Clark, Robert: Ministry 00-04 ~ Heb

It's very difficult to express to some other persons what's in your heart, but it's also a pleasure to be able to sit here up in the front and hear your voices, and just to be warmed and encouraged with the beautiful singing of the gospel songs. I thank you for your part in singing, making a pleasant noise unto the Lord. It's a delight for my soul. For a number of years, it's been my pleasure to visit with you. The stay has always been far too short as far as I'm concerned, but nonetheless, it's been a pleasure to enjoy your fellowship and visit with you. Some of you have been so kind as to even open your homes and have us for a meal, and we're thankful for that. One of the choice blessings of being able to speak God's word and being favored by him to have an opportunity such as this is to feel that I am communicating with you some of the most important truths that you could ever hear or ever learn or ever accept. The wonderful me- gospel message and the joy of it and the blessing of it and such an enrichment. For those of you who are believers, we urge you to quietly raise your voice to the Lord and meditatively pray for those loved ones and friends that you know that are not yet believers. And as the word of God goes forth, simply, we trust clearly that you, this evening, might make that decision and simply believe. If you have a Bible, I'd like you to turn again to the book of Hebrews. We've tried to draw from the book of Hebrews our messages for our short stay. And we have at the end of chapter nine of the book of Hebrews a very clear, simple, succinct statement of the great historic Christian faith. It is not quite a summary because that comes further along in the book at the end of chapter twelve and into chapter thirteen. But at this particular spot in the letter, the Spirit of God moves the author to pen words that kind of summarize, and it's a familiar portion for many who are believers, but I'd like to read it to you, if you won't mind. Chapter nine, and we'll read from verse twenty four. The significance of this portion is that three times our English Bible uses the term appears, and it's an appearance of the present, an appearance of Christ in the past, an appearance of our Lord in the future. Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with the blood of others, for them must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world. But now, once at the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him, he shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation. For... So this is not a summary statement, actually. It's an introduction to a very strong, clear picture of the necessity for the sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus. During this book, the Spirit of God has caused the author to be focusing his attention upon Jewish people who have been converted and are living in and around the Holy Land. They're suffering a great deal. They live very modestly. They've been alienated from their family and loved ones. Some of their suffering is in detail at the end of chapter ten. And this graphic picture is the hardship that these early Christians went through. They were disappointed, in a sense, and many of them were very tempted to go back to Judaism. By that, that meant to go back into the temple and make offerings, to have a, a sense of fulfillment because of their ad- adhesive love and care for the great writings of Moses and the doctrines of God and these holy scriptures and the writing of the prophets that they've had for so many centuries, and it was hard to leave that and simply trust in Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter who died shamefully crucified on Calvary's cross. The message was that he had been buried and risen again and ascended into heaven. And so that summary thought is given to us here. But it's introductory to the conclusion of the importance of the sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that's given in chapter ten. Now you notice in verse twenty four, alluding to our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we have earlier heard is our New Testament high priest after a unique order of priests, being a king and priest, a Melchizedekian priesthood. But Christ did not enter into the holy places made with hands. He didn't enter into a temple or a tabernacle or a religious place here, but rather he appears in heaven in the presence of God. That word that appears three times in our English language only appears once in this text. And the word is to appear, that is, to present oneself, to make a manifestation or an unveiling. It's a different word that is used a little bit later, and a third word is used. So immediately, you and I know that the Spirit of God is trying to make some kind of an impression upon an intelligent, careful reader of scripture, to strengthen the heart of those that are believers, and for you and me today, to learn a very valuable lesson. That as often as you've heard the gospel, you know the truth that the whole Christian faith is entirely interwoven and supported and foundationed by Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He's been proven to be better than the prophets, better than angels, better than Moses, a better doctrine, a better priesthood, a better hope, a better covenant. Everything about Christianity is better than what God instituted in the Old Testament. And Christ himself appears before God for us. But then, in order to clarify and remind them, he could only do that on the basis that he made a previous appearance, and that is given to us in the middle of verse twenty six: Once at the end of the age hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Sin is a small word, but it's carefully used by the Holy Spirit. It's used in contrast to the verse twenty eight where it says he bore the sins of many. When we read the word of God carefully, you and I grasp the idea that sin is what we are born with. That propelling propensity, that desire, that ease and comfort with which we error and falter and lie and deceive and perpetrate crimes, have evil thoughts and nasty language, these things that spring into the heart and mind, what's their origin? You were never trained to do that. You were never raised by a parent. There may have been an example, but nobody ever sat down and taught you and me to sin, because we have a sin nature. We have inherited that from Adam that caused him to fall and has been passed on to you and me, and because of sin, we die. We die physically, but we die spiritually. We are alienated from God. But Christ appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And the word appear here is a different word, and it has the connotation of the thought meaning to reveal himself, so you can see what he is. The last one is going to be that visually people will see optimi, they will actually lay their eye upon him and see him in a coming day. So God has prepared for you and me a simple statement. In the past, the Lord Jesus appeared to put away sin. In the present, he appears before God on behalf of those who have put their trust in him. But you'll notice in verse twenty seven, it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment. That's a solemn word. You know that you are going to die. Everyone in this room knows that they are going to die. Some have no fear of death because God has saved their soul, and they know that that death will only be a stepping stone into one step into the presence of the Lord, to take his hand, to be at the marriage supper, to join him in spiritual reality. It'll be a great blessing in reality to move from this sinful world into that celestial presence of the Lord himself. But he appears there on our behalf, but every one of us are going to die, and for this reason, Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. And you notice a little change of the word. He bore away in the past the sin. He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, but in this verse, he bears the sins of many. It is selective. He did not die for all of your sins, unless you are a believer. You face the penalty, the judgment of God for your own sins. You will never be able to stand before God and say, well, I couldn't help it, I have a sin nature. No, God says, oh, I've been the lamb of God which bore away the sin of the world, and that Adamic nature that condemns you, that gave you the momentum and the desire that has faltered and controlled and enslaved you, as much as we don't want to admit it, yet that has been a part of our life ever since our physical birth. But at spiritual birth, we are told that God has done such a work in our heart that Christ bore the sins of many, selectively. That's exactly what the angel said when he said, thou shalt name his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. God makes no mistakes. Everybody in the world is not going to get saved. Only those that avail themselves of this marvelous substitutionary death. And for them, unto them that look for him, he shall be seen, he shall appear the second time unto salvation. Apart from the sin question, because sin has been completely dealt with at Calvary's cross, and now it is completely finished, and all there is left for you and me is to say, I believe the word of God. Now, for the Jews that are reading this letter for the first time, they're going to say, well, what about my, what about the law? And what about the priests? And Moses himself gave us this writing, and once again, the spirit comes back, and in chapter ten he says the law had a shadow of good things to come. You know what a shadow is. It's not the actual thing itself. You can stand around the corner, and the sun falls on the back of a friend coming past, and you're around the corner, and you know who it is. You recognize the walk, you see the shadow, but you don't walk out and hold the shadow and say, hi, glad to see you again. You wait for the person. You wait for the reality. You wait for the reality, the truth of it. And he says the law had a shadow. It was a picture. All that you Jews have ever trusted in the past was a picture of what's going to happen and what is happening now through faith in our Lord Jesus. But you notice the end of the sentence of verse one of chapter ten. These things that they believed in can never, with those sacrifices which they offered year by year, continually make the comers thereunto perfect. The law could not make people perfect. And this is an important, simple lesson. Verse one, the law cannot make people perfect. But look at verse fourteen: By one offering, he, the Lord Jesus Christ, hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Perfect means complete. Your little children sometime at school are very likely to have a little seed planted in a Dixie cup, and the seed begins to come through, and you can say, oh, look, that's perfect, it's growing. Then you wait a day or two and expose it to the daylight and water it, maybe a little miracle grow or something like that, and it begins to grow, and they come back and they look at it, and it's a little taller, and you know that's just perfect. It's complete for that stage of growth, and it is growing gradually until the flower blooms, and you say, oh, that's just perfect. Thank you, sweetheart, for giving me that lovely gift. That's what God is doing. He has perfected forever those that are his own. You know who you are. The Spirit of God has sanctified you, but it wouldn't happen through the law. None of your religious activities, none of your attendance, none of your memory verses, none of your Christian service had anything to do with the salvation of your soul. We see here the remarkable weakness of the law given by Moses. Not that it was bad, it was ideal and perfect for the time. But notice verse two: would they have ceased to offer? Because the worshippers were once purged have had no more conscience of sin. Why do they keep offering then, if the offering was so good? Why keep killing these animal sacrifices? Why keep going with offerings to God? Because it was a failure. The law, the religious program, the deeds of the flesh can never justify an individual. Now, some of you, I'm sure, are saying in your mind, what's that got to do with me today? I don't even know a Jewish person. What that has to, what does that have to do with me at all? It's because it's the concept that God wants to put across, and he made it clear in the book of Galatians to Gentile believers that by the deeds of the flesh shall no man be justified. By religious ritual, nobody improves their relationship with God. You cannot establish righteousness in yourself by what you do. Isaiah the prophet says, all of your righteousnesses are as filthy rags in the sight of God. That's repugnant to us. Most of us are proud of our self-righteousness, but not in the eye of God. Said it's done nothing for you. It's like making these sacrifices over and over again. So he wants to make it very clear with a very concise statement. Notice verse four: It's not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. The law had a weakness. Now the law instituted four kinds of sacrifices, and they're named in verse five and reiterated, that is said again in verse eight. In verse five, when he cometh into the world, he saith that he has to do with our Lord Jesus. When our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, he says something, and these verses are written by David. In Psalm forty. David is anointed the king of Israel, and he has a certain mindset of what he's going to be as a royal leader, and he sees that God has dug him out of a pit and set his feet upon the rock, fellowship and communion with God, and he has deep exercises of soul, and he expresses these very words that are quoted here. But the things that are in David's mind concerning his royal appointment to become the second and the most important God-chosen king of the nation of Israel, those very words are taken by the Spirit of God and said, that was in the mind, the eternal mind of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he says these words with a much more profound meaning. When he cometh into the world, he saith, sacrifice, that's peace offerings, and offering, that's a meal offering, it's a grain offering, but thou wouldst not, but a body thou hast prepared me. Burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou has had no pleasure. David realized that these things were un- unimportant and ineffective compared to personal implicit trust and confidence in the living God. He knew that. And the Holy Spirit inspires David to write the words of this song, and now that's taken and quoted and says the marvelous book that you have in your hand, the Holy Scriptures, makes it clear that these are the very words that the Lord Jesus speaks when he comes and he says, you did not want these sacrifices, you wanted me, and you prepared a body for me, miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit in a virgin womb. And the body that was prepared, he became the fulfillment of these sacrifices. So the God goes on to say, then said I, in verse seven, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will, O God. When he said sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldst not, neither had pleasure therein, which are offered by the law, then said he, I come to take and to do thy will, O God, to take away the first, all the Old Testament sacrifices, ritual, performances, priesthood, temples, all those things are taken away that he could establish a whole new faith called a New Testament. A new relationship with people in this world, not just for Jews, but for Gentiles and Jew, black and white, rich and poor, all humanity. He put away by his sacrifice the sin of the world, but for the sins of many. And this evening, we want you to give very serious thought that deep within your own heart. Now, I don't mean whether you've ever professed to be a Christian. I know that many of you have done that, and that's an easy thing to do under evangelistic pressure or concern. But I mean genuinely in your own soul, have you ever seen yourself as a guilty, hell-deserving sinner meeting a personal savior and finding that in the Lord Jesus Christ you had the one offering for sin that could perfect you forever and make you right with God? If not, you should think very seriously. Listen to the words that are read to us, the simple explanation that it's housed in. Remember all those around you that you know are praying for you, and to make it so easy and comfortable, you can listen to the truth of God's word and say, I'm going to believe that. I'm going to accept it as the truth of God. I'm going to put my trust in Jesus Christ. It's a familiar message. We're not trying to put any human pressure upon you, but want you to realize that Christ put away sin, and he appears to put away the sins of many. And one day he's going to appear apart from sin and take us home to glory. We want you to be part of that company. All the offerings, all the religious behavior, whether it's animal sacrifices of the Old Testament or self-disciplines, surrender of certain things that are favor to you, wearing certain kind of clothes. It's unbelievable what religion practices in this world today. Activity of our natural human desires, and God says he perfects forever them that are sanctified by the Holy Spirit, when you believe the message. Notice a remarkable statement, a glorious person, contrasted to all those offerings and all the whole Old Testament history. The beginning of verse twelve is, but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God. The marvel of the universe, the man, Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal Son of God, ascends into the glory slowly, regally, majestically, and the evil one who's the prince of the power of the air, the god of this age, he might have done anything and everything he could to detain him, but slowly and marvelously he ascends up into the heavens and is seated at the right hand of God. And so important is our blessed Savior. The book of Revelation says it's the throne of God and of the Lamb. The very throne of God has its name changed because of the perfection of the work. How can you better that? How can you improve on that? Why not just say yes to him right now, this evening, and accept his offering? This man, after he offered one sacrifice for sin, that one sacrifice was himself. Despite the nails, despite the mockery, despite the shame and humiliation, despite the anguish of the very anticipation of this act, that he sweat so profusely, it was like he had wounds or cuts, and almost like it was bleeding. He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. He had to be supernaturally strengthened by angels to be able to sustain under this dramatic, burdensome experience, and he had you in mind. It's a marvelous love. It's an unbelievable divine revelation. How can you say no? Why do you say no? It's a great blessing to put your trust in him. By one offering, he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. On Calvary's cross, our Lord Jesus said, it is finished. So there's nothing more to do. Your eternal soul can be saved and delivered by believing that Christ appeared to put away sin at Calvary's cross. He appears in heaven for those that put their trust in him. He does this in order to sustain you, to graciously enable you, to empower you for doing the things that you think you cannot do. And then we get burdened. Those of us who are believers, we become distressed and heavy-hearted because we fail, and we happen to have a veil of darkness come over us, and in our failure and weakness and sorrow, we begin to think that he has forgotten. No, he remains yesterday, today, forever the same. He has promised that he would never, no, never forsake you nor leave you. When God saves your soul, he does it permanently, and no man can take you out of the Father's hand, and he and the Father are one. He gives eternal life. No matter what religions say, no matter how people threaten, the divine truth is made so clear, we need but read the words of God and believe them. He perfects forever them that are sanctified. Those that have heard the word of God applied by the Holy Spirit, put their trust in him, they have believed the truth, they have been born of God, they have the forgiveness of sins. Marvelous thing. Are your sins forgiven? Do you know that you're saved? Do you have any doubts or fretting in your soul that maybe your early conversion was not adequate? Remind your soul that all of this belongs to our Lord Jesus, and he, as good as his word, he'll save us, he'll strengthen us, he'll settle us. He gives us absolute security on the simple basis that you and I believe what God tells you. It's a marvelous privilege to be a child of God. And today is the day of salvation. Let's pray. Our loving Father, in these quiet moments, we ask that Thy Holy Spirit would do his grand work and feed and strengthen those of us who are Thine own. Bless and refresh where there's weariness or disappointment, failure, heartache. Draw near as only Thou art able, blessed Savior, comfort and encourage and strengthen. And for those that are yet not believers, young and old alike, we know that we do not have to understand it. We just must believe thyself. Give that faith, quicken souls, do thy grand work, we pray, and we'll thank thee in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Won't you turn in the Red Redemption hymnal to hymn number two hundred and fifty. Two hundred and fifty. We'll sing verses one, four, and five. We'll omit verses two and three. Simple reminder, come believing.