Now, find your way back to Hebrews chapter 10 where Ron read to us a minute ago. Let me say welcome to the millers who found their way back to our church. Good to see you, Tom and Rhonda. They moved to LA, you know.
That’s where Milburn goes down to lower Arkansas. But found their way back home for the Sunday. Good to see you folks.
Glad to have you back in our service today. It has been a hot few weeks and we have found out what shade is, haven’t we? If you walk outside or have been walking outside the last couple weeks, you’ve been looking for the shade. I want to read you a couple verses leading up to our text that talk a little bit about the shade. One is in chapter 8 verse 5 of the book that you’re looking at. We’re talking, of course, about contrasting the things of the Old Testament and the law with the things of the New Testament and the gospel. Chapter 8 verse 5, the old things serve under the example, and notice this word, shadow of heavenly things. The Old Testament worship, the tabernacle, the temple, the sacrifices are a mere shadow of things that were coming. Look at chapter 10 now in our chapter and verse 1, for the law having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things.
In other words, there is a reality. That’s the thing that stands still and casts the shadow. The shadow points back to the reality. I want to tell you three things first by way of introduction about shadows.
I think it’ll help us put our mind in the right thinking. First of all, a shadow is dark. If you are in the shade, if you seek out shade, you’re in the darkness, not in the light. Yesterday we had a kind of a men and sons picnic here, but it was so warm we were out here just from 9 to noon and the sun coming from the east. We were all kind of right back in by the trees looking for a little bit of shade, a little bit of shadow because there wasn’t much there.
But you know that when you’re in the shadow, you’re in the darkness. Now the Old Testament law that Moses wrote and wrote it by inspiration from God, by the way, the apostle Paul said is holy and just and good. There was nothing wrong with the law at all. It was God’s law. He wrote it. He dictated it.
Wrote it with his finger on stone. The problem with the law is us, of course, that we can’t live up to it. But the law was a shadow cast by the cross of Christ. You know if you’re standing in the shadow of a tree, you look down, you see the outline of the shadow. You’re standing there in the shade, but you follow the shadow back and you see the reality. Standing in the shadow in the Old Testament, they were rather in the dark.
They could not see things clearly, but if they could look ahead, they would see the cross of Christ casting that shadow back into the Old Testament. A shadow is dark. Secondly, a shadow is moving. You know a shadow is never as permanent as the reality, is it? The real thing stands still and the shadow begins to move across the earth.
Well the Old Testament sacrifices were mere shadows that did not stop. Constantly, over and over, they were going on and on. Year after year, they were continually being offered, but the cross is permanent. The cross happened once. Jesus Christ died once for our sins and did not have to again. But those Old Testament things moved year after year, repeated themselves.
And that’s because they were not perfect. Anything that repeats itself only has temporary satisfaction. It would be nice if you and I could eat one meal and we would be done for the rest of our lives. You know, just eat one meal and then we don’t need anything else. But our problem is we eat at 9 in the morning and by noon we want to eat again.
Because this is temporary. Jesus used that analogy with water, didn’t He? Wouldn’t it be nice to take a drink of water and not be thirsty for the rest of your life? But when we drink of the shadows, the things that aren’t the reality, we want more and more.
Once we drink of Christ and understand He is the living water, then we thirst no more. So a shadow is moving and continues in those Old Testament sacrifices year after year, day after day as a matter of fact, had to be done again and again. And thirdly, a shadow is insecure. A shadow is not a good place to dwell. If you go outside this afternoon, find a shadow of a tree, lie down and take a nap, go to sleep.
In a few hours when you wake up you might be sunburned. And the reason is because the shadow won’t be there any longer. Dwelling in the shadow is insecure. And dwelling in human man-made religions is not secure either.
The things that human beings have drummed up to worship, to do, and all of the things that we have added to the true religion of Jesus Christ are mere shadows that go across the pages of history. People dwell in them but they are not secure because they’re going to move and they’re going to change. You know that it’s not permanent. You know when you’re in a shadow that it is moving already and it is changing. It reminds you that you are not in your final abode. Look back up to verse 2 and 3 of our chapter. Then would they not have ceased to be offered because that the worshippers once purged should have no more conscience of sins. In other words, if you had something that was permanent, a sacrifice that wouldn’t have to be done again, it would be offered. You would know that your sins are forgiven and you’d never think about it again. But when you know you have to do it again tomorrow, you know that the day of atonement has to be done again next year, then in your mind and in your conscience you know that it is not done yet. It has to keep being repeated.
So verse 3 says, but in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. You know it’s not secure. You know it’s not permanent. You’re looking forward to next year. You’re already planning on how your sins are going to be expiated next year. And so verse 4 is the conclusion. For then it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin.
If they could, they wouldn’t be repeated. You know if you were an Old Testament priest and you had a job in the temple or the tabernacle, you would kind of have the feeling that you’d been hired by a temp agency. You have been hired to do this but it’s never quite be done.
You know if you’re hired by one of those agencies you’re sent out here, you work here for a week or you work here for a month. But you know while you’re working that you’re going to have to do this all again. You’re going to have to be retrained somewhere else again.
You’re going to have to learn another skill again. It’s always temporary and the priest knew that he was going to have to do all of this again tomorrow. He knew that on that day of atonement, that long day when he went through all the ceremony of the washings and the sacrifices and the sprinkling of blood and going into the Holy of Holies, that when he was all done and God had removed the sin of Israel, it was just for one year.
He was going to have to do it again next year. Now this is what the writer of Hebrews is trying to impress on us of course. We come down to my text which will be 8, 9 and 10. But notice that verses 5, 6 and 7 are a quotation from the Old Testament. If you have a footnote in your Bible, you probably have a note there next to verse 5 or at least after the introduction, it says, wherefore when he cometh into the world he saith and then you have a quotation from there through verse 7 and it’s a quotation of Psalm 40 and it’s what we call a Messianic Psalm. It’s a Psalm that is about the Messiah. It is a prophecy of Jesus Christ. Even though David wrote it and David wrote it in the first person, the writer of Hebrews and under inspiration of the Holy Spirit is reminding us definitely that David was talking about Jesus not about himself. He’s talking about a coming Messiah. So in verse 5 when he says, because of all of these things up above, the Old Testament is temporary and you know it, wherefore when he cometh into the world, now the Psalmist writing in 1000 BC knew that he was referring to someone up ahead, a Messiah, but now the writer of Hebrews is looking back from the 60s AD, looking back to Jesus who died for him.
He knows this. And he says, wherefore when he, that is Jesus Christ himself, cometh into the world he saith and now he quotes the Psalm, a fulfillment of that Psalm. Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared for me in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou has had no pleasure still quoting the Psalmist, then said I, lo, I come. Isn’t it interesting that here the Psalmist was speaking the very words that Jesus would speak. I come Lord and I come to do thy will. Parenthesis in the volume of the book it is written of me, I come, to do thy will, oh God.
So it’s a messianic prophecy. Now we come to verse 8, 9 and 10 and that’s what I want to speak to you about today. How the writer of Hebrews applies this to us, how he takes it and applies it to our salvation. And so in verse 8, the first thing that we’re going to learn, if I can give you these three principles, it is that our good works are to no avail in the saving of our soul. You and I cannot do good things either in order to help our salvation any more than the Old Testament Saint could gain salvation by offering the blood of bulls and of goats and things on those Old Testament altars.
We cannot do that for our own salvation. Now notice that verse 8 begins with the word above. He says above when he said, and now he kind of re-quotes that Psalm. Now that word above is interesting and an important word here. You and I, and you know, the way we read English, we’re kind of apt to say, oh, you mean what I said above? So kind of like verse seven is above verse eight, you know, it’s up there. No, what he means is more than that, the Psalmist said one thing, but more than what he said there, verse nine, he said this also. So we’re going to stop for a minute in verse eight and say, and say to ourselves above what? Jesus Christ came to do something that was above what? Well, it was above a system of works, above a system that could not provide for our salvation. And so more than that, he said, there is something much more than religious works, folks.
Works are a shadow which is cast by something permanent. Now notice he lists the very sacrifices of the Old Testament. Again, God gave these, God told the Israelites to do this, and so he lists them. There is the sacrifice. That would be the peace offerings from the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament. The offerings, he says, are the meal offerings when they would actually mix up cakes from the meals and burn them. There are the burnt offerings or the animal sacrifices, and then there are the offerings for sin, which are the sin offerings.
Now all of these were done day after day, year after year, all of those years, 1500 years that the law was in effect, they were supposed to be doing these year after year. And yet listen to what God says about these Old Testament shadows, these Old Testament types, Isaiah 111. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks or lambs or of the goats. Now here is God who told them to do these sacrifices, and now God is saying, I am tired of it, might say.
And you know why? Because these people now, rather than bringing them with the understanding of their mind and of their heart, looking at the shadow and saying, I’m not worshiping this shadow, I am worshiping the thing that casts this shadow, they began to look at the shadows themselves and bringing only these and expecting to be forgiven from God. No heart understanding, no understanding in their mind, and so God says, I don’t like it like that, that is not why I gave you these things.
They are not an end in themselves. Hosea 6,6, I desired mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings, not that they weren’t to bring their burnt offerings, but bring it with the knowledge of God. Bring it with your understanding, understand that these things aren’t the reality. And then that famous verse in 1 Samuel 15, 22, when Samuel had to come and reprove Saul, and Samuel said, hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord, behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, to hearken than the fat of rams. It is better to obey God and know that your mind and heart are with God. Now even in our New Testament, Peter says in 1 Peter 118, for as much as you know, you are not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers. How did you get saved? By going to the same church your fathers went to? Did you get saved by reading out of the family Bible that your grandparents read out of?
No. You, he says, but by the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. These things were the shadow of the right thing to come. I want you to turn to your left in your Bible back to the book of Philippians for a minute. And chapter three, in that short book of Philippians on the other side of these books and the other side of Thessalonians, you’ll find Philippians. Chapter three, verse four, here is the apostle Paul who is giving testimony about how he got saved and what he had to go through as a good Jew. He was a Pharisee of a Pharisee. And notice in Philippians three beginning in verse four, he says, though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if you could get saved by the works of the flesh, I would have the most confidence of all. Is what he’s saying?
If any other man think that he have whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. Notice now what he says circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews as touching the law of Pharisee. Concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
All of these things, he was as good as you could be as a good Jew. Verse seven, but what things were gain to me, were prideful to me, those I counted lost for Christ. You know how you’re going to come to Christ and be saved? You’re going to count all of your good works as nothing.
Ye doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, meaning that I may be saved. and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law.” Again, you see, by being a good Jew, by being a good Israelite, by doing all the sacrifices, being so perfect they could call you a Pharisee. And yet if not done, relying on the righteousness of Christ, those things are worthless to your salvation. That is your own righteousness which is of the law.
But he says, that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. Now you can go back to Hebrews, find your way back there. Do you know, folks, we have always had what I would call liturgical churches. We have always had those churches who even claiming to be Christian churches in the New Testament era have turned what they do into a lot of images and icons and idols.
The Roman church almost from the day it was born in the early centuries added immediately the sacraments, the vestments, the priests, the incense, the statues, the candles, the stained glass and all of the things that you have that in themselves might be okay. They would just be a shadow. They would just be an image, nothing wrong with a piece of stained glass, nothing wrong with a candle flame burning.
But when they cease to be simply a reminder of the reality and they become the reality themselves, then we have made the same mistake that the Old Testament saints made. You know, an image that you just say, oh, this is pretty or this is nice. We’ll use this kind of as a reminder of the real spiritual things. Those images soon become, we call them icons.
Oh, they are in the church. Oh, you can’t remove those. Oh, we have to have those.
We can’t do church without all of those things. And then icon soon becomes an idol. And when we begin to place the trust of our soul into those things, they are truly idols to us.
And church history is full of that, full of churches and denominations and things that have added all of the paraphernalia of religion, thinking they would simply be shadows and reminders, they become the realities themselves. There’s a great verse or passage really in Amos chapter 5, where God speaking through the prophet Amos to Israel says, I hate, I despise your feast days. I will not smell in your solemn assemblies, meaning God wanted them to burn the incense and had told them it is sweet to my smell. But when you do it with this attitude, I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though you offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them. Neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of your songs, for I will not hear the melody of thy vials, but let judgment run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream. I think many times in our day, folks, God is tired of the religion that we put on in our churches.
Now I want to say this for our simple traditional services. We are the objection to liturgical services throughout history. Do away with the vestments, take away the candles, take away the objects that have become idols, and sit and listen to God’s Word and ask the reality of the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart about the real thing which is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I even think that evangelicalism itself is now, again, the pendulum has gone from way out there and now is going way out here and adding again all the images and icons to where now we have even an evangelical services.
So many bells and whistles, if I may, going on that those have become a reality. You can’t worship without them in these churches and take a person out of that kind of service and put them in a simple service where they’re asked just to listen to God’s Word. They don’t know what to do here. They don’t know what to do in a service like this because those things, those images have become icons and are quickly becoming idols in our very churches and even in fundamental churches.
Worshiping worship, no sorrow for sin, no doctrine of sin, imputance, selfishness, and that has descended upon the churches of Jesus Christ today. Now I want to add something here that I thought to myself, do I have to do this again? And then I said, yes, I have to do it again. You know, it seems like if we don’t remind ourselves of what good works are all about, that we lose sight of what we’re supposed to be doing as Christians and we fly to one extreme or another. We either are doing all good works trying to, you know, do everything ourselves or we’re doing nothing, saying, oh, well, I’m so pious, I’m letting God do everything. everything.
Now do we understand the difference? What are good works? If I said is going to church good, I think you’d say yes it’s good. Is reading your Bible good?
Yes, reading your Bible is good. Helping your neighbor, would that be good? Yes, that would be good.
How about bad habits that you have and overcoming those and quitting those? That would be good. How about being polite rather than being rude?
That would be good. How about obeying authorities in your life? All of these things. And you add to the list.
Go on and add dozens to it. These are good works, but here’s the important distinction. If a person does these good works in order to gain his salvation, in other words, doing it before he gets saved, hoping that these things will help him get saved, then that is pure legalism. That is good works for salvation, which are wrong before God and God will not accept them.
But you take these very same works and you do them after your salvation. You do them because you got saved. You do them because of what Christ has done for you and now they are no longer legalism. They are good works that we are to do to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. If you do them for salvation, they are legalism. If you do them after salvation, they’re godliness. If you do these things for your salvation, it is self-serving.
If you do it after your salvation, it is truly self-denial. One is prideful, the other is humble. One makes you good, the other admits you’re not good, and only Jesus Christ is good. One makes you your own savior, and the other makes Jesus the Savior and Lord of your life, and one makes God a liar, the other makes God holy. So do we have to be reminded of these things?
Surely we do. You know the great example of history in Martin Luther when he drew up as an Augustinian monk and said, if any man was ever saved by monkry, it was surely I. But he said he went through all of these works as a monk and as an Augustinian monastery and then traveled to Rome as a pilgrimage to Rome, you know, because all good monks would have to do that. In Rome they had what is called the Scala Santa. That is the 28 steps that they say were brought from Herod’s palace in Jerusalem to Rome, the same very steps they say that Jesus stood on when Pilate offered him to the Jews, and they said, crucify him. They say that they brought these back from Jerusalem to Rome, and the same 28 steps are there in Rome, plus many other things. You wouldn’t believe all the relics that they say they have. All half of the crusades was about going back to Jerusalem and getting some other relic, bringing it back to Rome and making it part of their religious service. No wonder in Rome it is full of idols and works to be saved.
Well, even today, and I went online to check this, you can go on and look at the Scala Santa. If you want to go to Rome today, they will give you instruction about what you’re to do and not do once you approach these steps. You are never to walk on these steps, but you must begin at the bottom on your knees and crawl 28 steps from the bottom to the top, and you must stop and say a prayer at every step all the way up. This is the way that you will gain favor with God.
And then at the top, you’re to turn and go another way, of course, and not come back down the steps. Luther was doing that, and he had gone to Rome and he was a good monk and he was praying on his way up, but he had been studying the book of Galatians and he couldn’t get it out of his head. The just shall live by faith, not by works. And Luther got halfway up the steps and to the shock of everyone around him stood up on the steps and yelled, The just shall live by faith and ran down the steps and walked off and never went back to Rome. You know, the center somewhere folks has to stand up and say in the middle of his own good works, the just shall live by faith and not by the works of the flesh and let Jesus Christ save him.
Now, I have to move on quickly. Verse 9, in our text, notice again verse 8 began with the word above. That is, more than when he said sacrifice and offering, verse 9, he also said, then he said something far better, far greater, low, I come to do thy will, O God, I’ll do it. I’ll be the perfect sacrifice.
I’ll do the very thing God demands that be done. And he took away the first and established the second. He took away the law and established grace.
Isn’t that great? And so secondly, Jesus Christ alone folks can do God’s will perfectly. No one else could. If you start out to keep the law, you could be saved if you could keep it all. You could go to heaven if you just never sin. You could go to heaven if from the time you’re born to the time you die, no sin has ever come near you. You’ve never sinned. You’ve done everything perfectly, never had a bad thought, never had a bad motive. But who has done that? No one has ever done that, of course, but Jesus Christ came and said, I will do thy will.
I will do these things. Then he said, low, I come. It’s not David and it’s not you, it’s the Lord Jesus Christ alone that can do his will.
There’s none righteous, no not one. You and I couldn’t do this. We couldn’t take Psalm 40 and say, Lord, I’ll do this.
I’ll fulfill it and then I’ll walk right into heaven and you will greet me because I’ve done your will. We know we can’t do his will. All of sin to come short of the glory of God.
There is none righteous, no not one. Do you know that animal sacrifices even, when they offered those animal sacrifices for all of those years, it was done because of man’s disobedience. They had to offer the poor little animal, the poor little lamb, because human beings could not keep God’s But when Jesus Christ came to offer himself, he did it out of his own obedience. He did it because he could obey.
He could be what God wanted him to be. As a matter of fact, no animal really liked animal sacrifices, as far as I’m concerned. You know, I don’t care how cute the little lamb was, and you kept him in your house for a year, and he became a pet, and the kids knew him by name, and, you know, he was so cute and all this, and innocent, and surely he was without spot and without blemish. But when he came to that altar and they put the knife to his throat, I guarantee you, he didn’t do it willingly. It wasn’t his will to do this.
But Jesus Christ comes as the lamb of God who’s going to take away the sin of the world and says, I will do thy will. I will do this for you. We could not do it either. We could not save ourselves. Sin cannot cleanse itself. That’s why hell is forever, because a sinner in hell will go on and on and on, trying to purge himself from his own sin, and eternity will not allow him to do it. Sin cannot purge itself. All of sin becomes sure of the glory of God. If God said to you, now stand here on the floor, and in order for you to be accepted by me, I want you to raise yourself up off the floor and come up to me. Stand here on the floor and raise yourself straight up to God. That’s about the same thing as God saying, now you be perfect in order to be saved. Now, as you said, come over here and take me by both arms and lift me up.
God would say, no, I don’t accept that. You do it yourself. Well, put a chair over here and I’ll step up on the chair and I’ll get up.
No, nothing. You stand on the floor and go straight up, and then I’ll accept you. That’s about, that is what God is saying, and he says to us, if you’ll be perfect, then I’ll accept you as a believer. No, but what did Jesus Christ do? He was perfect. Now, back in verse five, you had this statement, a body has thou prepared for me.
Right? Jesus Christ in His earthly body, His incarnation, in human flesh. God in a body, imagine. God who is a spirit, God who dwells in all eternity.
God in a body. The second Adam, he calls him, of course. The first Adam was in a body. The first Adam had a chance to obey God, and the first Adam could not obey God, and neither can all of his children.
But the second Adam, God put into a body, can and did obey God. Now, it’s interesting if you read Psalm 40, that Psalm 40 has a statement that the writer of Hebrews under inspirational Holy Spirit changes slightly. The Old Testament says, mine ears has thou pierced.
Sacrifice and offering thou this not desire, mine ears has thou opened. Do you remember that if a slave was willing to be a slave to his master for the rest of his life and give himself totally to his master, he went to the doorpost and that master took an awl and took a big chunk out of his earlobe, and it marked him as a bond slave. And that bond slave then served that master obediently the rest of his life. And the Psalmist in giving this prophecy says of Jesus Christ, basically, mine ear has thou opened.
I have become your bond slave. Now, the writer of Hebrews extends that a little farther and says, a body you’ve prepared for me. In this body of his flesh he would live his life and always be obedient to his master. He would never sin.
He is the perfect bond slave. He, in his body, this perfect blood-holder, if you will, that contained this precious blood of Christ, never did anything wrong, never felt a wrong feeling, never thought a wrong thought. Because he was not tainted with Adam’s sin. As a matter of fact, Peter says, who did know sin neither was guile found in his mouth. John says, you know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin. Look at verse 19 and 20 of this same chapter we’re in.
In chapter 10, having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest, not by your works, but by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. How did the Old Testament priest go into the Holy of Holies before God to do his service? He had to go through the veil, that big curtain that hung there, and he would have to go through that to the other side and do his work. No one was allowed in there but the high priest, and he only went in once a year, and you know that when Jesus died, what happened to that veil? It went in two from the top to the bottom because God did it, and what was he signifying? You now can come into the holy place where God dwells, not through a curtain, but through the body of Jesus Christ. That body that God gave to him became a perfect sacrifice without sin. without any spot or wrinkle so that if you apply that to yourself you can come before God the same way.
What a wonderful thing that is. Chapter 7 verse 25 of our book says, wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such a high priest became us who is holy harmless undefiled separate from sinners and made higher than the heavens.
That is the way that you come to God. Could Adam do God’s will? No he didn’t do God’s will. Could Abraham do God’s will?
No he was a sinner too. Could Moses do God’s will? No Moses sin. Couldn’t even go into the promised land. Could David, he wrote the psalm, could David do God’s will? No sinned terribly before God.
Who could the Lord Jesus Christ? Now one other thought and that is in verse 10 of our text. The will of God then for every human being, every one of us is to apply the saving benefit of the sacrifice of Christ to himself.
You must take what Jesus did and apply it to your sinful condition so that your sins will be taken away and you therefore will be approaching God through the veil of Jesus Christ. Now interesting verse 8 had the word above. More than when he said, talked about sacrifices and offerings. Verse 9 he also said, I will come to do thy will. Verse 10 by the which will.
Almost sounds like a bird. You know we have a whipper wheel or something you know when we have it that way. By the which will. What is by the which will mean? It means by the will of Jesus Christ that you just read about. By Jesus Christ himself saying I will come and do this. I will freely give myself as a sacrifice.
I will live the perfect life. I will do your will and it is by that will folks not by your will. Not by you saying I can do this. I can be good enough. I can persevere. I can get through.
I can do all the good works I need to do. No it’s when you say by his will. By his obedience. By his sacrifice.
By the which will what? We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ and that was once for all. That will the Lord’s obedience. We are sanctified.
Isn’t that great? You remember I told you about the perfect tense? About that tense in Greek that begins with a definite time and out of that time if you draw a dot right here and draw a line out of it and put an arrow at the end going extending on into eternity the perfect tense beginning here and going on for eternity. We are sanctified. We have been.
We were the day that we got saved and we will be throughout eternity. Now again if I had time out we would we would study the doctrine of sanctification you would know that there are three areas of that. One is this doctrine of positional sanctification. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you are sanctified by the offering of Jesus Christ once for all.
His blood has purchased your sins past present and future. There’s also the doctrine of progressive sanctification and even though we’re saved we’re a secure child of God we’re supposed to be obedient. In other words good works because of salvation and then there is a there is a final sanctification and that is someday when we get translated and we’re in heaven and we’re done with this old flesh then we will be sanctified forever without even the possibility of sin. Here he’s speaking about your positional sanctification. That sanctification that you have now as a matter of fact in verse 14 of this chapter he says four by one offering and that of course is Christ. He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.
That’s you and that’s me. There’s a great old song I was thinking about when I when I read these verses and I went and wrote it down free from the law oh happy condition Jesus has blood and there is remission cursed by the law and bruised by the fall Christ hath redeemed us once for all once for all oh sinner receive it once for all oh brother believe it cling to the cross the burdens will fall Christ hath redeemed us once for all and so he says at the end of verse 10 he has done this by the body of Jesus Christ once for all someone says well you know I may sin after I get saved I’m not sure I can live that kind of life God is asking you to give yourself to him and trust me when he becomes your savior you will have the power it takes to live the life he’s asking you to live. You’re not saved by getting up that power yourself you’re saved by throwing your mercy at him and saying I can’t do it you save me but you will find power that you need after that I may not be able to live up to it the Bible says you are sanctified to be sanctified means by the way to be set apart set apart for him you are God’s child as a matter of fact a sanctified one literally in our language is to be a saint comes from the same word Agios is to be a saint Agiosmos is sanctification you are a saint a sanctified one you are set apart by God God wants you that way 2 Timothy 1 9 who had saved us and called us with a holy calling not according to our word but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
Jude 1 starts this way, Jude the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. That is us. That is who we are because Christ is your righteousness now. And if I could direct your thoughts to one more thing, if you would go to your right just to 1st John chapter 1 or listen to me as I read these verses, do you know that you have three great allies, three great truths that remind you that you are saved? In 1st John 1, 7, he says, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
And why? Because the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son cleanseth, is cleansing us from all sin. He is cleansing us from all our sin past, present, and future as we go along.
So you have the blood of Christ as your ally. Verse 9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and he is just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so as we confess our sins, God constantly restores us to his fellowship. And so the confession of our sins helps us to live this life.
So we have the blood of Christ, we have our own confession. And then in chapter 2, verse 1, my little children, these things right I unto you, that you sin not. Anyone who’s truly saved doesn’t go using the grace of God as an excuse for lasciviousness. He uses the grace of God as a power to live holy life. But if any man sinned, we have an advocate, we have a lawyer, we have a defense attorney with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins, not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world.
When we sin, even as believers, Jesus Christ stands up before the Father and says, I’ve forgiven that. He is mine. He is under my blood.
Our defense attorney, our advocate, goes on, you have these three great allies. And so you tell me that if you came to Jesus Christ for salvation, you wouldn’t be able to live the Christian life. Oh, you will be. But you can’t do it alone. You can’t live this kind of life alone.
You must come to him for salvation. Let me say one more thing about a shadow. A shadow also casts an exact line. You know, if you look at a shadow and only the shadow, you can kind of tell what’s behind you, can’t you? If you’re standing in the shadow of a tree, you kind of look around and you say, oh, this is a tree behind me. If you were standing in the shadow of a building, you would see the outline of the building.
You would say, oh, that’s what’s behind me or whatever it might be. A shadow casts an exact line, but a shadow is still a fantasy. You still can’t live there.
It will still disappear. And even though it seems exact, it seems satisfying. It is not the real thing.
You need to turn around and look at the real thing and put your trust in that. The cross of Calvary casts a shadow back over these things, but many people live in the shadows. They live by their emotions. They live by their icons. They live by works of the flesh and all of that is fleeting and they need to turn around and look at Jesus Christ Himself.
Who is the reality? His body hanging on the cross for you, His blood shed on your behalf and say, I will trust that for my righteousness, for my salvation. If you’ve never accepted Christ as your Savior, you should not hear a message about this without accepting Him.
You should not hear this and take the chance of going out into eternity without excuse because you heard a gospel and said, no, you ought to receive it when you hear it and let Jesus Christ save you from your sin. I want you to stand with me now if you will. We’ll stand with our heads bowed and we’ll sing a song of invitation in just a moment. Before we open our song books, let’s go to the Lord in prayer. Let’s ask His help and His blessing on this time of invitation. Father, we have read your word again. We have asked the Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts again. We have asked for His help.
This is His book. This is your Savior. These are your words. Father, we are so inadequate in explaining these things that your Holy Spirit can do this and will do it in the heart, convict hearts today, use even the shadows of things to bring conviction about the reality. There may be someone standing here this morning who does not know Jesus Christ as Savior. They have tried, they have worked, they have struggled in their own flesh and yet they are not saved.
Father, maybe now the Holy Spirit will direct them to Christ and they will come and place their trust in Him. And then, Father, as your children, often we stray back into those old things. We go back into that old life without realizing it. Oh, Father, help us to come out to the true light, out where it is bright, where things are immovable to serve you in light as we ought to. Now, Father, whatever we need to do and whatever, however you are speaking to our hearts, move on us now even as we sing this song, may you have your will in your way. In our lives, we ask in Jesus’ name, amen. Page 344, Jesus I come. We’re going to sing these three verses, 344. If you need to accept Christ as Savior and you