Washed! - Part 1

Well, welcome to you, my name is Fred Tomlinson and I'd like to say this just before I move on that my desire, my prayer as we're together here is that after you have listened to me and after this message is over, I want you to have and I pray that this will be true that you will have a refreshed sense of the unhurried God who has been working out his purpose through history and I want you also to be reminded that this same God has a purpose for you which he is working out. It is a plan and a purpose which he ordained, can you believe this, before time was you were chosen by God and all of your background, your ancestors, your parents, your circumstances of life and all the ups and all the downs somehow have been designed and used by God to bring you to this very moment in his presence. As I thought about that just before I started out to speak to you, I thought what an amazing thing is that this eternal God has chosen me and he's chosen me for this very moment and he's chosen you likewise and we pray that you will be able to sense his presence as I share with you and that your heart will be found open to him. Now before I actually try with his help to unpack this that's on my heart, there's a couple of things I'm required to say. Let me do this, I don't know on which platform you are currently watching or listening to me but may I encourage you to check out our YouTube channel, you'll find it under the title Turn to the Scriptures with Fred Tomlinson. 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You might also want to click on the link that will take you to the Mackenzie Christian Fellowship website and the very latest thing is we've been separating the audio part of the videoed messages with a lot of technical help I might say and so we have some podcasts that you can find as well and all the links are on our website and probably on the site that you're tuned into right now. Well the title of the message that I want to bring to you today can be summed up in one word, it's the word washed and as I have thought about this topic as the Lord seemed to put it on my heart, what was very clear to me without any doubt was that this is a very great and large subject and it's just completely impossible to condense it down to 40 minutes so I intend to not go on longer or not much longer but I intend to spread it into the next session so we'll have two sessions on this topic. The wonderful thing about this eternal God is that he has been unwavering and continues to be unwavering in his purpose and we certainly find this in scripture as we read through and search the scriptures we discover how God in some very remarkable ways, I think they're all remarkable mind you, has been able to weave his purpose into the lives of men and women and he's been weaving his purpose and his word into the circumstances of many people and situations and also he's been speaking through various ordinances which he himself has instituted and each and every one of them hold a unique significance. I suppose a classic example of this would be to think of the book of Genesis and how in the book of Genesis starting in the first couple of chapters but we find all the major themes of scripture in an embryonic form there and like spring they rise watershed back there in Genesis and then as the scriptures continue and then ultimately as we move out of the Old Testament and into the New Testament we've got rivers of truth that flow but this God has supervised everything and as I have said he's woven his word and his purpose into so many situations. There's a verse in the book of Hebrews I'll be turning to several scriptures but I'm looking into the book of Hebrews chapter 10 just for a short reference it says here for the law having a shadow of things to come and not the very image of the things can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the commerce thereunto perfect. That's a reminder of the fact that the apostle here writing to Hebrew Christians Hebrew people who've responded to the Christian gospel but with the Jewish background and familiar with the Jewish scriptures of course he's touching right on this that I'm putting before you this morning that God back there in history knew exactly where he was going he's not sort of as we would say in the part of the world I come from he's not flying by the seat of his pants. God knows exactly what he is about and spread over this whole spread of time reaching back into the area of eternity that we can't relate to in terms of our time restrictions but God had a purpose the apostle calls it an eternal purpose but when time began and the creation is brought into place nothing is by accident but his sovereign purpose is being worked out consistently and without change and it's written here in the scriptures for us and in the course of doing that the New Testament writers grasped that as I've already alluded to this woven into those Old Testament situations and into the lives of people there have been shadows or what we refer to often as types that are woven into everything that we've been reading back there and it's been filled with significance we talk about types and shadows and you know perhaps just to help us understand this concept just a little bit imagine for a moment that we're in a great auditorium and there's an audience that are seated in a somewhat darkened theatre and they're eagerly awaiting for the performer to present himself and presently an unexpected beam of light from the wings somehow casts a shadow of the performer onto the prepared backdrop and platform the silhouette is clear enough but only only vaguely represents the performer nonetheless the audience studies the shadow carefully until suddenly the anticipated performer strides into view the crowd erupts in applause what changed well the reality appeared and the shadow was immediately eclipsed you know such is the case with types and shadows that we find in the Old Testament but however in saying that that there is a caveat that I must add and there's a verse I used to to do this it's in Romans chapter 15 and verse 4 which says for whatsoever things were written aforetime or before were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope this is the caveat to the illustration I've just given to you once the performer came fully onto the platform no one was interested in the shadow anymore that was completely irrelevant that is not true when we think of the shadows that we find in the inspired word of God Paul here in this 15th chapter of Romans tells us that they were there for our learning um God how shall I say this God God designed the types and the shadows to highlight features of a reality that would be identified and focused in the New Testament and keep in mind as we think along these lines that the people who were involved at the time when these types and shadows were all being woven into into being and then recorded in scripture those persons had no concept at all of the fact that there was a significance to these things or events that was beyond that which was actual to them at that time but but in fact these types and shadows concealed a huge reality and a reality that can only be recognized with the benefit of the lens of the of the New Testament you know I learned this little ditty many years ago in reference to the two covenants the the new meaning the new covenant the new is in the old concealed the old is by the new revealed and so unlike the illustration I gave you a few minutes ago the shadows are incredibly valuable because God inspired them he sovereignly arranged them and in the sense that these things which these realities these truths which are taught in the New Testament are somehow if you like fleshed out sometimes I've referred to them in the Old Testament as or to the Old Testament scriptures as being kind of a a pictorial aspect of the New Testament that's not wholly true and there's far more to be said about that than I'm indicating but the thing is when when the two are matched together and we're blessed with an understanding of the New Testament or the new covenant and then we look back into the old to the shadows to the types there's a sense in which because they were worked out in practical terms they help us in a very real way to more fully understand the wonder or the truths of that which is in the New Testament or to put it a different way can you imagine when you're reading the New Testament if somehow certain features of truth there become somehow uniquely and divinely highlighted to us you know pulling our attention to them or or perhaps in a more modern sense what if the certain words or phrases that we're reading in the New Testament turned out to be hyperlinks do you know what they are and just as we sort of read over it suddenly a video image pops up that sort of illustrates it and I hope I'm making myself somewhat plain here the fact is that there's a wealth of understanding to be gained by reading these particular kinds of passages in the Old Testament through the lens of an understanding and a revelation of the truth that we find in the New Testament all right well with that with that in mind a couple of words of the Lord Jesus which in a sense will be the the overarching theme for these two sessions that I'm going to share with you but in John chapter 13 the setting is Jesus together with his disciples and it's the feast of the Passover and Jesus knew that his hour had come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father having loved his own which were in the world he loved them unto the end and then he goes on to tell us about supper and how it's ended and then Jesus rising from supper laid aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself after that he poureth water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded then cometh he to Simon Peter and Peter said unto him Lord does thou wash my feet Jesus answered and said unto him what I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter and Peter said unto him thou shalt never wash my feet Jesus answered him if I wash thee not thou hast no part with me Simon Peter said unto him Lord not my feet only but also my hands and my head I'm breaking away from the text deliberately at that point amen the particular words for this session are found in the eighth verse when Jesus said if I wash thee not thou hast no part with me sobering challenging words there's a depth of significance a depth of meaning behind those words that we sense immediately I will certainly not be able to exhaust them if I had a hundred years I'm sure but the fact is you know somehow somehow it's as though we're we're standing in a in a shallow little river river let and but and we read the words like that but out there as as Bev Shea would say out there beyond the high the eye's horizon there's more there's so much more may God help us and open our hearts to understand what we're supposed to find here now we've talked about the Old Testament and the New Testament let me read to you from the Old Testament I'm looking into the book of Exodus for just a verse I'm taking it I'm not taking it out of context in the sense of extracting it away from its context but it would just be impossible to read it in context in a session or in a meeting like this but I'm in chapter 29 of Exodus and just just very very briefly some background here the fact is that following the instructions which God has given the tabernacle has been constructed and at this particular point in the process while the tabernacle fabric is all in place and built and the various items which refer to as the furniture of the tabernacle it's all in place and so on the next thing and the particular thing that needs to happen is that God wants to initiate a certain group of people onto a role which will be known as the priesthood and God is speaking to Moses and the Lord is speaking to him first of all about his brother Aaron Aaron who God has chosen to be the first high priest and so this is just one verse here in chapter 29 where God speaks to Moses he says then you shall bring Aaron and his sons to the doorway of the tent of meeting and wash them with water now you'll see immediately after that if this text continues but this is what we started out thinking about types and shadows we're right in that kind of context here as I said earlier let me repeat it the people involved at the time have no idea that there's some deeper significance they're just responding to what God has instructed them to do at the time we only know there's a significance behind it because we have a New Testament all right and so that's the the primary issue here that these priests are being initiated into service and these men are going to be responsible for in one degree and another approaching the very presence of God and they're going to be responsible for for handling the things of God there's a broad generic term but you I think understand what I'm saying and the but it's the washing in particular that interests us in this session and one of the features having entered into the tabernacle the first item that you confront is the brazen altar where the animals are all offered and sacrificed immediately after that is this is this laver and this is where the washing will take place and it will be involved for various ceremonial washings that are required which again is another subject beyond us this morning uh so the the the laver is between the brazen altar and the tent of meeting which contains the holiest of all and so on there it's where the animals will be sacrificed and without I hope this isn't too disjointed here but our theme is washing we're talking about the laver uh but we can't ignore the fact that when we reach verse 10 and down in this chapter we're we're we're faced with the issue of bloodshed there's going to be bloodshed involved in this preparation of the the priests onto the holy order and service and that's that's something we must notice as we move on here bloodshed is always associated with this acceptance of these men into the service of God and in their various degrees of approach that they're able to make to God we also will note from that section of scripture that the without looking at the detail how it happened that these animals which will be sacrificed will be substituted for the men themselves and that's a very important fact there had to be some correspondence between the bloodshed and the men which is specified as we read further down so what these men had as the result of what I've been able to draw your attention to is was the initiation of a system a system of worship they were initiated into a context of learning concerning the things of God and believing in God and a disciplined life before God all these factors are all wrapped up here in this calling and result from this moment before God of this ceremonial washing that's taking place it was all essential but God is as was hinted earlier is moving ahead slowly and systematically there's a deliberate reason for all of this but and here's the but if we were to take a giant stride on in the old testament we could read in the book of psalms in psalm 51 and there the psalmist David is writing David has committed the sin of adultery he's been responsible for the murdering of the woman's husband there's been a child a child which dies and so on David and I'd love to pause here and talk about David the man who is declared in scripture as being a man after the very heart of God but he was a human man and he engaged himself in a grievous sin here that he is only so conscious of and his heart is crushed and broken he's aware he's aware of the the sacrificial system that's been put into place he's aware of all of the particulars and the ceremonial washings and one thing another but somehow it wasn't sufficient to deal with the deepest part of his heart this man who underneath everything had such a passion for God his heart is crushed he reaches out to God in that great psalm 51 and and he he says Lord purge me with hyssop that also was something involved in sacrifice in a cleansing process that was specified but it's a it's as though can I say this it's as though he was crying out for something that was not available to him at that time I remember a man of God speaking many many decades ago now and he referred to this moment he referred to David and he was saying it's as though he this old testament man had his hand as it were reaching over a hypothetical wall that divided it from the new covenant in other words he longed for what didn't belong to the old covenant he was in the dimension of types and shadows and partial knowledge of God but he longed for something more so that's that's kind of where we're up to here and you know I can't help but say this as a kind of aside but it's of an important one that I sense that there are many believers Christian believers today who actually live in that same place you know where yes we know the new testament we know the new testament message but we lack an understanding you know knowledge of information must progress into actual experience or it will not benefit us and that's the great need today it's not more information there's such a there is a hunger for information dear me I'm on the internet right now as I'm speaking to you and there's people racing all over the internet trying to get more knowledge about one aspect or another of Christian teaching but the at the core of it all it's it's a it's a deeper experience of the spirit of God in the lives of men and women is so desperately needed it might be your need as I'm speaking to you today but the the sacrificial system that I've been alluding to was divinely designed but the cleansing that took place there whichever aspect or which sort of part of that cleansing process we're looking down for in scripture it was all symbolic it was all shadow the apostle again writing in the book of Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 9 he says that these things were a figure for the time then present imposed upon them until the time of reformation in other words it was something required for then but in the heart and mind of God they these very things were merely symbolic of something which yet lay in the future and of course there were the scriptures that we could think of that allude to this and not the least by any means would be the 53rd chapter of the book of Isaiah where we read about God's suffering servant who would come in the fullness of time these were words that are very meaningful to us but had a very limited meaning and significance to those who were hearing them back at that time but in the New Testament we come into the substance of these things as we move into the New Testament thinking back to my earlier illustration this is the moment when the man appears on the stage the floodlights are all on the spotlights are on who is this man he's the he's the heaven-born prince of peace he's the he's he's he's God veiled in flesh he is he's Jesus our Emmanuel and he our Jesus this son of God he said to his disciples unless I wash you you have no part with me what I learned from that immediately is that whatever this washing is it's absolutely essential in order to enter into the blessings of the kingdom of God you must be bathed you must be bathed by the high priest you know back in the passage I read from Exodus it was Moses who bathed Aaron and his sons they didn't bathe themselves this was a bathing God ordained it this way that must be done by someone else Moses wasn't the high priest but he stood in that role for this purpose at this time certainly so where we're at is here where if we are to enjoy and experience the blessings of God which are available in Christ the blessings of God's great kingdom you must be bathed by the high priest and we know who that high priest is you can't do this yourself listen carefully to what I want to say you know that which was symbolized in that beginning time I don't know maybe it was 1500 years ago or thereabouts in the tabernacle the fulfillment of that bathing that was presented in that shadow shadow form at that time cost the man who came from heaven everything that bathing that he that the Lord Jesus Christ would bring cost him everything and we understand it as a substitutory atonement I know there are people who don't believe in this anymore but that's very clear in scripture as far as I'm concerned what that means is it means that one one is making an atonement for others there's a there's a great scripture that the apostle Paul brings to the Corinthians I'm looking into 2nd Corinthians and chapter 5 the verse I've referred to many many times over the years and in the 20 I'll just read the 21st verse 21 for he this is God he has made him this is Jesus Christ for God has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him in the person of the Lord Jesus and his crucifixion crucifixion at the cross he he he made possible a reconciliation between God the holy God and guilty lost sins such as you and me he he on the cross paid the price that was required of you and me but I had we paid the price it wouldn't gain anyone anything but because of who it was that shed his blood he made an atonement possible a reconciliation possible for all who would be chosen of God and put their faith and trust in him the apostle John writing in the first chapter of revelation he speaks about Jesus in this way he says unto him who has loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood we thought about water the ceremonial washing we we reminded ourselves of bloodshed having a part in it but here we are in the new testament and here we have the apostle inspired of God speaking about the redemptive work of Christ and he's saying it's a washing that only blood can produce a cleansing that only blood can accomplish and glory glory to God that someone needs to um that which has been done because what we're talking about here is something which has been accomplished he has washed us from our sins in his own blood he shed his blood for us it's over 2 000 years ago in time but it's taken place that which has been done that washing which has been done must become realized in our experience and that that miracle can only be accomplished by the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in the here and now the apostle Paul again I'm sorry I'm moving through a number of different scriptures here um but in the book of Timothy uh Titus rather I'm sorry in chapter chapter three um the apostle says this um he talked about us being guilty and foolish and so on all kinds of things in the third verse of the third chapter then he says but after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior there's more there of course and what the apostle is introducing to us here more specifically I would say what the Holy Spirit is revealing to us here is that this this washing uh is that we've we've agreed together I hope that is so essential if we're to have any part with Jesus and in the blessings that he's provided for us we need to be washed by his blood in a washing that uh regenerates us and the word regeneration I'm reading here from the King James translation is made up of two words and I know I've got a Greek scholar here in my audience uh is made up of two words palen and genesia and these words mean literally again born and so what we're reading here is that there is a washing of new birth and a renewing of the of God here this um this work of regeneration washes us it saves us and it sets us free it provides new birth for us in our experience um the let me tell you what the new birth is really when we get right down to it you know put very simply I believe that it is it is an awakening it's an awakening to the reality of truth think about it it's it it's to wake up to come alive to this truth that God in Christ has provided a washing for us to experience spiritually today by the medium of the Holy Spirit of God it's put it put in a different way it's a it's a it's a coming home to what is in other words God doesn't have to do something today to make it a possibility it it already exists when Jesus uh completed the work that he came to do on the cross he cried out finished the the the the washing process was completed it was in place what you and I need is for the Holy Spirit to illuminate this truth to us and reveal to us that it already it already exists and it's as though in that moment when there's the word of God brings light and understanding it communicates faith to us something happens inside of us we awake to truth uh and it's you know it's it's coming to coming home I can't think of a better way of expressing it it's coming home what already existed it's coming into the experience which God has already provided and I can't help but think of the the story of the prodigal the story Jesus told as I say this you know we all know the story I don't need to retell it just now but the prodigal came home to what already existed the reality he came home to existed when he lived in a pig house this reality he came to existed when he fain would have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat as the old King James puts it he wasn't returning to his brother he wasn't returning to to his neighbours at all he was returning to a reality and that reality was his father's embrace that's why he came home the love of his father was beginning to become real to him when he existed in that pig house in the words that Jesus told the story while he was there he came to himself he woke up he woke up to a truth he woke up to a reality and somehow that love of his father his loving father it kind of lassoed him it got hold of him and you must wake to this truth also wake to this truth beloved that you were chosen you yes you were chosen before the foundation of the world that you should be holy and before him in love you need to wake up to the fact that this washing is complete you know you don't need to beg God to do something fresh so far as this is concerned it's complete believe this my dear friend the record of your life whatever it contains is removed we should read in the book of Colossians chapter 2 the slate is clean your pardon is sealed my dear believing friend you are free God doesn't need to do something else it's done you need to see it you need to believe it your repentance someone's going to say what about repentance repentance let's think of the prodigal son repentance was implied when he woke up in the pig house and when he came back to his father it was implied he had a speech made up but his father didn't want to hear the speech particularly cut him off part way through you remember his coming home was enough it implied repentance of course it did and and bear in mind please that they I know that Jesus told the story and we can think of things that somehow could have been in the story or we imagine that they were it doesn't matter but I think I'm right to say this that the prodigal didn't come sprinting down the lane and sprinting home the prodigal was filled with shame the prodigal was a loser he stank of the pig's home he wasn't carrying a case or a trunk with all of his belongings in it no he came with his head down I believe he came with his arms just hanging loosely at his side his weary weary feet shuffled along the drive as he's coming home it was his father who did the running and Jesus certainly included that in the story when his father his father saw him when he was a great way off and he ran you know wise older men don't run and but in that culture at that time it was inappropriate for an older man to run but this man I can only imagine he somehow pulled his garment up high so his legs were free and he ran and he ran and Jesus made this story up he made it up to impress something on your heart and mind he made it up to communicate to us this great love wherewith he loves us amen his arms were wide open I do believe his arms were opened wide but his heart was opened wider yet there's a wonderful hymn it puts it this way majestic sweetness on his brow think of the father his lips with grace overflow he saw me plunged in deep distress he flew to my relief for me he bore the shameful cross and carried all my grief to him I owe my life and breath and all the joys I have he makes me triumph over death and saves me from the grave to heaven the place of his abode he brings my weary feet he shows me the glories of my God makes my joys complete it cost him everything to bathe us at Calvary I want to tell you today he's right here to bathe you in his love amen you know I said it earlier but the slate has been wiped clean you know many years ago in Liverpool there's a couple of men who are watching this right now who were around at this time and after a wonderful meeting that we'd had the ministering brother was getting ready to go home most everyone had cleared by this point he went into the cloakroom to get his coat and in going into the cloakroom area he heard the sound of sobbing and he looked around it was a young woman who was down seating on the seated on the ground and she'd been responding to the Lord but here she was deeply profoundly distressed the brother said what what is wrong and her response was this you you know he said what do you mean she said you you know what I've done and she repeated that you know what I've done and that man that dear brother he said let me tell you my dear the woman who did those things is dead you didn't do those things the woman who did them is dead amen isn't this wonderful truth this is the gospel I'm not a man with a crippling past but I'm a man with a hope-filled future and and this is the truth of the wonderful gospel of God and I think the apostle Paul put it so well when he wrote these words he said there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death amen he's with you right now whoever you are whatever your circumstances are whatever your past has been all about and he's speaking to you you know you need only to fall into the arms of his mercy I think as you do that you are very likely to hear him whispering into your heart come away my beloved no the winter is past the rain is over and gone rise up my love and come away let's just pray father what words can we collect together to adequately express to you our gratitude for such a gospel as you have made possible as a price we cannot even begin to compute we bow before you just now lord and I pray father for everyone listening to these words that you will succeed in making my stuttering voice into the clear word of the spirit of God to individual hearts and I pray father that you will accomplish something in the lives of those who have listened that will transform their lives and bring glory to your name I pray in Jesus name amen just before you go don't forget go to the channel turn to the scriptures with Fred Tom Linson click on the bell share the link with your friends and join me next week God bless you