A Journey To The Past

It will be in Exodus 25, 23 through 40. You shall make a table of acacia wood.

Two cubits shall be in its length, and a cubit its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height.

You shall overlay it with pure gold and make a molding of gold around it. You shall make a rim around it hand -breadth wide and a molding of gold around the rim.

You shall make it for four rings of gold and fasten the rings to the four corners and its four legs.

Choose to the frame, close to the frame, and the rings shall lie as holders for the poles to carry the table.

You shall make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold, and the table shall be carried with these.

You shall make its plates and dishes for incense and its flagons and bowls with which to pour drink offerings and shall make them of pure gold.

You shall set the bread of the presence on the table before me regularly. You shall make a lampstand of pure gold, and the lampstand shall be made of hammered work.

Its base, its stem, its cups, its calyxes, and its flowers shall be made of one piece with it.

And there shall be six branches going out of its sides, three branches of the lampstand out of one side of it, and three branches of the lampstand out of the other side of it.

Three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower, and one branch and three cups made with almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower.

On the other branch, so for the six branches going out of the lampstand. And on the lampstand itself, there shall be four cups made like almond blossoms with their calyxes and flowers, and a calyx of one piece with it under each pair of the six branches growing out from the lampstand.

Their calyxes and their branches shall be one piece with it, the whole of it a single piece of hammered work of pure gold.

You shall make seven lamps for it, and the lamp shall be set up so as to give light on the space in front of it.

Its tongs and their trays shall be of pure gold, shall be made with all of these utensils out of talent of pure gold, and see that you make them after the pattern for them, which is being shown you on the mountain.

New Testament reading is Mark 7, 14 through 23.

And he called the people to him again and said to them, hear me, all of you, and understand.

There is nothing outside a person that can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.

And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable.

And he said to them, then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled?

Thus he declares all foods clean. And he said, what comes out of a person is what defiles him for from within out of the heart of man came evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.

All these evil things come from within and they defile a person. Well, let's take our

Bibles and open them to Hebrews chapter nine. Hebrews chapter nine.

Our text for this morning is verses one through 10. Hebrews nine, verses one through 10.

You follow as I read. Now, even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place.

Now, even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness.

For a tent was prepared, the first section in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the presence.

It is called the holy place. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the most holy place, having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold in which was a golden urn holding the manna and Aaron's staff that budded and the tablets of the covenant.

Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things, we cannot now speak in detail.

These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section performing their ritual duties, but into the second only the high priest goes and he but once a year and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people.

By this, the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as that first tent is still standing which is symbolic for the present age.

According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper but deal only with food and drink and various washings regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.

Let's pray. Father, now open your word to us. You want to teach us from this word and so we ask that you would do it.

Give us hope today in Jesus as we consider these things and we'll thank you in Jesus' name, amen.

Iran has been gripped by a serious drought over the last few years and that's caused the

Tigris River to recede from its banks and recently the ancient city of Zakikou, about 3 ,400 years old, has been exposed on one of those banks and archeologists have had a field day finally getting to that city and excavating it.

If I could work for nothing there with just a spoon in my hand, I would go.

The reason why is that for me, it would be a journey to the past, a journey that would tell me how these ancient people, how they dressed, what they ate, how they traveled, how did they farm, how did they live in a city, what was a city like back then?

Those are all things that are fascinating and it would reveal one of the steps taken in the history of mankind towards the civilization that we have today.

I'd be able to look back and see what was going on and understand how that contributed to this whole flow that led us to where we are today.

A journey to the past can be a good trip. Well, our writer in the text before us takes us on a journey to the past.

He takes us back. He wants to show us something of the worship of God's people under the old covenant.

Remember, many of his days were abandoning Jesus because of the cost it was for following Jesus and going back to the old ways, to that old covenant way of worship that God had given them.

And you remember, he's been urging them to remain steadfast in their faith in Jesus, to remember that he is their only hope.

Going back is not the way to go. Only Jesus, he is the greatest hope and our only hope and you cannot abandon him.

You can't even abandon him to go back to what God had actually set up earlier. And now he brings to full view the superiority of Jesus over those old covenant ways as he contrasts the sacrifice of Jesus to the sacrifices of the

Old Testament. And so he begins by describing for us some of the old covenant ways of worship.

And as he does so, he shows that even back then, through that old covenant tabernacle, the

Holy Spirit signaled vital signs and vital truths about what's true in Jesus.

Now there's some important things you need to know from that worship. And so he takes you on a journey to the past in order to explain the way things were to prepare us for what

Jesus accomplishes. So let's look at it together. Again, let me read the text.

Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. For a tent was prepared, the first section in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the presence.

It is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the

Most Holy Place, having the golden altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant covered on all sides with gold in which was a golden urn holding the manna and Aaron's staff that budded and the tablets of the covenant.

Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.

These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section performing their ritual duties.

But into the second only the high priest goes and he but once a year and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people.

By this, the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first tent is still standing which is symbolic for the present age.

According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.

What's he telling us here? What's his journey to the past telling us? Here's what he's saying. First of all, realize that the

Old Covenant regulates worship. The Old Covenant regulated worship.

Now as you look back on the Mosaic Covenant, you see that, you see that. It had regulation for acts of worship.

There were numerous commands in great detail about how you could approach

God and you could only approach him only in the way that he prescribed.

You couldn't add anything, couldn't subtract anything. It had to be the way God prescribed it. Israel could not worship

God according to its own preferences, according to what it wanted to do. So frankly, you couldn't take a guitar and drums into the tabernacle.

It wouldn't happen. That doesn't mean we can't do it here but it does mean that back then you couldn't do anything on your own.

Every single aspect of the worship at the tabernacle was regulated by the law of God and you could not deviate from it at all.

Not without consequences. It also has regulations for the place of worship, he says, an earthly place of holiness.

This was the tabernacle. Now look, many of you maybe have not read this in the Old Testament.

We got a real quick snapshot of the tabernacle but if you don't know what the tabernacle is, it was this big tent and you remember

Israel was moving all the time. They moved from Egypt to the Promised Land and then they had to stay in the wilderness for 40 years and as they moved from water place to water place, they had to take the place of worship with them.

This was the place where God met with them and so they had to take that and carry it with them. They'd break it down whenever they would move, go to their next place, set it up again.

It was a portable worship center, if you will but it was the earthly place of holiness.

It was the only place of meeting. In fact, it was called the tent of meeting in the

Old Testament. It was the only place of worship. You could not build your own family altar and worship

God there. You couldn't even get together with people in your neighborhood and establish a place of worship.

You couldn't do that either. To meet with God, you had to go to the tabernacle. That's the only place you could go to worship

God. He wouldn't accept your worship anywhere else. You had to go there and the tabernacle had to be built according to exact specifications from God with no deviation at all.

And so you had this courtyard with a big curtain around it, a big fence around it.

You had this tabernacle. You had a laver for washing. You had this big altar in the courtyard for sacrifice.

Then a veil and then you stepped into the holy place and then another veil and you stepped into the holy of holies or the most holy place.

That's the way God set it up and it could not, you could not deviate from that. You couldn't add another room.

You couldn't put the altar outside, the big altar on the outside of the courtyard. You couldn't put that outside.

It had to be there and everything had to be exactly the way God commanded it. Now, the first thing he talks about is the place of worship.

So you get to realize that the old covenant regulated the place of worship. Now that tabernacle had two rooms, right?

Had two rooms. The first section was called the holy place. The second, the most holy place or the holy of holies.

They were separated from one another by a heavy curtain. So here was the holy place.

Here was the holy of holies with a big curtain right here, separating the two. Now the holy place contained certain articles required by God and necessary for worship.

You couldn't eliminate them, okay? So in the holy place was the lamp stand, the bread of the presence and the altar of incense.

Those were in that holy place. Now, if you decided not to set up the altar of incense, God wouldn't accept your worship.

It had to be there. They were required for the worship of God, the lamp stand.

What is that? You heard a description of it in the Old Testament reading. Did you all keep up with that?

The blossoms and the branches and everything? Well, if you want a picture of it in your head, think menorah.

It's the menorah. That's what it is. What we today call the menorah. We all know what that is.

It's got three branches that come like that and there's seven lights because these are all lit and the one in the middle is lit.

And that's made out of gold. Has to be a certain way. It couldn't be four branches.

It had to be exactly the way God said. And it was made of gold.

It was made of gold. It stood on the south side of the room, directly across from the table.

So assuming that the tabernacle is like this, let's just assume we're in the tabernacle right now.

As you walk into the room, the lampstand would be here. The table of the presence would be on this side and the altar of incense would be right here, right in front of that veil that separated you from the holy of holies.

Now the bread of the presence. So here's the lampstand. Here's the bread of the presence. What is that?

What's the bread of the presence? That was a table, again, covered with gold, upon which sat 12 loaves of bread sprinkled with frankincense.

It stood on that side of the room, on the north side, and those 12 loaves were all arranged a certain way.

They were replaced every Sabbath day. Every Sabbath day, a fresh 12 loaves of bread would be put on that table.

And then the altar of incense. That's placed on the west side, right there.

Okay, we're in the tabernacle, right? So we're sitting in the holy place. Through those doors, imagine a curtain.

There's the holy of holies. That altar of incense sat right there, right in front of that curtain.

Now you say, wait a minute, it says that it belongs to the holy of holies. Well, in this sense, it belongs to the holy of holies, even though it was in the holy place.

In this way, it sat right in front of that curtain that divided the sections. But it was closely associated with the ark on the most holy, in the most holy place.

That's probably because on the day of atonement, on the day of atonement, this is why I think it's, it may be connected to the holy of holies.

Because on the day of atonement, the priest had to get incense from there. Some incense from there, in order to burn it in the holy of holies, and he had to apply the blood of the atonement on that altar.

Now that altar was square. I can't tell you how tall it was, because I don't know my cubits.

It's not in my head. If you have NIV, I'm sure it tells you the exact measurements. It was square, right?

It was square. It too was overlaid with gold. So you have a gold lamp stand, you have a gold table, you have a gold altar of incense, covered with gold, had four horns on each corner.

All right, had four horns on each corner. And here is where the priest would burn the incense.

It's almost like a transitional instrument into the holy of holies, okay? It's right there, just before you go in, and the priest had to put blood on it and use the incense from it when he went into the holy of holies.

Now, in that inner room, the holy of holies, the most holy place, there also were certain articles.

There was the Ark of the Covenant. This was a square box, again, overlaid with gold, okay?

Are you getting a picture here? There's lots of gold in this place. You say, man, why did God have all this gold for these desert nomadic people?

Well, I don't know. He said it had to be gold. I have kind of an idea, but I don't know.

The Ark of the Covenant was a square box. I can't tell you the measurements right off the top of my head, but it was covered with gold.

It was a square box. Now, there was a golden urn, and in that urn was manna.

Now, you remember what manna was? Manna was that supernatural food that God provided for them in the wilderness to sustain them, not supernatural in this sense.

It just appeared every morning, and they could gather it and eat it. It was supernatural in that sense.

It was supernaturally produced food for them, sustained them for 40 years in the wilderness. Now, into this golden urn, they put some of that manna, and God somehow kept that from deteriorating.

There was manna in that urn. That was put in the ark. Then there was

Aaron's staff that had budded. You go, what is that all about? Well, do you remember

Korah's rebellion? You can read about it in number 16. Korah and his family said, hey, we're

Levites. How come Aaron's family gets to do all that stuff? You know what you're doing?

This is a power play. This is a power play. You're trying to show that you're better than us, and you have more power than us, and we're not gonna stand for it.

We get to offer stuff to God, too, not just you, you power -grubbing family, right?

And so Moses says, all right, let's find out. Let's find out.

We're gonna, you offer incense to God. Tomorrow morning, you do it. So Korah and his guys all show up, and they got their incense burners, and they're gonna go, they're gonna show

Aaron's family they're not such hot stuff after all, and Moses says, okay, everybody, get out of the way.

Clear out. Don't even be close to these people. Just get out of the way, right?

What happens next? The earth opens up, and Korah's whole family, everybody, right into the ground, and then the ground closes.

Anybody left behind was burned with this flame from God. What was

God saying? He was saying, Aaron's family is the one

I've chosen to operate as priests and high priests, all right?

Now, the next day, just to make the point clear, God said, I want you to get a staff from every chief of every tribe, 12 tribes, get their staff, inscribe their name on it, and Moses, you carry it into the tabernacle, and you put it in there.

And I'm gonna show who is the leading, who are the leaders here. So Moses did that next morning, he got out, brought all those, can you imagine bringing all these walking sticks out?

And there's one of them that has budded, just a staff, you know, just a dead piece of wood.

Hey, kids, you know my walking stick? A lot of you have seen my walking stick with that carve of that guy with the beard on the top of it.

A lot of you have seen that. It's like bringing that out, and all of a sudden, that old piece of wood is sprouting almond blossoms.

And Aaron's rod was the one that had blossomed. So it became clear, look, this is the leading family when it comes to worship.

And so that staff was put in there. And then there is the tablets of the covenant, the stone tablets on which were inscribed the 10 commandments.

Those also were in the Ark of the Covenant. Now, so that's inside the box.

What's on top of it? On top of it are these two gigantic cherubim. They're like replicas of angels, and they're hammered out of gold, okay?

They're hammered out of gold, and they're facing one another, and the tips of their wings are touching. Now, cherubim were the creatures who guarded the presence of God.

So that's what they were doing at the Garden of Eden. Remember where God put angels there?

They were there to guard the garden. And so they're like the guardians.

And it's between them, those angel figures, between them,

God would manifest his glory. This would be like his throne.

And so if you can imagine, the tabernacle has this great cloud resting on it, right? The great cloud that led them, resting on the tabernacle, saying,

God's here. And then inside was the brilliance of his glory as it sat on the lid of that tabernacle between those angels, all right?

And those angels were connected to the cover of the Ark, also gold, hammered out of gold, and it was called the

Mercy Seat. It was called the Mercy Seat. Now, he says to you, now,

I could give you a whole lot more details, but I'm not going to, right? Notice what he says.

Of these things, we cannot now speak in detail. You say, Pastor, if he's not speaking in detail, why are you?

Well, it's because you don't know the basics probably, all right? But there's more he could say.

There's more he could elaborate on in terms of what do these things mean?

What do these things mean? What did they mean back then? What do they mean now? He could have done that, but he says,

I got to move on. And as we go through the scriptures, we find out later what those things are.

We can see where they're fulfilled in the New Testament. But he says, right now, I don't have time for that. I want to get down to business here.

And the third thing he says is that you need to realize that the Old Covenant regulates the acts of worship, not just the place of worship, but the acts of worship.

What goes on in there? Now, the first thing to notice is that the priests regularly, repeatedly perform their various duties in the holy place.

Verse six, these preparations having thus been made, all of that, all sitting there, everything done the way it should be, the priests then go regularly into that first section, into the holy place, performing their ritual duties.

So in other words, he's saying clearly, they repeatedly went into the holy place to do what they had to do.

They had to tend to the lampstand every day to make sure the lights did not go out.

The holy place was to have light in it all the time. They took care of the bread. They baked it.

They replaced it on the Sabbath day. They arranged the loaves properly. Every day, two times a day, the priest had to burn incense on the altar of incense.

So a priest had to go in, morning, twilight, and he had to burn incense twice a day on the altar of incense.

Now, also what's important is that whenever someone offered a sin offering in the courtyard, okay, so we're out in the courtyard now, and there's this great big bronze altar where people would bring their sacrifices.

Now, the priest would offer sacrifices on that twice a day, morning and evening, and then they would also offer any sin offering that an

Israelite would bring. You go back, and I read this a little bit ago. You go back, and you say, someone goes, oh, no,

I realize I've sinned against God. They bring a bullet. They bring it into the courtyard. The priest sacrifices it on that altar, and so he had to do that two times a day, and whenever someone did that, the priest had to go in and apply the blood from that sin offering to the horns of that altar, that altar of incense.

So they gotta burn incense twice a day, and no doubt, every day, they're coming in and putting blood on the horns from the sin offerings that the people have brought.

What's the point? The point is this. The work of the priests were never done, and they had to be reduplicated every day.

They had to do these things every day, all right? What about the worship in the

Holy of Holies? Again, verse seven, notice what he says. Clearly, he's telling you something.

But into the second, only the high priest goes, and he, but once a year, not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people.

All right, so what happens in the Holy of Holies? No one can enter that place, the place where God reveals his glory.

No one can go in there except one person, and that's the high priest.

He's the only one allowed in the Holy of Holies, okay?

And the high priest could not go there whenever he wanted to. He couldn't say, oh, okay, you got a problem?

I'll go in and talk to God. He couldn't go in there except that one day, a specified time, and you see it on your calendars today.

When you look at your calendar and you see the term Yom Kippur, y 'all see that on your calendars?

It's always on that. That is Hebrew for Day of Atonement. On that day, on that day was the only day the high priest, who's the only person who can go in, that's the only day he could go in, okay?

He couldn't go any other time, and God specifically says that if he comes into that place on any other day, he will die.

I mean, you talk about prescribing worship, one guy only allowed into this place once a year on a particular day, and if he goes in on any other day, he's a dead man.

I don't know about you, but I think that would kind of catch my attention about what I can and can't do in worship, right?

So that's what's going on there, and notice, if you read back, and here's where you need to go, write it down.

Don't read it now, Leviticus 16, talks all about the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.

Okay, don't read it now, okay? Let me just take a break. I remember one, and I won't tell you her name, and she was a child, said to me one day, you know,

Pastor, I didn't quite catch all your sermon, because you mentioned this one scripture, so I just read that whole thing while you were preaching.

So don't look at Leviticus 16 now. I'll summarize it for you, though. He doesn't enter boldly, and just walk into that Holy of Holies, not at all.

Before entering, he must take a bull and sacrifice it for his sins and the sins of his house.

So before he goes in there, and if he doesn't do this, he's a dead man, first thing he has to do is to take a bull and has to sacrifice it outside for the sins, his sins, and for the sins of his house.

Now, that's not the only thing that happens. They take two goats, and they cast lots for the goats.

One goat, who wins the casting of the lots. One goat, they put their hands on him, symbolizing the transfer of the sins of the people to these sacrificial animals.

One goat is killed on the altar. The other goat is sent out into the wilderness, symbolizing taking away their sins.

Payment of sins, taking away their sins. And that goat, that one goat is then sacrificed.

Now, then the high priest had to take some incense and put the incense on the fire before the

Lord that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony so that he does not die.

He's got to get enough smoke in there. In the Holy of Holies, enough of that incense smoke so that it's very difficult to see the mercy seat.

Having done that, he enters, and then he sprinkles the blood from the bull and from the goat on the mercy seat, and he turns away the wrath of God from the people for another year.

It's got to be done again next year. And if he doesn't do it, God's wrath is gonna break out against the people, and so every year, an atonement must be made in this way.

What's the point? Access to God was limited, and the high priest was the only one who could approach him directly, and that once a year, and that must be repeated every year.

All right, so now we've got the picture. We've taken our journey to the past. Now what?

This is what he says now in verses eight through 10. This is where he's driving us. He says, realize that the old covenant serves the

Holy Spirit. That is to say, the Holy Spirit speaks through everything that I've just described.

He speaks to you through that. He has a message for you. Now consider this.

Such worship with such splendor should grip your heart with wonder and awe.

God designed the tabernacle and later the temple with such stunning beauty in order to overwhelm the

Israelites with the idea of his majesty and his holiness. The furnishings gleamed with gold, reflecting the glory of God.

The priests daily and repeatedly attended to the lighting and the bread and the incense, and the high priest, one day out of the year, offered the sacrifice that would divert

God's wrath. All of it revealed, now listen, all of it revealed the majesty and the glory and the holiness of God.

Do you know what? I think it was last year. I read through the book of Leviticus. That's what I was reading for myself.

I just read through the book of Leviticus, and you know, so many people say, oh yeah, it was fun reading the Bible until I got to Leviticus.

And you got all these commandments. It was fascinating. I challenge you to read the book of Leviticus.

It's amazing. And the voice that I hear from the book of Leviticus simply is this.

Man, you gotta do all this stuff or you can't come to God because God is so absolutely holy that if you don't deal with the mold on the walls of your house, you cannot come to God.

God has commandments for every single area of their life. There wasn't one area of their life that wasn't under the authority of the law of God.

And it screams at you. I am so holy that I require these things before you even think of approaching me.

And that through a high priest. It yells of the holiness of God. But the

Holy Spirit then signals through all that that we needed something else.

You see, here's what he's saying. He says, let's take this journey to the past. And what you're going to find is that the

Holy Spirit was speaking to us in all the things that he said there that God did.

He's speaking to us. He's signaling some things to us. What? Here's the first thing, verse eight through the first part of verse nine.

The Holy Spirit signals that you need access to God. You need access to God. The way to God for you is not open as long as the first tent is still valid.

Now, ESV says section. It's the word for tent. And I think you ought to understand it as tent.

This tabernacle, this first tabernacle. If it's still standing. He doesn't mean if it still exists.

Because by the time he wrote this, the tabernacle was long gone. There was a temple, but the tabernacle was gone.

What is he saying? He's not talking about existence, because it's already gone. He's talking about the fact that you might think that that way of worship is still valid.

If you think it's still valid, he's speaking to these people who are tempted to go back to the temple. He says, if you think that's valid, don't.

It's no longer valid. And what does he say at the beginning of verse nine? All of this acts as symbols or illustrations for us who live in this present age.

They were symbols or illustrations. They were speaking about what would come. They were speaking about what

Jesus would accomplish. They were speaking about these things to us today.

That's what he's trying to say. As long as you believe the old ways are still valid, you cannot possibly have access to God.

You can't. Because if you think it's valid, then you can't go to God. You can't go to him.

Someone else has to go there for you. A man, a high priest from the tribe or from the family of Aaron.

You don't have access to, if you want to go back to those old ways, fine, but not fine. If you want to go back to those old ways, listen, you won't have access to God that way.

You won't have access to God. So as you journey to the past and you look at that tabernacle, it should become evident that your access to God has to come some other way.

It can't be that old way. You want to have access to God, it has to come another way. So the

Holy Spirit is telling you, you want access to God? Doesn't happen there. There's got to be another way.

Here's the second thing that the Holy Spirit signals. You need a cleansed conscience. You need a conscience that's cleansed.

All those sacrifices and rituals of the tabernacle dealt only with externals.

Now, the writer is not denigrating those regulations. He's not even saying they were useless.

He's not saying that at all. All those rituals did serve a purpose.

They made it clear that God is holy, absolutely holy, and you cannot approach

Him except in the way that He prescribes.

The way that the holy priest had to approach God on that great day of atonement says to you,

He is so holy. You better not just think you can walk into His presence like that.

Only He can come, and only once a year, and only after He hides the mercy seat in smoke and sprinkles it with the blood of those animals.

That's the only way. You see? That's how holy God is.

All of this made clear the fact that God is holy, and you could only approach Him not only through the proper ritual, but through the proper sacrifice.

And those sacrifices could never clear their conscience. What those sacrifices did was remind them, day after day, year after year, they were sinners.

Here's God, He's so holy. He's so holy that I can't approach Him without the shedding of blood, and even then, only through a high priest.

And all the sacrifices I bring, oh, I bring a burnt offering, or a sacrifice, I'm sorry, a sin offering to the courtyard to atone for a sin of mine.

But if I sin again, what do I gotta do? If I realize I've sinned, I've gotta do another one. And every year, the priest has to offer a sacrifice for us, every year.

Not just, it has to happen every year. What do you think that's going to do? It's going to say to you loud and clear,

God is so holy, and man, you just keep sinning. You're sinning all the time.

You need all this. Are you with me? It reminded them of their sin.

You had a constant reminder that you were sinful, and you had to offer sacrifices over and over and over and over again, year after year after year after year.

Over and over, I've sinned, we've sinned. Well, Day of Atonement's coming up, okay?

Wrath averted, another year, another year. It's gonna say to you over and over and over again, you're a sinner, right?

And so, you journey to the past here, and find out that you need something that can cleanse your conscience, not just remind you of sin.

It ought to, the Holy Spirit says, that should tell you something. That should tell you something, that there must be something else that'll make it so that you can say, right?

A sacrifice has been offered, and there's nothing ever again that will condemn me.

That's what you need, a conscience that does not torment you with your sin, but says to you, says to you this, yeah, yeah, you're as bad as you think you are.

In fact, you're probably worse, but a sacrifice has been made, and all your sins have been forgiven.

That's what we needed. And then lastly, as you look at the end of verse 10, it says, all this was imposed until the time of reformation.

The Holy Spirit signals that something greater had to come. A time of reformation had to come, a time to set right your access to God and the cleansing of your conscience.

And we know that that reformation, he assumes it, was inaugurated by Jesus. The restrictions surrounding access to the covenant or to God and the sacrifices necessary to give you access to God were the

Holy Spirit's signal that radical measures needed to be taken. Something has to happen.

And so as you journey to the past, you can see that something radical has to happen, and that's what the tabernacle teaches you.

Now, I want you to think this morning. Do you find yourself constantly reminded of your sins?

Do you want to talk to God about it? You want to talk to God about that and go to him whenever you want?

Keep in mind this, that those old covenant ways, as glorious as they looked, or even the ways that you've constructed to approach

God to deal with your sins will never prove adequate. Some of you,

I don't know, maybe some of you, you deal with sin this way. You say to yourself,

I feel so ashamed, I feel awful. And then you say to yourself, you know what?

You shouldn't feel bad about yourself. Like, you need to feel better about yourself.

You need to work at feeling better about yourself and saying, I'm not so bad. And you can always look at other people and say,

I'm not as bad as them. And you can always say, well, what I've done, that's as what most people say.

Well, we all make mistakes, right? We don't sin, we make mistakes.

Let me tell you what happens when you deal with your sin that way. You will harden your heart and your conscience will be seared like a hot iron making a scar and pretty soon, pretty soon, you won't.

You won't feel bad at all. But how will that stand up before God?

However, if you're honest with yourself, you will come to points where you say, there is nothing

I can do. I can't do enough, it seems to me.

And the answer is, you're right, you can't do enough. You invent these rituals so that you can approach

God and deal with your sin. Well, our journey to the past should tell you something.

It should tell you that something more is needed than just some rituals. It should tell you that something more is needed than the things that you come up with to deal with your sin.

Our journey points to the necessity of something radical and his name is

Jesus. And it should point you to this fact, you need him.

Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that even as we look into that old covenant, it speaks to us that there must be something different.

There must be something more. There must be something that does more than what these do.

God help us to see that that more is a person. The Lord Jesus, and in him, there is forgiveness.

God help us now as we come to this table to by faith lay hold of Christ and know that he is enough, that he is what you've provided.