He Suffered Outside the Gate (Hebrews 13:11-12)

Kootenai Church

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Hebrews 13, when you found your place there, we will go to the

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Lord and ask His blessing upon our time and our study here this morning. Our Father, we bow now with humility before Your Word, believing that it reveals to us everything that we need for life and for godliness.

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When the Word of God is rightly preached, the voice of God is rightly heard, and so we pray today that You would strengthen both speaker and listener, that You would be honored through what is said in the meditation of our heart.

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Send Your Spirit to give us that strength and to open our eyes and hearts to Your Word. And even as we discuss a passage that is admittedly difficult to understand, we pray that You would grant to us the insight that is necessary, and that having been convinced that we have heard

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You in Your Word, that we would then turn around and yield obedient and loving and worshiping hearts back to You for Your great gift of salvation, for the great sacrifice of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. We ask these things in His name, amen. Well, the message of the cross has always been and always will be foolishness in the eyes of the world.

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It must be that way. Jesus Christ is to the world a worthy object of shame and derision.

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His name is used as a swear word. Only His name is coupled with profanities. Only He is mocked and derided in arts, entertainment, culture, and academia consistently.

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In fact, you would be regarded by the world as a luminary of stunning intellect if you can invent some new blasphemous way of understanding

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Jesus of Nazareth. And you'll be hailed as one of the great artisans of the age if you can invent some cutting -edge way of degrading

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Christ, slandering His name and His reputation in a book or a painting or a song.

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And academia will award you a Nobel Peace Prize if you could manage to rid the entire world of all vestiges and influences of Christianity.

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That is how much the world hates Christ. This is so because there can be no fellowship between light and darkness.

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There can be no camaraderie between Belial and Christ. There can be no meeting of minds between truth and error.

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The message of Christianity is an affront to the pride, the self -reliance, the self -importance of fallen man, and it is forever an unchanging declaration that man is condemned in his sin, fallen, ruined, and hopeless and unable to change his own condition.

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It is that because the cross condemns our efforts to please God by our own good works. It condemns our efforts to somehow satiate

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God by good deeds or works of righteousness or keeping the law. The cross stands as a constant declaration that man is so fallen, so ruined, so irreparably sinful as to demand the sacrifice of God's own

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Son on a Roman cross to atone for his sin and to give him the righteousness that he must have if he is to stand in the presence of a holy

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God on the last day. And so the cross is foolishness and scandalous to the world. It is scandalous to the unbeliever because it suggests that their sin death is so large that the death of God's only

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Son was required, that their lack of righteousness is so profound that the infinitely righteous one had to give them righteousness, and it reminds them that they can do nothing to commend themselves to God.

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Law -breaking rebels trying to gain God's favor by their puny efforts and their paltry works and their putrid good deeds is offensive to Him.

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And that fact is offensive to the unbeliever. Our good deeds are offensive to Him in our unsaved, fallen state, and that fact that He is offended by us is offensive to the unbeliever.

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And there is always an effort afoot to make Jesus appeal to the masses. If you are after cultural cachet or academic acceptance or political prestige,

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Christianity is not your golden ticket. Not at all. At least not biblical Christianity.

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The Christianity that stands constantly being remade by the spirit of our age, that people do use like grifters to make themselves look good and to gain money and prestige, but biblical

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Christianity cannot do that. There is an affront to remake Jesus in order to appeal to the masses.

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This never ends because the only way to do that is to reimagine Him in the image of the masses, and you must remove the offensive teachings and smooth out the rough edges of His personality and His teachings, you have to ignore

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His exclusive claims, you have to rehabilitate His image into a soft, effeminate, hippie figure with no standards, no truth, no demands, no offense, and that's just not the

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Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus of the Bible is offensive to the world. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 18 to 24 says, the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

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It's written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever, I will set aside. Where's the wise man?

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Where's the scribe? Where's the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

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For since in the wisdom of God the world, through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

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For indeed, Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. To the

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Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.

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Paul there is putting his finger to the heart of what the world wants. We want oratory.

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We want man -made wisdom. We love human philosophy. We love to -do lists. We love things that make us look righteous.

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We want wisdom and we want philosophy and we want oratory. And Paul says, instead of giving the world any of that, we come right in and we preach to them the message of the cross, which is foolishness to Gentiles and offensive to the

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Jews. They hate it. But to us who are being saved, it's the power of God unto salvation.

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To us who are called by the Father, chosen by Him and given to the Son and then redeemed by the

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Holy Spirit in regeneration, Jesus Christ is not weakness. He is the power of God. He is not foolish.

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He is the wisdom of God and He is not offensive. Instead, He is the precious cornerstone, not a scandal, but a

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Savior. That is the difference between the saved and the unsaved, and that distinction, every person on the planet will fall into one of those two classes.

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Either you embrace what the world says is the foolishness of God and you receive His wisdom, His power, His salvation, or you will pursue the wisdom of man and you will be bereft of and cut off from God's wisdom,

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God's power, and God's salvation. In Christ, for us who are in Him, we have all the treasures of wisdom, knowledge, power, glory.

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The world cannot see that. It cannot see it. So it does not see it, and then the world regards

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Him as a worthy object of our shame and our scorn, and they are willing to take

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Him outside of the city and to crucify Him. That brings us to our text. You understand then why

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He was burned, He was taken and suffered outside the gate. This is verse 12. Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate.

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Now, we talked about a little bit in last week about what it means that He suffered and what the author is driving at here in this argument.

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You will notice at the beginning of verse 12 that he is making a parallel between Jesus and something else when he says, therefore

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Jesus also. There's something in the context. We haven't looked yet at verse 11, but the context begins in verse 11 there for the comparison.

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The bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp.

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And you'll notice three references to being outside the camp or outside the gate. One in verse 11, burned outside the camp.

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One in verse 12, suffered outside the gate. And then one in verse 13, go to Him outside the camp.

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So the author in verse 12 when he says, therefore Jesus also, he is drawing a similarity between Christ and this offering that was taken outside of the city or outside of the camp and burned.

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And this is a reference to Christ's rejection. That is what the author is driving at. And that's going to be our focus today, the significance of Christ's work being outside the camp.

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This is a reference in verses 11 and 12 to the day of atonement. Now, back when we were in, I think it was

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Hebrews 9 or 10, somewhere there, 8, 7. I don't expect you to remember it because I'm struggling to figure out where it was exactly at.

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I preached a message where we covered all of the details of the day of atonement and what that involved in terms of the sacrifice and the applying of the blood to the mercy seat on that one day a year by the high priest.

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The author has wrapped up his long extended section dealing with Old Testament sacrifices and thus

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Christ in chapter 7 to 10. And we kind of left that and got into the faith chapter of chapter 11 and the discipline in chapter 12 and the warning passage there.

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And now we come into chapter 13 and the author is just jumping back to his discussion of the sacrifices.

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And he's drawing one final parallel because this one final parallel basically is what he wants to sort of leave ringing in the ears of his audience.

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This parallel being in the application of verse 14 that we are to go...verse 13, we are to go to him outside the camp bearing his reproach.

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And so the key here is understanding what it means that Christ suffered outside the gate. The author is obviously making something out of that, that he suffered outside the gate because he mentions it in verse 11 and verse 12 and verse 13.

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The author is here referring to the day of atonement, the sacrifice on the day of atonement, the one sin offering which the

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Jews call Yom Kippur, it's that one high holy day. And you might remember from that that the author has this one particular illustration in mind that rather than offering a sacrifice on that altar over and over again year after year,

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Christ has done what that sacrifice could not do in that he suffered one time and offered himself as that sacrifice.

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And therefore, as we read earlier, we have been forever sanctified through the one offering of our

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Lord on that one time. He has done what the blood of bulls and goats cannot do. But now the parallel is to something else, something that the author did not mention previously when he was talking about the day of atonement and that is in verse 11, the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, those bodies are burned outside the camp.

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Now rather than going back to Leviticus chapter 16, which I would encourage you to do on your own time and reading about all of the details of the day of atonement sacrifice,

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I want to highlight a couple of them, just a couple so you can see what the author is alluding to here. Of all the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, the sin offerings and the guilt offerings, the author has in mind here one particular offering that was offered on one high holy day, the day of atonement, by one man who was allowed to go back into the holy of holies on that one day of the year and apply blood to the mercy seat.

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He's talking about the day of atonement. Now here's the details from Leviticus 16, the day of atonement was in the seventh month on the tenth day of the month and it involved first a ceremonial cleansing by the priest where he would wash himself and dress up in his priestly garments and then he would offer a sacrifice first for himself and then for his family and then he would turn around and offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people and he would enter then with the blood of that sacrifice into the holy of holies and apply the blood to the mercy seat.

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Then there was another element of that sacrifice and it was the scapegoat. They would take two goats and they would cast lots for those two goats and the one goat they would sacrifice as part of the sin offering and apply the blood to the altar.

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The other goat, the priest would stand with the other goat and put their hands on the goat's head and confess over it all of the sins of the nation of Israel and then they would let that goat wander off into the wilderness which was a picture of our sins needing to be removed from the camp, needing to be taken outside of where the people of God are.

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That was part of that offering, the scapegoat. Now after the priest applied the blood to the mercy seat, he would then take the body of the beast out into the wilderness where they would burn the bodies.

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Leviticus 16 verse 20, this describes the scapegoat. When he finishes atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall offer the live goat.

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Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins and he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness, that is outside of the camp, by the hand of a man who stands in readiness.

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The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary place in the land and he shall release the goat into the wilderness.

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This was intended to picture the other part of the sacrifice, not just that it required blood but those sins had to be taken away, they could not be with the people of God anymore.

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Then we have the reference to the blood of the scapegoat as well as the blood of the ox.

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Leviticus 16, verse 27, here's what happened to the sin offering. But the bull of the sin offering and the goat of the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall be taken outside the camp and they shall burn their hides, their flesh, and their refuse in the fire.

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Then the one who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water. Then afterward he shall come into the camp.

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You see, even the act of taking the sin, the animal that was offered for the sin, outside of the camp and burning it rendered him unclean, so he'd have to bathe himself before he could come back into the assembly of God's people.

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Now look at the connection in Hebrews 13, verse 11, the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place, that's what we just read, by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp.

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Therefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gate.

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This is the main point of the author in this passage, that Christ is the fulfillment of that sacrifice.

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Now, in a sense, in a way, he is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament sacrifices, but the day of atonement has been the author's focus throughout the book of Hebrews.

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He sees that one, the highest and holiest day, that was sort of the sacrifice of all sacrifices, he sees in that sacrifice the work of Christ being pictured in the animal sacrifice.

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Hebrews 10, verses 3 to 4 says, in those sacrifices there is the reminder of sins year by year. It's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

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And so, the author has made the point previously, Christ fulfilled this by doing what the priest could never do in offering himself and atoning for what the offering of those animals could never atone for, which was actual sin.

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Rather, in those sacrifices, you simply had the acting out of the need for an animal sacrifice year after year as blood, more blood was always and continually applied to the mercy seat as a reminder that that is the cost of sin, and this is what sin has done to us, and then we have to confess our sin and send it outside the camp, and every

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Jew who went through that year after year, day after day, had to long for and look forward to the day when God would do something to finally deal with the sin issue, because they knew that those sacrifices were merely a temporary sign or a symbol of a sacrifice that was to come.

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God would have to take away sin, and this never happened because there was no expectation that that would ever end.

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It was just you were supposed to do this perpetually. Well, therefore, Jesus also, He says, and this is the pointed similarity,

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He suffered outside the camp. Just as the animals were drug outside the camp and burned, so Jesus went outside the gate and there

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He suffered, and this is the parallel. So now what is the meaning of outside the camp? There is in the passage a similarity and a dissimilarity.

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We're going to notice both of those, a dissimilarity and a similarity. First, the similarity, He suffered outside the camp.

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What does that mean? Suffering outside the camp was a picture of expulsion, of rejection, of repudiation.

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It pictured impurity and uncleanness, being distant from God, having broken fellowship, being excluded, being cut off from the commerce and the fellowship and the industry and the worship of the people of God.

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What did God do with Adam and Eve after they sinned and broke that fellowship with Him? He sent them outside the garden.

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To them, they had walked with God in the coolness of the garden and they had enjoyed that fellowship. Sin severed that and then

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He excluded them from the garden. And then, this is an interesting study, if you follow and trace the idea of being set outside the camp and outside the city and outside the gate throughout

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Scripture, it is a fascinating study because this always has to do with sin and iniquity and repudiation until at the very end, you get all the way to the book of Revelation and guess what?

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There's a new city with 12 new gates and guess who gets to come in? The righteous. In the garden, we are excluded, cast outside.

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In Revelation, we are brought back in and that being brought back in is permanent. So who was set outside the gate?

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I want you to listen to outside the camp in these references. First, blasphemers. There's an incident in Leviticus chapter 24 where a man who is the son of an

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Israelite woman and an Egyptian is gathering stones on the

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Sabbath, or sorry, no, he curses the name of God and then Moses detains him and inquires of the

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Lord what shall be done with this man who has blasphemed God's name. And here's what the Lord said. He spoke to Moses saying, this is

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Leviticus 24, 13 to 15, Bring the one who was cursed outside the camp and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head.

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Then let all the congregation stone him. You shall speak to the sons of Israel saying, if anyone curses his

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God, he will bear his sin. This was a picture of what happens when you curse God. The person who hears it identifies with that sinner, says yes,

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I testify against him. They take him outside the camp and execute him. There's another incident in Numbers chapter 5 where we have a picture of uncleanness in how lepers were to be kept and cared for.

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Numbers 5 verses 2 through 4, Command the sons of Israel that they send away from the discharge and everyone who was unclean because of the dead person.

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You shall send away both male and female. You shall send them outside the camp so that they will not defile their camp where I dwell in their midst.

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The sons of Israel did so and sent them outside the camp just as the Lord had spoken to Moses. Thus the sons of Israel did.

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So the leper, leprosy, which was a picture of the contagion of sin and the danger of sin, that leper, when he had that skin disease was taken outside of the camp.

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He was not allowed to be amongst the people of God because it was a picture of defilement. So blasphemers and lepers and then

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Sabbath breakers. In Numbers chapter 15, we find a man who is gathering wood on the Sabbath and they detain him and inquire of the

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Lord saying, what shall be done with the man who gathers wood on the Sabbath? Hardly the ink had dried on the tablet commanding them to observe the

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Sabbath and already they have people in their midst who are breaking that commandment. So Numbers 15 verse 35, the

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Lord said to Moses, the man shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.

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So all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones just as the Lord had commanded

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Moses. So blasphemers, lepers, Sabbath breakers, even those who are ceremonially unclean.

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Deuteronomy 23, if there among you any man who is unclean because of a nocturnal emission that he must go outside the camp, he may not reenter the camp, but it shall be when evening approaches he shall bathe himself with water and at sundown he may reenter the camp.

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So he had to be excluded for a period of time until he was no longer ceremonially unclean. And then, not to get graphic, but human waste was taken outside the camp.

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Deuteronomy 23, 12 through 14, you shall also have a place outside the camp and go out there and you shall have a spade among your tools and it shall be when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn to cover up your excrement since the

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Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and to defeat your enemies before you.

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Therefore your camp must be holy and he must not see anything indecent among you or he will turn away from you."

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So blasphemers, lepers, Sabbath breakers, people who are ceremonially unclean and human waste were all taken outside of the camp.

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Now what's the point? The point is that things that are impure, unclean, indecent, defiling, things sinful, things deserving of death, the impenitent, the lawbreaker, the rebel.

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These were taken outside the camp so that they would not be amongst God's people. This is a picture of what sin does for us, by the way, to us.

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It's a picture of what sin does to us. When we sin, we are making ourselves unclean.

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We are cutting off our fellowship with the Lord and we are reminding ourselves we deserve to be cast outside the camp. And only by the grace of one who suffered outside the gate can we even be amongst and in the people of God.

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But this requirement is a graphic picture of the defiling nature of sin. Now all of that to say,

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I think all of those are behind this idea of being outside the camp. Sin is taken outside the camp, lawbreakers, blasphemers,

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Sabbath violators, etc. taken out there and executed. But there is a very intriguing and interesting event in Exodus chapter 32 and 33 that I'm going to read to you.

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I want you to listen to this. Moses was on the mountain receiving the law, and you remember what happened. God wrote the law on those tablets and he got the law and the instructions for the tabernacle.

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And then when he was all done, God said, hey, Moses, those people whom you brought up out of Egypt, they have defiled themselves at the foot of the mountain.

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And you remember the story. They had taken their gold and their silver and all their precious jewels and they had given them to Aaron and he took them and melted them down and cast this idol and then set it up in the midst of the camp and said, this

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Israel is your God. This is the one who delivered you from the land of Egypt and from the house of Pharaoh. Worship it.

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And they did. They worshiped it. And the Lord told Moses about this, the people crafting that idol.

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Aaron, it says in Exodus 32 verse 4, he took from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf and said, this is your

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God, who Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it and Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a feast to the

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Lord. They're calling this golden calf Yahweh. It shall be a feast to Yahweh. So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

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Then God's anger burned against them. The Lord said to Moses, go down at once for your people whom you brought up from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.

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Notice there in that phrase that God did not even own them as his people. He said, Moses, your people whom you brought up and you might be tempted to say, no, not my people.

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And I didn't bring them up. I didn't part with the rest. This is all, this is all yours, Lord. The Lord doesn't own them in that sense at all.

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He is remarking to Moses how these people are no longer his people. They have rejected him already.

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He can't even bear to bring, put upon Moses' mind the idea that this nation would be his people.

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They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, this is your

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God, who Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Lord said to Moses, I've seen this people and behold, they are an obstinate people.

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Now then, let me alone that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. I'll make of you a good nation, a great nation.

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And Moses, of course, pleaded with the Lord and the Lord relented. Moses came down. They executed a few of the lawbreakers there inside of the camp.

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And then we read this. Listen, this is the incident that is behind Hebrews 13. Exodus 33, one through seven, the

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Lord spoke to Moses, depart, go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up from the land of Egypt to the land of which

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I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying to your descendants, I will give it. I will send an angel before you and I'll drive out the

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Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, but to the land flowing with milk and honey,

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I will not go up in your midst because you are an obstinate people and I might destroy you on the way.

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When the people heard this sad word, they went into mourning and none of them put on his ornaments. For the Lord had said to Moses, say to the sons of Israel, you are an obstinate people.

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Should I go up in your midst for one moment, I would destroy you. Now therefore, put off your ornaments, your merriment, put off your ornaments from you that I may know what

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I shall do with you. So the sons of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from Mount Horeb onward.

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Verse 7, now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, a good distance from the camp.

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And he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting that was outside the camp.

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That is the imagery behind this. Because of their sin, God did not send individual sinners outside the camp that he may dwell there with his people.

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Instead, God himself went outside the camp, basically repudiating all of those people and their sin.

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They had repudiated him. They had rejected him as a nation. They had bowed down and worshiped a golden calf.

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And in their repudiation of him and their rejection of him, now God was outside the camp. Not taking individual sinners and putting them outside the camp, but now

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God himself is outside the camp. And Moses, when he would meet with God, would go outside the camp, a good distance off, and the rest of the text says the children of Israel would just stand in the doorway of their tents and they would watch

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Moses walk out to the tent of meeting out in the wilderness. And all they could do was stay in their camp while God himself had been repudiated, rejected and placed outside the camp.

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That is the imagery of this verse. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting which was outside the camp,

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Hebrews 13 .3. So let us go to him outside the camp bearing his reproach. You see the author's point?

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Once again, God was put outside the gate. In doing what? When? When the nation rejected him and said, crucify him, then it says in Matthew and Mark and John's gospel that they took him out, they led him out, he was crucified out near the city.

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They took him outside the gate where blasphemers were, where lawbreakers were, where sinners were, where everything unclean and unholy and defiling was, and there they crucified him outside the gate.

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And I think the author's point is that in the rejection of Christ, the nation of Israel has again drove

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God outside of the camp. So he's no longer there in their midst, which means he's not on the temple mount receiving their sacrifices, which means he is not observing their animal sacrifices and their feasts and their festivals.

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And now the application of the author is, therefore, if you will meet with God, you cannot go to the temple, you cannot go to the tabernacle, and you can't offer your animal sacrifices, you're going to have to go outside the gate to that person whom the entire nation has reproached.

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And you're going to have to be willing to bear that reproach, to gladly say in the eyes of the world, I will be foolish,

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I will be weak, I will be insignificant, I will be a nobody. If I can have God outside the gate,

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I will go out to him. And all the world can do is stand at the door of their tent and watch us go outside the gate as we go out to gladly bear his reproach.

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That is the imagery. In the repudiation of their Messiah, they had put God outside the gate again, and there he suffered and died and shed his blood to purchase the church.

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God purchased the church with his own blood when he was put outside the camp. The nation rejected their

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God in their midst, which was Christ, they took him to a place of sin, shame, scorn, repudiation, where they rejected him, despised him, mocked him, spit on him, hung him on a cross and put him to death.

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Jesus Christ then was put in the place where sinners belong. So here's the key, you and I deserve to be taken outside the gate and treated that way, but we weren't.

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Another one was taken outside the gate and treated the way that we deserve to be treated, by a holy God. And so therefore, the application is very simple, very straightforward.

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You better be willing to go outside the gate if you're going to meet with God, because he is no longer in the temple, he's no longer in those sacrifices.

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Now you understand why the author throughout the entire book has been telling people this is a defunct system, these sacrifices are no more, the new covenant has come, the sacrifices have been put to an end, these things were only pictures, the substance is here.

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Well, guess what? The substance is here, he came, he was taken outside the gate and there he was crucified. So if you will meet with God and enjoy fellowship with him, you have to be willing to leave that system and go outside the gate.

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That's the similarity. Now look at the point of dissimilarity, and it is that in doing so, verse 12, Jesus might sanctify the people through his own blood by suffering outside the gate.

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This was the thing that animal sacrifices could never do. Christ does not attempt to sanctify his people.

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Christ does not attempt to draw his people to themselves to pay his price.

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He has not merely made the sanctification, the holiness, and the redemption of his people a theoretical possibility by offering some atonement that can be broadly applied to all people.

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He actually suffered in the stead and in the place of sinners as their substitute. And therefore, he has done what no animal sacrifice could do, which was to suffer outside the gate and to in doing so atone for the sins of all his people, all who will believe and trust in him, to pay their debt, to stand as their surety, to stand as their substitute, to bear their reproach and their blame.

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He was the one treated as unclean and impure and undefiled. He was the one who was treated like a blasphemer, a

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Sabbath breaker, and like a spiritual leper. He received that treatment. So now the author is saying, if you are going to be faithful, you have to be willing to go outside the gate and to bear his reproach because the world hates him.

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But if you will have Christ, you better be prepared to be excluded from the city gate.

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You better be prepared to walk outside the camp and let all the world watch you walk out to meet with God at the temple, the tabernacle, the sacrifice, which was taken outside the gate.

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He has sanctified us, and in saying that in verse 12, the author is returning to the theme he has mentioned previously.

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Back in chapter 10, we read it, there is in those sacrifices only a shadow of the good things to come. They can never make perfect those who draw near.

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Hebrews 10, verse 10, by this will, we have been sanctified. We have been made holy, set apart for God through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

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Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sin.

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But he, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet.

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

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Believer, this is good news for you. Because Christ died in your place, you can be absolutely certain that your sin debt is taken out of the way.

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And if you have trusted in that sacrifice and you have repented of your sin, and that sacrifice is yours because you have placed your faith in that Son of God, there is no possibility that you will be rejected because he has perfected you forever, for all time.

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He has set you apart as his own and paid every last debt that was incurred against your name, against your rap sheet, for all of your blasphemy and Sabbath breaking and spiritual leprosy and defilement.

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Every last transgression was laid upon him, and because it was laid upon him, it will never be laid upon you.

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You will never see the frown of God. No sin you have ever committed will be brought up and thrown into your face and cause you to be driven outside the gate because your surety, your substitute was taken outside the gate on your behalf.

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And because he died outside the gate, you will never be cast out of the gates of righteousness, where God dwells.

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That is good news, believer. Unbeliever, this is good news for you as well.

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There is in the sacrifice of Christ, a sacrifice and a payment sufficient to pay the price for your sin.

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But if you have never repented of your sin and trusted Christ for salvation, you stand this day at this moment under the wrath and under the anger of God's righteous indignation for all of your law -breaking.

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Your deeds of blasphemy, your Sabbath -breaking, your taking his name in vain, your lust, your anger, your greed, your selfishness, your idolatry, all of that has put you deservedly outside of the camp, and you will in all of eternity, for all of eternity, never be welcomed back inside the gate unless you have a substitute who died outside the gate for you.

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Christ is that substitute. You don't have to worry if his atonement was sufficient for you. You don't have to worry if he paid a price sufficient for your sin.

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He has promised you that if you will come to him, he will not cast you away, but he will receive you and give you eternal life and raise you up on the last day.

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There is atonement and sacrifice and blood at the cross of Christ outside the gate that is sufficient for your sin, and now he commands you to look to that substitute and place your faith in that substitute, or on the final day, you will be cast outside the gate, never to enter in again.

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We needed one who would stand in our place, and Christ is that one who stood in our place outside the gate where you took blasphemers, impure, defiled, law -breaking,

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Sabbath -violating, unclean, impure, human excrement of sinners.

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They took it outside the gate. Christ went there, and he paid the price for our sin.

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He died as our substitute. We needed one to stand in our place, and that is what Christ has done, and he commands you this day to look to him and to rest in that good news.

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Let's bow our heads. Our Father, we are thankful for the sacrifice of your Son, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and all the grace that you have poured out upon your people through that sacrifice. Thank you that one was taken outside the gate for us so that we might be welcomed into the gates of righteousness for all of eternity and never be cast out.

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Someday, there is coming a world and a kingdom and a creation in which no impure thing, no defiling thing, no sinner will ever enter in, and sin will defile it no more, impurity will defile it no more, transgression will mark it no more.

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We look forward to that date, that day, that time, that kingdom. We pray that you would strengthen and encourage our hearts together in your

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Word by that truth and that promise that you have given to us, that we rest upon it. Pray that any who are here who have never trusted

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Christ for salvation may find in that surety and in that substitute an atonement sufficient for their sin, and that they may come to Christ and worship and obey him, laying down their rebellion and their wickedness and taking up the righteousness of Jesus Christ by faith.

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We pray, O sovereign God and gracious Son, that you would receive the reward for your suffering and get take all that belongs to you, rightfully so.