Well, the book of Hebrews is all about the replacement of the old covenant with the new, demonstrating the superiority of the new covenant over the old, and the appointment of Jesus Christ as the believer's high priest under the terms of a new covenant.
And to that end, the writer of Hebrews lays forth evidence upon evidence upon evidence that these things are true. It shows the readers of the book of Hebrews, the original readers, of course, were Jewish people who had embraced Jesus as their savior, but some were being tempted to turn back to the old covenant. And so he shows them, and beyond them, us as well, that the old covenant priesthood has been replaced by the new. The old covenant worship has been replaced by the new. The earthly sanctuary of the old covenant has been replaced by the heavenly sanctuary of the new covenant. Animal sacrifices have been replaced with one effective eternal sacrifice. Everything is better under the new covenant, and the old is now forever gone. It served its purpose, but it cannot help anyone now because the fulfillment of the old covenant has arrived, and the old covenant has now been laid aside. Today as we move into chapter eight, we come to such a high priest, taking the language out of verse one.
Now this is the main point of the things we are saying. We have such a high priest who was seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens. Such a high priest, like the one that has been described in previous chapters before we come to chapter eight, like the one that is needed for sinners to have reconciliation with God, like the one that will continue to be described in the verses and chapters that follow our text for today. Such a high priest, as is described here, such a high priest who is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. A priest, number one, whose work has been accomplished. Number two, whose worth has been established. Number three, whose activity is in heaven. Number four, whose sacrifice has been completed, and number five, whose installment certified fulfillment. Excuse my coughing.
I don't think I'm contagious, but I might be irritating. First of all, a high priest whose work has been accomplished. Now this, the rite of Hebrews tells us in verse one of chapter eight, is the main point. I've been leading up to this. I've been leading up to telling you more about Jesus, our high priest.
He'd already introduced that thought previously. I have been expounding to you the appointment of Jesus as a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, quoting from Psalm 110 verse four repeatedly and explaining in great thoroughness what that text in the Old Testament is all about. And now I come to tell you what the main point of all of this is. And the main point is we have a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven. In other words, his work has been accomplished.
This is the main point. We have a high priest whose work has been accomplished. It's not waiting to be accomplished. It's not going onward toward accomplishment as the work of the priest in the Old Testament. We're continually doing. But we have a high priest who has accomplished forever.
Amen. The work that he was assigned to do, namely bringing about the reconciliation of sinners with Almighty God. This, of course, has meaning when we remember that the old covenant priest work was never done. It was never accomplished.
It was never finished. That is assumed rather than stated in our text in verse one. But these readers, being Jews, would well know the details of the old covenant priesthood. And they would know, no doubt, that in the tabernacle as prescribed by God, which plans were given to Moses, which he copied meticulously, in that tabernacle, though there were a number of articles of furniture, there was no chair, there was no bench, there was no place for anybody to sit down. If you know the articles of furnishings in the tabernacle and later the temple, which had the same ones, you know that in the outer courtyard there was an altar made of bronze where the animals were sacrificed. There was also a large laver made of bronze where ritual purification, washing of hands and so forth, was done before priests would enter into the holy place. Going into the holy place, there were three articles of furniture. There was a menorah, a candlestick that gave light to that part of the structure.
There was a table of showbread, a table upon which the prescribed bread was placed weekly and then replaced week after week after week. And there was also an altar of incense, a smaller altar than the one on the outside, one upon which incense was offered to God as a representation of our prayers to God. And then moving into the Holy of Holies, which only happened once a year when the high priest went in on the day of atonement, you would find one article of furniture, the Ark of the Covenant, upon which was, ironically, the mercy seat, as we call it, but it wasn't a seat. Nobody sat on it. It was more or less a lid, a covering for the Ark, and there the blood of the annual atonement from the day of atonement was poured out to cover the sins of God's people for one more year.
That's all the furnishings that were in the tabernacle and later the temple. And the priest, therefore, went about their duty continually working, moving, standing, acting according to the prescription that was given to them. And the whole time they were on duty doing these things, they did not sit down. They could not sit down, which symbolically portrayed the fact that their work was never done. They couldn't stop. They couldn't rest because there still was always more work to do. Sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice, day after day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, it was never done.
They never sat down. Because, and the reason why this is true that the sacrifices never accomplished their purpose, was because these Old Testament sacrifices, these animals, were not capable of reconciling sinners to a holy God. They were a, we might say, a stopgap measure that God gave mercifully with the promise that there would come one day a sacrifice that would reconcile sinners to God, and those who believed the promises of God would be reconciled to God on the basis of that future sacrifice, the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone could take away the sin of the world. But, as long as he had not come, these old covenant sacrifices had to go on and on and on and on and on, and the priest never sat down, and that's why there were so many of them, because it was hard work, and they couldn't ever finish, they couldn't rest until they went off duty.
Those who were on duty never stopped being active. The only way you could get a moment of rest was to go off duty and let somebody else replace you, and they would continue the work that had been going on for years and centuries, and thus it was that, under the old covenant, there was no rest for the priest because their work was never accomplished. Their work could only point to the need for an ultimate sacrifice. Their work could only be a reminder that men are sinners and need a sacrifice to reconcile them to God. Their work could only point to the need for an atonement that would meet the need and satisfy the righteous wrath of a holy God. The work they did could only point to the fact that there was a need for something to bring about reconciliation between a holy God and sinful men, but what they did could never accomplish that. But we have a high priest whose work has been accomplished.
Now this is the main point of the things we are saying. We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens, such a high priest who accomplished what the old covenant priest could not, such a high priest who is seated because his work has been accomplished, and therefore he can sit down because his work is done. His work is finished, and he is therefore seated in the heavenlies. And his sitting down at the right hand of the throne of God is an indication of many things, but one of the things it indicates is that his work is finished. It's a testimony to the finished work of Jesus Christ. He offered one sacrifice, namely himself upon the cross, and cried out, it is finished, and thereafter no more sacrifices were needed.
No more sacrifices could please the Lord in any way. The work had been accomplished by Christ forever and ever. And so he was seated. He is seated at the right hand of God, a powerful symbol of his accomplishment upon the cross of Calvary.
And so he is a high priest whose work has been accomplished. He is secondly a high priest whose worth has been established, again verse 1, because he is seated where? It's not only important that he is seated, the fact of his being seated, but where he sits. He is seated, we read, at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, the right hand of the throne of God.
And this we realize by the words of our text that this is the place of his acknowledged right. He's sitting where he qualifies to sit. He's sitting where he deserves to sit. He is sitting in his rightful seat, some translations have. He takes his seat, not is seated, but he takes his seat.
That is, he takes what is rightfully his. And where is that seat? It is, we are told, at the place of highest honor. It is at the right hand of the majesty on high, or the majesty in the heavens, which is another way of saying at the right hand of God. He is sitting at the right hand of God, and that is highly symbolic in the days in which this was written, where people were very conscious of where people sat, the right hand, the left hand, close to the host at the table or further away down at the foot of the table and so forth.
That was all very, very important, part of the custom and culture of that day. And to sit at the right hand of someone is to sit at the place of highest honor. And Jesus Christ is seated, and not just anywhere, he's seated at the right hand of the throne of almighty God, recognized as the place of highest honor.
And recognized as the place of divine authority. He is sitting on the throne of almighty God. He is sitting in the place where the ruler of the universe sits upon his throne, the majesty in the heavens. This tells us, therefore, that he is co-regent with the Heavenly Father, because he is, like the Heavenly Father, God almighty.
God is a triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And Jesus Christ is sitting on the throne of the ruler of the universe, because he is ruler of the universe, because he is God. And so he takes his rightful place in that position. He has been exalted. He has been enthroned. He is recognized as the supreme ruler of the universe.
And so his worth has thereby been established. We have a high priest whose work has been accomplished. We have a high priest whose worth has been established. We have a high priest, thirdly, whose activity is in heaven, not on earth.
Verse 2. He is a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord erected and not man. His activity is in heaven. He is the minister of the sanctuary of the true tabernacle.
Now, verse 5 elaborates on this a little bit more, but let's see what we are supposed to learn from verse 2. Jesus Christ's priestly ministry is not upon the earth. In the Old Covenant, obviously, the Levites ministered on the earth. Jesus Christ, the high priest, the only priest of the New Covenant, ministers in heaven. His ministry is not in the same place. He is not ministering in the tabernacle, which, as we will learn in verse 5, is an earthly replica of something greater in heaven, but he is ministering in heaven itself, not ministering in a symbolic tabernacle, not ministering in a place of worship, a location of human construction, not ministering in something that is a mere replica of something which is greater, not ministering in something which is simply an instructive reproduction of a greater reality, no, he is ministering in the heavenly original, not the earthly model, but the heavenly original, upon which the earthly has been modeled after. The heavenly sanctuary, some Bibles read, my translation says the ministry of the sanctuary, but a number of translations based upon various manuscripts, insert the word heavenly. He's the minister of the heavenly sanctuary as opposed to, in contrast with, the earthly sanctuary of the tabernacle or the temple. The true tabernacle.
That's an interesting way to put it. You say, does that mean the tabernacle that Moses constructed was a false tabernacle? No, this is not true as contrasted with false, but it is true as contrasted with a replica.
The replica points to the original, but it is not the original. And Jesus Christ ministers in heaven in the original, the true tabernacle, the lasting tabernacle, the heavenly reality, the true sanctuary, which is of divine construction. Now, admittedly, God gave the instructions for the earthly tabernacle, but he didn't construct it and drop it down from heaven. He gave men the instructions as to how to construct it, and it was constructed by men faithfully and obediently, according to the instructions given to them by God. But nevertheless, that tabernacle was constructed by men. That tabernacle was moved and pitched and moved and pitched and moved and pitched by men. But we have reference here to a true tabernacle, an original tabernacle, a lasting tabernacle in heaven, which is constructed by God himself.
Now, when you try to get into the details of what all that means, I think we get into the area of speculation because we're not told many details. But we are told that there is an original in heaven of which the earthly tabernacle was only a model, a replica, an important one, but nevertheless only a replica. There is a heavenly reality, a true sanctuary of divine construction, a sanctuary where reconciliation is actually accomplished, not just modeled, not just pointed to, not just reminding us that we need it, but it actually accomplishes the work where reconciliation takes place, reconciling sinners with a holy God. And this reconciliation is carried out by our, that is believers, new covenant high priest. The old covenant believers had representatives. They had priests, Levitical priests that did what they were commanded to do, and in that they represented men and women before God Almighty above and those who were obedient and believing in what they carried out were honored.
They honored God in their faith and God honored them with a righteousness which was based upon the future work of Jesus Christ who was yet to come. But New Testament believers have a high priest who has forever accomplished what the Old Testament priests could never do, and he accomplishes this in heaven, not upon earth. And so we have such a priest whose activity is in heaven. We have such a priest, number four, whose sacrifice has been completed, and we've already made reference to that, but notice how it's spelled out in verse three. For every high priest, that is earthly high priest, is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices.
Therefore, it is necessary that this one also have something to offer. The whole purpose of a priest is to have something to offer to God. The Levitical priests had something to offer to God. Jesus Christ, who is the priest after the order of Melchizedek, who is the high priest of all New Covenant believers, also has something to offer to God, and it's not spelled out here.
It is later, of course, in the passage. But what he has to offer to God is himself, his sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary. He became both the sacrifice and the priest who offered that sacrifice to God.
He was the only one who qualified to be the sacrifice. He was the only one who qualified to be a priest who could actually go into the very presence of God to offer the sacrifice which he had made. Old Testament priests offered sacrifices upon earth which were a way of mediating between God and man. They offered, our text tells us in verse 3, both gifts and sacrifices. Gifts are voluntary offerings. The Old Covenant made provision for those who wanted to offer extra offerings to God of various kinds.
Extra commitments, extra offerings of thanksgiving that were not the required offerings. But these, like the required offerings, had to be brought to God in the God-prescribed way, namely to a priest, to be mediated by a priest, to be offered to God on behalf of the worshiper by a prescribed priest, who therefore was the mediator of worshippers and God, the one who went between them. And so they offered gifts, voluntary offerings, and sacrifices, the propitiatory offerings, the required offerings, the animal sacrifices, the blood sacrifices that God required as a way of covering over sin until the Lamb of God should come. And all of these were conveyed, as we read, through earthly mediators.
And all of these were constructed, also as we read, to represent heavenly realities. They were not the true tabernacle. They were not the true sacrifices. They were not the effective sacrifice that was necessary to take away sin. But they taught about these realities.
They pointed to this reality. They gave those who believed that they were sinners in need of reconciliation a God-appointed way to deal with their sins, looking forward to the promised Messiah. But all of this work is being done on earth by priests that are men, Levitical priests, descendants of Aaron of the tribe of Levi. But there is another priest, the New Covenant priest, who is a heavenly priest, who is also a mediator, who also mediates a sacrifice between men and God, and presents that sacrifice in heaven. Again, verse 3, for every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices.
Therefore, it is necessary that this one also have something to offer, namely himself. A sacrifice presented in heaven. No priest but this one actually had access into heaven. That's why we need him to enter into heaven into the presence of the Father to represent us there. He presented himself to the Father as the effectual sacrifice for sin.
That's what we need. And that is the first aspect of his high priestly function. And that aspect has already been accomplished. When Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again from the dead, and rose and ascended, I should say, back into heaven, what did he do? But he formally presented his offering of himself to God the Father, and God the Father accepted that as an effectual sacrifice to deal effectively with the sins of all who trust in Christ, to deal effectively with the sins of all who belong to Christ, all who are his. He presented his sacrifice of himself to God the Father and said, Father, here's the sacrifice I have made on behalf of all of my elect people. This is for your propitiation.
This is the atonement for the sins of those who trust in me. And that, I say, is the first aspect of his high priestly function. Now, he has a second aspect that's not dealt with in this passage, but we know what it is. He is in heaven even now praying for us, making intercession for his people. His first priestly function in heaven was to offer himself, to make an offering for his people that was acceptable to God.
After that, and he sat down after that, that first function, it was completed, it was done forever. No more sacrifices to be made. But then after that, he makes intercession for his people continually and regularly, continually pointing back to the sacrifice which was made and was accepted by the Father. Father, this one has sinned again. All true born again believers relate to that statement. Yes, we have sinned again. This one has confessed their sin again. Father, I ask you to forgive them because their sin has already been propitiated in the sacrifice that I made on the cross of Calvary and that you accepted in heaven when I ascended to heaven above and therefore having accepted that sacrifice as sufficient for all the sins of all of your people, therefore I ask you to forgive Greg Barkman once again for his sin. And we have the assurance that that's exactly what happens. And yet we need to realize that this is necessary, that Jesus Christ continues to act as a priest, as a representative in heaven to intercede for his people in their sins and in their other needs. So what did we say?
Reviewing. We have such a high priest whose work has been accomplished. We have such a high priest whose worth has been established. We have such a high priest whose activity is in heaven. We have such a high priest whose sacrifice has been completed. And we finally have such a high priest whose installment certified fulfillment. When he was installed as high priest, that certified a fulfillment had taken place. And that's verses four, five and six.
We'll break it down. Verse four, the writer of Hebrews reminds his readers that Jesus was not a Levitical priest. Verse four, for if he were on earth, he would not be a priest. Since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law. The Levitical priesthood was an earthly priesthood.
What else could it be? The Levitical priesthood was a regulated priesthood. Jesus, even when he was on earth, before he went to heaven, did not qualify to be a Levitical priest because he wasn't of the tribe of Levi. And he was meticulous in obeying the law that his father, indeed he himself, had given. And so we are reminded once again that of the Levitical priest, their appointments were regulated by law.
They had to be descendants of Aaron of the tribe of Levi. Their activities were regulated by law. They were very carefully prescribed details of what they must do and must not do in carrying out their old covenant worship. Their activities, interestingly, according to the language of verse four, indicate that these activities were still operating at the time the book of Hebrews was written. The activities of the Levitical priests are not placed in the past tense even though we have been told that the new covenant has been installed and it has rendered the old covenant obsolete.
Nevertheless, the activities are still going on. Since, we read in verse four, there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law. Not were, but are.
Why? Because the book of Hebrews was written before 70 AD. What happened in 70 AD? The Romans destroyed the temple. The Romans destroyed Jerusalem. The Romans destroyed the place of sacrifice.
The Romans destroyed the activity of the priests. The Romans became an instrument in the hand of God to finalize the obsolescence of the old covenant worship that was still going on at the time Hebrews was written. But the activities were still operating when Hebrews was written as a testimony to the unbelief of many. Why were they still going on?
Because there were thousands of Jews who didn't believe that Jesus was the Messiah. So they were still operating according to the old covenant and the priests were still offering the sacrifices that were still going on. It was still going on as a testimony to the emotional power of religious ceremonies.
We all have to be aware of this and be on guard against it. There's nothing inherently wrong with a religious ritual, a religious ceremony that is biblically prescribed. Certainly nothing wrong with that or one that is honoring to God and is not prohibited in scripture. But there's always the danger, even in those places where we have biblically prescribed rituals and ceremonies. There's always a danger that people will get caught up in the external instead of the internal, in the ritual and the ceremony instead of the things of which the ritual and ceremony speak.
The physical realities instead of the spiritual realities, the temporal realities instead of the eternal realities. That was a danger in the first century. That's a danger in every century. We have to be on guard that we don't get caught up in our emotional attachment to a particular liturgy, a particular denomination or a particular form of worship that that becomes so important to us that we miss Jesus Christ in the midst of all of this. And that's what was happening in the first century. Thousands of Jews continued to worship, according to the old covenant prescription, because they missed the promise of the fulfillment in Jesus Christ who had come and fulfilled everything that the old covenant was pointing toward.
They missed it because of the emotional power of religious ceremonies. But we are told Jesus did not serve on the basis of old covenant law. He fulfilled it and replaced it. And so it doesn't matter that he didn't qualify under the law as a Levitical priest. He qualified under divine appointment as a new covenant high priest who fulfilled and dissolved the meaning, the purpose for the ritual from the old covenant. Jesus was not a Levitical priest. Verse four, Jesus did not serve types and shadows. Verse five, who the old covenant priest served the copy and shadow of the heavenly things.
As Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle for he, God said, see that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain. A copy and a shadow are the English words that are used in this text. A copy is something that is designed to resemble the original, but it's a copy. Sometimes it's a very close copy. We're all aware of art reproductions that are sometimes passed off as an original, but they aren't.
They're a copy, maybe a very good copy. I like to think of this in terms of maybe a model car or an airplane or a ship or the things that I used to be involved with as a young boy. And if I had a particular car that I liked, I might acquire a model, a plastic model and enjoy putting it together. It had a lot of details, had wheels, had a steering wheel, sometimes even had a trunk that opened, but it was only a model.
It resembled the original in some fashion, but it was a pretty pathetic acquirement alongside the original. It was satisfying as far as it went, but it didn't actually satisfy fully because it was simply a model. A model testifies to the existence of something greater.
A model reveals something of the concept of the original, tells us something about it. When I have a model of a particular car, I can recognize it. I've got a few car models still.
I'm not still a young boy, but I still like them. And I have a few model cars in my study at home. One of them is of a Ford Thunderbird, I think about a 1956 Thunderbird. And one of them is of a Mercedes Benz, that one that had the gull wings, you know what I'm talking about, the old classic Mercedes Benz that had the gull wing doors that opened up. And I may even have another one that I'm not remembering right off hand. But those are models.
They testify to the existence of something greater. I can recognize it. I can tell that that's a 56 Thunderbird, not a 57 Chevrolet. There's enough detail there that I can tell the difference of what the model is supposed to represent. But though it reveals a concept of the original, it does not replicate all the details of the original, for sure.
To do that, it would have to be the real thing, wouldn't it? But it's not. It's a model.
It's a scale model. And that's what this is telling us, that old covenant worship with the tabernacle, the temple, the priesthood, the sacrifices, all that went into that which was detailed. Old covenant worship testifies to something greater than itself. It always did for those who understood it.
That's all it ever did. It simply testified that there's something greater than this. This is the model. It's a copy, but it's not the real thing. It's a shadow.
That suggests an outline or a pale reflection. But notice how emphatically God told Moses to replicate every detail of the pattern that was shown to him on the mountain to make the copy exactly the way that God wanted it made. Even though it was not the original, it had a purpose, a divinely designed purpose, and it must be made according to divine instructions in order to carry out its divinely ordained purpose. If Moses and those who did the construction deviated from the pattern, it would obscure the intended meaning of the copy, the purpose for which God gave it to point to something else. But even at its best, when all of the details were carried out perfectly, it was merely only and always a symbol of something real, a symbol of the original, a symbol of something not on earth, but in heaven, the heavenly sanctuary as it is called here.
And Jesus, therefore, verse six, we are told, serves the divine original. But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry than the Levitical priest on earth in as much as he is also mediator of a better covenant which was established on better promises, a more excellent ministry because he serves the heavenly original, not the earthly copy, a better covenant because it rests upon heavenly reality, not upon earthly symbols, based upon better promises because it rests upon fulfilled gospel promises, not unfulfilled old covenant previews. That old covenant was mighty important until Jesus came and inaugurated the new covenant and then the old covenant was useless except for the purpose of going back and studying it as we can do today to see the relationship and the fulfillment in Jesus Christ. There's a lot to learn there, but we've got to be careful that we don't get so enthralled with all these interesting details about the old covenant that we fail to grasp the fulfillment in Jesus Christ who replaced that old covenant and it no longer has any saving purpose, it no longer has any sanctifying purpose, it no longer serves the divine purpose because now Christ has come to fulfill the old covenant in establishing the new.
Well let me mention two or three applications before I close. Number one, all of this, not only today's text but similar ones that we've been studying about the work of Jesus as the high priest, should enlarge our appreciation for the high priestly work of Christ, something that it's easy for Christians to fail to do, to overlook. A new Christian is usually pretty much focused upon the death of Christ upon the cross.
To him that's the whole thing, that's the whole nine yards. Jesus died on the cross, he paid the price, I trust in him, my sins are forgiven. And then as Christians grow a little bit they begin to realize well not only was his death highly significant, but so was his life. I not only need a sacrifice to pay the penalty for my sins, but I need a righteousness which God requires but I don't have, but that too was acquired by Jesus Christ, my redeemer, my representative. And so when I trust in Christ there's a double imputation. God imputes to Jesus all my sins and he bore them on the cross.
God imputes to me the righteousness of Christ and now in his sight I'm as righteous as Christ is. So now I have appreciation not only for the death of Christ, but for the life of Christ. There are a lot of Christians that haven't gotten that far yet. But get onto that part too.
But don't stop there. Also develop an appreciation for the high priestly work of Christ. That he presented his sacrifice in heaven as our high priest. And he continues to represent us before the throne of God as our high priest. He has a work in heaven that's going on that we need to appreciate even as much as we appreciate his death upon the, well first of all his sinless life upon the earth in perfect obedience to all the requirements of God's law. And secondly his death on the cross as the substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of those who trust in him. But now his work as high priest in heaven in presenting that sacrifice and in representing us before God. And in large appreciation for the high priestly work of Christ.
What else? We should learn here also the importance of conformity to God's revelation as much as we are able to conform to what God has revealed. Think about the old covenant qualifications for priest.
We talked about this before. Carefully prescribed a priest must be of the tribe of Levi and he must be a descendant of Aaron of the tribe of Levi. Therefore Jesus Christ himself the virgin born incarnate son of God could not serve as a Levitical priest even though he as God established the whole system of the Levitical priesthood.
Why not? Because for him to do so would be to violate the commandment of God and Jesus never did that. Even he in his humanity did not would not violate the command of God.
He upheld every command of God perfectly. We his people should endeavor to do the same. We should not only obey commands like this one. None of us are trying to worm our way into the Levitical priesthood I'm sure. But we need to give that kind of reverent attention and obedience to all of divine revelation.
It must not be altered. Good intentions are not justification for deviating from divine revelation. Well I know the Bible says this but I think it would be better to do this.
As I was reviewing all this this morning one illustration of this came to mind and I said if I say this one it's going to blow a lot of people away but I'm going to use it anyway. It's probably been 30 or 40 years ago now I remember having a discussion with a godly man, a soul winning evangelist and a missionary who loved the Lord greatly but I said to him have you noticed that you can't find any place in the Bible where Jesus or any of the apostles ever presented the gospel to anyone by saying God loves you? He just couldn't accept that. All of his life he'd been taught to present the gospel in those terms. He couldn't present it without that.
He couldn't think about it without that. The only way to talk to sinners was to start out by saying you need to know God loves you and I challenge you to find. Now God does have an immense love. I'm not denying the love of God. It's immense.
It's great. But let's take a close look at the Bible. I say find any place in the Bible where you can find anyone saying to a sinner God loves you. That's not the approach that Christ or the apostles took.
We do read of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus when he walked away sorrowfully. He was walking away and it says Jesus loved him but Jesus didn't tell him that. He did love him but he didn't tell him that. He didn't say I love you.
Follow me because I love you so much. He talked to him in terms of his breaking of the commandments of God. You say you've kept them all from your youth up?
Let's test this one out. The last one about covetousness. If you want to have salvation, go sell all you have and give to the poor and come follow me. And he walked away sorrowing because he had great possessions. He wasn't willing to obey that commandment. And he walked away and the Bible tells us Jesus loved him but we read nowhere that Jesus told him that he loved him.
We don't find any place where Paul said in his evangelistic messages one on one or to congregations, to gatherings of people God loves you. That's not the approach you find in the Bible. Now why is that so ingrained in our evangelical thinking that we aren't even willing to consider that that might not be true? Because we're more committed to doing things the way we think will work the best. We have good intentions than we are to paying close attention to the Bible and realizing that if God doesn't do it that way there must be a reason maybe we should start doing it the way that the people in the Bible did it.
Is that such a novel? Is that such a weird exhortation? Do it the way the Bible has laid it out for us.
Follow what you see given to you on the mountain. Now not every detail of everything that we are to do or not to do is prescribed in the Bible and where it's not we have Christian liberty. But where it is we are to follow the pattern that has been given to us in scripture.
We must do this in our homes and families. If the Bible has certain instructions for how homes are to operate and for the roles of husband and wife and mother and father and so forth we are to follow those instructions. To fail to do so is going to bring about severe unwelcome consequences and we see that in the world all around us today. In churches and religious organizations we are to follow the instructions that are given to us in the Bible. To fail to do so is going to bring havoc to Christianity and we see examples of that all around us in the Christian world today, Christendom today. And in society there are certain things that God has said need to be done this way and not that way. And when that is followed society thrives much more readily, not perfectly because it doesn't take away man's sinful nature.
But it thrives much better and when that is ignored society doesn't thrive very much at all. It begins to the wheels begin to fall off. We need to have the humility to find out what the Bible says and follow the pattern that was given to us on the mountain. And with that I will close. Father take your word and seal it to our hearts as we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.
