Glorious Symbols (Part B)

Jesus will say, and I don't like this sometimes, I must admit, if you love me, keep my commandments.

If you love me, love others. Because my flesh is my flesh that doesn't like. My spirit has never disagreed with Christ.

It has never found anything that he has said burdensome. I can always see the wisdom and the glory behind it, that it is right, it is good, it is beneficial, it is better than anything else. But my flesh, it can't stand anything Jesus says. And anything that he says that is right, it goes into action to resist it. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Hebrews.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Glorious Symbols is the title of Pastor Rick's message, and today he'll be teaching in Hebrews chapter 9. Aaron, his priesthood was challenged by Dathan and his group. The ground would later open up and swallow up the rebels. You would think many Christians who start trouble in churches would read that section of scripture.

You know what, maybe we better not, this might not be a good idea. Now I've not ever prayed that the ground would open up and swallow some people, but I have come close. Can you do the sidewalk, Lord? Anyway, well, the rod, that dead stick, it's like you would go down to a store and buy a cane, and then miraculously it would sprout ripe almonds. That would be quite a miracle. And that was Aaron's rod where God, it spoke of Jesus Christ and his resurrection.

The dead thing coming to life is the power of God. That's one of the things we see in that. It's initial application was don't mess with God's men.

That is the initial meaning. When we get to Hebrews chapter 13, the writer is going to say, watch yourselves with those who rule over you. That word rule over is not too harsh.

It's not strong enough. It means in the house of God these men have been assigned this task that nobody, many others don't want it. No one should enter into this lightly. It is for the good of the body of Christ. And whenever it is stripped away, you're not left with a church.

You're left with a social club. But when you have men of God who stand as men of God, you know, Paul said, Titus, don't let them stick pins in you. Don't take that mess. If they're wrong and you're right in scripture and this is a moral issue, then straighten it out. But you just make sure you're not wrong.

You make sure that they, they and their charges are not correct because then we got a bigger issue. You know the high priest, when he was at that day of atonement, he first had to offer a bull for himself. The nation got a ram.

He had a bull. One of the pictures is your sins oh high priest is this big. And their sins is that small. In contrast, because of the responsibility that you bear. And so James says, don't all of you rushed into the pastoral ministry because you have a higher standard.

I got a stunt double to take my judgment for me. But anyway, the upside is we know the mercy of God. Who am I to go up here and speak from God's word? I go through this and thank God the Lord just says, you know, get.

Go get her done. And, and that's, that's it. All right, I've drifted off on the high priest and Aaron's rod.

Now I don't know where I am, but I'm coming back. He says, which had the golden censer and the Ark of the Covenant. Now the golden censer, he's referring to that golden altar where they would take the coals and the incense off and put it into a portable censer and go behind the veil with the prayers of the people. And this was a good thing. It was an honorable thing. And only again, Aaron and his descendants, the high priest could do this once a year on the day of atonement.

It is known today as Yom Kippur, but it is the day that one of seven feast where the Jews were to take stock of their sins and to afflict their souls. Six of the feast were to be just that, joyful celebrations and only one was to be one of soul affliction. And I think that is very informative that God wants us to have joy as Christians, not walk around moping all the time. But yet there are times when we have to take inventory of ourselves and that usually is not very pleasant to think about our shortcomings and how we have failed and what we could have done better and yet did not do it. God gives us a lifetime to straighten these things out.

And so this hopefully creates a spirit of humility in the sense that, now not humiliation, but humility. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The poor in spirit say I don't have enough. Whatever it is that God wants, I don't have enough.

I'm too poor. But in Christ I'm made rich. In Christ he gives me an abundance.

In Christ I have his wealth made available to me and no Christian should be on the sidelines understanding that God is going to make himself available to you if you serve. And so the Ark of the Covenant, we come to that now. Now let me go back again to the incense. The incense was prepared outside the veil away from the temple. That's where they had the special recipe that no one else could use and they used it to make the incense that would be used in this ritual on the Day of Atonement. But its ultimate goal was to make it into the presence of God. That was the goal of making that incense. And for the high priest, he needed that.

He had to have that. And you see in this such a picture, there are things that God does in my life. He prepares me. He gets me ready to do things in his presence to serve as his priest, as his representative in my own life. And I find that very, very helpful to understand again here's the high priest, he goes in with the incense but that incense was prepared somewhere else as a process that belongs to serving the Lord and when it is honored it is very effective. And then there was the Ark of the Covenant which contents I've already spoken about Aaron's butted rod that spoke speaks of the Lord's resurrection. The manna that speaks of Christ also in the fact that he is the bread of life.

Are there other applications? Absolutely. You can go in different areas but the first, the first is the Lord Jesus. Then there are the Ten Commandments, the tablets which were rewritten because Moses broke them because the people broke the law and Moses lost his temper which was, which was characteristic of Moses. Anyway, the Ten Commandments they speak of the word of God which is Christ.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Jehovah Witnesses evidently don't have that in their Bibles and if they could get it out they would. It says overlaid with gold. So the Ark of the Covenant, the incense altar, both of those were made of acacia wood and then they were gold plated we would say, overlaid with, with gold. Well if God had said I want you to make this, the tabernacle of Moses that they would carry with them around the wilderness, if he had said I want the, the golden altar made of solid gold they never would have been able to lift it.

They would have to get a stiff leg derrick in there just to get it off the ground. And so the Lord in his wisdom gave them that which was beautiful and able to bear. And so he said take the wood, overlay it with gold. And Moses, tabernacle, he took this gnarled wood that he hewed from the acacia tree encased it in gold so that when the people looked at the boards or when they looked at any part of those items that were overlaid in gold they didn't see the wood.

They only saw the beauty of the gold. And the same thing is true of God when he sees us. He doesn't see the, what's underneath. He sees the beauty of Christ that's on top in this application. Of course God sees the heart. I'm not going there.

I'm not using that type of an illustration. When God looks at you, if you are a born again Christian, if you love the Lord Jesus Christ, and if you have no other Lord but the Lord Jesus Christ, and he looks at you, he sees his son. That's what it means to be washed in the blood. Second Corinthians chapter five verse 21. For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Otherwise God would look at us and see us as the sinners we are and that would be the end of it.

And that would eliminate the joy that we have. The grace that is upon us. We're supposed to look at people as souls lost and saved. Brothers and sisters in the faith or those who are damned in their present state and in need of Jesus Christ. It's a very difficult thing to do.

We're all going to get a chance to prove it again when we get in our cars and share the road with them or go to the store or back to the workplace tomorrow morning. These various pieces of tabernacle furniture. They were to speak to the Jews and the writer to the Hebrews is saying, listen to me.

These articles pointed towards him and you know it. Don't throw it away. Verse five. And above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat of these things. We cannot now speak in detail.

Well, he doesn't have the time to go into it as much as he would like to open it up to them. But where he says above it was the cherubim of glory that on the mercy seat overshadowing the mercy seat of these things we cannot speak. It was barred from the people but that is not the case now. That veil that hung between the holy place and the holiest of all at the crucifixion of Christ. When he gave up the spirit, that veil was torn from top to bottom, symbolically saying each individual, each sinner can come right into the presence of God and seek forgiveness and salvation from the Lord. You do not have to wait on a priest.

You do not have to offer up a bowl or go through a ritual. You can freely come and repent at the throne of God. Matthew 27 verses 50 and 51. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. Then behold the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom and the earth quaked and the rocks were split. God emphasized what he was doing. Romans chapter five verse one.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have access by faith into his grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. No one has an excuse why they can't speak to God, why they cannot go into his presence now. You can't say well there's a veil there.

I can't do that. I have to get a high priest to represent me. Well you have one in Christ Jesus and he's torn that veil out.

And not only has he torn the veil away, he sat on the throne. And he says freely come. You come to me and you repent. Verse, over the bottom of verse five, of these things we cannot speak in detail.

Again, always more things to learn. Never enough time about God. Verse six. Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priest always went into the first part of the tabernacle performing services. That performing means they serve. Real worship always leads to real service.

Not busy body work. Faith expresses itself in worship. And worship is expressed in obedience, in desire, in service. It's not just one thing that makes up worship. There are many things.

There are many components to it. All kings have servants. And all servants serve the king.

And that should describe much of what Christianity should be. Servants who serve the king. So when we say I am the king's man. I am the king's woman.

Do we mean it? Jesus will say, and I don't like this sometimes, I must admit, if you love me, keep my commandments. If you love me, love others. Because my flesh is my flesh that doesn't like. My spirit has never disagreed with Christ.

It has never found anything that he has said burdensome. I can always see the wisdom and the glory behind it. That it is right, it is good, it is beneficial, it is better than anything else. But my flesh, it can't stand anything Jesus says. And anything that he says that is right, it goes into action to resist it. And so the war between the spirit and the flesh. Now I believe that the flesh and the spirit, they fight it out. They're two dogs fighting. And the dog that wins is the dog that is fed the most.

But it is, that is simplifying the problem. It's true. In the end, I will win because I have fed the righteous part of me more than the unrighteous part by my will. And when I get to heaven, I will say amen. And so will you when I get to heaven.

And you when I get there. It is really difficult to continue that fight. When the Bible says, take up the shield of faith that you may be able to quench the fiery darts. It is not playing around. It's not a cute little statement.

It is a very serious thing because there are going to be fiery darts that are almost impossible to quench. You cannot stop them. When it says, take on the breastplate of righteousness. Your flesh doesn't want to be righteous. It wants to be right. It wants to have what it wants right away. But righteousness, Christ's likeness, it doesn't want that. It doesn't have that impulse, that desire.

It's not built for it. It's cursed. But the spiritual man, the inner man, wants that breastplate of righteousness. And Satan hates that you want it.

And so when you fail, you get back up. You are aggravating hell. And you are being rooted for, you are being cheered on by the angels, by the Lord himself. And so you may say, I have fed the spiritual man and that dog is not one to fight. Fight's not over.

It won't be over until you drop dead. And then begins a glorious eternity that these items spoke of. Verse 7, but into the second part, the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people, sins committed in ignorance. Now, again, this is the holy place. This once a year is the Day of Atonement for the Jew. And God did not want his people, as I mentioned earlier, to spend their life mourning, and so the ratio was six to one, but not without blood. Blood in connection with approaching God to the New Testament, to the New Testament believer, to Christians. It always speaks of the cross of Christ, the place where he died. Is that real to you?

Is it real to you that Christ died? This is one of the disconnects when we see Christians in the church going to the world for answers that Christ says I deal with. These are mine. Human behavior is mine.

It does not belong to a psychologist or psychiatrist. If you belong to me, your behavior belongs to me. Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for my burden is easy, my yoke is easy, my burden is light.

Those are poetic words. Till you have to live them over and over and over again, till you come to the place where the burden feels too much to bear, where the yoke is too hard, what are you going to do then as a Christian? Well, if you are a Christian, you can't do anything but call on the Lord. You're going anywhere.

Nothing will move you from your faith. You might not like what you have to go through, but you're going to go through it. You're going to go through it saying this, Lord, I want you. I want your presence. I want you to be real to me. I don't want my religion to be memorized or rehearsed to the point where the blood of the cross has faded into something that it is no longer to me.

I always want it to be very real, to be very desired. And so when he says, once a year, not without blood, to the Christian that part, not without blood, that's what stands out to us. Not the once a year, Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement, that's all secondary.

The primary thing is the blood of Christ because without it I'm doomed. He says, which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed in ignorance. All the way back in the ancient times there were sins people committed and they sometimes did not even see their sins. Sometimes you and I, we sin and we don't even know what we've done. We've missed the mark. We've not done what God wants us to do.

We may not be conscious of it. We are all guilty before the Lord. There's not one righteous, no, not one. In essence, all of us are sinners. Unintentional sin.

First John chapter 1 verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Well, back then the Gnostics were coming along downsizing sin. Today we have other people that are know-it-alls and they try to downsize sin. Sin's not so bad.

It's the worst thing that has happened to the human race, sin. And so an impenitent heart as opposed to God refusing to submit to him as God, but the one that does repent, repents at the cross and is the blood of Christ that cleanses us from all sins. Not the word of God, it is the blood of Christ. Nothing but the blood of Christ moves my sin and I need the word of God. Come to that in a little bit. We've got another hour ahead of us.

Almost done. Verse 8, and the Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing. And so he says, so long as the temple is up, there remains the need. That Old Testament, as long as that curtain was there, it was not complete. The Spirit was indicating this. But once Christ has come, it's done away with and you want to go back to it.

And that should have hit them right between the eyes. It may not hit us too much because we're not suffering from the identical temptation that they were struggling with, but we have a parallel one. If we think about it a little bit, one must see that heaven is out of the question without Jesus Christ. There is no heaven without Jesus Christ. And attempts to break in and enter in any other way is not only futile, but it damns the soul. And that's why Jesus said, I am the door.

And anyone who tries to come in through the window is a thief and a robber and will be dealt with as such. Verse 9, it was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience. That word symbolic is in the Greek, which it was originally written in, is the same word we get our English word parable from. So he's saying it was a story. The temple in the wilderness served as a picture board for believers. It told a story. Everything from the curtains that surrounded the outer court, the brazen altar, the laver, as you go into, all these things were speaking of Christ and God's dealing with sin.

The Levitical system was a visual lesson to anybody who would receive it. Facts behind religion must be greater than the religion. Part of the thing can't be greater than the thing itself. If you have a religion, but there's nothing to back it up, then it's useless. It's like having currency.

I don't want to go too far on this one. If you take money that has nothing to back it up, then it has no power. I'll get out of that.

I made my point earlier and I'll leave it there. Hebrews 10, for the law having a shadow of the good things to come and not the very image of the things can never with these same sacrifices, which they continually offer year by year, make those who approach perfect. He's saying you can't get to heaven with the Levitical system. You can't bring the blood of a goat or a sheep or a bull and land in heaven eventually.

That won't do it. That is his appeal to them. And so the need for the Savior, John 16, 8, and when he has come, he will convict the world of sin of righteousness and judgment to come. And that's how we get born again. We get convicted. We are convinced that he holds the keys over the freedom from sin, over the giving of righteousness, and over the judgment to come.

And we side with him. And in so doing, we are saved. Verse 9, verse 10, concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation. So he's saying your rituals that you want to go back to, they have served their purpose. They've made their point.

They now have no power. And that word reformation at the end of verse 10 means to straighten thoroughly. And what he is saying is, but when Christ comes, those things were planned to serve a purpose, to teach lessons until Christ came. Well, we're not going to get as far as chapter verse 15. And so we'll stop there at verse 10 with the glorious symbols that God has left for us. If you are outside of Christ, why are you? Why do you not believe? Why do you stiff on the God of glory who died for you?

So that when you die, you could go to an eternal place in glory. You've been listening to Cross Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's podcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply log on to crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com or simply search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Hebrews right here on Cross Reference Radio.