We're going to be in the book
of Hebrews again, if you'd like to turn there. Hebrews chapter
7. As we've seen our Melchizedek clearly
described and declared, I would remind us from the last hour
he's the king of righteousness, he's the king of peace, all the
things that he accomplished for his people, being our faithful
high priest. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one that holds these titles. He's the one that is our righteousness.
He's the only one that can make peace between us and God. Aren't you thankful he saved?
Rob was praying. He said, thank you, Lord, for
the forgiveness of sin. Thank you, Lord, for the forgiveness
of sin. That hit me. we have forgiveness of sin with
God. Our sins are forgiven. And oftentimes
we hear that and I never want to become desensitized to that.
I want that to be just as glorious as the first time I ever heard
it. I want it to grow greater and greater. And it does, as
we see our sin more and more, it does grow greater and greater,
doesn't it? We appreciate it more and more, but he saved his
people from their sin. Now this hour, I don't, I don't
feel led to preach about the account with Abraham and Melchizedek
again. We covered that last week and
talked a little bit about Melchizedek this first hour. And that's what
this entire chapter is devoted to. It's one complete thought.
And then at the very end where he breaks off into, he gives
another description of the priesthood. And that's where I want to be
is at the end of the chapter. I want us to look at the description,
the description of the priest. I wanna look at what sets him
apart, what sets the Lord apart as our high priest from any other
priest. So let's read the text, Hebrews 7, verse 26. For such
an high priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens, who
needeth not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice,
first for his own sins and then for the people's. For this he
did once when he offered himself up, For the law maketh men high
priests which have infirmity, but the word of the oath which
was since the law maketh the son who is consecrated forevermore. I've titled this message consecrated.
That word means perfected, consecrated. Here we have the reason that
we need Christ as our high priest. You and I don't have these titles
in and of ourself. We're not holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners, higher than the heavens, or consecrated
in and of ourself, nor do we have the ability to do any of
those things ourself. We can't do something to accomplish
becoming holy. But because he is perfect, because
he is holy, because he is just, because he is truth, He saved
his people from their sin. He saved his people from their
sin. He alone was worthy to save.
He alone had the right to save. You and I don't even have a right
to put away sin. Not only are we missing the ability, but we
don't have the right. That's a double negative, isn't it?
We can't both ways. We won't and can't. No, but he
who had the right to bear the sin of his people, and he did. This hour I want to look at these
six descriptions given here of our high priest. Holy, harmless,
undefiled, separate from sinners, higher than the heavens, and
consecrated. The first one we see is holy. What does it mean to be holy?
What does it mean to be holy? God demands holiness. Now we put words with holiness
such as absolute, We put words together with holiness
like completely, but holy is just that, it's absolute and
it's complete in and of just itself, holiness. Holiness is,
means to be free from wickedness. Holiness means no sin whatsoever. One of the best descriptions
I can give you of holiness is not us, not us. other than us. Everything that we are other
than that, that's holiness. We can't attain to holiness.
We can't do anything holy in and of ourself. And God demands
holiness. And everything he demands, he
demands it absolutely. He doesn't demand 50% and 50% or doesn't
demand a partial anything. God demands absoluteness. Every
attribute of God is absolute and everything God demands is
absolute. So what is it to be holy? It means I've never done
any evil. This is what God demands. Now this is not something that
our flesh can produce. It's not something we can emit.
It's not something that we can become in and of ourself. We
can't become holy. You know, they actually, some
of you were Catholics, you know, they call the priests and the
Pope, the holies, they call them holy. that they're badly mistaken,
first of all. They don't know what they're
talking about, but they put other men on pedestals and act like
because of things that they've done and what they know, they
have attained to a certain level of achievement and it's called
holiness and it's not possible. Just the first hour we heard
righteousness is not possible to achieve or attain. Holiness
is not possible because it's not in us It's not part of us,
we are other than God. You and I come from the womb,
we come forth from the womb speaking lies. You don't have to be taught,
did anybody teach your kids how to lie? No. No, I didn't have
to teach my kids how to lie, one time. My daughter was eating,
she got a hold of chocolate, it was all over her face. She
couldn't be no more than a year, year and a half old. And I said,
did you eat chocolate? I told you not to. She said,
no daddy, no I did not. Who taught her that? Who taught
her that? She came forth from the womb
speaking lies. She's my daughter. She's my daughter. I'm the same. We're all the same.
No, we don't have any holiness. We come forth from the womb speaking
lies, but here's the good news, not him. He came from the womb
speaking truth, speaking grace. He's the savior of his people,
the substitute. How serious is God about his
holiness? Well, there was a man named Uzzah. And the children
of Israel had lost the ark. And I'll remind you that the
ark was the mercy seat. That's how they worshiped. They
sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat and it was taken from them.
You know what that means, they couldn't worship. And David said,
well, let's go fetch it from Philistines. Let's go back down
and get it. And they did. And it was on a cart. Now I would
remind you that it was never supposed to be propped up on
a cart. And that's a picture of propping up the gospel. That's
a picture of trying to water it down or not tell the full
truth. You prop it up. No, it was supposed to be upheld
by the priests, the Levitical priests. And not a single man
that went down with them was a Levite. Every one of them,
none of them were Levites. David wasn't a Levite. He was
of the tribe of Judah. And yet he said, okay, we'll
put it on a cart and then we'll carry it back. And as they're
coming back, the ark starts to move a little bit and Uzzah believes
it's going to fall. So he puts his hand to it to
stop it. Now that seemed like a pretty, a logical thing to
do. That seems to me like that would
be the right thing to do. You know,
well, here's the problem. God said, don't touch it or you'll
die. That's the, see our mind and God's mind, not the same. His ways are above our ways.
His thoughts are above our thoughts. He said, if you touch that, you'll
die. Why? Uzzah had sin in him and that ark was holy. That ark
was holy. It's a place of worship. It represents
the Lord Jesus Christ. The mercy seat represents the
Lord Jesus Christ. God killed us on the spot for
touching the ark. It caused David so much disarray.
They parked at a man's house for six months. They wouldn't
go back to it. And they said, well, let's leave it here. And
finally, the Lord convicted David and he went back to get it. But
this time they did it the right way. They showed reverence unto
the ark. They carried it, and every six
steps, they offered a sacrifice unto the Lord. Every six steps,
they stopped, and they offered a sacrifice. Why? Because God
is holy. God is holy. If we're gonna worship
him, if we're gonna look to him, we must understand that he is
holy, and he demands perfection in his holiness. We can't approach
and touch that ark, and not another self, we'll die. You remember Nadab and Abihu,
the sons of Aaron? They were dealing with holy things.
They were the priests. Aaron's sons were the priests.
And then the temple, they had a job to do. Their job was to
keep the fire going. God put the fire there. Their
job was to keep the fire going. Some of us burned wood, so I
understand how easy it would be to forget to throw a log on
or forget to put sticks on or whatever it may be. But nonetheless,
the Lord said, don't let the fire go out. And they did. And
that wasn't as bad as what they did next. They said, well, we'll
build our own fire and fix it. We can fix it. We broke it. We
can fix it. And they did. And do you know
what God did to those two men? He killed them. A fire came up
out and devoured them. See, God's very serious about
his worship. We must worship him in spirit
and in truth, not drawing attention to our flesh, not adding to,
that's what that picture of, is a picture of, is I can do
my part, I can build a fire, I can do my part, I can help
the ark not fall. It's a picture of works. God's
holy. You cannot work your way to heaven.
You can't do anything. I can't do anything to please
him in my flesh. One single sin in his presence
exacts the death penalty. You ever told a white lie, the
wages of sin is death. That's God's standard. This is
his holiness. And we're talking about it and I'm explaining it
as best I can, but we don't even understand what it really means.
We can't enter into it because it's the opposite of us. It's
impossible for us to understand it, but we believe it. He will
not acquit the guilty. This is why we need him. We need
this high priest, the holy high priest to be our substitute,
to be our surety, to be our righteousness. Without him, we have none. This is why it became us to have
him as our high priest. You ever heard of, I don't think
a lot of people use this phrase anymore, but perhaps if one of
my daughters had a pretty dress on, I would say to her, that
dress is very becoming of you. What does that mean? It compliments,
but it looks good on her. What he's saying, becoming here
was as necessary. It was necessary. He had to have
him. It became us to have the Lord
Jesus Christ. Otherwise we would have no hope.
He don't just look good on us. We knew we have to have him.
We have to have him. He's holy. Second thing is, is
he's harmless. Harmless, that means without
guile. That means without fraud, free from fraud, free from guilt.
That means he didn't play games when he was here. He wasn't fraudulent
in anything that he did. Everything that he did, he did
it with all sincerity. He wasn't tricking anyone. He
wasn't halfway doing something. He wasn't faking it. Everything
that he did, he did it with absolute sincerity unto his father and
for his people. He wasn't here halfway do it,
was he? He was innocent. He was faithful. He was true. He was full of grace. Even Pilate
said, I find no fault in this man. That's what harmless means.
I find no fault in this man. But what did the Lord say? Lo,
I come to do thy will, O God. That's why Pilate couldn't let
him go. That's why Pilate couldn't let him go. Everything God charged
the Lord to do, he successfully accomplished it on the cross
of Calvary. Throughout all of his life, he accomplished everything
he was, had purpose to do. And then on the cross of Calvary,
he said, it is finished. And him being our priest, he
sat down. He sat down on the right hand
of the father. Everything God charged him to
do, every promise he made to the father, he performed it.
He's the servant of righteousness, harmless. He's the servant of
righteousness for his people unto his father. Now that harmless
means guiltless, but we know that the guiltless had to become
guilty in order for you and I to become guiltless. He had to trade
places with us, didn't he? That's what happened on the cross.
Men that preach what happened on the cross, they miss the core
meaning. It was substitution. It wasn't
just that he was offering up a sacrifice for sin so that it
would give someone an opportunity for something. It was him offering
his soul up unto his father to put away those sin, all the sin
that he was bearing. So that whenever he said it is
finished, we see the father's resurrection. We know that the
father was pleased with that sacrifice. Now, everyone that
he died for is justified. Justified. The guiltless became
guilty in order to redeem his people. He took every sin of
every single person that God gave him in the covenant of grace
and he put them away. Understand something, there was
no sleight of hand in the matter either. It wasn't a parlor trick.
It wasn't, I say this reverently, it wasn't a magician trick that
made it disappear. No, he had to endure the full
wrath of God. He had to pay the penalty. He had to endure the wrath. I
mean, we can't enter into that. He had to suffer and die so that
you and I, so that you and I would not suffer and we would not die. Look at verse 27. Who needeth
not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice, first
for his own sins and then for the people's. For he did this,
for this he did once when he offered up himself. Offered up himself. He made one
sacrifice and sat down. This is why we need him as our
high priest. This is why we need him as our
savior. He's holy. He's harmless. The third thing
is, is he's undefiled. Undefiled means not polluted,
not polluted, not defiled, not corrupt. Everything about us
is polluted. Everything about us is corrupt.
Everything about us is defiled. If I touch this, I've defiled
it just because of what I am by nature. We don't view it that
way because we don't see sin the way that God sees it. As
a believer, we have some understanding of our sin and some guilt and
shame because of it. But really, if I touch this,
I've defiled it because of what I am in my flesh. Not him, everything
he touched, he made whole. Everything he touched, he made
whole. You remember the, they would come to him, he said, will
thou be made whole? He said, yes. Lord, how many
times did he touch a man or touch a woman and they were made whole?
Everything he touched, everything he touches, he makes whole. Everything we touch, we defile.
Everything he touches, he makes whole. Paul said, in me that is in my
flesh dwelleth no good thing, but not this man. This man's
undefiled. He's not corrupt. We have a lot of corruption in
our world, don't we? lot of corruption. We can go, we talk politics,
we can just, whatever you, however you want to look at it, a lot
of corruption. We know why the scripture tells us why evil men
and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being
deceived. We know that's the reason for all the corruption,
but we have a sure high priest that is undefiled. If you're
looking at the world, you're gonna see pollution. I'm not
talking about atmospheric pollution. I'm talking about the pollution
of sin. You're gonna see corruption. You look in yourself, you know
what you're gonna find? You're gonna find corruption. You're gonna
find pollution. If the Lord's gave you repentance
and allowed you to see it, that's what you'll find. You won't find
any good. But oh, looking at the Lord Jesus Christ, we see
one that is undefiled, unpolluted, Uncorrupt, everything he does
is altogether lovely. Psalm 24 tells us, who shall
ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy
place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not
lifted up his soul into vanity nor sworn deceitfully, he shall
receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the
God of his salvation. Who else has clean hands and
a pure heart but the Lord Jesus Christ? Who else obtained righteousness
for his people but the Lord Jesus Christ? That's why we need him
as our high priest. He alone has clean hands and
a pure heart. Fourth thing we find is that
he's separate from sinners. It means he's set apart. He's
other than they. I find that interesting wording
because while he was here, do you know what the Pharisees would
constantly be accusing the Lord of? They would tell him, you
eat with sinners. You eat with publicans and sinners.
You're a gluttonous man. You're a wine bibber. They accused
him of all these things. And what did he say? I came not
to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Yet he himself
is other. than sinners, other than sinners.
That's what it means by separate. He set apart. He was sanctified. He was sanctified. He was holy unto the Father. He was separated to the devotion
of the Lord. Think about you and I, how easily distracted
we get on even sitting here, when we're listening to messages,
we get distracted, don't we? I'll be having conversations
sometimes with my wife, and mid-conversation, I can't remember what we were
talking about, I get distracted. You know, he never got distracted.
The Lord Jesus Christ never got distracted. Everything that he
did was to honor his father. It was for the salvation of his
elect, everything he did, and he did it perfectly. Scripture
says he set his heart like a flint towards the cross. It means everything
that he did, he had a focus, a focus of honoring the father
and redeeming his bride. He didn't have vain thoughts
like we do. I find that amazing. Not just because I've never thought
of it before. He didn't have any vain thoughts. We have vain
thoughts all the time. All of his thoughts were pure.
All of his thoughts were pure. He was in complete obedience
the entire time he was here. He never stopped trusting his
father, never stopped working unto his father perfectly. Scripture says that our high
priest who is separate from sinners was numbered with the transgressors.
Although he was set apart from the sinners, he had to be numbered
as one on the cross of Calvary. He was numbered with the transgressors.
He bore the sin of many and took our place as the sinner substitute.
You ever, you know, the Lord, he spoke on hell many times,
many times. And if you ever, we try not to
enter into that. I don't like talking about it,
to be honest with you. But the Lord, he spoke on it. Just to think the hail that he
endured on the cross. And that's what it was, that's
what wrath of God is. That's what hail is, the eternal wrath
of God. It's just that we can't put away the sin that we are.
We can't make penance, if you will, and that's why it's eternal. But he put away hell and death
and the grave for his people. You don't have to fear it, it's
gone. It has nothing against the children of God. Nothing
against the elect. That's what he did on the cross.
He put it, he put away our sin and thereby, you know, he says that his bowels
were like wax on the cross of Calvary. Inside of him, his bowels
were like, what he was enduring, the agony that he was enduring
on the cross. We will never understand that. But he did it out of love
unto his father. And the father was pleased to
bruise him for the love he had for his people. And he successfully
redeemed those people. There's no way that the father
would have done that to the son and hope and give you the option
afterwards to come to him. No, that's silly. No, he completely
saved his people on the cross. He wasn't trying to do anything.
He saved his people on the cross. Our high priest, was numbered
with the transgressors, and yet he's separate from sinners. And
we must be found in him, must be found in him. The fifth thing
is that he's higher than the heavens. Psalm 113 says, the
Lord is high above all nations and his glory above the heavens,
who is likened to the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high, who
humbleth himself to behold the things that are in the heaven
and in the earth. He raises up the poor out of
the dust and lifted the needy out of the dunghill. I love that. He has to lower himself. He humbleth
himself to behold the things that are in heaven. He humbleth
himself. Think of the condescension of
our Lord. Becoming a man, the humility of his humanity. God, the creator of the world,
becoming a man. Becoming the creature in order
to redeem us. He that inhabits eternity, exalted
higher than any other, became a man. You know, men have a problem
with him being on the throne, number one, but they have a problem
with him being God in general. They have a problem with God
being high and lifted up. They like an eyeball level God,
one that they're equal to. He's higher than the heavens,
the scripture tells us. Higher than the heavens. We rest,
we don't have a problem with it, do we? We rest in his power. We rest in his sovereignty. We
rest in his purpose. We rest in his promises. When we see him as high, we see
ourselves as low. And we realize the vast condescension
he had to do in order to save us as we are. Who's a God likened
to thee? The scripture says, Isaiah 57,
15. For thus sayeth the high and
lofty one that inhabited eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in
the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite
and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive
the heart of the contrite ones. He's high, so that you and I
can be brought from the depths of low, the deepest darkest depths
of low. David said this if I make my
bed in hell behold thou art there you can't escape him everywhere. We would try to, if we could
even try to escape, I'm probably wrong wording, but you can't
escape him. Can't escape him. He's seated high so that he can
revive the hearts of the contrite ones. That's what he said. Lastly,
in verse 28, let's read that together. For the law maketh
men high priests, which have infirmity, but the word of the
oath, which was since the law maketh the son who is consecrated
forever. That word consecrated means perfect.
or perfected, means to make perfect, complete, to carry through completely,
to accomplish and to finish, to accomplish and to finish.
That's what that word consecrated means. Our high priest is perfect
and because of his sacrifice, he perfected his people. He consecrated
them, made them the righteousness of God in him. He carried out
the work given to him by his father completely. There's nothing
left for you and I to do. The whole universe, think about
this, the whole universe was blacked out. Nobody was allowed
to see in what was happening at the time that the Lord was
on the cross of Calvary for three hours. You know why? Well, for one, it was none of
our business. God was doing business with God.
But number two, it shows that we had no part in it whatsoever.
We couldn't have. We couldn't have any part in
it. There's nothing left to be done. Everything that happened
in that blackness, was the salvation, equaled the salvation of God's
people. Think about the humility. Lord Jesus Christ on the cross
is enduring the wrath of God and they're mocking him. He said,
others he saved, but he can't save himself. No truer words
have ever been spoken. If he'd have saved himself, me
and you would have had no hope. Others he saved, he can't save
himself. That's true. If he'd have saved himself, we'd
have been without hope, but he didn't save himself. He couldn't
so that you and I could be saved. They mocked him and think about
what he said, father, forgive them. Think about the grace to
say that as he's enduring all the travail of his soul, everything
that's happening to him. He says, father, forgive them.
They know not what they do. They know not what they do. One of us had to die, either
you or a substitute. And there's only one substitute
for sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ. And through the blackness, we
hear the most glorious words a sinner will ever hear. It is
finished. It is finished. He died. The
sinner substitute in our stead. consecrated his people back to
him. In closing, I want to turn to Romans chapter eight. He consecrated his elect, perfected
forever them that are sanctified. Romans chapter eight, verse 29
says, For whom he did foreknow He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn
among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called. And whom he called, them he also
justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified. What
shall we say then to these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? Well, there's a lot in that.
about him doing a lot of things, but there's not one thing in
there about you and I doing something. It's all about him doing it.
He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that
justifieth. There's no charge to be made
to the Lord's people because the sin's gone. God did the justifying. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again. Who is even
at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for
us? There's our priest. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress
or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written,
for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted
as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through him that loved us, for I am persuaded
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's
our high priest. That's what he did. He consecrated
us. He had perfected them, his people,
once. forever, perfected them forever,
them that are sanctified. He is holy, he is harmless, he
is undefiled, he is separate from sinners, he's higher than
the heavens, and he has made us perfect in him by his finished
word, consecrated. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for completing the work. Thank you for your grace, cause
us to believe. Bless your word that it may accomplish
that which you've purposed in Christ's name. Amen.