The Great High Priest - [Hebrews 2:14-18]

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I was looking online and I found some of the worst stores' return policies.
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You probably received gifts this Christmas and maybe you need to return some of those gifts. The worst store for return policies, according to GoBankRates, at number one at the list,
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Forever 21. And you need to have returned your product within 21 days, no refunds.
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Can't get your money back, but you can exchange things. Number two, Kmart. You can return things, but you must have a receipt.
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Store credit only. Barnes & Noble. You have 14 days to return things.
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They must be unopened. They must be returned in original condition. For Andrew Smith, we have number four,
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GameStop. Return policy, no returns without a receipt. And then number five, which struck me as strange,
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Sears. And you've got to have a receipt. I don't know about you, but I seem to think these days that customer service is a lost art.
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And people just don't care anymore. Especially when you get into the phone mail jail and I'm trying to talk to a human person.
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And I can just feel myself push that zero about 25 times. And that's not acceptable, they say.
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It's one, two, three, or four on the phone, and I just keep pushing zero. And I think, I'm going to beat the system. I need a real human.
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I must talk to a human. I need help. Robots R Us is just not going to work.
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I'd like to talk to somebody that speaks the language of the country, a real person. I need a human.
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And I thought to myself, if I need a human to help me navigate customer returns, to get credit or ship a back order, how much more do
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I need a real human to navigate my relationship with the thrice holy
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God? I need a human to get a store credit. How much more do
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I need a human mediator, an intercessor, an advocate?
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And that reminds me, of course, of our Lord Jesus Christ and Hebrews chapter 2. Please turn your
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Bibles to Hebrews 2, verses 14 through 18, where you get someone who can identify with you, a real human, that will help you not just navigate store credit, but how to have a relationship with God, not of enemy, but of friend.
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Jesus Christ, the advocate. It works out well during this holiday season that we're in Hebrews 2, because it's all about the incarnation.
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Jesus Christ was the eternal Son of God, and He adds humanity, so that He might be our advocate, our representative, and our
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Savior. And so, two weeks ago, we started verses 14 through 18, looking at six purposes of the incarnation.
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And how many did I get through last time? I just want you to know, and I will confess in front of you all, we only got through two.
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But I didn't say that day we were getting through six. I didn't say today we're looking at all six purposes. I said, found in this passage are six purposes.
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And so, we just got two done. Maybe we'll get an extra one done today. But found in verses 14 through 18, you'll see reasons for and purposes for the incarnation.
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Why it is important. And the writer of Hebrews belabors the point. He just keeps talking about it over and over and over, because it is so crucial.
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When people at megachurches in Atlanta tell you that the incarnation is not that big of a deal, you need to remember the book of Hebrews.
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Six purposes of the incarnation designed to give you assurance and hope. And we saw last time, found in verse 14, every one of these outline points is a verb.
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The first one we saw is destroys. What does Jesus destroy? It says here in verse 14,
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Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.
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So, he's not destroying a thing. He's destroying a person, the devil. He, the language says, remember, he deprives
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Satan of his power. He renders that power of Satan inoperable.
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Ultimately, God himself has the power of death and Hades, as Revelation 1 says.
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But here, the death of Christ Jesus, the God -man, him dying in our place, gives
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Satan no power anymore over death, because he can no longer say, listen, once you die, you stay in the grave.
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No, there's been a resurrection of the God -man. Once you die, you're going to have to pay for your own sins.
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That's been taken away as well, because Jesus has paid for all our sins. Jesus destroys death.
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He robs Satan of his only weapon, that is, death. 1 John says it this way,
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Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the
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Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
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And you can just imagine the devil saying, look at God, look at what this person did.
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Look at what one of your children did. Look at what one of your followers did. But it's been paid for by the Lord Jesus, so we have no longer reason to fear physical death.
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Satan can't keep your body in the grave. And you don't have to fear spiritual death, because Jesus has died and raised, and we will be risen with him.
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If you notice that the text talks about sharing in flesh and blood. That's the human condition.
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This is weakness. This is frailty. This is humanity. The focus of the passage, if you'll notice, is not
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Satan's power, but is Christ's power over Satan and over death.
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Spiritual death cannot affect us. Physical death cannot keep our bodies in the grave. Jesus has rendered this inoperative.
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That was number one, destroys. We also saw in verse 15, our second purpose of the
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Incarnation, really it's the author's purpose, delivers. So not only destroys, but delivers.
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You see it in verse 15. And deliver all those who through the fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
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The slavery of being afraid of death and what will happen afterwards. Paralyzed by death.
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Paralyzed by what would happen. And the text says Jesus delivers. He liberates. He sets free.
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He sets free. We don't have to be afraid of what happens after death.
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Thomas Goodwin, the great Puritan writer, said, Wretched soul in hell finds that it shall not outlive that misery.
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Not yet can it find one space or moment of time of freedom and intermission, having forever to do with Him who is the living
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God. The wicked will despair because there is no end to the wrath of the living God. For that reason there will be perfect fear because wicked souls in hell will not only be tormented by what they experience in the present moment, but also by what they will experience forever.
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But for the Christian, not even hell is our enemy because it's been conquered. So the writer says you don't have to worry about death because we are freed from this very issue.
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I don't know if you know the hymn writer Fanny Crosby. She might be one of my favorite hymn writers. She's written over 6 ,000 hymns and she was blind.
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She wasn't born blind, but she became blind at about six weeks of age. Sometimes, pastors, we say wonderful things and sometimes we say really dumb things.
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I have said dumb things before and there was a pastor that said something really dumb to Fanny Crosby. He said to her,
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I think it is a great pity that the Master did not give you sight when he showered so many other gifts upon you.
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How comforting. Here is what Fanny Crosby said. Do you know that if at birth
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I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I should be born blind. Why?
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Because when I get to heaven, the first face that I shall ever gladden my sight with will be that of the
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Savior. She had kind of a secret song she didn't really want published.
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But one day at a Bible conference in Northfield, Massachusetts, she did ask D .L. Moody to give a personal testimony.
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Or D .L. Moody asked her to. And first she hesitated, then she arose and the text says, There is one hymn
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I have written which has never been published. It is called My Soul's Poem. Sometimes when
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I am troubled, I repeat it to myself. And then she recited it as everyone cried. Someday the silver cord will break and I no more as now shall sing.
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But oh the joy when I shall wake within the palace of the King. And I shall see him face to face and tell the story saved by grace.
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And because of the Lord Jesus Christ and his death, we no longer, the text says, need to fear death.
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Turn over to 1 Corinthians 15, please. And you'll see the same type of language. It's been a few years since we've been in 1
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Corinthians 15. And I have been thinking in 2017 we are one year closer to the
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Lord's return or our death. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 54.
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This is the language of Hebrews in terms of theological discussion. But it's written in a way that I think you'll find very effective.
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1 Corinthians 15, 54. This is the chapter of the resurrection, of course. Starts off with the gospel and moves towards the resurrection.
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And it says in 1 Corinthians 15, 54, when the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.
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I mean, Paul is like the writer of Hebrews, excited that death has been conquered. It's kind of like a praise song.
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It's jubilation. Death is dead. And he's quoting from Isaiah 25.
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The power of death no longer has control. And notice the language that Paul uses.
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Swallowed up. Death is swallowed up in victory. What does that connote to you?
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What does that make you think of? Something swallowed up. I'll tell you what I think of. I think of a big anaconda and some hapless little mouse or rodent.
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It is overwhelming force. When that anaconda is done with that,
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I almost thought gerbil, but maybe hamster, or maybe that's too close to home. Do people have hamsters and gerbils anymore around the house?
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Not if they have an anaconda. With overwhelming force, it devours it. It eats it.
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There's not like a little leg left over because it's been swallowed. You can think of a lion that eats something and just tears everything up.
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You see the remnants. But the language here of swallowed is used on purpose from Isaiah 25.
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Because if you swallow something, there's nothing left. No trace.
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Nothing left behind. You can say if you've been swallowed, the swallower won.
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Uncontested victory. No split card on the bout. And that's the language here.
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Complete victory. Death, dead. And he taunts.
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Look at it. Oh death, where is your victory? Verse 55. Oh death, where is your sting?
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He's taunting death. If you're a baseball player, and you stand up, and you're going to get ready to hit that ball, and what do some of the little kids start chanting?
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You know what they chant. They're taunting you. There's taunting in Scripture.
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Defiant challenges. Hey better, hey better, hey better. That's the idea here. I found some intellectual taunts online, just to give you kind of like a
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New Year's warm fuzzy. William Churchill said, A modest little person with much to be modest about.
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You guys stayed up late last night. Walter Kerr said, He had delusions of adequacy.
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Jack Leonard said of someone, There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure. Groucho Marx said,
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I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it. Thomas Brackett Reid said,
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They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge. James Reston said of President Nixon, He inherited some good instincts from his
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Quaker forebearers, but by diligent hard work he overcame them. Mae West said,
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His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork. Oscar Wilde said,
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Some cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go. Andrew Lang said,
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He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts, for support rather than illumination.
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And then one more, this is for the Crane family. Billy Wilder said, He has
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Van Gogh's ear for music. You watch football players and they taunt those others.
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I mean, I just think to myself, You only made a first down, why taunt? I mean, it's not that big a deal.
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You made one tackle, why taunt? The game isn't over. And here, the Apostle Paul, of course reflecting
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Hebrews, is saying, Death? He taunts death. What can you do to me?
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Bring it on. It's like, okay, I'll take you. That's the language. Why? Who could say that?
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Who would say that? But if you realize, There's nothing keeping me from seeing
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God face to face, because all the sin has been taken care of. There's nothing that they can hold against me.
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Satan doesn't have kind of like, you know, a spare sin that I've done that it's not been paid for by the
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Lord Jesus. When Jesus said, It is finished. It is finished. He has assuaged the wrath of God. He has been our substitute.
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All the wrath of God has been poured out on Him. So now we are free and clear. And when we close our eyes in death, we will open them to see
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God face to face. So why be enslaved to this paralysis of, We're just afraid.
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Here's the taunting language. Sneering language. Death, you have no sting.
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Rhetorical questions. God has forgiven you. God has raised Jesus from the dead.
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It's taunting. He mocks. He mocks death. Only the death of Christ could allow you to mock death.
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And the language here is probably from like a scorpion stinger. Death, where is your sting?
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It's language of Revelation 9. They have tails and stings like scorpions.
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And their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails. And death has been used by Satan.
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It's the stinger. Death is the scorpion stinger to try to paralyze people. Now I get stung a lot, of course, on a bicycle.
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I've never been stung by a scorpion. But I did find it interesting that they have actually a chart for sting pain.
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There's a sting pain index. It's called the Schmitt Sting Pain Index.
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And, of course, the man who invented it was Justin O. Schmitt, born 1947. And he has claimed to be stung by all the different kind of stinging hymenopterias.
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That's the classification of stingers. And if he gets stung by one of these things and nothing really happens, it's a zero.
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And if it's kind of a little bit of pain, it's a two. And the ultimate pain, a bullet ant pain, a tarantula hawk pain, a pain that you have an uncontrollable urge to just shake whatever's been stung, is a four.
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Some studies have revealed that a single species of scorpion may have as many as 40 to 50 toxins in their venom.
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1 ,500 different kinds of scorpion, 50 are life -threatening. The most deadly scorpion is found in the
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United States. I can't pronounce the word very well, but I'll try. Centroides sculptoratus.
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Now, if you had to think, okay, at the scale of zero to four on the Schmitt Pain Index of stingers, what would death be?
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Death must be all the way. It must be breaking the scale. It must be at not just four, not just five, not just ten.
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It'd be at, what, a hundred? But since Jesus has received the sting of death, we don't have to.
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Death uses sin like a scorpion uses its stinger.
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But Christ's death and resurrection has guaranteed that we won't be stung by that. Let's turn back to Hebrews 2, please.
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Jesus is the victor. He's victor over the devil, over the demons, not just in his earthly ministry, but beyond.
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2 Timothy 1, it says, Jesus abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
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You say, well, I'm still kind of a little afraid of death. Spurgeon said, It's a very natural thing that man should fear to die, for man was not originally created to die.
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When Adam and Eve were first placed in the Garden of Eden, they were in such a condition that they might have remained there for a myriad of years if they kept their integrity.
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There's no reason why unfallen man should die. But now that we have sinned, the seeds of corruption are in this flesh of ours, and it is appointed unto men once to die.
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Yet, Spurgeon goes on, if the body knew that it was not according to the first decree of heaven, that it should go to the earth and to the worm, it has a natural reluctance to return to its last bed.
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And this fear of death, so far as it is natural, is not wrong. But it can be very readily going beyond the point where it is right into the region where fear of death becomes evil.
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And I do not doubt that many godly persons have a fear of death about them which is very evil, which produces very evil effects.
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Let us never try to get rid of it, as some do, by forgetting about death. That would be to live as the brutes that perish.
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They live their little day here and go any thought beyond the present. Yet there are many men whose only peace arises from thoughtlessness.
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Do you see what Spurgeon is doing? Think about death. Think about your day that you are going to meet your
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Maker. Do not just say, well, I just want to ignore it. I do not want to talk about it.
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No, think about it. But as you think about it, you say, but I am thankful that I have my mediator.
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I am thankful that I am forgiven. So you look at death coming on full blast. I was talking to Luke about, hey, let us go skydiving or something in California.
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I always want to make sure my kids are saved before I take them skydiving. It is good. It is good thinking.
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They will teach you back in the old days when you had surplus army parachutes to look at the horizon.
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Because when you see the earth coming like this, you are going to want to ball up and get all tense.
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And if you hit the ground tense, you are going to break something. So just look at the horizon and just be calm and natural as possible.
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Then when you hit, you will just be a little more relaxed. Then roll to your calves. Then roll to your thigh. Then roll to your glutes.
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And then you will be okay. When you see that coming though, you forget everything basically.
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And you are just like up in a fetal position. There is nothing like seeing the ground just coming right at you.
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And so here, death is coming right at you. And you can just imagine these Hebrew people, some are going to get killed for their faith.
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Here comes death. You cannot just forget it. You cannot just imagine it is not coming. You are thinking it is going to be there.
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But remember, past death is real because Jesus has guaranteed that for you.
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And not just because God says he is merciful and compassionate, but because God said, you know what, I am going to send my son.
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He is going to be a real man. And he is never going to sin. He is going to keep the law. He is going to redeem those under the law. And he will take you.
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Because did not earlier Hebrews say he is the author? He is the pioneer. He is the one who says,
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I will lead by example. You come with me. See, that is the idea. When people run around, even in that city right over there where I live and say, there is this long kind of period between death and seeing
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God face to face and soul sleep and conditional mortality, that is not it at all. It is absent from the body, present with the
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Lord. So we think about death, but we know the conqueror over death. And now thirdly, look at verse 16.
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Jesus' incarnation destroys, delivers. And number three, I am going to use an interesting word, but you will see why.
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Seizes. S -E -I -Z -E -S. Seizes.
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Verse 16. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.
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Notice the language. For surely. It is written by the author to say, you would agree with this, wouldn't you?
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Hey, you readers back in those days and you listeners even to this sermon, you would have to agree with this.
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This is common knowledge. We all know this. There is no doubt about this. It is a strong affirmation.
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I know it, you know it. For surely we all know it. Jesus becomes lower than the angels and he becomes a man.
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Actually, he becomes a Jew. And it says the word helps there. It uses it twice.
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He helps. What does that word mean? It means to take someone by the hand.
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To grab them to help them. That is where we get the word seizes. To take hold with a purpose.
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Jesus doesn't come and help the angels. Angels have fallen, right?
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One third of the angels fell. Jesus never took on angelic characteristics. He grabs hold.
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He seizes. And it's a language of, well, you've got to actually have a hand to seize. He grabs something.
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It's used of Christ's action. The pioneer grabs and seizes and takes the followers on the way to glory and says,
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I will bring you there. Taking by the hand to draw someone to yourself to come to the aid of.
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Now, you know I've regularly said this as I preach. Think like a Jew for a minute. This language of taking hold of.
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Is it anywhere found in the Old Testament of God taking hold of Israel to take them out of Egypt?
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And the answer is yes. Flip over to Hebrews chapter 8 where Jeremiah 31 is quoted.
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Help and deliverance is the way you should think of this language of help or taking or took hold of.
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It's all the same language. Hebrews 8, 9. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when
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I helped them, seized them, took them by the hand. That's the same thing. To bring them out of the land of Egypt.
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Everywhere you go in the book of Hebrews, God does this in the Old Testament. Jesus does this in the Old Testament.
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Both do the same things. Jesus must be God. It's just an echo of the Old Testament. When I took them, took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt.
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This is the language used when Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him to the village.
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And when he had spit on his eyes and laid hands on him, he said, do you see anything? This is the language of Jesus.
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When it says in Luke 14, they remain silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away.
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And if you'll turn your Bibles to Matthew 14, you'll see the same word.
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And you'll think, okay, I get it. To lay hold of with a view to helping someone.
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Sinners need rescuing. Sinners need help. We can't help ourselves. We can't rescue ourselves.
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We need redemption. We need somebody to grab us and save us. We're drowning.
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Somebody needs to grab us by the back of the neck. Somebody is in quicksand. Somebody needs to grab them.
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That's the idea. And take a listen to Matthew 14, verse 22.
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Our word in Hebrews 2 is used here. See if you can find it. Immediately, Matthew 14, 22.
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He made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds.
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And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.
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But the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them.
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Verse 25. And in the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said,
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It's a ghost. And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them saying,
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Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid. And Peter answered him, Lord, if it's you, command me to come to you on the water.
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Come. So Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water, and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and beginning to sink, he cried out,
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Lord, save me. Jesus immediately reached out his hand, and what do you know, there's our word.
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Seized him, took hold of him, with aim to help, with aim to rescue. He took hold of him saying,
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O you of little faith, why do you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped him saying,
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Truly you are the Son. Jesus takes on human flesh, and he rescues sinners.
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He doesn't rescue angels. He rescues sinners. Now let's go back to Hebrews chapter 2.
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He lay holds of, to appropriate. And the language is, and we all have to say yes, surely this happens.
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And he doesn't just save Jews. He saves Gentiles, of course, because we are
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Christ, because we are Abraham's offspring according to the promise Galatians 3 says.
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Jesus had a mission, and the mission was not to save angels, it was to save humans. Number four, identifies.
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Destroys, delivers, seizes, and now identifies. I mean, here's what you probably might be thinking.
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Fear of death is in the future. Death is later. What about now? I need help now. Future taken care of, great.
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I've got my troubles now in the present. Can Jesus help me now? Do I have to wait until I die?
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That's what he deals with in verse 17. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
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Very simple. He had to be made, it was his obligation, that's the language.
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It means, I owe. If I'm going to rescue humans, I have to become a human. It's an obligation.
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If I am going to be sent by the Father to go rescue humans, I have to do it. It's an obligation.
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I owe it morally to the Father to do what he's told me to do. He doesn't have sin, that's why he was virgin born, but in every other respect, he's a human to go rescue humans.
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Now here, do you notice, he's called the faithful high priest. Merciful and faithful.
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First time, I believe, in all the text, even though Jesus is alluded to as high priest, he's called high priest here for the first time.
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The perfect high priest. And he's faithful, and he's merciful. Chapter 3 and 4, we're going to look at how faithful he is, and the end of chapter 4 and chapter 5, how compassionate he is, but right here, merciful and faithful, both.
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Where else are we going to find a high priest that's merciful? It's hard to find in the Old Testament. Why is
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Jesus said to be merciful? Well, the first thing I can think of is, God is said to be merciful. Jesus perfectly reflects the character of Yahweh, because he is
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Yahweh the Son. Psalm 145, the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
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The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made. So if Jesus is
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God in the flesh, certainly he would be merciful, and not only that, he would be faithful. He's a faithful high priest.
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Psalm 145 goes on to say, Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations.
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The Lord is faithful in all his words, and kind in all his works.
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Jesus is faithful and merciful. Now, in what way is
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Jesus a faithful high priest? Maybe you say to yourself, we can trust in him.
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He's trustworthy. That would be a good way to translate it. But more likely, he's faithful to God. To whom is
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Jesus faithful? As a man. Well, he's the God -man, yes, but as man, to whom is he faithful?
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He's faithful to God the Father. The Father sends the Son, and the
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Son goes. Don't you see that in chapter 3, verse 2? Speaking of Jesus, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all
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God's house. It's true, you can trust him, but more importantly, he was faithful to the
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Father. In the world of unfaithfulness, Jesus is faithful to the Father. I mean, just stop for a second and think, what's the opposite of faithful and merciful high priest?
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What would be the opposite? Unfaithful Jesus is not unfaithful, he's not unreliable, he's not unloyal.
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I mean, sorry, is that what I said? He's not unloyal? That's right. He's loyal.
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He's not careless, he's not corrupt, he's not dishonest, he's not fraudulent. He's faithful, he's not unfaithful, and he's merciful.
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There are cruel, compassionate, inhumane type of priests, but not
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Jesus. You want an example of a man who was not merciful and not faithful, but he was a priest?
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Listen to this. And there came a man of God to Eli and said to him, Thus says the Lord, Did I indeed reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt subject to the house of Pharaoh?
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Did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me?
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I gave to the house of your father all my offerings by fire from the people of God. Why do you scorn my sacrifices and my offerings that I have commanded for my dwelling, and honor your sons above me by fattening yourselves on the choicest parts of every offering of my people
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Israel? Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, declares, I promise that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before me forever.
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But now the Lord declares, Far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall
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I be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father's house, so that there will not be an old man in your house.
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And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and my mind, and I will build him a shore house, and he shall go in and out before my anointed forever.
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So much different than Eli, the unfaithful priest who has both sons,
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Hophni and Phinehas, who die. Jesus is merciful and he's faithful. And also found in this verse, number five, propitiates.
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The purpose of the incarnation. Jesus destroys, delivers, seizes, identifies, and now propitiates.
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To make propitiation for the sins of the people. To make atonement.
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I think I've told you this, I have lots of words in my life that I just love. This is one of the words I love the most.
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I don't have any tattoos, but if I had to get a word tattooed, maybe this would be it. I'm sure the tattoo artist would misspell it.
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I don't know why, sometimes I like to look at tattoo websites where they've done mistakes. Tattoo mistakes.
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To think of this word propitiate. Now, before you begin to say, here's one of those big words, polysyllabic, very technical, you would agree with me, wouldn't you, that in any one of your businesses that you work at, involve with, school, medical things, you say to yourself, there are bigger words, there are important words that I learn.
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And here's one of those words that you need to learn, not just for strictly head knowledge, but it will help your heart be glad.
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You can understand the word propitiation. Here it says he makes propitiation for the sins of the people.
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He had to be a human to die for humans, and he makes propitiation. Now in our world, you mark this, people do not want a
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God who's angry with the wicked. They want a God who's love, love, love. Psalm 5 -5,
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Psalm 7 -11, you will see that God has righteous indignation, and he's angry with people, sinful people.
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You'll notice as you study your Bible that everyone has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And if they're not a
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Christian, they have that relationship as arch enemy. God is angry at sin.
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How angry? Well, you could just fast forward to the cross if you could. If you were back in Genesis chapter 6, and you would see
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God is angry. He has laws. He's holy. When those laws are broken, he's not just like,
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I've told you the story a dozen times, my grandma just kept saying to me, Mike, this is
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Grandma Nona, if you do that one more time, I'm going to take that yardstick over there that you get at the hardware store, that yellow one, and that's going to go on your backside, little mister.
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By the way, when grandma say little mister, it's usually a big deal. But my grandma was toothless when it comes to punishment, because she never would do it, she never would do it, she never would do it.
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She was like a grandma who was all talk, and finally when I walked up to the yardstick, it was over there in the corner, and I just broke it over my knee and handed it to grandma, she still didn't spank me.
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I'm not a grandpa yet, but just to my potential grandkids -to -be, if you're listening, if you do that to me,
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I'm calling your dad. God has divine laws, and we know those laws, and we're to love
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Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and when we've broken the law, the wage of sin is death. God's angry with the wicked every day, the
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Bible says it. So if He is angry, how can we have the opposite?
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We want Him to be pleased. If you have a loved one and they're angry with you, what do you want? What's your heart's desire?
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I want you to be pleased with me, I want you to welcome me, I want you to embrace me. Close, intimate fellowship, that's what
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I want. And your mind can already be thinking through, here's what happened in the garden,
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God made Adam and Eve upright, they followed Satan, they rebelled against God, they didn't believe
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His word, they went into lawlessness, and idolatry, and deceit, and deception, and they followed Satan, and now there's a problem, and we are in Adam.
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But if God is the God of the liberals, He just loves everybody, He loves everybody the same, each and every person
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God loves the exact same, and He's not that concerned. I mean, if you meet someone and they're living with their boyfriend or girlfriend, or they're living with their homosexual lover, and your first lead is, well, you know what,
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God loves you. If that's the lead... Now, there's a sense God has a common grace love for people, that's true.
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There's a different kind of love, too, a saving love, but if you lead with that, if I'm on this side, what I hear is, well, if I'm doing that and God loves me,
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I'm still set. When you see the word propitiation, like it or not, it deals with wrath,
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God's anger. But for us, because Jesus is not just faithful,
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He's, what, merciful, Jesus absorbs the wrath meant for us. God is angry with the wicked, and Jesus says, well,
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I'm the kind of high priest that I don't have my sons go in and take the fork and dig in for the good pieces of the meat.
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The only thing those boys care about is themselves, and I won't even do anything about it because I'm essentially an unfaithful, unmerciful high priest.
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But Jesus comes along and says, listen, I'm not in it for myself. I'm in it for the Father's glory and for your good, and I will intercept the
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Father's wrath. I mean, I just cannot, I can't wrap my mind around what hell must be like when it's the unfettered wrath of God just poured out for eternity.
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I can't wrap my mind around that. If you ever put a cardboard box in the fireplace, one of those huge cardboard boxes, and you can just feel that thing catch, and you can just hear the whoosh, and then you can, you just, you're not just listening to it, but you can just feel it all, and it's just this rumbling fire.
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I'm just thinking, that's just hell forever. That's what I've deserved. And Jesus quenches the fire by absorbing it all.
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He propitiates, that's the word. He doesn't just forgive sins.
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He does that, that's for certain. But He averts the wrath of God by absorbing it, and that's the word propitiation.
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He makes atonement. Maybe your text says He satisfies God's wrath. And see, once God's wrath is satisfied, what's the result?
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Fellowship, friendship, camaraderie, family, adoption as sons and daughters.
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All that language comes through with favored looking upon us.
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John Owen, if you don't read John Owen, he would be a good Puritan to read. When you think of propitiation,
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Owen said, Simply, think of an offense, think of a person offended, think of the person offended pardoned, and think about the sacrifice needed for the pardon.
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That sums it up right there. We've committed the offense. We've offended the thrice holy
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God. We need to be pardoned by the work of a sacrifice. And when you think even the best in front of the holiness of God, Isaiah, the prophet of God, the spokesperson for God, he wasn't a terrorist.
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He wasn't an iniquitous person compared to everyone else. He was probably the best.
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And when he saw the holiness of God, he was on his face, wasn't he? He said, I'm undone, I'm unclean.
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Now, the wonderful thing is, and we need to wrap up, but in the old idea of propitiation, in paganism, the person had to get the gods to forgive.
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So, you know how it works. God is mad at you. You don't have a lot of children, or maybe you're sick, or the crops are bad, and this is back in paganism.
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So you go, I'll give God some seeds. I'll give God some fruit. I'll give
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God some children to Molech. I'll give God some virgins. I'll give him something to placate his wrath.
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And since they didn't know why God was angry, the gods were angry, they're just throwing stuff out.
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Will that work? Here's some gourds. Here's some apples. Here's some pears. Here's some peaches. Here's whatever they had.
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Here's some grain. Here's some soldiers. Here's some girls. Here's some boys. We're just throwing stuff out, hoping that things will get better.
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They didn't know the mind of the god. God didn't reveal himself to them. But hear the language of propitiation in the
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New Testament. We're not making propitiation. Who makes propitiation? God does.
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God the Son makes propitiation. He becomes the sacrifice. Propitiation is by himself alone.
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1 John 4 .10, And this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
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I know you know this one. It's still wonderful. But the tax gatherer standing some distance away was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying,
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God, be merciful. God, be propitiated, literally, to me, a sinner.
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Treat me on behalf of the spilt blood. And do you know the concept of propitiation?
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And it's very simply, you think of the Old Testament, and here is the
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Ark of the Covenant. I was just going to say for a minute, most people know about the
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Ark of the Covenant because of Indiana Jones. That's what I thought, but I wasn't on radio. I just said it anyway.
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The Ark of the Covenant. And inside you've got things like manna,
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Aaron's rod, and what else is inside that ark, that holy box? The Ten Commandments.
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And you've got the cherubim here, seraphim, and they're over top, and what you would do is, if you were the priest, you would slay an animal, and you'd come sprinkle blood on the top of it.
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And what's the top of the Ark of the Covenant called? The mercy seat. What would be the picture?
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The picture was very simple. Someone else's blood has paid for my sins.
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I deserve to have my blood shed. Someone else's blood was shed. This happened to be a lamb, or a goat, or a bull, all in anticipation of the
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Lord. And it was put on top of it. Blood required. The wages of sin is death.
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Something died in my place. And then the picture is as if God looks down, He sees all the commandments that have been broken, but He says, price has been paid.
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I don't see the broken laws anymore. Instead, I see the blood. Instead, I see the blood. That's propitiation.
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And next week, we're going to see the final purpose. It's called to help.
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I talked about stores with the worst return policies. I have a few with the best return policies, according to the
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Wall Street Journal. Number one among department stores and other retail stores, Nordstrom has the best return policy.
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Gold standard. They don't even have a return counter. Just go to any sales associate. No receipts, no problem.
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Number two, I thought this was going to be number one. Maybe I wanted to, because 20 years of New England livings rubbed off on me.
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Go Patriots. Another store, L .L. Bean. Third, Macy's.
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Four, interesting, Costco. It says here they sell everything from caskets to cucumbers.
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Okay. Good to know. Number five, Zappos. Shoes. You can have up to 365 days to return unused products.
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Athleta, a division of Gap. Return things for any reason. Kohl's, hassle -free returns.
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Bloomingdale's, very liberal return policy. The store that I don't mention with the big red target, they have a very good one according to this.
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And then finally, JCPenney. It's called an even -handed policy. Return anything you want.
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Go to any customer service person. No must, no fuss. And then
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I thought, God redeems us, and we're now his children.
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And we sin as his children. And if I were God, I'd like a return on me.
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I'd like to return me. I still sin as a Christian.
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And what prevents God from not returning me? And the answer to that question is the incarnate
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Jesus Christ. Thank you,
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Father, for this day. I am thankful that you have had your Son purchase this church with his own blood.
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And because of that fact, because there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ, we're never to be returned.
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While we might sin on this earth, and we certainly will, you don't take us back because we have an
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Advocate Jesus. He has fully paid the price. He has propitiated all your wrath. And he loves us with an everlasting love.
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And so do you. We're thankful that we stand justified, not because of something inside of us, but because it's a declaration outside of us based on Christ's work.
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You have saved us. How could we get around salvation against a thrice holy
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God? We can't because Jesus has paid it all. Our past sins, paid. Present sins, paid.
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Future sins, paid. Guaranteed by the resurrection. Everything's been paid. So we're thankful for that.
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No Damocles sort of judgment over us ever, ever again. The cross is the solution.
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And Jesus had to be man to die on that cross for us. We thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.