do, but God did it all. Therefore, there's
nothing to be done. Aren't you glad to find out?
That's what repentance and faith is, isn't it? Repentance is finding
out I can't do anything to please God. He's holy and I'm not. That's
repentance. And then the Lord gives faith
that sees Christ did it all. There's nothing for me to do.
I believe him. That's faith. I just believe
in Christ. Now these Old Testament priests
offered sacrifices and gifts, picturing what Christ offered. And what did Christ offer? He
offered his perfect life. He offered his perfect death.
He offered his blood unto the Father. He offered his soul.
When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, thou shalt
be satisfied. He was offered up for his people. He offered the gifts that you
and I could never bring to please God. That's why we don't offer
anything. It would be taking the place
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We cleave to his offering. We
cleave to his sacrifice. We cleave to his gifts, knowing
that his gifts are perfect and ours is not. Ours is not. God was eternally satisfied with
the Lord Jesus Christ. Aren't you glad that it's not
under the old covenant where he's looking at your sacrifice
and he's looking at your gifts and whether you would be accepted
or you would be rejected is based upon what you do and based upon
what you bring and based upon what you give. Our acceptance
is found in one place. It's found in the Lord Jesus
Christ. If you're going to be accepted,
you must be found in him. He will not accept your gift.
He will not accept your sacrifice. He will not accept your life
as any part of your salvation or me or anyone. But he accepted
Christ. He accepted Christ. Therefore,
this contribution of gifts and sacrifice, this is ended. This
is ended. It's all gone away. Christ is
the end of it. Christ is the end of it. Now
we have grace. We have grace. Most preach. Contrary to this,
that I've heard, I heard a message the other day from a false preacher,
and I'll tell you why I heard a message from a false preacher.
I don't like pulling up false preachers just to listen to them.
I get mad normally. It's not good, and you get nothing
out of it. It's a waste of time. You could watch a good movie,
and you'd be better off. I heard this guy told me, he
said, yeah, our pastor, he found out I was a pastor, and he said,
our pastor preaches nothing but grace. And I said, really? And
he said, yeah, okay, I'm curious. I'm curious, let's see. And so
I'm listening, and for the first 15, 20 minutes, he said, you're
saved by grace through faith. Not of yourself, it's the gift
of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast. I said, okay,
I can say amen to that, yeah. Then he said, it's all, he just kept reiterating,
it's all of grace, it's all of grace, and then, Then he said,
after all that, he disannulled everything he said because he
said this, God expects you to live according to the faith he's
given you. God expects you to live according
to the, I have a problem with the word God, the two words God
expects, first of all. God commands, expects though,
it's like he's waiting on me to do something, I don't like
that. God expects you to live according to faith, that your
faith will manifest itself in the way you live. And if you
don't live a certain way and you don't have the evidence of
that faith, you are not saved by grace. I thought, okay, so
what you just told me is he's the alpha, but you're the omega.
That's what you're telling me. That's not salvation by grace.
The life that we live in the flesh, we live by the faith of
the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us. We live
by his grace alone. That's how we live our life,
looking unto Jesus. You want to see evidence? Don't
look in my life for evidence of me being saved. I hope we
have some evidences, but I can't find it. I look around, the things
which I would do that I do not, the things which I would not
do, that's what I find myself doing. Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from this body of death? No, we don't come to
the Lord offering these sacrifices and these gifts anymore and saying,
Lord, I'm living better for you. Here's my gifts, no. Our motivation's
love. If we do anything, if we do anything
for our Lord, it's because we love him. We're not looking for
a reward. Christ is our reward. We press
towards the mark. Christ is the mark. Give me Christ. Just give us Christ. That's all
we want. You probably thought the same
thing I thought whenever you heard me say that a second ago about
that fella. That's really confusing. That's really confusing. You're
saying you're saved by grace, but then if you don't have some
manifestation of a certain life's change, you were never saved
by grace. I mean, you know what the Lord
does? He saves sinners. Did you know
that? And he gives them a new nature,
but he doesn't change the old one. He changes your want to. He changes your want to. You
want to serve the Lord, you want to love the Lord, you want to
be with your brethren in fellowship, you want to hear the good news
of the gospel, your flesh still wants to do what it does, it
wants to sin, that's just how it is. That's just how it is. If it's true that it's, we're
saved by grace and then we must do something, that makes God
the Alpha and us the Omega and we're justified by our works
then. And that's not true, is it? It's just back to the moral
law, back to the old covenant, cannot bring life. Romans 5,
8 says, but God commendeth his love toward us in that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The next verse says,
much more than being now justified by his blood, not your works,
by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath through him. There's
our way made. Christ made a way, he is the
way. Justified freely by his blood. When? While you were yet sinners. While I was yet a sinner, Christ
died for you. He saved us, justified us, sanctified
us, glorified us, and then he lets us know about it. He lets
us know about it. Salvation's all by grace before
we were saved. Salvation's all by grace after
we're called. Salvation's all by grace when
we're kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation,
ready to be revealed at the last time. All, all by grace because
he did all the saving, all the calling, and he does all the
keeping. Aren't you thankful? You don't have to keep yourself.
You don't have to wake up every morning and examine yourself
and say, okay, almost like people talk, like sin is something that
you can go on a diet from and lose a little bit of it or something.
That's the way that they preach it. You can get a little bit
better. If you try a little harder, you won't sin as much. So I've
lost 10 sin pounds this week. You know, that kind of, I mean,
that's not what they're saying, but that's really what they're saying.
It's not possible. We're completely sin from head
to toe. There is no getting rid of it.
lest it's under the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
that sacrifice that these priests were bringing in. And it was
a picture of Christ's sacrifice, not a picture that you and I
need to do better. But now it's a picture of it's finished. It's
done. All those old ordinances have passed. Don't bring sacrifice. Don't bring works. Don't bring
gifts. Look to Christ and live. Verse nine tells us clearly why
we should not, which was a figure for the time then present in
which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not
make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the
conscience. Couldn't make him perfect. Couldn't clear the conscience.
You can bring all the sacrifices you want. You can bring all the
gifts you want. You can bring anything you want to. It'll never
make you perfect and it'll never clear your conscience. But you
know what does? The blood of the lamb. It'll clear your conscience. It'll make you perfectly righteous
in the eyes of God. Make you perfect. Brethren, we're sinners. If we
bring something, we're just bringing something full of sin. It's all
we can produce. But aren't you glad the Lord
said, but God, who is rich in mercy, or in his great love,
he loved us, he saved us. Not according to works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. Look
in verse 10. which stood only in meats and
drinks and divers washings and carnal ordinances imposed on
them until the time of reformation. These stood until the fullness
of time was accomplished. God sent forth his son, born
of a woman, born under the law to redeem them that were under
the law." That's what he's saying here. Until the time of reformation. Now, reformation means restoring
to its normal condition. You know, maybe you all have
seen this before, but there's a lot of churches around here,
they call their self grace reformed church, or reformed grace church. I've seen that. Grace don't need
to be reformed. Grace is just grace. It doesn't
need to be brought back to its normal condition. It needs to
be preached clearly and plainly. Grace has always been grace.
It's 100% grace, no works at all. So we preach grace, we don't
preach reformed grace, we preach grace, we preach Christ. Grace has never needed to be
reformed, but you know who does? We do. We need to be brought
back from the death, the depravity that we are, the dark depths
of death that we are born into. We need to be brought out of
that. We need to be restored. Everything that we lost in Adam,
we need to be brought back. And is that not what we get in
the Lord Jesus Christ? He gave us more, so much more
than what our first father Adam gave us and cost us. By God's
grace, he restores his people by his blood, purging their sin,
declaring them as perfectly righteous. Scripture says that this man,
the Lord Jesus Christ, entered once into the holy place, having
obtained, that's past tense, having obtained eternal redemption.
for the Lord's people. Now he is our intercessor. He
is our mediator. He is our advocate. He is our
high priest. And you know where he is doing
all that? At the right hand of the Father, seated as the successful
redeemer of his people. There's nothing more to do. Nothing
more to do. No responsibility on you. He's
not looking to you to provide one thing. Looking to you to
provide one thing, no sacrifices, no gifts, no offerings. Lord, here's my heart. He don't
want your heart. He don't want your heart. You need to ask him,
Lord, give me a new heart. He's not going to take anything
from us. He's not going to take anything from us. But he provides
everything that you and I need. to be made the perfect righteousness
of God in the Lord Jesus Christ, including a new heart, a heart
of flesh, a heart that feels. Every elected son and daughter
of God will hear the call of grace and be found in Christ
the way. They'll be found in Christ the
way. He is the way. Not having their
own righteous, not having sacrifices of their own to give. We know
not to do that anymore, don't we? We ain't offering anything.
We ain't offering anything. We don't bear gifts in hopes
of being accepted before God. That's what men do. Don't do
it. Don't bear gifts unto him. Don't think I'm going to tithe.
I'm going to do this. And those are good things to
do, but don't do it as part of salvation in hopes that he'll,
what do they say when they stand before him, the non-believers,
they say, we've done many wonderful works in thy name. All the works
that we've done, the sacrifices we've made. What did the Pharisees
say? I tithe, I fast, I'm thankful,
I'm not like this man or that man. And it's all about offering
their self up unto the Lord for righteousness, and it's not gonna
happen, that's just self-righteousness. No, we've got to have the way
made, the Lord Jesus Christ, his righteousness, his sacrifice,
his offering, his gifts. We must be clinging to the one
who God is pleased with. We must be pleased with him.
We must be pleased with Christ. Did you know that if you come
begging for the blood of Christ to cleanse every stain, he's
never cast out one beggar. I cannot find in the Bible where
a beggar came to him and he cast them out. He did not give them
or meet their need. He met every single need. Do
you know why? Because He creates the need that only He can fill,
and He fills that need with the Lord Jesus Christ for His people.
He calls the beggar to beg for Christ alone. Christ is the way, the only way.
No man can enter to the holiest, not with sacrifice anymore, not
with gifts. Christ did and was pleased, pleased
the Father, pleased the Father. And if we are in Christ, the
Lord now says, I'm pleased with your sacrifice. I'm pleased with
your offering because you're in Christ, because you're in
Christ. You know, the believers hope
is not to offer something that we've done or something that
we have. It's to offer the same thing that Christ offered. It's
himself. We don't desire to offer anything
else but him. We don't desire to have anything
else but him. We don't desire to look to anything else but
him. And he offered it for us, because we couldn't offer it.
We know that. How are you going to offer the
Lord? You can't offer the Lord up, no. but he offered it for
us. He offered the blood up for us,
for his people, and the Lord's pleased with it, because we were
in him when he did it. That's amazing mystery, isn't
it? Thank God he made the way, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
perfect, and because he's perfect, the just, the just corrected
the old covenant by redeeming his people. Now that which could
never make one perfect, has been fulfilled in Christ, completed
in Christ. That which could never redeem
has now been fulfilled and we have been redeemed by the Lord
Jesus Christ, the fulfiller of the covenant. For his people,
he has once and forever perfected them that are sanctified. He is God's way to his people. He is God's truth to his people. He is God's life. To his people. No man comes to God, but by him.
He is the way. He is the way let's pray. Father
calls us to understand this according to your will. Calls us to rest
in you in Christ name, Amen. Let's take a break.