Nothing But The Blood - [Hebrews 9:15-22]

Biblical Illiteracy and Common Misquotes

Not often that I agree with Newsweek magazine, but Newsweek said Americans are basically biblically illiterate. That many Christians don't know much of the Bible and atheists obviously don't know much of the Bible and they proved it by giving different quotes and asking people are these things actually in the Bible or not.

For instance, money is the root of all evil. And of course that's not true, it's the love of money that's the root of all evil. They ask questions like this, does the Bible say you shall not kill? Thou shall not kill.

And of course, the real translation in Exodus 20 is thou shall not commit murder and there's something different between murdering and killing. They list things like this, true or false, God helps those who help themselves.

Originally, English politician Algoron Sidney originated that wording that Benjamin Franklin picked up for poor Richard's almanac in 1736. How about the life verse of the world, judge not lest you be judged.

And then Jesus goes on to say do in fact judge as you have not judged in a hypocrisy way, full of hypocrisy, but in a righteous way, then remove the speck from your brother. All kinds of food regulations that people think that the Bible teaches for the Christians, that the Old Testament God is different than the New Testament God, that this one, I thought this was funny to be on the list, cleanliness is next to godliness.

When you die, God gains another angel. The question really is how well do you understand the Bible? How would you define Christianity? If you could summarize Christianity in a few words, I wonder what you would say.

And I wonder what tools or resources you would use, polls, popularity, celebrities, or would you in fact use the Bible? Today is going to be a very simple message. If you'll take your Bibles and turn to the book of Hebrews, I'm going to give you some basic theological words that if you understand, you can grasp Christianity.

Not only to understand it and believe it for yourself, to rest in Christ Jesus, but also when you teach your children and teach others in Sunday school and Awana, and also when it comes to evangelizing.

Teaching Christianity with Four Theological Words

Four easy words, theological words, pregnant with thought, pregnant with theology, so that you can understand Christianity for yourself. It doesn't help you if I understand it and you don't. I want you to know from your own Bible, so that you from your own Bible can teach your own children.

It's not, I'm the clergy and you're the laity. No, we are all Christians called by God to understand what the Bible teaches about our triune God. English words with theological meanings that summarize Christianity.

No matter what level you are in terms of education, our maturity in the Christian faith, this will be a good reminder for you because it's right from the book of Hebrews. Four theological words. Okay, several theological words.

For you visitors today, I sometimes say four or five and then we get through two, but there's always next Sunday. Lord willing. The first word is blood, blood, B-L-O-O-D. If you understand the theological concept behind the idea of the English word blood, that's one of the first stepping stones to understanding what Christianity teaches.

And I think the book of Hebrews might actually be the bloodiest book in all the Bible outside of Leviticus. It is a bloody book. And here's what I will do now as we just kind of get the idea of this concept, thinking a little bit larger and then we'll dive down into the text.

Let me read to you every verse in Hebrews that contains the word blood and then ask yourself the question, is he talking about human blood? Is he talking about animal blood? Is there a meaning behind the word blood?

Is he talking about red blood cells, white blood cells? Is he talking about composition of blood? Or is he talking about maybe something a little bit differently with the force of theology behind the word blood?

Hebrews 2 .14. This is just also a good reminder of the book of Hebrews as we've been in this book for several years now. Hebrews 2 .13, a book that's written to Jewish people to have them rest in Christ Jesus and not go back to Judaism.

And this is also therefore very good for all of us that we might rest in Christ Jesus and believe in him no matter what our circumstances are. Don't go back to whatever you came from. Hebrews 2 .14, 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.

The second occurrence is found in Hebrews 9, our current chapter, verse 7 please. And again we're just looking at how many times the word blood is used and in different ways in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews 9 .7, but into the second only the high priest goes and he but once a year and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people.

Verse 12 of the same chapter, he entered once for all into the holy places not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, we're talking about the Lord Jesus, thus securing an eternal redemption.

Verse 13, for if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh. Verse 14, how much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

And of course as you're listening to these words you're hearing almost three different definitions are meaning for the word blood so far. Well, the blood continues in the book of Hebrews and by the way if you were a Jewish person would you be surprised that there was so much talk about blood as he's comparing old covenant and sacrifices to new covenant you would be surprised at all.

Some people think Christianity is a bloody religion because people fight wars for the sake of Christ. That's not the kind of blood we're talking about here. Verse 18, the theme of blood continues and this answers the question is it important to understand the word blood?

Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. Verse 19, for when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people he took the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people saying this is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.

And in the same way he sprinkled with blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Verse 22, indeed under the law almost everything is purified with blood and you want to mark this down in your minds and without the shedding of blood there is what?

No forgiveness. Verse 25 please of the same chapter, now it was to offer himself repeatedly nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own.

It wasn't Aaron's blood, it was a sacrifice's blood. Chapter 10 verse 4, the blood theme continues in the book of Hebrews. This is an epistle that God inspired written to Jewish people while the temple was still up and while they were tempted to go back to worship at this beautiful temple.

Chapter 10 verse 4, a very important theological concept for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Chapter 10 verse 19, therefore brothers since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus.

Chapter 10 verse 29, how much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who is trampled underfoot the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the spirit of grace.

Chapter 11 verse 28, by faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. And then two more chapters we see the word blood in Hebrews in chapter 12 and 13.

Chapter 12 verse 4, in your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. Verse 24, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Chapter 13 verse 11, three more verses. Verse 11, for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

And then even in the doxology, even in the benediction, verse 20, now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant.

I think we all have to agree that the concept, the word blood is not only important in the Bible but important in the book of Hebrews. And it's important because it's important to the work of Jesus and what he actually did, what God's law required and then how Jesus fulfilled that law.

I'll think about it for a second. We don't find it odd at all. Maybe there's a visitor here that doesn't understand Christianity but for us, we just assume this idea of blood of Jesus that he bled but he died.

And don't we just sing songs about it, hymns about it? Nothing but the blood of Jesus? When you sing that, what do you mean? Man of sorrows, what a name, bearing shame and scoffing rude. In my place condemned he stood, seal my pardon with his what?

Blood. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Who sings Hallelujah, what a Savior about blood? Alas, and did my Savior what? Bleed. And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's what? Blood? I have a question for all the congregation today.

Are you washed in the blood? I mean, this is just how we talk. But what does it mean? Remember, there are English words with theological meanings just zip-drived. It's like a zip drive just full. Do we have zip drives anymore today?

I think we do. Some people send me files. Don't say no. I just got one and I'm like, do I have to actually unzip this? There's so much meaning in there. There's a blood that will never lose its power.

There's a song named that. How about this? There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. What did those writers mean?

Were the men that whipped and beat Jesus and punched him in his face and beat his face to a pulp when they had blood on their fist, were they saved? Were they forgiven? Were they redeemed? Is that what this means?

Christians these days, and I don't think it's this church, praise the Lord, are afraid of the word blood. Not because they're going to faint because it's gross if you see blood in the operating room or something.

But they're afraid because what's behind the word blood and that is if the wages of sin is death and every time we sin against God, it might not be that we think our sin is so bad but since it's against a thrice holy God, the sin against him is so great because of who he is, his majesty, his authority, his power, his dominion, he's the creator and when we sin against him, we deserve to die.

People don't like that. They'll say things like this, well my God is not a God of blood. Well your God is a God of your own imagination because the God who made you is a God who requires bloodshed, either yours or in the Old Testament a bull or a goat or a sheep or in the New Testament someone named the Lord Jesus.

People want the blood out of the Bible but as we've seen this book is soaked with the red blood of the Lord Jesus. If you go back to chapter 9 for our passage today, the end of our passage in verses 15 through 22 ends with, without the shedding of blood there's no forgiveness.

So since we've all sinned and since we all will meet God on that day of judgment and we have to answer for our crimes and our transgressions and our trespasses we need to be forgiven and there's no forgiveness with simply alms or I'm gonna be better, I'm gonna have religious rights, I'll have some water poured on my head.

How can I be forgiven? There's only one way to be forgiven and that is with the word blood and what it signifies. You are not saved by Jesus' strangulation, you're saved by his blood and the second you would say blood to these Jewish people they might think blood that came out of a calf but they would think farther down the line and they would think you know what there's life in the blood Leviticus 17 and when they heard the word blood in sacrificial context they would immediately say that's shorthand for death, that's shorthand for a bloody death that's shorthand for a sacrificial death.

Donald Gray Barnhouse wrote I did not look upon the blood of Christ when I taught concerning the doctrine to be primarily a matter of biochemistry theological shorthand for Christ's sacrificial death.

When you read blood in the context of Jesus and the eternal salvation that's what you should be thinking of and when we sing are you washed in the blood? Are you washed because Jesus died on your behalf?

Is there power in the blood? Yes because when Jesus dies we don't have to eternally die. God the creator makes us and he expects us to obey. We like his image bearers are supposed to obey him and I know it doesn't take much thinking to understand that God made eagles to soar and they do brilliantly.

God makes rivers to run into oceans and they do magnificently. God makes rain to irrigate crops and does that abundantly. God makes seeds to germinate to give us fruit and they do that yearly and God makes people every person in this building, every person that's ever been born, he's made you to worship him, to give him honor to take him at his word and what do we do because of Adam's sin credited to our account and now consequently we're sinful we say I will not obey you.

I will not do that. I defy you. I will not take you at your word and I will do the opposite and God sees our fist raised and what does he do? If he was only just, if he was only righteous then he would punish.

If he was only holy he would punish. If he only had wrath out of his wholeness he would punish but it doesn't take you very long to watch the Lord Jesus Christ with lepers, with a centurion, with Peter's mother-in-law, with Peter himself to realize God isn't just just.

God's compassionate. God's kind. God actually loves sinners. That would be hard to do if you were the creator and you were looking at humans and men and women and children who said I do not take you at your word.

I don't trust you. I don't believe you. I won't obey you. I won't do what you say and again people say well this whole blood thing I don't want. They'll say my God's a God of love and a God of love only.

Friends, I guess there's the nice mic and the tougher mic and so the nice mic might say let me explain to you what really love means. Maybe the radio mic might say something like this I've never heard such a ridiculous story because if you really believe the God who made you, loved you like he says he loves like you say he loves you, you wouldn't treat him the way you do.

God doesn't just forgive sin like we forgive sin. Will you please forgive me? I forgive you. Done. That's not how God forgives sin. Just let it go. Indulgent father. Oh everything's fine. Indulgent grandpa.

Everything's fine. God doesn't just say let there be forgiveness like he says let there be light because God is just and God is holy and so when you read this word blood here in the New Testament and elsewhere I want you to be thinking to yourself it is a theologically packed word that talks about sacrificial death.

Christ as Mediator of the New Covenant

That's word one, blood. Word two found more specifically in our text today verse 15 is the word, well let me ask you this, let's put it this way. If I said to you tell me everything you know about Jesus I'll give you five minutes to tell me everything you know about, let's start with his titles.

Let's start with with some of his names like Christ and Savior and Lord. I wonder if you would ever say this word from chapter 9 verse 15. How long would it take you to say the word that this writer loves to talk about?

Verse 15 therefore he is, present tense, the what? There's our word, mediator of a new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promise eternal inheritance since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.

The first theologically significant word that we see in Hebrews at at a great level is blood and the second word that if you get you can understand Christianity is the word mediator. By the way would any of you honestly speaking would have said mediator top ten words?

Judge not, should be judged. And when you think about this idea of mediator it means somebody in the middle it means, we have that word, he's a good middleman you hear it wholesale, if you watch a shark tank, cut out the middleman.

You want a middleman, he is the middleman. No wonder if he has to stand in the middle of here's God the Father, holy, and here's sinful man, me, you, and everybody else, mankind. No wonder he has to be both man, born of a Virgin Mary, and he has to be God to be the right mediator.

Because remember what happened, and you can think about it, I'm trying to explain it maybe in car language, gear language, I try to do the zip drive for some of you you know computer people, now let's talk to the auto mechanics, not looking at anybody in particular whose father might be an auto mechanic.

God put Adam on the earth with Eve and he basically said, obey me, do what I say and you'll live. It's like if you were in a car, go forward, right, drive, drive by obedience, you put it in drive and you go forward.

Well what do we do because of sin, Adam and his rebellion, and we in Adam, we say, we're not going to go forward, we're going to do what? We're going backwards, we're going to go the opposite, and it's like we put the car into reverse because whatever God says, we do the opposite.

You ever met anybody like that? Whatever you tell me to do, I'm not going to do it. Don't touch wet paint. Okay, we want to, it's just like built into our sinful fabric. Drive, nope, I'm going to go in reverse.

And see, if this mediator only died for our sins and he didn't earn righteousness for us, it would be like the mediator has taken care of all our going in reverse and he's brought us back to neutral, right, because he's paid for all our going backwards, our sin and our transgressions, and so he's brought us back to neutral.

But what does God require of creatures? Not just neutral, not just coasting. He requires drive. That's why the Lord Jesus, He dies for our sins, that gets us back to neutral, but He also lives for our righteousness because men and women were required to obey.

This mediator has to be both God, so He has an infinite amount of righteousness to get us going this way, and He also has to be man, so He can be a representative to die for these sins in our place. And this writer is saying, listen, you don't need Aaron to be your mediator.

You don't need Moses to be your mediator. You have Jesus, the mediator. This is, in fact, I think maybe the hinge of the entire book of Hebrews. And he's concluding based on what's going on in chapter 9, verses 11 through 14, about this great blood of Jesus, verse 14, who offers himself as a sacrifice without blemish to God, that our consciences might be purified no matter what we've done in our life.

The word mediator has the beginning of the Greek word where we might find it's meso, mesa. Not mesa, but mesa. And so, you know, you've got rivers, and then you've got an area between the rivers. What's the word between the rivers?

You know, that's a place, right? Mesopotamia. Poat. I mean, I could just do this all day with these word studies, right? A water horse is a hippo, a hippo's horse. And a pot, a potamus is a what? It's a water horse.

Pot means potable water. See how this all works? Oh, this is true. This is something good. There's a word, there's an app called... See, this is radio. This is what you just kind of just... There's an app called the Literal Word App for smartphones.

And you just touch the word that you'd like to know in the New American Standard, and it'll tell you the Greek word right underneath it. It's brand new. So, if you touch the word mediator on your literal phone app that you'll download after you leave the service today...

It's this word that's got legal connotations where you've got somebody in between you, somebody representing you like an advocate, like a lawyer. And you have that. In spite of temptations and trials and sin and falling short, you have that.

Chapter 8, verse 6, just looking back on the page of your own Bibles, has this idea not been initiated? But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry by much as He also, the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.

What are part of those better promises? What is that better covenant? Verse 12 of the same chapter, I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins, what? No more. Jesus pays for our sins with His blood, sacrificial death, and now He's able to be our mediator.

And sadly, in Christianity, the role of mediator is absent. Here's why. Both unbeliever and believer alike think they can just saunter into God's presence anytime they'd like. I remember Erwin Lutzer, I think, used to say, an unbeliever doesn't think it's an awful idea to trapeze himself into the presence of God.

Remember Jesus in the boat when Peter finally realizes that the God of the universe is in his boat, he's not afraid of the storms anymore. He's afraid that Jesus, the Holy One, is in the boat. Remember chapter 6 in Isaiah?

Holy, holy, holy. And Isaiah knows he is undone, and he asks for his own destruction, and he gets mercy instead. We just think God's one of us, and we just run right into His presence, never thinking mediator.

Friends, you can run into His presence, but only through, when you do run into His presence, it is only through the mediator, Christ Jesus, because He currently is your mediator. The angels still in heaven, creatures are singing in Revelation 4, 8, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

And you need a mediator, you need someone to be your advocate. And here's the thing about it. There's nothing we can do about trying to get in the presence of God on our own. But since He's the mediator, guess who initiates this?

Guess who is the one who's driving it? We're not the one saying, we need the mediator Jesus, we'll pay you $5 ,000 and you're on a retainer, and it's, you know, we're going to pay you this, that, and the other, and we'll find the best, we'll research the best.

We're off over here spiritually dead, right? Who's going to be the mediator, and at what cost, and at what expense, and whose initiation? It's all the Lord's. Isaiah 59, your iniquities have made a separation between you and God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.

Oh, the sweet communion in the garden with Adam and Eve and the triune Lord, then sin, then there needs to be a mediator. Don't you love the way John writes? My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate, we have a mediator, we have an arbiter with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, inherently righteous. He's the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

If you're here today and you think, you know, I'm going to make it to heaven without a mediator, and I'm not going to go to hell because I've got all these schemes worked out in my mind, friends, your self-flattery will fall on deaf ears on that day.

When children, and I think I was the same, I would be at the tall building in Omaha, and I'm trying to remember the name of the... What's the building, Steve, in Omaha, the tallest building? You don't know, okay.

Pilots, what do they know? Um, and I'd go to the top of that building, and I thought, you know, if that elevator breaks, and the cables severed, and the backup cable severed, I think I got an escape plan.

You ever think that way? And you might think that's cute for a kid, but it's pretty dumb, really. One of the kids just said, yeah, you tell them. But thinking you're going to die and then stand before God without a mediator, knowing your blood is on the line.

It's either you on the altar, as it were, to be slain, or another. And Jesus pays for sinners' sins and then becomes their mediator. It makes sense to me. Why would He die for our sins and then, okay, whatever happens now happens.

Was this not Job's desire? When you read the book of Job, you should be thinking, you know what, this was the first book ever penned. Chronologically, in terms of writing things down in the Old Testament.

And He asked the question that you should be looking for in the entire Bible. When you read every book but Job, what should you look for? Here's what you should look for. Job said, there's no arbiter between us, God, who might lay His hand on both of us.

He's letting you know from the very beginning, be looking for one who's the mediator, who's the go-between. And by the way, there's only one. 1 Timothy 2 .5, there's only one God and one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus.

People don't like this exclusive gospel. They want inclusivism. They want pluralism. But the Bible is clear. One God, three persons, and that second person is the mediator. I've said this before from the pulpit, I think back in chapter 8.

But when I pulled up the Legal World Q &A, do you hire a lawyer or do you represent yourself? And I've told you the adage before, he who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client. And this article went on to say something that was interesting.

But apparently, people don't believe it or they think they're the exception to the rule. So they continue to represent themselves thinking they know their case better, that they can't afford a lawyer, or the third reason is they're insane.

And I think it's the utter insanity of people, the utter insanity of sin to say, you know what, I will not have that mediator rule over me. Couldn't you hear it in Revelation 15 and 16 when we read that today?

No matter how much wrath gets poured out on them, they're saying, you know what, we don't care, we will not repent. That's why it takes the initiation of a mediator, not to just assuage God's wrath, not just to live perfectly, but to make these dead bones live, to make us alive, to give us hearts that don't say, I hate you, God, but thank you, I believe you, I want to follow you.

Substitution, Redemption, and the New Covenant

If you'd like to understand Christianity, you need to understand the theological word blood, mediator, and now the third word, substitute. Substitute, and this is related to blood and mediator, and this is about the Lord Jesus, hence the word Christianity because Christ is in that.

You can get kind of that language if you go back to chapter 9 and read some of the animals in place of, but even alludes to that idea of substitution here in verse 15, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant.

And of course, that's also true for under the last covenant, the new covenant as well, but he's saying it's going to take a death for forgiveness, even back in the Old Testament, and it's not going to be just death of an animal, it's going to be the death of Jesus applied before he even lived.

Jesus Christ's substituentary death ransomed sinners, both in the old covenant before he lived and died, and after. I've said to you many times that when I would tell my children, what's the most important theological word in all the Bible, after they got done saying Jesus, I would say the concept is substitution.

It's the idea of substitute. And you can think as a Jewish person was, it so helps you when you understand the Bible, think like a Jew, especially when you're in the book of Hebrews, what do Jews think?

Jews think Adam sinned, God killed an animal on their behalf and clothed them with the skins. Passover, the death angel was going to come and instead of the family dying, the blood of the animal was put on top of the doorpost.

The day of atonement, the animal for the nation. John the Baptist sees Jesus and what does he say? With language of substitution, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. I mean, why was he called lamb?

The answer is because when you're thinking lambs and bulls and goats, you're thinking substitution. Everywhere you go in the Bible, you see this concept. Jesus died for sins, first Peter three, the just for the unjust.

First Peter chapter two, he himself bore our sins. Second Corinthians five, he made him who knew no sin to be sin what? On our behalf. Galatians three, having become a curse for us. This great Jesus dies a vicious sacrificial death, blood.

He then becomes the mediator. And as we watch all this, we say, you know what? That should have been my blood. He was a substitute. You know, I think we're probably just like the Israelites in Deuteronomy 30, are we not?

God said to them, if you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, that I command you today by loving the Lord, your God, by walking in his ways and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply.

And the Lord, your God will bless you in the land that you are entering in to take possession of. But if your heart turns away and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them.

I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you're going over to the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.

Therefore, choose life and your offspring may live with you, loving the Lord, your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him. For he is your life and length of days that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers.

Choose life. And what did they do? And what did we do? And what did Israel do? Choose death. And this great death of Jesus takes care of sins in the past and in the present and in the future. And what does it give?

Take a look at verse 15. I think there's a little inkling there talking about the old covenant forgiveness. It redeems them from the transgressions. That's just not missing the mark. That's purposeful.

Don't cross the line. I'll do it anyway. Committed under the first covenant. And what does it give? It gives. What's it say? That redeems them. Substitution gives redemption. Now, for when I was a kid, you redeemed S &H Green Stamps.

You redeemed Bazooka Joe bubblegum comics if you saved enough. Remember? You'd get enough of the inside comics of this bubblegum, this pink bubblegum, and you'd hand them in or you send them in and you get yourself a, I don't know, Bazooka Joe tattoo or something you'd get in the mail.

What about redemption of cans and bottles? What about redemption of some slave in the South standing up there naked and people bargaining for them? What about people that were so enslaved to sin that they can't get out?

That's what it's talking about here. Redemption. That redeems. Look at all this language. Friends, Christianity is not get better, do better, make sure you believe, make sure you pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

That's what Newsweek says about Christians, but that's not Christianity. Christianity is here's our part. Okay, now that I finished that, God is the pursuer and the actor and the initiator. While we were dead in trespasses, God had this great mercy for us.

He loved us. He demonstrated that by having Jesus died for us. All this language is Jesus does, Jesus does, Jesus does. Do you think that's better than going back to the old covenant? And the old covenant is now you cut, you slay, you bring the offering, you make sure it's blameless.

You make sure you pay the guy off if the goat's ear isn't quite right. You make sure you do this. You make sure that the priest, once he goes in the holy places and the holy of holies is legit and he's fine, and he's got the right kind of paperwork and that he doesn't die in there.

So then your sacrifice doesn't count. Do, do, do all from the human perspective. Why go back there? Because you know, along with me, all the stuff that we do is tainted with sin. What can I do? What have I really done?

Have I ever really loved the Lord, my God, with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength? I mean, really? And if there's no Jesus, but the law of God still exists, then we've got two options, my friends.

Self-righteousness, we think we really can do it. Our despair, why bother? The standards are too high. No matter what we do, we fall short. And in both of those cases, despair and self-righteousness, the answer is, I just won't obey at all.

I'm despairing. Why should I continue to obey? I'm self-righteous. It's all superficial anyway on the outside. Why bother? But the paradigm of the Bible is, since Jesus shed his blood, Christian, on your behalf, and is your mediator, and became your substitute, and is coming back one day, wouldn't you lay down your life for him?

Wouldn't that give you motivation? Knowing that even though you might serve him not perfectly, he still accepts it because you're a child. When I asked my children when they were little, and they couldn't walk, they could only waddle.

Remember those days? They would just kind of waddle. You know, weevils wobble, but they don't fall down. My kids did the same. And I asked them to do something, but they didn't do it quite right. The bad father in me wants to say, let me teach you a lesson.

You know, go outside, and they'd get on top of the car, and I'd always say, jump, kids. This is what it is for faith, you know. Just jump. Dad's going to catch you. Take me at my word. And they would jump off the van.