In this sermon, the preacher focuses on the role of Jesus as a high priest who can empathize with our temptations and sufferings. The preacher references Hebrews chapter 4, specifically verse 14, to emphasize the importance of holding fast to our faith in Jesus. The preacher also discusses the Old Testament practice of sacrificing animals and how it was insufficient in clearing the conscience. Instead, the preacher highlights the power of the cross of Jesus Christ in bringing forgiveness and empowerment to live according to God's will. The sermon concludes with a reflection on the need to examine our hearts and areas of spiritual deadness in our lives.

Hello, welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold. You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www.charityministries.org. If you would like a catalog of other sermons, please call 1-800-227-7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, Ephrata, PA 17522. These messages are offered to all without charge by the freewill offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. May the Lord Jesus bless each one of you and grant each one of you ears to hear and open hearts this morning. That's my prayer. Can we just stand on our feet and ask God's blessing on this next hour? Lord Jesus, I bring my request and I bring this congregation to you. Not us, Lord, but Thy Word. Let Thy Word speak to every heart here this morning. I pray this morning that You would clear away every hindrance out of every heart, that You would unstop deaf ears, Lord. We're living in the New Covenant. Let Thy Spirit unstop men's ears. Let it not be said here that we are dull of hearing. Help us, Lord. Put away the distractions of business and life and other difficulties, and I pray that Your Word might speak. Have Thine own way, Spirit of God, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Thank you. You can be seated. Well, I wanted to welcome the guests that we have here this morning. I see we have a few special ones that I know. Welcome, Lee. God bless you. Good to see you all here. I'm on my way to Canada. Tonight I'll be leaving and heading up there for a week of meetings, and they had asked me if I would speak for seven sessions on comparisons with the Old and New Covenant. Very interesting subject for me, and at first I thought, well, I don't know if I'm really interested in that subject, but in preparation for it, I've been praying and asking God to open up inspiration to me, and I read through the book of Hebrews and was blessed by the openness of the book to me. And I would like here this morning, if I can, to comment on various portions of Hebrews throughout the book, and hopefully get a feel for the message, the general message of the book of Hebrews, because while we look at Hebrews and say, wow, 13 chapters, the author actually says, for I have written a letter unto you in few words. And I would say he says true. If you sit down and just read the book of Hebrews through, you'll see that what he has to say is not a long message. It's a very short message, actually. He just has a lot to say about it, and it might take you a couple hours. But in light of the subject, it's very little that is said here about the whole subject. So I'd like to begin at the beginning of Hebrews, if you'll turn in your Bible there. My prayer this morning is that the truth of the Word of God might touch the area of your life that it pertains to this morning. I was blessed, Brother Jonah, by your opening there and how it pertains. Also, I was thinking in my own life, I wanted to make one comment about your message. You know, when Jesus says you are dead, you know, you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead. When I read those verses, there are areas of life that if you're dead in and you've been alive there before, you know it. Something about the Word of the Lord Jesus to say, I know you have a reputation to be alive, but you're dead. And something about that just makes you want to examine your heart. And you know, I wonder if I am dead in this area. This area, I used to be more alive in that area. And that's what it did to me. I want God to touch every area of my heart. I want to be alive through and through. Jesus said, I've come to give them life. And I want to be a tuning fork too, Brother David. A real clear E. Actually, let me begin in the book of Deuteronomy. Let's turn there. Deuteronomy 4.32. Now, if you remember, Deuteronomy is the rehearsal of Moses. Am I right there? I think Deuteronomy is the book. Yes. Yes, Deuteronomy is the rehearsal of Moses to the young ones that did not die in the wilderness. And he's rehearsing to them everything that God has done. And he says in 4.32, he says this. Listen to these words. For ask now of the days that are past which were before thee, since the days that God created man upon the earth. And ask from one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it. He says, go across the world. Ask everyone you meet. Have you ever heard? Have you ever heard? He says, go to heaven. One end of heaven all the way to the other if you're able to. And ask everywhere. Angels, planets, whatever you might find out in heaven. Ask them, has there ever been anything like it? Did ever a people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire as thou hast heard it and live? God says, ask. Ask everybody since the beginning of the world. It's never happened. It's new. It's special. Or hath God assayed to go and take a nation from the midst of another nation by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by wars, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? Unto thee it was showed that thou mightest know that the Lord, He is God, there is none else beside Him. So God Himself says, it's never been done. What I did at Mount Sinai has never been done in all the universe. You can go anywhere and ask. It's never been done. What He did there was unique when He made a covenant with a people to be His people. I think it's marvelous, maybe beyond our understanding, to think that the God of heaven would make a covenant with dust of earth. When you think of that, the Bible says that God humbleth Himself to look at the heavens. The things, you know, that we have the Hubble up there trying to scope out the extents of. God has to look down to see them because He's so high. And yet He made a covenant with a group of people at Sinai. And God says, ask anywhere. No one will tell you, oh yeah, that's old. Somebody else did that. Nobody ever did that. No God ever did that. Alright, in the book of Hebrews, let's begin the second chapter. It says there, in the first verse, it says, Therefore, we ought to give more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. And I assume that what we're doing here this morning is just that. We're going to rehearse some things and give heed to these things lest they slip. And the Bible says they can slip. Therefore, they must be able to slip. They can slip. These things that are precious to us can slip. And we lose them somewhere along life's road. So let's give more earnest heed lest they slip. Turn now to Hebrews 2.10. Hebrews begins talking about Jesus as the center. I'm assuming that most of you have a general feel for the message of Hebrews. But it's talking of Jesus and it says, For it became Him, pardon me, He's been talking about Jesus. This is speaking actually of the Father. For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, that's the work of God, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. I like that. Look at the term that the Scripture gives to the Lord Jesus here. It says, It was becoming of God, He's the one for whom all things are made, and by whom all things are made. It was fitting for Him to make the captain of our salvation. That's how Scripture refers to the Lord Jesus. He's like the captain of our salvation. The chief of our salvation. Look at verse 218. For in that He Himself hath suffered, He is able to succor them that are tempted. Does anybody know what the word succor means? What does succor mean? Comfort or relieve? To come to someone's aid, to support? It's like when someone is in need, you know, they're weak, they've come to the end of their ability, succor is to come under and lift them up, and aid them, and encourage them, and build them up, and help them along the way. This says that Jesus knows what it feels like to suffer. He knows what it's like to be tempted by evil. And He's able to come to us, when we're tempted, and we're suffering, and hold us up, because He's been there as a high priest. Okay, chapter 4. Turn to chapter 4. Now, I'm moving pretty quickly. You'll notice I'm skipping large things. There could be a lot said, but these are just points of interest, and things that stood out as I was going through this chapter. This book, I mean. I have the wrong passage written here. Come boldly before the throne of grace. 4.16, thank you. Yeah, in verse 4, starting in 14, that's what I meant. Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed through into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. The thing I'd like to point out of this is, too, Jesus is put forward here as a great high priest, and we're going to talk about great high priests a little bit, but notice what His service is in the office of high priest. What two things does it say His service are? When you come to the throne of the great high priest, He serves you two things, it says here. What's the first thing He serves you? Mercy. You know, priesthood is made for mercy. If there was no mercy, there'd be no priesthood. Priesthood, by definition, is mercy. Why would you need a priest? Priesthood is mediation between two opposing parties. There has to be a merciful heart on one side or the other in order for there to be any mediation. Priesthood is mediation, and the first part of priesthood is mercy. The second part of priesthood is grace. Grace is that kindness that reaches out and gives the help that's needed in the moment. And the Bible tells us here, let us come boldly unto the throne of grace. Is that how you come to the throne of grace? Is that how you come to the throne of grace? Or do you feel like things in your life are hindering your welcome at the throne of grace? Do you think that the failures of your life are hindering you at the throne of grace? You can't see mercy there. You can't see grace there. Well, hear the word of the Lord this morning. It will stand like a mountain towering far above the works of men. Its pages glow this morning with this message. It says the throne of grace is a place where God is ready to give mercy and grace. There's a high priest sitting on that throne that is ready with mercy and grace. God help us to just hear the word of God and come that way. The Scripture says boldly. But I find in my own life in order to come boldly, then I have to let go everybody else. How can a soul hold on to bitterness towards someone else and then expect mercy and grace at a throne of mercy and grace? It requires a yielding and a giving of mercy and grace, but a receiving of mercy and grace. It's the throne of the Lord Jesus. The high priest of our faith. In chapter 5, notice that it says, every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men. Every priest is ordained for men. That's what priesthood is all about. If men had no need, there'd be no ordination. But the priesthood is for men. Men need priests, and so men are ordained. In fact, the book of 1 Peter says that we are a royal priesthood. A holy nation. Every one of us serves to stand between God and man. And we are ordained as a priest for men to God. A priest stands here and man comes to him and God comes to him and the man stands between the two. Speaks God to the man and speaks the man to God. That's priesthood. And in the priesthood, there's mercy and grace. What if there were no mediation in the world? Think about it for a moment. What if there were no mediation? Two opposing parties could have no mediation. What would it be like? What if there was no mediation between man and God, but God left His back turned to us and we are backs to Him? What would the result be? There'd be no blessing in our hearts. There'd be no joy. None of the things that you've experienced since childhood would be yours. It'd be dark. It'd be empty. Bitter. Angry. If there was no mediation. Mediation is important in our world. Notice here also it says, Priests, this man who is ordained for man to God, who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way. For that He Himself also is compassed with infirmity. That's a beautiful verse for us priests to lay hold of. Here's a description of human priesthood. Just like a priest can have compassion, Christians should also be able to have compassion. Why do we have compassion? Because we also are compassed with infirmity. I know my weakness. When I look at a man who is in need in his life, I see my need. And the Scripture says the result should be compassion. Just like I want mercy at the throne of grace, I want to give him mercy at the throne of grace. If you've read the book of Hebrews, you'll find that this is all based upon faith. In our lives, we cannot live the life of faith. Have you tried? Have you ever tried just living the life of faith? You know, in your own power, in your own strength, okay, I'm going to be a Christian. And you go forward to be a Christian and be faithful and believe God. And you get into the world, and you get into the daily things of life, and you find yourself falling and falling and weakness and doubt and fear and failure in your life. Laboring to rest, which it talks about in Hebrews 4 there, means keeping faith alive and avoiding those things that hinder faith and welcoming those things that strengthen faith. The work of faith is to put myself in places where my faith will be built. Like this morning, you're sitting here, and I hope you're sitting here, because you know that you have a need for your faith to be built this morning. And we don't go places where our faith is torn down. We welcome those things that build our faith, and we stay away from those things that are going to break down our faith. But if you look at the whole spectrum of it, if you've been in Christ any length of time, you can't do it. You can't do it. You need a high priest. You need a place you can go and get mercy for your failures and get grace to help to walk the Christian life of faith. Don't you? Turn to Hebrews chapter 6. Jesus said, Without Me ye can do nothing. And sometimes we write those words off as the words of Jesus there in Nazareth or in the synagogue of Capernaum there. But I wonder if we could hear those words this morning where He sits enthroned at the right hand of God the Father that He should make intercession for us. And He says, Without Me you can do nothing. You can't even believe. You cannot hold on to faith without Me. If you're not looking to Me and coming to Me, we need the high priest. In Hebrews chapter 6, it is speaking of the high priesthood of Jesus Christ. And look what it says. Starting in verse 14, it says, For when God made promise to Abraham because He could swear by no greater, He swore by Himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so after He had patiently endured, He obtained a promise. For men verily swear by the greater. And that's the way oaths used to be. We don't know a lot about oaths, but in Jewish times, when a man really wanted to persuade another man that he meant what he was saying, he would give an oath. As the Lord liveth. We hear that in the Old Testament. As the Lord liveth. And that oath, when that came out of His mouth, that persuaded everyone, well, there's nothing surer than that the Lord liveth, and so He must really mean what He's saying. And the Scripture says, Men swear by the greater. Nobody swears by, you know, I wouldn't swear by my child, or, you know, my dog. You know, as sure as, you know, my dog lives. Or, you know, something like that. I mean, men don't reach down to persuade men that they're serious. They put somebody up higher. Than them. They reach for someone higher. That's the purpose of the oath, is to verify my words based upon one greater than I. Men swear by the greater. And an oath for confirmation is the end of all strife. When a man swears, that should be the end of it. You know, God is my witness, is an oath that calls God's accountability on what I'm saying. And it's the end of the strife. Now, listen to these verses. Verse 17, it says, wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise, that's us, right? The heirs of promise. God was willing to more abundantly show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel. That means unmuting. It does not mutate. It never changes. His counsel will never change. The counsel that I have for you will never change. And He says, I want you to know that. It says, therefore God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, He confirmed it by an oath. So here's this conversation God is having with you, saying, I really want to give you a priesthood. I want to mediate between you and me. I really want you to approach me. I want to make things open between you and I. And our hearts, right, are the ones that are saying, I don't think God loves me. How could God love one like me? Look at what I've done. Look at where I'm at. How could God love me? Has anybody ever been there? And this conversation is going on between God and man. And God, in His heart, it says, is willing more abundantly to show to man, I do. I have a good intention for you. My heart is open towards you. I want mediation between you and me. And so, in His desire to persuade us and settle the, what does it say, the strife between our conscience and God, He confirms it by an oath. Turn to Psalm 110. And you will read that oath. Psalm 110 says, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. In the beauty of holiness from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth. The Lord hath sworn and will not repent. And who did He swear to? He turned to His Son, the Lord Jesus, and He said, Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at thy right hand. So God, willing to more abundantly show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, He confirmed it by an oath. And He swore by Himself that by two immutable things, Now, I'm a little fuzzy here because I know the one immutable thing. Now, immutable means it cannot change. It cannot mutate. There are things about God that cannot mutate. And one of those things is He cannot lie. T'was true from eternity and will be true into eternity that God will never lie. It is immutable. It is an immutable truth that God cannot lie. And He has now sworn and said, Thou art a priest forever. It will never change. That is an immutable word. There is a priesthood by the order of Melchizedek that will never change. By two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us. Well, what is the strong consolation built upon the oath of God? What is our strong consolation that God was so concerned that we have it that He would swear to it? What is that strong consolation? It's the priesthood of Jesus Christ. No matter where I am, no matter what I am in, no matter what I'm facing, no matter what circumstance, there is a throne open to me. Every man, woman, and child has a priest sitting at the right hand of the Father that He might go to Him and receive mercy and grace to help in time of need. Does that comfort you in your sorrow? And it means everything. It means anything. Because God has laid it out in front of us in the Scriptures that we might have strong consolation. Knowing our frame, knowing our conscience, knowing our fears and our doubts, knowing our inabilities to walk in faith, God has given us a throne and He that sits upon that throne to which He has sworn, and thou art a priest forever. Sit here at my right hand and be a priest. And that priesthood will never, never end. Never. He's never going to die. He's never going to be changed for another one. You'll never have to get used to a new priest who has different values. It will always be the same, Lord Jesus. God's swear by Himself which hope we have as the anchor of the soul. And if it's not the anchor of our soul this morning, let's make it the anchor of our soul. Because the Word of God says, I don't know what your anchor is. There are a lot of anchors in the Christian life. Men hang their souls on different things. They hang their souls on being a preacher. They hang their souls on being able to cast out demons. They hang their souls on being able to do mighty works. As Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7. But here the Scripture says, Hang your soul on one thing, and that is you have a high priest, according to the order of Melchizedek forever. This high priest, the Lord Jesus, notice in chapter 7, well, let's look at verse 12. It says, For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of law. Now here is a principle we need to understand about the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Has there been a change of priesthood since Aaron? Yes. The Scripture says the change of priesthood was to Judah, of which the law spoke nothing of priests. There were no priests out of Judah. The priesthood was by Aaron, and if any would go into the Holy of Holies, that was not of the lineage of Aaron, he should be put to death. But it is very plain that Christ is out of the line of Judah, according to the order of Melchizedek. Because the Aaronic prophet, the Aaronic priesthood was according to the order of the Mosaic Law. But this priest is made a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Having no beginning, having no end, having no father and mother, having no genealogy, he appears out of nowhere, he goes into nowhere, he is never born, he never dies. The order of Melchizedek. And notice how great a man this Melchizedek is, to whom the patriarch gave tithes. Now, and he blessed him. Melchizedek lifted up his voice upon Abraham and said, The Lord of heaven bless thee. Now without a shadow of a doubt, the greater blesses the lesser. Notice the greatness of this man, Melchizedek. And God says, according to this order, you are a priest. Not according to Aaron's order. And the Aaronic order is a high order. The highest one earth has ever known. Have you ever heard in all of heaven and all of earth, that God would do such a thing, to bring a nation out of another nation, by great and mighty signs, and make a man a priest before God? It has never been heard. So much that King David said in the Psalms, he says, when he wanted to eulogize the beauty of brotherhood, he says, it is like the oil that was poured on Aaron's head, when the first time in all of eternity, there was a human man made priest for mankind. That oil was of momentous importance in heaven. As it flowed down Aaron's beard, and angels watched, and for the first time in eternity, a man was mediator between God and man. But that Aaronic order was not high enough, to meet the need of mankind. There was another order started, according to the order of Melchizedek. And the reasoning here is that, where there is a change of priesthood, there is by necessity a change of law. Now what is the law of the Aaronic priesthood? It's the law of Sinai. The law of Mount Sinai. Mosaic law is the law of the Aaronic priesthood. What is the law of Melchizedek? The Melchizedek priesthood. It says here, in chapter 7, verse 16, read this, it says, Who is made not after the law, let's see, let's read 15. And it is yet far more evident, for that after the similitude of Melchizedek, there ariseth another priest, who is made not after the law of a carnal commandment. That means Mosaic law. He was not made priest by that carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. You know why Jesus Christ is priest today? Because He has the power of an endless life. Think of that. Think of endless life. You know, Jesus, when He wanted to speak His authority in the book of Revelations, what did He say? He says, I was dead, and I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys of death and hell. He is a priest because He has an endless life. It cannot end. Just like God cannot lie, Jesus cannot die. And by the power of the endless life, He has been seated at the right hand of God to be priest endlessly. It's a change of priesthood. And the Scripture says, where there is a change of priesthood, there is by necessity a change of law. Therefore, under the priesthood of Jesus Christ, the law of Moses has no power. Under the law of Jesus Christ, the law of Moses has no power. It is a different priesthood. To say this law comes over here under this administration is to mix priesthoods. It's not right. This one was weak. It was a shadow. It was a foreshadowance of this priesthood. There are likenesses in this one to this one. Because this one was preparing and foreshadowing it. But the priesthood of Jesus Christ and His order has a new law. It's the law of the new covenant in His blood. Notice in 7.19, For the law made nothing perfect. Read it. For the law made nothing perfect. Hear the Word of God. The law made nothing perfect. We have a high priest. And the work of our adversary is to separate us from our high priest. You know where perfection comes from? The right hand of God. Perfection sits there. He is enthroned in perfection. His whole life, watch His life. Watch the way He works. Watch His decisions. Everything about Him is perfect. Did ever a man speak like this man speaks? Everything He says is perfect. The multitudes marveled at His answers because every answer was perfect. The way He responds to every situation is perfect. Oh, to be like Him. We have a high priest. But it is the work of the devil, I am persuaded, to separate us from the high priest. That is His only hope because at His throne there is mercy and there is grace. And I am persuaded that our adversary will separate your soul from that throne. That is His target. That is what He wants to. He wants to separate you from that throne by any means He can. By sin. By discouragement. By bitterness. By unbelief. By pride. By covetousness. By care. By sorrow. By lust. By defilement. By deception. Any means He can, He will separate you from the throne of grace. But, brothers and sisters, the Word of God says that God hath sworn by Himself that you should make it an anchor for your soul that you have a high priest in heaven at His right hand. And that thereby, in any situation you are facing, failure, weakness, need, any moment that you have in your life, there is a throne of grace and we should go there boldly. Not based upon us. Not based upon our worthiness. But based upon the Word of God. The oath of God that He should make a priest for us. That we should go there and get mercy and grace in our time of need. Does that speak to your needs this morning? I mean, are you facing things and you feel like you have no place else to go? No place on earth you can take it. No place in heaven you can take it because your failures seem to block you out of heaven. Well, I'm telling you the Word of God says go boldly to the throne of grace. Not proudly, but humbly and boldly. Because God said, I have sworn and I will not repent. I will not repent. I have made a priest for you. Forever. I'd like to just stop right here if we could. Can we kneel for prayer? I know there are souls in this room that are struggling with things. I know my adversary and your adversary separates us from the throne of grace. I invite you to go to the throne of grace this morning. Can we just take a moment of prayer and pray? If you have things where you feel like you're separated from God, you feel like you can't approach unto Him, hear the Word of God this morning. Would you go with faith in your heart to the throne of grace and thank God for it and pour your petition out before Him? Father in heaven, we approach Thy throne by Thy Word this morning under the blood of the new covenant. We are thankful for us. The privilege that we have to approach unto You this way. God, would You minister to every heart hearing me this morning, hearing Your Word, every open heart, would You minister to them in every need they have, in every difficulty that they're facing. I pray that You'd grant us mercy, Lord. Mercy. Mercy from You and mercy in our hearts towards others. And that You'd grant us the grace we need in every one of our circumstances, God. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for sitting there. Thank You for Your perfection stamped on an image deep in our hearts. Thank You, Lord. Okay, you may be seated. Verse 25, chapter 7 says, Wherefore, He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing that He ever liveth to make intercession for them. He is a priest by an endless life. I passed up a verse I wanted to note. In verse 22, look at this. It says, By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. You know what a surety is, Mose? What's a surety? Yeah, but who's the down payment made by in a surety situation? Okay. God made our down payment. A surety is a banking term, right? Surety is when I can't pay. And so I bring someone bigger along who can pay. And he says, I'll stand good for this debt. Now, the Bible warns us in the book of Proverbs that safe is the man that hates to go surety for a stranger. And if you went surety for your friend, you made a big mistake and should get out of it as soon as you can. But in God's situation, He went surety for us. He looked at our situation and said, You have nothing to pay with. You poor man. You have no place to live. You don't have nothing to eat. You have nothing to live with. You poor man. I've got all this wealth. I'll pay it. And He stood surety for us. And it says, Jesus is the surety of a new covenant. He stood surety. His blood paid the ransom that was owed by us. He has an unchangeable priesthood. I wonder if we value the unchangeableness enough. Think about it. Someday, most Stolzfus will die. And someday, your fathers will die. And your mothers will die. You know, people that we really look to and really need and really cling to and depend on, those people are going to be taken out of our lives one day. Rarely will we outgrow our parents unless by catastrophe. And we'll all see them pass out of our life. And the strength that's there, I won't be able to call my dad anymore and say, Dad, I'm dealing with a physics problem here. Can you help me with a PISI on a tank? How does that work? Aren't the forces here the same as that? And we can talk through that thing. But someday, that phone will be quiet. And he'll be beyond my calling. And I can imagine that when Eli, you know, Eli was a priest, and Aaron was a priest, think of the strength that those men must have had to be a priest for a hundred years. I think Aaron was, I forget how old, wasn't he over a hundred when he died? Or even sixty years. But all those young people growing up, and yeah, Aaron's the high priest. You know him. He knows your name. All those things. But someday, Aaron died. And then who's the priest? You know, maybe it's someone like Caiaphas, or maybe it's someone like Annas, or you know, someone's got a little different bend, or a little different feel, sees things a different way, maybe doesn't quite like you like the other one did, and not as much mercy or whatever. Changeableness in the priesthood is a frustration to the life. But God says Jesus is unchangeable. Think about that. What I'm telling my children today about the Lord Jesus, how He thinks, how He feels, what He does, how to please Him, how to disappoint Him, the things I'm telling my children, they can tell their children's children's children, because it will be the same. You know, the men of old that we look up to are our brethren in this, that Christ was their High Priest. The throne of grace we go to to ask mercy and grace from is the same throne that they went to. The same throne that those men pled at. They found Christ seated at the right hand of the Father. And He has never changed, and nor will He ever change. Children's children's children. You can pass it on. Deliah will serve the same Jesus Christ that I do, though I be dead and gone out of her life. The Lord Jesus will be the same. The throne of mercy will be the same. He has an unchangeable priesthood. And He liveth for one purpose. Well, I shouldn't say that. He liveth for this purpose that He should make intercession for you. Alright? Now, chapter 8, you wonder, why do I say so much about the priesthood of Jesus Christ? Chapter 8 says, Now of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum. All you math teachers on my right hand side here, what is a sum? It's the conclusion, right? It's the black line at the bottom of all the numbers. You've got twos and threes and three decimal, and even maybe a decimal point in there, and you've got all these numbers, a big column, and you're adding them up. Come to the line, and all you do is look below the line, and there's what? One number. It's the sum. So, the Bible says, here, in chapter 8, Of all these things, the seven chapters that I've spoken before, which we have spoken, this is the sum. We have such a high priest. The priesthood of Christ is the sum of this book. We have a high priest. And I don't think we think about it so much. I don't. And yet, I think it's the strength. The Bible says it's the anchor of our soul, that I have a high priest. When someone challenges your Christianity, don't point to the church you go to. Don't point to the good deeds you're doing. Don't point to the preaching you're doing, or the demons you've cast out. Point to the right hand of God, and say, I don't know what you think of me. It doesn't really matter, but I know I have a high priest. At the right hand of God, and that is the anchor of my soul. And therein is the Christian life. But you know, the devil will separate us from that. By every hook and crook, he will find a way to separate our hearts and our minds from this truth. God help us to hold fast the profession of our faith. The Bible says in 8.6, that He is the mediator of a better covenant. The old covenant was an old covenant. The new covenant by the Word of God is a better covenant. How many of you would really like to drive a Model T? Now some of you think, oh, that would be kind of novel. Oh, until you wanted to start it in the middle of winter. How many of you would like to go back to the 1973's and change your points and condensers all the time? And fuss with your carburetor all the time and try to choke it, you know, Moe's, remember? You pull out the choke just so, oh no, this one is about half way. And crank it about five or six times, and then you got to push it in and crank it once, and when it fires, pull it all the way out and see if it will fire. How many want to go back to those days? No thank you. Thank God for fuel injection. And all those things. Because newer is better. And who wants to go back to tinkering with your Model T in the Old Testament? Does it have four wheels? Yes. Does it go down the road? Yes. Does it have a glass in the windows? Yes. Does it have mirrors? Yes. Does it go like my Explorer? No. You know, and that's a small representation, but yes, it's a foreshadowance. You know, this has that as its history, but this, my friend, is so much better. To hop in on a cold morning, you know, 20 below, and it fires off in a couple of cranks, and the heat comes on, and praise God for a new covenant. With better promises, it says. You know the promises of the old one was? He that keepeth these commandments shall live. The new covenant says, he that believeth in the Son of Man shall have eternal life. Put your faith here, and keep your eyes on my throne, and you'll live forever. Over here in this Old Testament, we continually scrutinized every jot and tittle to find something that we might not be doing right. And we scratched and scraped to find some way to accomplish it in our life. And it was so frustrating. It never cleared the conscience, the Bible says. And here I looked to the cross of Jesus Christ, and heaven opened up above me, and the love of God flooded my soul, and power came into my life to do His will, and walk in His Spirit, and obey His Word. I want to speak a little bit about the covenant made with your fathers. He says, not according to the covenant I made with your fathers, for they did not continue, in other words, they did not continue in His commandments, and I did not regard them. God rejected them. Just briefly, let's think about the covenants that God made with their fathers. Number one, remember Abraham. I won't go there, but it's in Genesis chapter 15. Abraham took a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove, and a pigeon. I can't remember what it was. And God told him to cut them in half. And so, think about it. He took his knife, you know, got down and cut the throat. The blood spills. Then the thing's dead. It's done twitching. It's done kicking. And then he starts to cut it. And he cuts it right down the chin. He cuts it down the throat, and cuts it down the brisket, and hacks through the chest, and opens that thing up, and the bowels open up, and he hacks it, and the legs are flayed until he has that thing cut all the way in half. A bloody, filthy mess. And then he places one here, and he places one there. And then he takes the three-year-old ram and does the same thing. Blood everywhere. Filth and flesh and blood. And he puts one here, and one there. And then he puts the dove on this side after he wrings the neck, and puts it there, and he wrings the neck of the thing, and he puts it there. And no wonder the birds came. And the vultures, you know, start circling. All day long, Abraham was chasing birds off of his sacrifice. Go on. Away. All day long, it says. He did that in the morning. And he waited over that bloody, filthy mess. And then in the evening, God came. In the darkness, the sun had gone down, and it says as the sun went down, a horror came over Abraham. Horror. A fear. You know what horror is? Horror is like, you know, it starts to make you shake inside the chest, and it said, he says, horror came over him, and out of heaven came a smoking furnace. You know, it was like a clay oven with smoke just billowing out the top. And a lamp. Two things came out of heaven. And they came down out of heaven, and they passed down between those pieces. I'm told in school, when I went to college, they told me that in history, this is called a Sumerian covenant. Men used to do this in Abraham's day, and both men would walk between those pieces, in essence, saying, God do so unto me if I don't keep this covenant. But in God's covenant, Abraham didn't walk down through those pieces, God walked down through those pieces. And I noticed something this morning. Well, I want us to understand, this is God's old covenants. And that's why he says, I'm not going to make a covenant with you, like I made with your fathers, where there's horror gripping the heart, and I'm coming down out of heaven like a smoking oven, because God is a consuming fire. And I had to wonder, where's the third party? You know, I was thinking that this morning and it just gripped me. Where's the third party? There's a smoking oven, and a lamp. You know, we know that God is a consuming fire. We know from Ezekiel that God is fire. And in the New Testament, there are seven lamps burning in front of the throne, which are what? The Spirit of God that is sent out into the world. There's the Father, the smoking oven. There's the Spirit, the lamp. Where's the Son? He's not there. He's not there. You know why I think so? You know why I don't think the Son's there? Because the Son doesn't make covenants like that. He was getting ready to make a new covenant, so He wasn't in on Abraham's covenant. He did not represent Himself there, because the new covenant cannot be put into that covenant. It's not horror. You know, it's not fear and dread over there. He came down through those parts in that bloody mass and made a covenant of blood with Abraham in fear and horror, and swore to him and said, your children will be strangers in a strange land and be mistreated, and I'm going to bring them out with a mighty hand, and I'm going to give them this land. I'm swearing and making a covenant to you. That's the covenant God made with your fathers. In Abraham's day, in Moses' day, it says that the... Let me get my illustration here. It says that the mountains smoked in the morning. You know, they woke up and instead of having a nice sunny day, it was thundering, and lightning, and peals of thunder, and God was speaking, and when He spoke, it was the sound of a trumpet getting louder and louder until it just caused you to tremble. And then God spoke to Moses. And when Moses made the covenant with the people, He took a basin like this one, and it says He slew the sacrifice and caught the blood in the basin. And then He took hyssop, which this is not a hyssop leaf, but it's a leafy sort of shrub, and He dipped the hyssop in the blood. And then He took the hyssop, and it says, and He sprinkled the people, and the book, and the altar, and everything with blood. You know, how would you like that if I went through this congregation, and this is about as much blood as you'd get out of a ram, and just sprinkled everybody. Just the blood flew everywhere. Everybody had speckles of blood. Everywhere. That's the covenant God made with their fathers. It's different. Different priesthood. Different covenant. God made those covenants in the Old Covenant, but He made a change in the New Covenant and sent forth His Son. And His Son is better. Turn with me. I don't have time to cover everything that I was going to say, so I'm just going to kind of skip to the more important ones. I don't have any of my list of things to say here, but I'm not sure. Oh, 9, verse 22. It says, Moreover, He sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood. And without shedding of blood is no remission. But God's covenant was that blood would remit the sin of the people and take it away. Let's look at 9, verse 9. I'm sorry, I have too much to say here today, so I'm going to just skip around here a little bit. I hope it fits. Let's talk a little bit about Psalm 19. Psalm 19 says, The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. How do we justify that the law is perfect, and yet in this the law is not perfect? It was imperfect. How do we justify that in the Scriptures? How do we justify it in our hearts? To view the Old Testament, read God's law and love it and say how perfect it is, and yet come into the New Testament and say how imperfect the old law was. Well, in its day, the law was perfect. You could find nothing else. And in what it was, it was perfect. But perfect doesn't mean it's complete and entire. That's the only way I can understand it. Because it was only a foreshadowance of something that was to come. The blood of bulls and goats, the Bible says, it is impossible to take away sin. And yet God said it did take away sin. It's as if the blood of heifers and scarlet thread and those kind of things would purge. How much more does the blood of Christ? So it did purge, but why did it purge? It only purged, I believe, because it was foreshadowing one who was to come. It was only the faith of the person in the Word of God that he obeyed the Word of God and God looked ahead and justified that man by faith through the blood of Christ applied in the Old Covenant. That's the only way I can understand it. And in that, the law was perfect as a foreshadowance. But it was not complete in that it was all that there was. And in today, people mistakenly, I think, try to view the law as perfect still. Though Christ has come and the Scripture has plainly spoken that there is a new covenant, there is new law, and there is something more perfect. Well, how is the law? How is the new covenant better? I'll show you. In chapter 12 it says, For you have not come unto a mountain that might be touched, and that burneth with fire, and o'er into blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voices of words, which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more, because it caused such fear. To hear that voice caused such fear in their life. And they said, Please, don't let God speak to us any more. Go, and you speak to Him, and we'll hear what you have to say. How many of you would be born again today, if that's how you came? You know, how many experienced any of that? Were you born again and led to Christ by a mountain that smoked? You know, was it the realization of smoke, and fire, and loud noises that drove you through fear to be saved? You know, would Miriam be standing up here this morning if that was the covenant she was under? Would it be the same testimony? No, it wouldn't. It'd be altogether different. It says here, For they could not endure that which was commanded, and if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it should be stoned or thrust through the dark. And I read this morning that Moses argued with God and said, God, I put a boundary around the mountain. Don't make me go back down there, because I put a boundary around. Nobody can come near this mountain, because they've all been warned that if they come near, they'll die. And God says, Away with you, go, quick! Lest they come near and defile my holiness. I don't want them to touch this mountain, because there was such an imperfection to that covenant. Now, if I was in the Old Covenant and I said that, I'd be hung. But I can stand in the blood of Jesus Christ today and say that, by the Word of God, that that testimony, that testament was imperfect. Good as it was, perfect as it was, it was imperfect. When Jesus sat at the throne of the right hand of God, its imperfection became very evident. So terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. But you, Christian, you are come to Mount Zion. You have come unto the city of the living God, to heavenly Jerusalem. You have an innumerable company of angels to come to. You come to the general assembly of the church of the firstborn. Wouldn't you like to be a part of a church instead of Israel? I'd rather be a member of a church of Jesus Christ than a Jew today. Because it's a better covenant. It's a better nation. Are they God's people? Yes. Was the law perfect? Yes. Is there something better? Yes. Much better. You have come to the general assembly and the church of the firstborn, that's all of us, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirit of just men made perfect. You've come to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. You've come to the blood of sprinkling. What blood? Did you have to go through some initiation here, to get baptized or born again into this church? Did someone have to do some gruesome ritual over you and spatter blood in your eyes, and you had to go home and wash and it stained all your clothes? Did you have to go through any of that? No. But by faith, the blood of Jesus washed every one of us. Washed away the old man. Put away our old self. God, be blessed forever for the beauties of the new covenant. You've come to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. Did those men in the Old Testament have anything near to what we have? Yes, they could go to the priest, and yes, they could talk to God, but how imperfect it was, even though God was nigh. But to have the throne that we talked about this morning here, the one that God swore to us by Himself, that we should have a high priest, to have a place to go like that, the patriarchs knew nothing about it. Well, David knew something about it. He wrote of it and foreshadowed it, but that experience that we take so for granted, and the devil so easily severs us from, to them it would be unreal privilege. Ye are come to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. I want to skip over to the 10th, to the 13th, I think. No, is it the 10th? Verse 22. Yes. Yeah, verse 22 of chapter 10. This is the conclusion, in very clear terms. One, let us draw near. That's the conclusion. Let us draw near. Meaning, in the moment where you're in turmoil, when you feel your heart is sinking, when you feel your heart is troubled, when you come into your need, the Bible says, having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with the true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. So, number one, draw near. Number two, hold fast, the profession of our faith without wavering. Don't let the devil sever you from that profession. I am trusting thee, Lord Jesus, trusting only thee this morning. And don't let anyone sever you from it. Hold fast. And number three, let us consider one another, how to provoke one another to love and good works. Those are the three conclusions of this matter. Since we have such a high priest in the heavens, and knowing each one another's weaknesses, and the frailty of our own selves, then let us consider one another. What can I do to provoke that one to love more, to good works more? There are other conclusions in the 13th chapter, but I'll pass them this morning for time's sake. I have profited from my labors in the Word of God, and I want to thank Him for that. I want to be the first to say I have failed in seeing the throne of grace the way I should. But I have lifted up my own faith this morning to hold it fast and make it the anchor of my soul afresh and new this morning. And that's my encouragement to every one of you. That's my simple application. Would you this morning set your heart upon the Word of God? The whole book of Hebrews is this one message. Would you set your heart this morning that says I'm going to make that throne of grace, that throne of mercy, my strength and my anchor afresh this morning? May God bless you all. That was good. Good to be here. I don't think we realize the importance of that subject in all of our lives. I think we have a tendency, Brother David, to lose sight of that throne of grace. It just came to me so fresh and new this morning that when we are in trouble, that that door is open, that throne is there and is available for us to run to, and no matter what anyone says, find grace for help in time of need. What a wonderful thing for us. It supersedes all misunderstandings and all the things that can come our way. I so appreciated the Model T illustration there. You know, especially before the starters to go out there and crank that thing until men were blue in the face nearly. And then found out it was out of gas because it had no gas gauge. All those kind of things that our fathers ran into and grandfathers with those kind of machines and how we have it today. It's just so different. You compare the old and the new covenant. It's just about the same thing. And I had to think of how... I remember a lady told me that she was in school in Ohio and she rode a rumble seat in one of those cars to go to school on a weekend, was home and nearly froze to death sitting in a car. And today we go in the utmost of comfort. Anyway, we'll open it up. Someone else have a word to give here this morning. Feel free to raise your hand and we'll get a microphone to you and let you add a word or acknowledge something or whatever. It's on your heart. Brother Harold up here. My heart is full this morning. God has spoken so deeply in so many areas. I'm not sure which of the two messages that I want to respond to. I guess to both. I'm so thankful for the second message in relation to what God spoke to me in the first message. The last week I've been pondering much what God has to say to us about the pride of our hearts. And just Friday morning I read this. The condemnation which He has for pride and self-sufficiency and self-interest. And then as we were reminded so fortunately this morning that Jesus made Himself of no reputation. And I saw in a way that I can't even tell you how much we're drawn to do just that. And then in James it says that God resists the proud. And I saw that in a way I never saw before. That the pride of my heart, the self-sufficiency and the self-interest is being resisted. To be resisted by God, it just shook me in a way that I can hardly tell you. And then this morning, that powerful message of Brother Jonah on our dear Jesus, the one who made Himself of no reputation. And I saw how often I enjoyed the applause of men. I was a missionary in Haiti and I know men mean it well, brothers and sisters, and I take it that way. And yet, God showed me something about my heart. I can hardly explain it to you, but then this morning it came out so forcibly. My Jesus, He made Himself of no reputation. And so, I confess that need, I confess that sin. The only way to find victory and grace and to find the help of the mediator, the high priest which Brother David shared, is just to repent. And I seek by God's grace to do that. And to allow myself to be like my dear Jesus, to have the mind of Christ. God bless you. Thank you, Brother Harold. Anyone else?