Access To God - [Hebrews 9:6-10]

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Some things you can't put a limit on when it comes to price.

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I mean, if your dog is sick and needs surgery, there's probably a limit that you'd spend, right?

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I don't know if that limit is $500, $5 ,000, $20 ,000, but there's probably a limit before you say,

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I cannot spend any more on that dog. My father was pretty tight with money, but one of the things that he always did is if a child was sick and hurting, no limit when it comes to spending money on the health of a child.

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It didn't matter. There's no debtor prison, so bill me later was my father's advice.

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I mean, how much can you spend on a child? Is there a limit for her health or his health?

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My question this morning is a simple one to start the sermon. How much would you pay to have your sins cleansed?

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Is there a price limit that you would pay in order to have access to God, knowing that when you die one day and stand before him that you'd be accepted?

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How much would you pay? One reformer said, our justification comes freely by the mere mercy of God and of so great and free a mercy that whereas all the world was not able of themselves to pay any part toward their ransom, it pleased our heavenly father of his infinite mercy without any of our desert are deserving to prepare for us the most precious jewels of Christ body and blood, whereby our ransom might be fully paid, the law fulfilled and his justice fully satisfied.

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And we know that person is the Lord Jesus Christ said, why don't you take your Bibles and turn to Hebrews chapter nine and let's learn more of this great savior that we have, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, I think some people think that Jesus is kind of a stingy forgiver that he doesn't really like to forgive, that our triune

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God, in fact, doesn't easily grant forgiveness. He's not eager to forgive. He's eager to withhold forgiveness.

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And what a wrong view of God that is for the Christian, what a wrong view of God that is for anyone.

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I think of Micah chapter seven, 19, it says, God casts our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

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He didn't just kind of drop them over. He didn't just put them to the side. He didn't just kind of, you know, throw them over a little bit.

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It's a powerful metaphor. It means to hurl. He hurls our iniquities into the depths of the sea because God is a great forgiver.

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God is eager to forgive. God forgives based on the work of another. He's so pleased with the work of his son.

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Why would he not be a great forgiver? He's not a reluctant forgiver. He is a wonderful forgiver who gives forgiveness and grants forgiveness, even though we don't deserve it.

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And the book of Hebrews highlights this Jesus. You know, I love when Scott prayed at the very end, dear

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Lord, help our pastor to tell us about, or he's going to speak to us about Jesus. He didn't probably know what passage that I was going to talk from, whether it's song of Solomon or from the

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Proverbs or from Hebrews. You're going to get a good message today, not because it's good for me, but from the text about who

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Jesus is. That's why Colossians 128 says, him we proclaim.

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Enough about us. Let's talk about Jesus. And really, if you want a theme to the book of Hebrews, it's found in 8 .1.

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At least the first seven chapters are summarized in this way as the exaltation and the supremacy of a sin perjurer is described by the writer of Hebrews.

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Now the point in what we are saying is this. We have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven.

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This is the God who has forgiven sins. This is the God who has been exalted by the father. This is the God who has not pushed this on himself, but the father has given him the son to be not just our prophet like Moses, although he is not just a king like David, although he is, but also a high priest,

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Jesus, the prophet, priest, and king. The point in what we're saying is he's such a high priest.

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Now, if you'd like to think big picture in the book of Hebrews in a very, very difficult book, how many people think

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Hebrews is difficult? I think, I mean, there's some reluctant,

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God is not a reluctant giver, but you are reluctant people to raise your hands. You're going to probably think it's a charismatic church now.

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I think it's a very difficult book and some sermons I can put together in no time, but other sermons

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I labor through because it's a difficult concept and I'm not thinking like a Jewish person. I don't have the background or it's a different language concept that are above me.

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And that shouldn't surprise us that there are concepts that are above us. Why?

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Because I'm finite in my mind and so are you, and I'm sinful in my mind.

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My mind's been affected by the fall and I'm just a creature. So if I'm thinking about a triune

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God who's infinite and who's holy and not marred by sin, it should not make me wonder for very long for me to say, you know what,

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I just can't get my arms around this God very easily. And it was

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Luther who said to Erasmus, your thoughts of God are to what? Human. Steve remembers that from North Hollywood 6132

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Carpenter 30 years ago. If you want to think Hebrews, you think high priest and you can also think of sanctuary because remember the backdrop of everything going on in the book of Hebrews was the physical sanctuary and you can also think of sacrifice.

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If you wanted to summarize Hebrews with one word, it'd be priest. If you wanted to summarize it with two more words to kind of flesh things out, it would be tabernacle or sanctuary and sacrifice.

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And if you think big picture, Jesus is the high priest. It's not an earthly tabernacle. It's a heavenly tabernacle.

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And Jesus is not just the priest, but he's also the sacrifice, priest, tabernacle and sacrifice.

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And that's a good way to think of Hebrews big picture. And as he preaches this sermon, he wants you to believe your response is not to climb upstairs on your knees to atone for your sins.

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It's not just give up things for Lent to atone for your sins. It's to believe it's to take God at his word is to trust in him.

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And if you'll think just for a moment, why is that so important? Here's why faith in Christ Jesus is so important.

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Since God is perfect and holy, he requires perfection and holiness. What can we offer him that's perfect and holy?

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I mean, we might be self -righteously thinking we might offer him something, but if we really come to honest grips with ourselves and we're honest with ourselves, we do nothing that's holy, nothing that's perfect.

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And God requires perfect obedience to the law with perfect motives. How can we do that? But faith doesn't do anything.

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Faith, trust in the work of another. I could put it this way. If you had to get to heaven based on your faith because of your faith, your faith better be perfect.

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We're not saved because of our faith. We're saved through faith. And there's a big difference. You have to be perfect to get into heaven.

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Anything that's imperfect cannot justify, but an imperfect faith in a perfect savior in a perfect tabernacle, who's a perfect priest, who's given the perfect sacrifice that can what?

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That can save. So while my faith isn't perfect, I'm trusting in the perfect one.

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And this writer wants you to trust in this Jesus, to know about him, to give hearty assent and amen, and to trust your soul with this

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Jesus. Because in fact, one day you will die. And if you're a Christian, he wants you to keep trusting in him.

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These men and women who got this letter had trials in their life like we don't know. And so the writer wants them to keep trusting and though it's difficult, it's hard to walk by faith.

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Let me just give you another picture of who Jesus is. This writer wants to have you just examine yourself and then say,

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I have to keep trusting in this Jesus. So let me give you an outline today. I just taught the preaching class.

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I didn't teach them three points in a poem, but I did tell them, give them outlines. And so today

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I need to do what I've taught my preaching class to do. Let me give you three wonderful facts about the high priest's new covenant that should make you just say, praise

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God from whom all blessings flow. Three wonderful facts about the high priest's new covenant that makes you say,

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I believe, that makes you say, I'm going to keep on believing in spite of my circumstances.

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Wonderful fact. Number one, you Christian have what the symbols in the old

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Testament represented. In other words, you're not in the old Testament where it's all symbols and shadows and pictures and types.

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You have what they all pointed to. You have the Lord Jesus. Take a look at verses one through five.

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As we have a little bit of review, all kinds of shadows and pictures and types in the old covenant.

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But now we have Jesus. And he says that in effect to the listeners, Hebrews nine, verse one.

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Now, even if 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.

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It is called the holy place. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the most holy place, or we're familiar with the words, holy of holies.

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And in there was having an altar of incense and an arc 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.

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We cannot now speak in detail and remember the last two messages. We looked at those things that were in the first part of the tent and in the holy of holies and we saw how without much thinking that would remind us those would remind us of who

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Jesus was. The tent, of course, Jesus said he put his tent up tabernacled among us.

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The lampstand, Jesus said later, I am the light of the world. The showbread Jesus is present with us.

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A manual, the curtain is ripped down from top to bottom when Jesus says it is finished.

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The manna, Jesus says in John 6, I am the bread of life. Aaron's staff out of all the staffs that budded out of the 12 that needed to bud, only one budded because God chose

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Aaron and now God has chosen the son. And the tablets of the covenant, what God must do and only the son could fulfill.

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But what I didn't get to last time was the ark of the covenant. And I didn't get to verse 5, this great verse about the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat.

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Now if I was going to be teaching a high school class or maybe junior high, and I would say, what do you know about the ark of the covenant?

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What do you know about the ark of the covenant that's in the holy places that remind you of Jesus that makes you say, oh, that pointed to Jesus.

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Is there a greater ark of the covenant? Is there some kind of fulfillment of shadow and type? Why is the writer saying,

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I could talk a lot about the ark of the covenant and I could give you the symbols, verse 8, I could tell you how it's pointing to the greater in verse 12, but I don't really have time to do that now.

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What about the ark of the covenant? What do you know about the ark of the covenant? And I know there's probably some smart Alec in the congregation who's going to say

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Raiders of the Lost Ark. That's all I know, right? That's kind of what we know, the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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What do we know about the ark of the covenant? Because if you know about it, it should make you think whatever that ark did and whatever it was,

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Jesus is the better or the greater ark. Now this was a chest made of acacia wood, three and three quarters feet long, two and a quarter feet wide and two and a quarter feet high.

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And it was completely covered with gold. Listen to what Exodus 25 says about it.

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You shall overlay it with pure gold inside and outside. You shall overlay it and you shall make on it a molding of gold around it.

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You shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them on its four feet, two rings on one side of it, two rings on the other side of it.

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And you shall put into the ark the testimony that I give you and you shall make a mercy seat, the top slab of pure gold.

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You shall make two cherubim of gold, hammered work shall you make them on the two ends of the mercy seat, make one cherub on the one end and the other cherub on the other end.

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One piece of the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another toward the mercy seat.

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Shall the faces of the cherubim be and you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you.

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Now listen, there I will meet with you and from above the mercy seat between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony,

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I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment of the people. And if I were to summarize

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Exodus, I'd summarize it in verse five of your text, the cherubim of glory overshadowed the mercy seat.

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So God said back in the earthly sanctuary, you make this box, you put the testimony inside the box and there are two cherubs.

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And when you make something plural in Hebrew, you just add the I am going, uh, uh, what's another

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I am word, um, cherubim. I had another one in my mind. Um, Nephilim, right?

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Put the cherubs there and this is going to be a physical, uh, thing that's going to symbolically represent the presence of God among you.

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And you put these cherubim of glory there. What did cherubim do in the garden of Eden? They were guarding, were they not, the tree of life.

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And it's like these cherubs guard, these cherubims guard the access to God. The access to God is right here at this kind of this altar, this box, special manifestation of the glory of God.

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And the cherubim are hovering over with great splendor and gold. Why would that be called the mercy seat on the top?

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Because that is where God gives mercy. The day of atonement, there'd be animal blood and he'd take that animal blood and he'd sprinkle it on the top of the mercy seat.

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And the picture would be this. God is hovering over the mercy seat. And instead of seeing the 10 commandments, that covenant inside of the ark as broken, the wages of sin is what?

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Death. Whoever breaks these commandments should die. But instead, an animal, a substitute has died in the place of the people and the blood is put on the top.

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So when God sees the broken commandments, he sees blood spilt instead.

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That's the picture. And it doesn't take you very long to think of the word mercy seat and the

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New Testament equivalent. What is the New Testament equivalent? The New Testament equivalent for mercy seat is what?

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Sorry? Throne of grace? That's good for 416. That's later in my sermon.

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You know, these guys that do the chairs, they're pretty good theologians, right? The nursery workers are good theologians.

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Remember back at Grace Church years ago, they said to MacArthur once, you know,

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NBC interviewed John or something. They said, well, there's like 600 people here. And we noticed every one of them is like a theologian.

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It's the church of 600 pastors. That's a compliment. When the chair guy says

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Hebrews 416, you know, you're doing the right thing. What I was looking for is the word propitiation.

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Mercy seat is where we get our word to propitiate. Now, what's going on here? Why would

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I be thinking of the mercy seat pointed to Jesus? Because here we have the presence of God and we have

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God angry at sin, but we have God not assuaging

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His wrath because of an animal. But the Lord Jesus became a what? Propitiation for our sin.

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Listen to Romans 3, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood, graciously merciful.

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Such a merciful God. Now, back in the old days, if you had a God that was angry, you'd give them things.

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So how do you assuage the anger of a God? Well, if you go to a restaurant after church today and it's a certain kind of restaurant, you maybe see like a little kitty

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God and the little kitty God with the paw, right? Solar powered. I was like that solar powered thing.

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And you you see some fruit by the kitty God. And you see like a little apple and a little orange and I don't know, maybe some,

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I don't know, some kumquats or something right there. I'm trying to get you to track because this is hard Hebrews.

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And so you assuage the wrath by giving the God something, virgins, food, crops, you assuage.

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But when you get to the New Testament and you think of this high priest, it's not you that goes to God to assuage

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His anger. He does what? He's the one who is sent. He's the one in eternity past who says,

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I'll go and I'll be the atonement for you. I will motivate. I will not have you respond to me.

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I will be the one. When you think of the mercy seat, you ought to be thinking, this is, this is the picture of the

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Lord Jesus who exhausted the wrath of God, extinguished the wrath of God in my place.

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Why is that praiseworthy? Spurgeon wrote this, when I thought

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God was hard, I found it easy to sin. But when I found God so kind, so good, so overflowing with compassion,

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I smote upon my breast to think that I could ever have rebelled against one who loved me so and sought my good.

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Remember friends back in 812, I will be merciful toward their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.

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Christian, God is eager to just put all your sins away. He has forgotten them all. He's eager to forgive based on the propitiatory work of Jesus, the mercy seat.

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No wonder the tax collector standing far off could not lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying,

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God be what? Mercy seated to me, a sinner, propitiated.

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No wonder 1 John 2 says Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. 1

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John 4, in this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the what,

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Frank, propitiation. The Bible wants you to think this way.

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Never think of the love of God without thinking propitiation. Never think of propitiation without thinking about the love of God.

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And so the writer in the book of Hebrews is saying there's all kinds of things in the Old Covenant that were symbolic, that were pointing to greater things, that were lesser things, that were pictures of things.

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And that one thing was Jesus. He's here though. You have him now. Don't go back to the shadows. Consequently, have you ever asked yourself the question, what are the symbols and types in this

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New Testament church here? Say, well, there are Catholic churches and Protestant churches. What are the symbols in the

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Protestant church? How many do we have? There were tons of symbols back in the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament, in the old sanctuary, in the earthly sanctuary, in the tabernacle, in the temple.

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What kind of symbols do we have now? It should not surprise you to think we probably shouldn't have too many because all these were pointing to the one

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Lord Jesus Christ. So what symbols are in the New Testament church? Show me a church today that's full of all kinds of symbols and veils and smoke and words and curtains and behind the scenes and a laity and clergy and all these kind of symbols that are back here.

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And I'll show you somebody that doesn't know the real Jesus because once you get the real Jesus, you don't need those.

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The symbols of a New Testament church are simple, bread, wine and water, the

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Lord's supper and baptism. That's it. Why run back to all the simple, the simple symbols?

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So we have the reality. Why go back to the symbols? Say why is that even an issue?

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It was an issue for them because they could walk outside and see the temple. Remember, this is probably 60

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AD -ish and the temple's not destroyed by Titus the Roman until 70 AD. And so you walk out and you see the temple and you're like, wow, the temple, gold and incense and trumpets and priests and lavers and bulls and singing and splendor and grandeur and the marble.

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Simple. And you mean I have to turn my back on that and I'm just like in the basement with a piece of bread and some wine and some water and they're going to take my house away.

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Which one's more appealing? Well, I know which one's more appealing to your eye. But the writer says, if you've got

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Jesus, you've got enough. Don't go back to the symbols when you have the reality.

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The second great truth or fact, a wonderful fact about the priest, our priest,

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Jesus and his new covenant is that you have access. You have what the pictures represented and now you have, secondly, access.

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Verses six through seven. Now he'd already hinted in verse one, regulations for worship and those regulations inhibited access.

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Now he's going to talk about that a little bit more. Let me read verses six and seven and let's talk about the access that was restricted for them.

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But now that we have fully and freely, these preparations have been made. Having been made, the priests go regularly into the first section.

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That's the holy place performing their ritual duties. But into the second, only the high priest goes and but once a year and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people.

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So the writer is simply saying, you don't want to go back to the old covenant, the old system, because there was all kinds of restrictions.

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Access denied. I'm trying to think of a good illustration about having access denied and I don't know how many times you type in your iPhone the wrong code and then you're locked out.

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I mean, what a travesty. I could lose sleep over getting locked out on my iPhone. I guess you could go do that to your friends sometime, just type in 18 times and now they're locked out.

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I mean, the travesty of being locked out of your iPhone. How about the old covenant?

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No access to God. If you were a regular person and you weren't the high priest, that means everybody except for this one person stay away.

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Don't get too close. There are all kinds of regulations for access because it was like this, this kind of holiness barrier.

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I can just imagine these, these people that have, you know, kind of nuclear waste on them and now they have to go through a series of chambers to get decontaminated.

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That's essentially what all these regulations were. I've got to get closer to where God is manifesting his presence above the ark of the covenant and if I get too close, it's going to be a nuclear winner.

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He's going to disintegrate me. I mean the cherubim of glory and the Shekinah of glory, who can, who can stand that?

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So the writer simply says, trust in Jesus. Don't go back on Jesus because you have access now.

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You have free access to the throne of grace. Now to make it specific here in verse six, what did they do?

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It says here, performing their ritual duties. The priest who would go in that first section, they replaced the show bread.

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They kept the oil in the lamp stand. They burned fragrance or incense twice a day and they did some sacrifices and offerings.

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They had to do that so often that later on, even in the new testament, Zacharias, John the

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Baptist father had that task that he received by a lot to put the incense in the temple of the

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Lord. But when you go into the holy of holies, verse seven, there's less access.

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The high priest goes, but once a year. And remember, it's not in the Bible, but it is in some literature that that person would put a rope around his leg and some bells on his ankles.

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And that way, if the bells stopped belling, then you would take the rope and pull the dead guy out and send the next guy in, right?

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That's when you want to be the associate pastor and not the senior pastor. What do you have to do now,

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Christian, to say, God, I'm, I'm hurting. Could you help me? God, I, I, I need comfort.

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God, I've lost my loved one. And could I talk to you? Could I have access to you?

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Could I pray to you? Could I, could I be in your presence? How many times do you have to wash yourself and clean yourself and, and have the priest slay animals for you?

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What do you have to do now to just say, God, I'm hurting and I need your help. Or God, I want to praise you.

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What do you have to do now? How many animals do you have to kill? The answer is zero.

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Why go back to that old way? By the way, look at the text again, only the high priest that's emphatic.

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Only the high priest limited access, no exception clause. Nobody else goes in there.

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Remember Uzziah tried to go in there and what broke out on his forehead? Leprosy. Nobody just walks in there and saunters in.

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And what do you have to do when you go in? You have to take in blood. Everything just kind of points to the blood, of course, of the

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Lord Jesus, but you've got to bring blood in there. Never without blood. Now in the old Testament, when the blood is talked about in the, in the

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Holy of Holies, it's used with the word apply. It's used with the word sprinkle.

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What's the word that's used here? The word used here for blood in the section that we're in, in verse seven, not without taking blood, which he what?

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Verse seven, offers. It doesn't say sprinkle. It doesn't say apply. It doesn't say dab. It doesn't say spill.

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It says offer. What do you think the writer is wanting you to do? If I say sprinkle,

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I don't know what comes to your mind. If I say apply, I don't know what comes to your mind, dab or swab it on or paint it on.

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But if I say it's offered, what should go through your mind? Look at 914.

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How much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself? That's what the writer's wanting you to do.

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How about verse 25? Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly. How about verse 28 of chapter nine?

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So Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many. How about chapter 10 verse 12?

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Not sprinkle, not dab, but verse 12, when Christ had offered for all time, a single sacrifice for sins.

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Of course, he was raised from the dead and sat down at the right hand of God. Without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness.

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And here when the word is offered, you think Jesus, Jesus has been offered for me.

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For all kinds of sins, not just unintentional sins, but intentional sins as well.

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You have what the pictures represented, the Lord Jesus. You have access. And now number three, you have what they'd never had, and that is a cleansed conscience.

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Wonderful fact number three about the high priest new covenant that should make you praise. You've got what the pictures represented, you have access and now you have a clean conscience.

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Verses eight through 10. You're going to hear some symbolic language here, making you think about verses one through five, but I'll just read these verses first.

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

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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.

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The radio host in me wants to say, I told you the reformation was in the Bible, the time of reformation.

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Let's get that down and then dissect the verses. What is the time of reformation? Well, it's the new covenant and it's happened, but these people aren't grasping it.

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If you go back to chapter eight, verse 13, he makes the first one obsolete and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish.

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He is saying there's the present age, which is old covenant and the time of reformation, which is the new covenant.

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And I don't think you Jews, the recipients of this letter, are really understanding that the time of reformation is now.

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And friends, here's the time of reformation. You don't worship in tents anymore. You don't worship in a tabernacle.

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You don't worship in a temple. You don't kill bulls. You don't kill goats. You don't kill heifers. This is the time now.

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This is the new time. Some of these Christians were still worshiping at the temple.

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I mean, think about it. Jesus dies and where do you go to worship the next weekend? Well, you'd probably be tempted to go back to the temple.

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There it is in all its splendor. But eventually they would leave the temple and they'd start going to the synagogues because they'd hear about the

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Lord Jesus there. These people, some of these people, since the temple hasn't vanished, are still going there and still going through all the ritual and the rigmarole and the sacrifices and everything else in the

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Old Covenant. The time of reformation has come. Don't have to worship there anymore.

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There's a change, a reformation. Looking forward to that great time. You're in that.

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And by the way, the Spirit of God has disclosed it. Do you see it in verse 8? Disclosed by the

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Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit was teaching something. What was He teaching? Worship of God was limited, sacrifices, couldn't cleanse the conscience, and the

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Old Covenant was temporary. And the things there in the old system pointed to who

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Jesus is. Listen to one commentary. The writer attributes to the Holy Spirit the spiritual significance of the details of the tabernacle.

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This makes clear that the Pentateuch narrative is not merely a historical record. The history carried with it a spiritual teaching which the

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Spirit of God unfolds in the New Testament. Spurgeon, it is from this sentence that I am sure that the

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Holy Ghost had a meaning for every item of the ancient tabernacle and temple.

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We are not spinning fancies out of idle brains when we interpret these types and learn from them the important gospel lessons.

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But the main lesson He wants you to learn here is conscience. Can a person have a clean conscience?

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Do you see it in verse 9? Offers, sacrifices, gifts that cannot perfect the conscience.

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Why could their conscience still get after them after the sacrifice? Here's the answer.

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Because you had to do it again next year. Does this really work? I've got to do it again.

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I mean if something is really working and has accomplished something, why would you have to keep doing it over and over and over?

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Every year down to Jerusalem I have to go from Haifa and bring my goat and bring my calf and bring my heifer and I have to do it over and over and over.

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And that repetition should say to you, you might be kind of covered but you're not cleansed.

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You've got to do this again and again and again. You're guilty. You're guilty. You're guilty. You're guilty.

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And that's why the writer says move past all that. You don't have to offer anything at all.

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God offered His Son for you and your conscience is cleansed. No repetition.

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That's what He's after. What keeps the conscience from being clean? That you can't go into the

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Holy of Holies? No. What keeps the conscience after you is you can't have a real intimacy with God that only the

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Lord Jesus can give you because He can only cleanse you. Only He can cleanse you. The word conscience is used a lot in Hebrews.

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Do you see it in verse 14 of the same chapter? How much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal

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Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living

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God? How about chapter 10 verse 22? Jesus can give that clean conscience that the old covenant never could.

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10. 22. Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

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And then how about in verse 18 of chapter 13? Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things.

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Why is Jesus better? Because He's the fulfillment of everything.

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Because you can have access to Him, the throne of grace, 4 .16, and you can have your conscience cleansed.

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A guilty conscience is a horrible thing. An English preacher said, give me into the power of a roaring lion, but never let me come under the power of an awakened guilty conscience.

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Shut me up in the dark dungeon among all manner of loathsome creatures, snakes and reptiles of all kinds, but oh, oh, give me not over to my own thoughts when

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I am consciously guilty before God. How can you have a clean conscience?

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Verse 12 of chapter 8, the new covenant is, I don't remember your sins.

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I'm not going to remember your sins. I refuse to remember your sins. I mean, think about people that sin against you, and we remember those sins and we can't unforget those sins.

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God says, you know what? I'm not going to require you to be punished and my son to be punished, since my son is punished, forgiven.

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That's why no matter what you have in your mind and what you've done or what you haven't done in terms of sin, the blood of Christ cleanses you from all sins.

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I can't pronounce this to people who aren't Christians, but I can remind Christians this.

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Christians, you're forgiven, cleansed, perfectly cleansed of everything you've ever done because the

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Bible says Jesus paid for those things and he doesn't have to keep paying for them. Remember last week

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I said, or two weeks ago, does Jesus die for Christian sins too? Yeah, we know we have a position before God because of the death of Jesus, but what about our sins?

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Can you imagine if we trusted in Jesus for our justification and every time we now sin, we'd have to make another sacrifice?

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How bad would that be? Instead, we just say, Father, I know I've sinned against you and I'm sorry

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I have. Please forgive me. And I'm trusting in what the word says, that the blood of Christ cleanses me from all sin.

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After all, God is not a giver who is a stingy giver.

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He's an eager forgiver. If God has exhausted his wrath on the son, what does he have left for you?

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You say, well, you don't know what I did last week. I don't need to know what you did last week, but I know it's not greater than the blood of Christ.

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Jesus exhausts the cup of God's wrath. We have clean consciences. Isaac Watts wrote a song,

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Not All the Blood of Beasts. By the way, if you're a church person, that doesn't sound weird to you, but can you imagine if you've never heard of Christianity and the congregation gets up and sings,

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Not All the Blood of Beasts? I mean, PETA would have a field day with us.

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I don't know about you, but every time I think of PETA, I always think about hamburgers, but that's just me.

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Jesus declares all food clean. Amen. The butcher says amen.

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The writer is saying no matter what system you had, you come from Judaism, Roman Catholicism, or any other kind of ism.

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I know you've got family there. I know you've got friends there. I know you have kind of, you know, it's just easy back there.

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I know your life is more difficult since you've become a Christian, but don't go back there because what you're going back to is types and shadows.

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You have the real thing. Don't go back there because access is restricted unless you've got a clerical collar on.

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And don't go back there because you've got to go every week to get a clean conscience. Why do people go every single week, every single day to hear the words, based on the authority vested in me,

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I now pronounce your sins forgiven. You don't need to hear that every week because he's telling you right here, this high priest in chapter one, verse three, purged sins and sat down.

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You say, I don't know, you're like, you don't know what I've done. I know I don't, but God knows. And he still says, believer, you're forgiven.

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Not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain.

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But Christ, the heavenly lamb, takes all our sins away, a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they.

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My faith would lay her hand on that dear head of thine, while like a penitent

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I stand and there confess my sin. My soul looks back to see the burden thou didst bear when hanging on the cursed tree and knows her guilt was there.

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Believing we rejoice to see the curse removed. We bless the lamb with cheerful voice and sing his bleeding love.

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Why go back? I mean, no wonder Paul praises

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God in Romans chapter five when he thinks about this great work of Jesus.

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We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

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More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope.

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Don't give up on Christianity. You see what he does to his people. For while we were still weak at the right time,

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Christ died for the ungodly. God shows his love for us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

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I don't know if you think it's a big deal to have access before God, but it's a very big deal. I don't know if you think it's a big deal to have a conscience clean, but it's a very big deal.

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Hebrews will remind us it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. But not for you,

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Christian, not for you, believer, that we would have access to the

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Father should shock us, should amaze us. Lloyd -Jones says on of the greatest and most glorious statements that can be found in all the scripture is that we have access to God through Christ Jesus and the

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Spirit. That's amazing. We have peace with God and access.

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So, Christian, you come here today having sinned. Remember when

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Spurgeon said, when God, I thought was hard, it made me kind of want to knee -jerk sin. But when

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God has loved me in such a way, I don't want to sin anymore. If you're not a

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Christian, you have no peace. You might have a peace of mind, but you're at war with God, and I offer you forgiveness.

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I offer you access. I offer you what all the Old Testament pointed to, the Lord Jesus Christ that you might not sin, but you might trust in Him and believe in Him and have access through Him that you might exalt in the glory of God.

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And with Hebrews 4 .16, draw near with confidence to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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How much is it worth to you to have your sins forgiven? How much would you be willing to pay? Is there a price?

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Except it was the Lord Jesus who had to pay the price, and we are recipients of His free and full grace, and I praise

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God for that. I think I told you the story.

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I've said to myself, because I've said in a lot of sermons and stuff, too, and you know, you're always like, well, can the pastor see me when

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I'm sleeping or doodling and stuff? If you can see my face, I can see you. I know exactly what you're doing.

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Up there, too, I can see. And then I'm like, what kind of, you know, what kind of person would like have a phone go off in the middle of the sermon?

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I mean, I would never do that. And then I was down at the Cape or someplace preaching at a conference, and I got done preaching my sermon on Romans 5.

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I was just, thank you, Lord, you know, I just discharged my duty. I tried to speak well of Jesus, could have done probably a better job, but I just did my best, and I sat in the back, and I swiped up something, and some kind of radio station started playing loudly.

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So there's nothing I can say. I am with you all.

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Plus, it gave me a good way to try to figure out how to land this plane. How do you land the plane?

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You've heard that preaching, right? They're ready, in conclusion, they're ready to land, and then it's like, one more thing.

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You know, kind of in summary, wrapping things up. Okay, one more thing. Here's how I'll wrap it up.

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Don't go back to types and shadows when you've got the real thing. The Lord Jesus, your

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King. Don't go back to some place where you have to have all these things to do to have access to God in His presence.

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You can just cry out, Abba, Father. And don't go back to this place where you're like, am

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I forgiven? Did I pray enough? Did I confess enough? Self -flagellation enough?

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Did I do enough? Friends, it's once and done. Clean conscience. Let's pray.

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Thank you, Father, for today. Thank you that while one would scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.

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And we celebrate the Lord Jesus today with imperfect faith. But that's fine, because He's perfect.

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In Jesus' name. Amen. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible -teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.