A Completed Work - Hebrews 10:11-13

Let me turn in your copy of God's Word to the 10th chapter of Hebrews,

Hebrews 10.

We're going to read together beginning at verse 11, and we will read through the end of verse 18, Hebrews

10, beginning at verse 11.

Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices which can

never take away sins.

But he, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God,

waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet.

For by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us for after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them

after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws upon their heart and on their mind I will write them.

He then says, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.

Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

Let's pray together.

Our Father, we ask that you give us insight and illumination into your Word.

We pray that we may be understanding this morning of what your Word means here and that we may see in it

the glory of Christ, the sufficiency of His work for us on the cross and what it means to trust in Him.

May you be honored and glorified through the preaching of your Word and through our listening to it and our time here together as we study in

Christ's name, amen.

Life involves a lot of waiting, doesn't it?

When you're a kid you just can't wait until you're old enough to have a car and get your license and then you think,

well I just can't wait until I'm out of school and I can't wait until Jim's done preaching through the Gospel of John and I can't

wait until I get out of the house and having gotten out of the house I can't wait until I get married and I can't wait until I have kids

and then you have kids and you think, I can't wait until Jim's done preaching through the book of Ecclesiastes and

then I can't wait until my kids are out of diapers, I can't wait until my kids are out of school, I can't wait until my kids are out of the

house, I can't wait until I have grandchildren, I can't wait until Jim is done with Hebrews,

I can't wait until I retire and then I can't wait until my kids come back to see me again.

That took a dark turn right there at the end, didn't it?

Kind of like Ecclesiastes all over again.

Life is full of waiting and we're always waiting and this is difficult for us in our culture particularly because we are

accustomed to getting everything instantly right when we want it and not having to wait for anything.

We are almost conditioned to be instantaneous people.

Do you want to know where you saw that actor in some other movie?

You don't have to go down to the library and scroll through magazines or last month's issue of People magazine or

anything like that, you just go to Google and you have your answer instantly.

Do you want some product that you see online?

Well, you order it and you have it in two days.

You hardly have to wait for that and now we're experimenting with same day delivery in some markets so that we don't have to wait that two

days that it takes to get a product.

Do you want to communicate with somebody?

Instantly you can talk to somebody on the other side of the world, no need to write a letter, you can have Insta

picture, whatever, Instagram, Insta message, Instant texting, Instant phone calls, Insta FaceTime, Insta everything,

everything is instant.

We become an instant people.

We don't like to wait for anything, we don't have to wait for nearly anything, even our entertainment is on demand, it's streaming, it's right when

we want it, where we want.

It.

We don't even have to wait till we get home to watch what we want to watch because now we can watch it on our phone and we can download it to our

phone so that even while we're sitting in a traffic light, which undoubtedly some people must do and stare at their phones,

binge watching whatever the latest series is that they've got to binge watch instead of watching for the light to turn green, they have it right there in

front of them.

Everything is instant.

We have become a people that pace back and forth in front of our microwave waiting for our coffee to warm up.

It used to be that you'd have to gather the wood and start a fire and then warm up your coffee but not us, we get impatient for

that 60 seconds that it takes to warm up a cup of coffee.

And yet Christianity is a waiting religion.

We are always waiting for something.

We as God's people are waiting for Jesus Christ to return, are we not?

Our citizenship is in heaven from which we eagerly await a savior.

The Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 10, we've turned from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from

heaven who delivers us from the wrath to come.

We are just, we are waiting.

We are waiting for the promise of the new covenant, the promises of the new covenant, the eschatological ones to take place.

We are waiting for the coming kingdom.

We are waiting for the king to return.

We are waiting for our glorified bodies.

We are waiting for God to gather in all of his elect.

We are waiting for the next phase in God's eschatological program.

We are waiting for the resurrection of the just.

We are waiting to be reunited with our loved ones.

We're waiting so that we can receive that, the full inheritance which is reserved and preserved in heaven for us.

Everything that we as Christians most desire and most want, we have to wait for those things.

And the waiting is not easy.

We're still waiting for the God to fulfill his promises to Abraham and David.

If you think you've been waiting a long time, Abraham and David are still waiting to see the fulfillment of some of the promises that were

given to them.

Christianity is a waiting religion.

And we're not alone in this.

Because our Savior waits too.

He's waiting for something.

He's waiting to judge the quick and the dead.

He is waiting to receive the kingdom from the Father.

He is waiting to return again and to establish that kingdom here on earth.

He is waiting to gather all of his people to himself.

He is waiting until that day when we get to enjoy his glory with him and we are one with him as he is one with the

Father, and we get to enjoy and see that glory that he had with the Father before the world was.

He is waiting for that day.

Our Savior waits.

Our Savior is waiting for all of his enemies to be made a footstool for his feet.

And that's what our passage here in Hebrews chapter 10 says.

Our Savior waits.

Having taken his seat at the right hand of the Father, verse 11 says, sorry, verse 12 says, he is

waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet.

We're here in Hebrews chapter 10 and this passage here that describes Christ having taken his seat at the right hand of the Father

and then waiting until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet, this is actually the conclusion of a very long theological

argument that the author has been making since chapter 7.

Most of chapter 7, no, I dare say all of chapter 7, chapter 8, chapter 9, and now all of chapter 10 so far has

been one long theological argument here in the middle of the book of Hebrews.

And the point of his theological argument is this, that Christ is a superior high priest who

occupies a superior priesthood, who has initiated and inaugurated a superior covenant by the

sacrifice of a superior sacrifice, and now he has taken that superior blood and he has entered into a

better tabernacle in heaven itself where he makes a better intercession having accomplished a better thing

than all the Old Testament priests and sacrifices could have accomplished, namely the redemption of his people.

Everything about Jesus is better.

And now we come here to the middle of chapter 10 and the author is drawing all of these lines

of thought, all of these points that he has made slowly over the last four chapters, he's pulling them all together into this

concluding paragraph which begins in verse 11.

And before we jump into verse 11, I want to give you just sort of an overview of the immediate structure of the context so you can see

how these are concluding thoughts that he's drawing.

This is a concluding paragraph, verse 11 through 18.

I want you to notice it because this paragraph really functions in two ways.

It's a conclusion to all the theology that he's laid out for four chapters, but he's transitioning into a

stage of Hebrews, a section of the book of Hebrews that is really heavy with application.

You can see it in verse 19.

After he has concluded his argument in verse 18, he says in verse 19, therefore brethren, since we have

this confidence, that's verse 19, look at verse 21, and since we have a great high priest over the house of

God, in other words, since these things are true, then look at verse 22, let us,

verse 23, let us, and verse 24, let us.

See what he's saying?

Since this is true and this is true, since everything he said for four chapters, since we can bank on these things being

true, here's the application.

Let us do this, let us do this, and let us do this.

So verses 19 through 25 is application.

And then verse 26, we get into another one of those warning passages which we haven't looked at in a long, long time.

We haven't looked at that since chapter 6.

So that is the warning passage begins in verse 26.

So we come now to verse 11.

Having looked at that structure, I just remind you that earlier in this theological argument, the author has been

making the case that the animal sacrifices were inferior.

There's a bunch of things that they couldn't do.

And now he's coming to the point where he is arguing that the sacrifice of Christ is superior.

It has done everything that the animal sacrifices could not do.

So as he's drawing these concluding thoughts, what you're going to see in verses

11 through verse 18 is a lot of the ideas and the

themes and the topics that we have addressed over the last number of months as we've been working our way through this because he has handled

each one of them separately and kind of focused on them.

And we've spent some time working through Melchizedek as a high priest and the superiority of the new covenant and his sacrifice and

what the animal sacrifices could not do.

We've dealt with all of those kind of in parts and pieces and now he brings them all together here in these concluding sentences as

all of this, he's bringing it all together as.

It were.

So we've dealt with all of them individually and now he puts all of it together in verses 11 through 18.

He piles it all in here and he is making a contrast between the Old Testament sacrifice as the Old Testament

priesthood and the sacrifice of Jesus and the priesthood of Jesus.

And so all of these themes that we've been looking at over the last number of months, now they all are coming together.

And he's drawing this contrast, a series of them in a very compact form.

So a lot of this is going to sound familiar to you, but you're going to see it all laid out in really one paragraph here.

And as he makes the contrast, we see that the work of Christ is superior, the sacrifice of Christ is superior, and the

accomplishment of Christ is superior.

And that really will serve as our outline for this morning.

The work of Christ, His sacrifice, and then His accomplishment.

Look first at the work of Christ.

Let's start with verse 11.

In fact, let's read verses 11 and 12, and I want you to keep in mind that 11 describes

something, 12 describes something, and it's almost phrase for phrase a comparison between the Old

Testament economy and the New Testament, New Covenant economy with Christ.

Verse 11, every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices

which can never take away sins.

Now notice the contrast.

But, verse 12, but He, having offered one sacrifice of sins for all

time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.

But He, Christ, as opposed to all the other priests, He sat down as opposed to stand.

He offered one sacrifice as opposed to many sacrifices.

He offered one singular sacrifice as opposed to many of the same kinds of sacrifices.

And those sacrifices could never take away sin, and Christ has done that, which is why He is seated at the right hand of the Father.

So it's just a series of contrasts, almost phrase by phrase in verse 11 contrasted with verse 12.

So let's look first at His work which is superior.

Notice in verse 11 it says, every priest, and of course that is contrasted with the singular He in

verse 11, or sorry, verse 12.

Every priest does this, but He, that is Jesus, one priest, does that.

That's the first most striking contrast in these verses, is simply the number of priests and the persons who are

involved in this work.

Under the old economy, you didn't have just a couple of priests who did a priestly work.

You had hundreds of priests who did that priestly work.

And over the course of 15 centuries of that old economy with the old covenant, you would have had thousands

upon thousands upon thousands of priests who did the work around the tabernacle and then later on the temple.

In fact, in the first century, there were 24 orders of priests, and those 24 orders of priests,

each order had within it thousands of priests who did the work.

And they would rotate in having time off from the work.

They would rotate as to who did the morning sacrifices and who was involved in maintaining the tabernacle and later on the temple.

There was a rotation to that order of priests, and each order had hundreds of priests in.

It.

So there were not just one or two priests doing that work, there were thousands of priests involved in the maintaining of the tabernacle and the

temple and the sacrifices and everything that went with it.

Because the amount of work that was necessary to do, what they were commanded to do, required more than just one or two priests.

And this is the point, thousands of priests offering thousands of

sacrifices over 15 centuries with all of the work that they did,

none of that accomplished what one priest did with one sacrifice and one offering.

Every priest, he lumps them all in, thousands of them,

but he, one man.

That just demonstrates the glory of Christ's work and the power of his accomplishment.

Notice the second contrast, not just the number of priests, but notice the position of the priest.

Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifice.

This is contrasted with Christ, who he says in verse 12, sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Standing was the normal posture for an Old Testament priest, this is what they did.

There was no place in the tabernacle or in the temple or in the courtyard where they could sit down.

There was no couch, there was no break room, there was no priest lounge where you went in if you were tired and you had your

15 minute morning break and your 15 minute union mandated afternoon break and then a one hour lunch.

You didn't have any of that.

There were no vending machines where you sat down, you stood around the water cooler and talked about the animal you sacrificed that morning.

The priesthood didn't have any of that.

You went to work and you worked all day long and you worked until you were exhausted and you never felt as if the work was ever done.

That was the point of the Old Testament priesthood.

Every priest stands daily ministering, he had to stand up and do his work and you showed up for work and you worked as long until all the

work for that day was done, but then you always knew that you were coming back the next day and you were going to go right back to work again.

Contrast that with Christ, who has sat down at the Father's right hand.

The fact that he has sat down demonstrates the completeness and the perfection of his.

Work.

Daily hundreds and thousands of priests were involved in the ministry of the tabernacle and the temple and yet this

one priest who has accomplished his work has finally sat down at the Father's right hand.

He does not stand and work, he sits and intercedes.

He sits and represents us as our advocate with the Father.

Jesus Christ the righteous does this.

As one commentary put it, and this I thought was really punchy and well stated,

the priest of the Old Testament stands timid and uneasy in the holy place, anxiously

performing his service there and hastening to depart when that service is done as from a place where he has no

free access and can never feel at home.

Whereas Christ sits down in everlasting rest and blessedness at the right hand of majesty in the holy of holies,

his work accomplished, he is awaiting his reward.

Notice that contrast.

Those priests walked into the temple, into the tabernacle and they labored and worked and strived all day long, day after day,

week after week, year after year, never sitting down, never resting, never feeling that their work was accomplished.

And when they were done, they left the tabernacle because that was not their home.

They could never feel at home and they could never feel at rest there.

But the Lord Jesus Christ has taken his seat at the right hand of the Father because that is his home and that

is where he belongs.

That is his position and he gets it and he could feel at home and at rest there and he never feels

like he has to leave the presence of the Father because that is where he deserves.

To be.

All of the other priests, even in the day that Hebrews was written, they were striving and they were working and they

were serving.

They were laboring and fatiguing themselves in an obsolete system with an obsolete

sacrificial system that accomplished nothing in terms of redemption.

And even while the Lord Jesus Christ was seated in the heavenlies at the Father's right hand, those priests were still laboring away.

That demonstrates the superiority of Christ's work.

Now, one sacrifice, he's done and he sits down never to offer another

sacrifice.

Second, his sacrifice is superior, not just his work but his sacrifice.

Notice the number of sacrifices that is contrasted here and this is something that we've looked at in previous weeks.

The verb tense here is important.

Every priest stands daily ministering and offering.

Notice that's present tense.

Even after Christ had left and gone to heaven for another four decades, that work went on at the temple until the temple was

destroyed in 70 AD and that sacrificial system came to an end and it has never restarted

again in the last 1950 years.

It has not started again.

No sacrifice has been made there as part of that priesthood since 70 AD.

So even while the author is writing this, those priests were daily standing and ministering day after

day again and again in the temple and in the tabernacle whereas Christ has made that one

sacrifice and sat down at the Father's right hand.

They offered the same sacrifices so there's not just a contrast here with the tense of the work that Christ offered,

past tense once.

They keep offering all of these sacrifices, that's a contrast.

But notice the number of sacrifices.

They offer the same sacrifices which can never take away sins and the author says that Christ having

offered one sacrifice.

So it's not just a contrast in the work being done and the work continuing to go on but it is also

a contrast in the number of sacrifices.

One as opposed to thousands of other sacrifices.

The repetition of the Old Testament sacrifices, the author makes this point earlier, it was actually the evidence of their

inadequacy.

Those sacrifices were inadequate and the demonstration of that inadequacy is the fact that they had to be offered time after time

after time and that there was no end to it.

Hebrews 10 verse 2, the author says, otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered because the worshiper having once been cleansed

would no longer have had consciousness of sins?

If that animal sacrifice was able to cleanse the sinner, then that would have been the.

End of it.

If those animal sacrifices were able to accomplish anything in terms of perfecting the worshiper, in bringing us to God and

reconciling us to Him and taking away sin, then there would have been at some point those animal sacrifices would have ceased but

they never did.

And the fact that they continued to go on and on and there was no provision ever for those sacrifices to stop,

since that is the case, that is evidence that those sacrifices were inadequate.

Now somebody in the first century might have objected and said, well, look, you Christians, you have a priest and he's

only offered one sacrifice.

Our priest, he offers more than that before breakfast.

He's constantly offering sacrifices.

He'll offer 2, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15 sacrifices a day.

Your priest has only offered one sacrifice.

And the Jews would have been trained in their thinking to think that a priest offering only one sacrifice would have been

inadequate and it's the exact opposite that is the case.

The fact that he offered only one sacrifice shows just how sufficient it is, that no further sacrifice would ever be necessary.

Now there's an interesting translation issue that comes up at this point in the text and I want you to see it because it's not just a

curiosity thing, it's actually there's some theological gravitas to this.

In verse 11, every priest, no, no, verse 12, sorry, but he, Christ, having offered one

sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God.

Now here's the interesting translation issue in verse 12.

Notice that word for all time.

If you have the King James, the New King James, it might read forever.

It's the word that can be translated forever, it certainly means that.

Newer translations translate it for all time.

It means always, forever, eternally, continuous or unbroken.

What's interesting is that that word occurs between that phrase, having offered one sacrifice for

sins, and the phrase, has sat down at the right hand of God.

So he's offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.

Now here's what's interesting.

Which of those two phrases, that it is right between, which of those two phrases does it.

Modify?

Does it modify the fact that he offered one sacrifice for sins forever?

Or is it saying that he forever sat down at the right hand of God?

Because you could read that either way.

Having offered one sacrifice for sins forever, he sat down at the right

hand of the majesty on high.

You could read it that way, or you could read it this way.

Having offered one sacrifice for sins forever, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty.

On high.

Can you see that those are two slightly different meanings?

Here's what's interesting.

That word could modify either one of those phrases.

And I almost have to wonder if the author put it in the middle there, not to confuse us for the next 2 ,000 years, but that he put it in

the middle there to really reflect upon both of those phrases.

If it is describing the sacrifice of Christ, then here's what it means.

Here's the gist of it.

That he has offered one sacrifice for sins, and that sacrifice is

effective and sufficient forever.

There will be no more sacrifice for sins.

Now, that would certainly fit the context, because verse 18 says, now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any

offering for sin.

So the idea seems to be that this sacrifice was a once for all, forever sufficient sacrifice.

It will never, ever have to be offered again.

No more sacrifice would be necessary.

This was the sacrifice to end all sacrifices.

For this sacrifice is sufficient and powerful evermore, everlastingly.

No further offering would ever be necessary, no matter how many sinners are saved.

In other words, if all of a sudden we went out and we evangelized the whole state of Idaho, which would be nice, but if

we were to do that, and let's start with the statehouse, if we were to do that, we would not expect the

Father to turn to the Son and say, there's a lot of people getting saved down there.

That's a lot of sin to cover.

You're going to have to go offer yet another sacrifice, or we're going to have to find something else to fill in with that and to

suffice for that, because a lot of people are getting saved.

And some of those were really wicked sinners, especially the ones at the statehouse.

And their sins really need a lot of atonement and a lot of propitiation.

And so since that is the case, we need to make sure that that's covered, get ready to go make another sacrifice.

That can never happen.

No matter how many people are saved, no matter how much sin is atoned for or covered, there is no need for the Son to ever make

another sacrifice again.

He's offered one sacrifice for sins and that forever.

But it's also true that He has forever taken a seat at the right hand of the Father.

Isn't that also true?

Will He ever step down from that position of power and majesty and glory?

Will He ever be succeeded in that position of power and majesty and glory?

Will anybody ever usurp that position or that throne?

Will He ever step down because He is unworthy or He is ever disqualified?

The fact that He has taken His seat at the right hand of the Father and that He has sat down there forever, the idea

behind that would be that He owns this position, He is worthy of this position,

this is His exaltation, and that exaltation will never be undone.

He can never become less than what He is.

He can never take a lower position.

He will never be humiliated again.

He will never suffer at the hands of His enemies again.

He will never be cursed and reviled at the hands of sinners again.

He has been exalted to that position and that is everlastingly.

So that now for all of eternity, having put away sin, He has forever sat down at the Father's right hand and from that

position He rules and reigns and He will rule and reign everlastingly and forever because His

kingdom knows no end.

His dominion knows no end.

His rule and His power and authority are infinite and eternal and He can never be taken off of that throne or pushed

off of that throne by anything else, which means that He has that position everlastingly

and which of those is true, that He offered one sacrifice for sins forever or that He forever sat down at the Father's right hand?

I don't think we have to choose between those two because I think that beautifully that is constructed to communicate just

exactly that, that He has offered one sacrifice for sins forever and He has forever sat down at the Father's right hand.

These actions of the Lord Jesus Christ are forever and thus our future is

secure because He holds that position forever.

There's no such thing as an unfulfilled promise.

Every promise that He has made must be fulfilled because He possesses that very power and position and majesty and

authority at the Father's right hand and He does so forever, so He must necessarily fulfill His every

purpose and His every promise to His people and He will complete what He has begun in you for His

own glory, for He will accomplish all His good pleasure.

His work is superior, His sacrifice is superior and then notice His accomplishment is superior.

Look at verse 11, those same sacrifices which could never take away sins

and verse 12 is the contrast, but He having offered one sacrifice for sins.

His sacrifice was for sins in the same sense that He has been describing all the way through this

theological section here in the middle of the book of Hebrews.

His sacrifice was for sins in the sense that in that one sacrifice He has obtained eternal redemption,

chapter 9 verse 11.

He has put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, chapter 9 verse 26.

He has bore the sins of many, chapter 9 verse 28.

His sacrifice actually does these things, whereas the animal sacrifices never could.

In fact, chapter 10 verse 4 says, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away.

Sins.

Those animals could never deal with the sin issue, but what the animals could not do Christ has done.

They offer the same sacrifices which the author says almost repeating Himself over and over again here

as He has elsewhere previously.

They can never take away sins, but Christ has offered one sacrifice that actually has taken away sins.

And it's not just sins which have been taken away in the sacrifice of Christ that make it so glorious, but all of the other things

that He has accomplished as well.

In our context here, He's talking about expiation.

The sacrifice and His payment for sins, making atonement, that has been the emphasis all the way through.

But ask yourself, what other aspects of the sacrifice of Christ, what other things are accomplished by the sacrifice of

Christ that were not accomplished by Old Testament sacrifices?

How about the fact that in Christ's death, He conquered forever, Him who had the power of death, that

is the devil, and who kept us in the fear of death as slaves all of our lives.

Back in chapter 2, the author says that, that Christ triumphed over Satan in that sacrifice that He made.

Do you think that Satan was ever scared of any Old Testament animal sacrifice?

Do you think he ever mulled around the tabernacle of the temple and thought, oh, another animal, what am I going to do?

My kingdom is shaken to the core.

I'm defeated.

These animal sacrifices are setting captives free and liberating people and making sanctified all of the people of God.

Do you think Satan ever trembled over a single animal sacrifice?

How about over a thousand animal sacrifices?

Do you think the devil ever cared about any number of animal sacrifices that were ever made under the Old Covenant?

He wouldn't have cared.

None of those sacrifices did anything to liberate people from his power, to liberate people from his darkness,

to set his captives free.

None of those sacrifices ever did any of that.

None of those sacrifices ever made a single person adopted into the family of God.

None of those Old Testament sacrifices never made any Jew a son with an eternal inheritance

because none of those sacrifices could accomplish any of that.

The sacrifice of Christ has done all of that and so much more.

Makes us holy, righteous, sanctifies us, justifies us, gives us the righteousness of Christ, delivers us from sin, opens our

eyes, changes our hearts, regenerates us, gives us an eternal inheritance, secures that eternal inheritance, draws us near to

God, guarantees the provision of all of the blessings that are promised to us in Scripture.

The sacrifice of Christ accomplished all of that.

No animal sacrifice ever did any one of those things.

And so now, verse 12 says, having sat down at the right hand of God, he waits.

Redemption has been accomplished, the prize has been won, the work has been done,

and now the Lord Jesus Christ waits.

He waits until the next act in God's redemptive drama.

He waits until the next stage of God's plan for humanity.

He is waiting.

He is waiting until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.

Now, just the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ has taken a seat and is now waiting is yet another contrast with the Old Testament priests.

I want you to think of this.

The Old Testament priests, their work never progressed beyond what they did in the tabernacle and the temple day after day

after day.

There was never an end to that, so Old Testament priests never moved on to the next thing.

In other words, at the end of the evening sacrifice, when the sacrifice had been made and the blood had been applied and the coals had been

stoked and the wicks in the tabernacle had been trimmed and the incense replenished until morning,

when all of that was done and their work for the day was complete and the Old Testament priests were ready to go home, they never gathered around the altar and said, all

right, men, we've done it.

That's all done.

Tomorrow we move on to the next thing.

There was no next thing.

Tomorrow you came back and you did the exact same thing, but Christ having accomplished His work is now waiting for what?

The next thing.

His work has progressed.

Their work was never done.

His work, having been done, He now waits.

I take solace in the fact that we can say with complete candor that the Lord Jesus Christ.

Is waiting.

In one sense, He's waiting for us just like we're waiting for Him.

He's waiting until He's with us.

He's waiting, Scripture says here, until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.

That's a quotation from Psalm 110, verse 1, where David writes, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand

until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

The author here quotes that, again returning to Psalm 110, which he has quoted numerous times in this epistle.

Returning to Psalm 110, he quotes that, chapter 9, verse 28, the same author, Hebrews, says this,

so Christ will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin to those who eagerly await Him.

That's what describes us.

We eagerly await for Him.

He is eagerly waiting for His enemies to be made a footstool for His feet.

Now if you are an unbeliever, that should terrify you.

If that is a Christian, that should comfort you.

There's no in between.

You're either thrilled at that news that your Savior is waiting until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet

or you are terrified by the fact that the Savior is waiting until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet because you're one of His

enemies.

You're either one of His children or you're one of His enemies.

If you're His child, then there's no fear for you that His enemies will be made a footstool for His feet.

But if you are His enemy, then fear.

You ought to fear because this is going to happen just as certainly as He has offered one sacrifice for sins.

He will return and He will make His enemies a footstool for His feet.

To the unbeliever, this is terrifying because you are an enemy of God in your mind through wicked works.

And having sinned and violated His law, having stolen, having blasphemed, having lusted in your heart, having violated His

holy law, you are His enemy and you're under His wrath.

And the death sentence hangs above your head like the sword of Damocles and it can come down at any moment upon you.

That's what you deserve as His enemy.

You're hostile in your mind against God.

You're hostile in your mind to His Word.

You hate Him and you must repent and believe or you will suffer the fate of receiving His wrath.

God offers you forgiveness.

He offers you clemency.

He offers you acquittal in the wiping away of your slate.

Not because He will see to it that justice is not done in your case, but because justice has already been done

in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

He demands of you repentance and faith.

You come to God on His terms because He's the offended party and He offers you forgiveness on His terms, repentance and

faith.

You turn and you believe and you can have your sins forgiven and you won't be His enemy but His son

because of what Christ has done.

This cannot be avoided.

Look closely at the end of verse 13, until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.

That cannot be avoided.

How can it not be avoided?

Because He has taken His position at the Father's right hand where He possesses all power, all majesty, all glory, all

dominion, all authority in heaven on earth.

It has all been given to Him.

He will most certainly make His enemies a footstool for His feet.

He will bring to pass all His good pleasure.

He will be victorious and He will triumph over His enemies and He will vindicate His good name.

But if you're a Christian, that should bring you tremendous comfort.

And here's why.

Men are our enemies only because they are His enemies.

They hated Him first before they hated us.

If we were of the world, the world would love us but the world doesn't love us because we're not of this world.

We've been chosen out of this world and for that reason Jesus said, the world hates us.

And the world hated Him before it hated us.

It hates us not because we are us or we are we, however that sentence should end.

It hates us not because we are us but because we represent Him.

It's His truth they hate.

It's His kingdom they hate.

It's His word they hate.

It's His rule and His righteousness and His demands that they hate.

It's His justice that they gnash their teeth against.

They hate us because they hated Him first.

But because Christ is waiting for all of His enemies to be made a footstool for His feet, He is going to vindicate His name.

He who died to redeem you will complete the good work that He has begun in you.

He will see it through all the way to the end.

He will secure you everlastingly because all authority on heaven and earth has been given.

To Him.

And when He triumphs over His enemies, He will be triumphing over those who have allied themselves against

the Lord and His people.

And He will vindicate His people and He will establish our righteousness and He will establish His righteousness and He will

establish His kingdom and everything He does will be in truth and in righteousness.

And no purpose of His can be thwarted.

He will accomplish all His good pleasure because He is waiting until His

enemies be made a footstool for His feet.

He has forever sat down at the Father's right hand and nobody can take that position from.

Him.

Daniel 7 .18 is this promise to us, but the saints of the highest one will receive the kingdom and

possess the kingdom forever for all the ages to come.

A couple of verses later Daniel writes this,.

I kept looking and that horn was waging war with the saints and overpowering them until the ancient of days came and

judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the highest one and the time arrived when the saints took possession

of the kingdom.

He will make His enemies a footstool for His feet.

He will complete what He has started and you and I can rest in that Christian.

You should be terrified by that unbeliever because it will happen.

He has forever sat down and He is waiting until He is vindicated and He will be most.

Certainly.

Let's bow our heads.

Father, we thank You for the promises of Your Word, for the majesty and glory of Christ, for the depth of

Your Word and the truth of it.

We're so thankful that our Savior sits enthroned in heaven.

We are thankful that His judgment, His vindication will also be our own vindication, the establishment of

the righteousness of all Your people.

We thank You that we have nothing to fear and that these things are certain and we pray that You would fix our hearts, our hope and our

minds upon these truths.

We may rest in them and that we may then rightly know how to live and conduct ourselves among a wicked and perverse

generation, that we may appear as lights to them.

We thank You for this grace and for that glory in Jesus' name, amen.