The Book of Hebrews 9:6-10 Until the time of reformation

Good morning and a blessed Christmas to you. We're going to cover a few things here before we actually move into the passage for study. I want to clarify some Christmas carols first. That's what we're going to do here. A lot of Christmas carols, and you'll notice them this morning, focus on Christ's reign when he comes again. rather than focusing on his death and our sins and burial and resurrection. There's nothing wrong with that in one sense, but the complete picture is that Christ in his first coming died and was buried and rose again, and without that the second coming wouldn't have meant much. But just an area of emphasis, even what we'll sing here at the end of the service, he rules the world with truth and grace. He is going to rule the world as soon as seven years from now.

But it won't be truth and grace, it'll be truth and law. So some interesting things there in terms of the perspective. Also, there were an unknown number of magi, because there were three gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. It doesn't necessarily mean that there were three magi, and they're not kings either. The magi is the correct term. Wise men is a good way to carry the cross.

It's quite likely that when Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem, it was not silent. Everyone who is descended from David must go to Bethlehem for the census which is for tax purposes and by the way They didn't have an inn or like a you know kind of motel sort of place. They didn't have that okay, so it was crowded and finding a place to stay was going to be tough and Everybody was bustling about besides that is everybody descended from David right so this is a huge family reunion and So anyway, it's quite an event, but probably not silent.

The angels didn't sing the good news, they said the good news, is what the Bible says. And we talk about angels singing and angels singing. What's interesting is as you read through scripture, what you find is more often the redeemed are singing. More often the redeemed are singing rather than the angels.

But it's a nice kind of poetic and artistic figure that we use there. Nonetheless, we're very happy to appoint believers and others to Christ this season. It is, in fact, an opportunity we wouldn't want to miss. We wouldn't want to pass it up. The other is the electives we have today and next Sunday to have you finish signing up for the electives.

The Book of Acts, I was just thinking this last Thursday night with the home study group, the Book of Acts is the connecting point between the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. You can imagine if the Book of Acts was not there, you'd finish up reading the Gospels and then you'd look and you'd say, who is the Apostle Paul?

Who's that guy? And Timothy, where did he show up? Right? All those questions. And you wonder how this whole thing fits together. Well, Acts is an essential connecting point between the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. So anyway, great book.

Colossians is one of the three prison epistles that puts the focus on our heavenly mind, heavenly mindset, our heavenly citizenship, of course, coming out of Philippians, and heavenly seating coming out of Ephesians, heavenly blessings. So Colossians is just a great book. In the Bible survey elective, we're going to be not just going over, okay, this book says this and this book says that, but tracing through the books things like walking with God, fellowship with God, things like trusting God, and how were people saved as we go through the books. How does the Bible talk about spiritual growth as you go through the books?

So anyways, I think some very important and relevant and in fact deep things will be coming out of that. Anyway, so we're hoping that it's very difficult for you to decide which one you're going to sign up for, but we'd appreciate it if you would do that. And finally, one thing, and this is on the first slide in your handout, so you can track with me here. I want to make some things clear.

The Gentiles was the first group, starting with Adam and Eve. And Gentiles means non-Jews. The Bible also refers to the Gentiles as the nations and the peoples. And there is occasionally some other talk about different languages, oftentimes referring to the Gentiles. It's an ethnic distinction. Those who believe of the Gentiles are saved. Of all time, those who believe of the Gentiles are saved. So the Gentiles, when the Bible makes reference to them, is some saved, and those are saved by faith, and some not saved. It's an ethnic distinction. There is also Israel, also known as Jews, Hebrews, and the nation, singular, the people, and sometimes Jacob. And those are the references you'll see in the Bible. It's an ethnic distinction. And again, like the Gentiles, some are saved, some are not. How are they saved? Some are saved by faith, that's it. Then we have the Church Age, that is from Acts 2, the day of Pentecost, until the Lord comes for his church, the rapture. That's the church age.

It's composed of Jews and Gentiles. Jews and Gentiles. Now unlike this group Israel and the Gentiles where some are saved, only those who believe and are saved are in the church. The church doesn't have any... I mean physically we might have unbelievers come into this room. But the church as a body does not have any unbelievers, only believers in the church, from Acts 2 to the rapture. The ethnic distinction, this is also in your handout, the ethnic distinction between Jews and Gentiles makes no difference in the church. The Jews in the church who are saved by faith will be raptured along with the Gentiles in the church. So, anyway, just to make that clear here.

It says in Galatians 3.28, it says, it says, Jew nor Greek, and one of the things you'll see is Paul often uses the term Greek meaning Gentile. Why? It's because in the Eastern Mediterranean, all the Gentiles were largely Greek-speaking peoples, right?

Okay, so now where are we in this passage? We're in Hebrews 9, 6 through 10. Where were we last week? We looked at Hebrews 9, 1 through 5, and we talked about some details of the tabernacle in the wilderness, including items in the tabernacle and the priestly duties.

We also looked at the various objects that were placed in front of and in the tabernacle and the actions that the priests were to do and what those meant. spiritually, and we saw that most of the objects and actions pointed to Christ. And everything had a true spiritual significance. There was nothing that was insignificant. Everything meant something. There is something, however, I didn't point out.

The tabernacle had a very severe shortcoming, especially considering that they were often out in deserts that got temperatures up to 130 degrees in the shade. The tabernacle had this very severe shortcoming. There was no air conditioning. Oh, it got hot. problem on top of that, then you go and take hot coals and things like that inside this building. So anyway, that was a shortcoming.

Should have thought of that. Anyway, but the tabernacle did have lampstand and sacred bread. Let's talk about that. The lampstand represented the light of Israel, and this is the seven-lamp lampstand, okay? That's that menorah. It represented the light of Israel, who is God, and Christ, the light of the world. And that comes out in Luke and in the Gospel of John. And in the book of Revelation is the seven spirits of God in that book. And we have references from chapters 1, 3, 4, and 5 there for you to take a look at. Now, about the sacred bread. Literally, the sacred bread meant the bread of His face.

Sometimes like the King James will have showbread, which is like, what's that? I didn't know bread did put on a show. But at any rate, so showbread or this bread of his face, it speaks of the fellowship with God. That was the idea of this bread. And it didn't say Panera at the end of this little thing either, right? The 12 loaves of bread also pictured Christ as the bread of life. Christ is the bread of life. John chapter 6 has that three times. And also all the bread was kosher, right? Had to be. Okay.

Now, the second veil and the Holy of Holies were a couple other things we talked about. This veil represented separation of God from man and tearing the veil as happened as recorded in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three of them have that, and two of them have it from top to bottom, that tearing the veil represents access to God, and also the end of the old covenant by death of God's Lamb. I was noticing just recently that Acts chapter 5 says many of the priests believed And can you imagine, think about it, if you're a priest, okay? And you're working there in the temple, and they're right in the middle of your duties, all of a sudden you hear this huge RAAAP! And why did this thing tear?

And they're probably wondering, they have no idea. And it wasn't until later they say, oh, that happened at the same time that Christ died. And they put two and two together, and they say, human beings, you know, couldn't accomplish this. This has to be a God thing, right? And so you can imagine many of the priests going to putting two and two together and saying, oh, that's why the thing tore. Right? We all heard it. We all saw it. And as a matter of fact, getting the whole thing back together again was a real scramble. Right? Because it's not supposed to be torn. Ever. But it was torn by God, indicating the end of the old covenant and now access to God is free and open.

The Holy of Holies, the deepest part, the very back part of the tabernacle in the temple, represented the very presence of God among humankind, only the high priest would enter once a year to offer sacrifices for sins. But now we who believe are the holy of holies. You, if you're a believer here this morning, are the holy of holies. You're the place where God dwells.

There's then the golden altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant. The incense was a sweet-smelling aroma to the Lord, representing the prayers of the saints of different times and spiritual bodies. In other words, it wasn't just church saints, but various ones. And it goes all the way back into Psalms, that would be for Israel, and into the book of Revelation in a time to come.

Now let's talk about the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant, holding Aaron's rod, the tablets of the law, and the golden bowl with man, it pictured God's presence. Now, one of the things we brought up last week is that the Ark of the Covenant still stirs people and they get all excited about it and there's all sorts of speculation.

And we brought up, very likely, and we gave a quote from the book of Jeremiah, very likely from that and historical records, that the Ark of the Covenant is gone. Completely gone. It's recorded that the Roman general who went into this building before the whole thing got set on fire, he went into this temple building and the Ark of the Covenant was not there. So the Ark of the Covenant is very likely gone from us altogether. It had the tablets of the law and the golden bowl with manna picturing God's presence. And for us, that's fulfilled in Christ. We are in him, and he is in us. So we don't need this symbol to point to.

Now, you have this chart here showing initially the tabernacle, starting with the time out there in the wilderness when the Jews first exited Egypt. And the use of the tabernacle continued on for several centuries until the time of the building of Solomon's temple. I have down here 957. You will see some different dates for that. And that's not because there's uncertainty about its building. It was indeed built. But fixing the exact date may be a little difficult.

And then 586 being the time when Nebuchadnezzar came in and destroyed the Temple of Solomon. It was rebuilt beginning in 538 and then 515 completed. Herod began upgrades in 20 BC and shortly before it was finished. By the way, the upgrades right towards the end, they laid off 18,000 workers. So there's a huge upgrade, right?

That caused riots, by the way. The Roman army destroyed everything. taking all of the stones and dumping them off the edge. They came in also, and it's disputed as to how it got started, but also burned everything. The Romans took off anything that was valuable.

And by the way, we don't know where those things are. Still haven't discovered that. The stones that the Romans dumped off the edge found here. Archaeologists went through and did excavation and documentation of most of it. Some of it has been left here so we can see what the rubble looked like. So that's what's remaining there. But that whole area was filled with stones from the old temple. Now you have this at the top of that slide.

The author of Hebrews wrote of the second temple and the tabernacle in the same term. So you'll see the author of Hebrews talking about the tabernacle and then speaking in present tense as if that's going on. It was looked at interchangeably. The temple was a permanent structure, the tabernacle a temporary and movable structure, but inside they had the same function and the same furnishings, if you will. One of the things that we note as we go into this passage is things are written in the present tense. So the author of Hebrews writes in the present tense, even though he speaks of the tabernacle, because the tabernacle, even with the permanent, relatively permanent temple, the built temple, they represent the same thing. They represent the same thing.

He uses the present tense about the priests, the high priests entering the holy place and the holy of holies. respectively, further indicating ongoing rituals when the author of Hebrews is writing this. So he wrote almost certainly before the 70 AD destruction of the temple by the Romans. This pattern of writing is one of the things that tells us that this book was written while these things were still ongoing and while the temple was still standing. That's the only thing that would make sense. The other thing is, remember, we've said before the readers were tempted to go back to the rituals, so the rituals had to have been ongoing for them to be tempted to go back to them, right? That also tells us this is prior to the 70 AD destruction.

Now Hebrews 9.6 reads like this, Now when these things have been so prepared, the priests are continually entering the outer tabernacle, performing the divine worship. So this outer or actually first tabernacle, the first one, is right behind this first veil or first screen that you see there and that room in there. And notice it says the priests are continually doing that. So this is the front portion where day after day the priests would go in and carry out the various things that they had to do in that first section of the tabernacle or the temple.

And so this outer tabernacle is also called the holy place. where the priests were allowed and had duties to go daily to keep the seven lamp menorah lit and to keep up the sacred bread so they had to go in and keep the the lamp going by adding oil to it and by the way they couldn't just add any oil it had to be specially prepared sacred oil they had to keep adding that and keep it going they were not supposed to let it go out So, they would go in and renew the oil all the time to make sure that the lamps were all remaining lit. The other thing they had to do is to go back in at least once a week and restore the bread. By the way, the priests were allowed to come in and snitch from the bread once in a while if they were hungry. So by one way or another, whether getting stale or getting eaten, they had to put new bread in there and keep that up.

So that was another thing to keep presenting and refreshing there in that section of the tabernacle. also to bring hot coals from the altar of sacrifice, that's this sacrifice that's out front, and place the incense, the frankincense, on the hot coals.

So you can imagine they gave that to some of these trainee priests, right? And then they'd tell them about the thing they could carry the hot coal in. Now, on the hot coal, once they got it in there, they would take frankincense, which is, remember, one of the gifts that was given to Joseph and Mary, gold and frankincense and myrrh. They would take this frankincense and put it on the hot coal, and then that would be the incense that would burn there.

And in the Christmas account, Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, went in there. You may recall, here's Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, was doing this duty just in this very same area that we're talking about here. And so as he was in there, imagine going there, you're doing your duty like you do all the time.

An angel shows up. Gabriel shows up. Same one that talked to Mary. Gabriel shows up, talks to Zacharias, and says, hey, your wife is going to have a baby. And he's kind of, ha ha, you're kidding me. And the angel says, you're not talking. Not for nine months and about a week. You're not talking. So he comes out and he can't say a thing.

Give me something to write on. So you can imagine that. So it was quite an event. So here's a connection from this service here into the Christmas account. And then finally, when John is circumcised, of course they're asking at the circumcision in Jewish tradition, that's when you announce the name of the baby. You might have got it picked out, but traditionally that's when you announce it.

So what's the baby's name when they're gonna do this, right? And so the answer that Zacharias wife Elizabeth comes up with is we're gonna call him John what there's nobody in your family named John not we're gonna call him John and So then they can't believe it. So they turn to Zacharias and they say well, what are you gonna name him? He can't talk, right?

And so he you know, give me something to write on he's writing down. His name is John Okay at that At that, he begins to speak and actually prophesies. So here's a connection here with the tabernacle. So the priest has many duties, but a priest primarily represents man to a holy God. A prophet represents God to man, speaks for God. A priest represents man to God. So, the priests and the tabernacle and the temple carried on the worship of God on behalf of the people.

So isn't that interesting? Can you imagine a situation, instead of coming here to Holly Hills and worshiping the Lord directly, you've got to let some other guys do it. That's kind of interesting, isn't it? You've got to let some other people do the worship.

It's neat that we actually get to directly worship the Lord, each of us personally. In the church, the body of Christ, we have Christ as our high priest and true and heavenly tabernacle and we're all priests. How about that? We're all priests having direct access to God on behalf of others, believing or not.

When Nancy and I lived in Carson City, we lived there for about 15 years and we had a next door neighbor. And the next door neighbor was coming to me and he wanted some particular things to turn out well for him. So he comes to me and he starts telling me, you know, I want this to turn out this way and this way and this way. And I said, well, why are you telling me? He says, because you've got special connections and I don't. So there's a recognition of it there.

We can be the world's priests and priests for one another because each of us as believers have direct access to God. Christ came to represent God to man. When he was born of Mary, that was the beginning of that representation of God to man. Different from the prophets in this way. The prophets only spoke for God. Jesus spoke as God. You see the difference there? Jesus spoke as God. The prophets only spoke for God. So Jesus was a prophet, yes, but a special prophet in that he spoke not just for God, but as God himself. In him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And then Christ ascended to represent man to God, us. To God the Father, he is our heavenly high priest.

So Hebrews 5, 9, and 10 puts it this way. Having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews 5, 9, and 10. Hebrews 9, 6, and 7 goes on like this.

Now when these things have been so prepared, the priests are continually entering into the outer tabernacle, performing the divine worship, but into the second only the high priest enters once a year, not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people committed in ignorance.

Let's take a look and see what that's talking about here. Into the second. The second part of the tabernacle, as well as in the inner part of the temple, was called the Holy of Holies. That's the part he's talking about. The front part, the holy place, this is where Zacharias was, right? The father of John the Baptist. That's that front part, and the priests are continually in there.

But that second part, only the high priest is to go. Only the high priest is to go, and once a year. So this room only held the Ark of the Covenant and its contents when it did. This part of the tabernacle or later the temple was the most holy place because God himself was said to dwell there. Only the high priest would enter once a year on the Day of Atonement. That was the only time when he was allowed to go and only he was allowed to go. So one guy, one day of the year, that's it. No more. Nobody else and no other time.

This time when he entered was called the Day of Atonement or you may have also heard it as Yom Kippur. Typically around, somewhere around October 10th. Roughly, the daily sacrifices were intended to address the sins of the people that were committed deliberately. This Day of Atonement was different.

The once-a-year sacrifice of the high priest for the sins of the people and for his sins was for sins that had been committed in ignorance. Isn't that interesting? You see, what you've got over here, these are definite no-no's and you did them anyway. That's what the regular sacrifices were for. This set of sins that the high priest went into the Holy of Holies for once a year on the Day of Atonement was for oopsies. Whoops! I didn't know. Sins committed in ignorance.

That was the only day that the high priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies. Only he could do it if he tried. Even being qualified as a high priest, if he tried to go any other day, it says he would die. It doesn't say how he would die, but it says he would die. So very interesting. And by the way, if you ever heard the story about the rope about the ankle, it's bogus. They didn't do that.

So at any rate, Here are some insights that we saw previously in Hebrews 5, 1-3. It reads this way, For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men, representing, on behalf of men, in things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. The gifts were things that were optional.

The sacrifices were required. And he can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided. And again, here's this point of the high priest deals with sins of ignorance. Since he himself also is beset with weakness and because of it, he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins as for the people and so also for himself. This kind of explains this same process here.

Now here's what Hebrews 9.8 reads, the Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is still standing. And by the way, that word standing doesn't just mean physically standing, it means operation in a valid function. Now, the first part we see in there in that verse is the Holy Spirit is signifying.

Ultimately, the Holy Spirit is the author of all of Scripture. All Scripture is inspired, God-breathed, as Paul wrote to Timothy, including those portions of the Law of Moses that spelled out the construction. The construction of the tabernacle was inspired by God. So that's what he's saying, is the Holy Spirit had this written.

It wasn't just something that Moses cooked up. Hey, wouldn't it be great if we had this tabernacle out here while everybody's dying and having a horrible time and let's build a tabernacle and that'll give them something to focus on. No, he didn't just cook that up. It was something that the Lord gave him, ultimately inspired by the Holy Spirit. Even the law of Moses, all 613 laws, inspired by God. including the construction operation of this tabernacle. The reason that the Holy Spirit had the construction operation of this tabernacle written by Moses was to deliberately convey, to spell out the spiritual truths by details given in the Law of Moses. We're doing this not because we just want to give you something religious to do, but we're doing this, Israelites, so that you will get some spiritual lessons out of these things. That's why it shows up in there.

Now, but the other part of that verse says you can't get there from here, right? You can't get there from here. What the author of Hebrews is trying to tell these people, the tabernacle and the priests and the high priests and the sacrifice, the incense, all did what? Did they accomplish anything? No. They just illustrated things. They just illustrated things.

Did the people really feel closer to God because they had a guy go in once a year into the inner part of the tabernacle? Not necessarily. I mean, even if they had this column of fire and smoke above the tabernacle, that was just kind of scary. It didn't necessarily make them feel closer to God. Plus, there was very limited access. You could only get the priests could go in to the front part and only the high priest could go in once a year and no other time. All these things pictured access to God, it didn't really get it done. Did it give you access to God, the common person? No. It didn't do that. You had somebody else who once in a while could have access to God. It pictured it, but it didn't do it. It didn't get it done.

The priests had conditional access. You can go in under these conditions and to do these things through a symbol on behalf of the people. But the people really couldn't go in there and have access to God, right? So here's how Hebrews 9, 8, and 9 reads, the Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is standing, which is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly, both gifts and sacrifices, and gifts are things given as optional, sacrifices required, are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience. The tabernacle object lesson is, it just never got it done. In the tabernacle and the temples that followed, everything stood for something. Everything stood for something. They stood as object lessons about a relationship with God. Which would you rather have? Object lessons about a relationship with God or a relationship with God?

That's what the author is trying to tell them. He says, look, all these things are just object lessons, and you guys are wanting to leave a relationship with God to go back to the object lesson. It's like the example we gave before. When you see a fire exit sign, don't stand by it if there's a fire. You want to go where it's pointing you, not just stay there. The object lessons ultimately pointed to this. The copy and shadow and object lesson symbol never got it done. It pointed, but it just never got it done.

In the end, the system did not provide access to God for the common person, and actually not even for the priests. You can't go in here and do this and that and the other thing, okay? And you've got to go in here and do this and that, and the real place, the Holy of Holies, only one guy gets to go there once a year, otherwise he's going to die. Does that sound like real good access to God? Not so much. Not so much.

The tabernacle did nothing to deal with the sin problem. And there's two sides to the sin problem. This addresses one of them, the human side. The words, did not make the worshipper perfect in conscience, tells us that the sin problem remains a sin problem. The tabernacle didn't really take care of the sin problem, it just kept pointing to it and pointing to the answer, but it didn't answer anything itself.

What was needed was to actually deal with the sin problem, to change the standing of each person before God so that each person is right before God, and so because it didn't do anything actually, They had to keep going back, and back, and back, and doing it again next year, and next year, and next year, and next year. And then the priest would die, and they'd have to replace him with another one, and they'd keep going and doing it again. It never got it done, which is why they had to keep going back and doing it, and doing it, and doing it, and doing it for about 1,500 years. Doing it again, and again, and again, and again.

But now, we who believe are the holy of holies. We're the real thing. We are indwelt by God Himself. We have access to God. And now here in verse 10 we get this, since they relate, all these things we've looked at, they relate only to food and drink and various washings, regulations of the body imposed until a time of reformation. Now what's that talking about?

What one does on the outside doesn't do anything to fix the inside. What one does on the outside doesn't do anything to fix the inside. The rituals and the sacrifices the priest did on behalf of the people didn't really deal with the people's sins. It didn't change them. There were personal actions, of course, that the law required of each one of them as well. But it was all outside. It was all external. None of it changed who they were. None of it really dealt with the sins.

Things like food and drink. Hey, you can't eat that. So, laws about food and drink. And by the way, that included, do not eat an apple with a worm in it. That's against the law, by the way. I think it's number 114. So food and drink is one of those sets of regulations. Various washings.

You know, when Jesus turned the water into wine, what they did is he made it so that they couldn't wash because all the jugs that they used for washing were full of wine. Can you imagine that? They couldn't do their ritual washings because all the jugs were full of wine. And you couldn't just stick your hands down into a jug and wash your hands. There are regulations required that you get it with a pitcher and pour the water over your hands to do the washings. So, various washings. You've got to wash this and wash that.

And also, by the way, I had to wash down the temple regularly. When they would do these sacrifices, there would be blood from the animals all over the place, and they had to wash those down. And they had underneath the temple mount huge caverns to store the water for the washings. Regulations for the bodies, starting with circumcision on the eighth day. and on into the rest of life, all sorts of things.

So it's all stuff that you drink and eat and things that you do on the outside, washings, things that you do to the body, but nothing changes the heart. That's where the law fell short. All kinds of requirements, and it was spiritual in the sense that it pointed to spiritual things, but nothing changed the heart. Nothing changed man's true standing with God.

And it finishes there with, until a time of reformation. The set of words in the Greek means, until a time of setting things right. Until a time of setting things right. So what that says, until a time of setting things right, up until that time, things are what? Wrong, right? Things are not right. So the law is there as a temporary thing until things are put right. There were several things that were meant by until a time of setting things right.

Christ was the once and final sacrifice effective for all time and all peoples, and it was effective, and the sacrifices worked. Christ didn't have to come back every year and be sacrificed again. Why? Because he got it done, and the sacrifices didn't. Christ was the once and final sacrifice. As the high priest, he also presented himself as the sacrifice. Because Christ came and died and rose again and ascended and was seated in the heavenlies, because Christ the Lamb died for all of us as the once and final sacrifice and was seated there in the heavenlies, then we in the body of Christ are no longer under any of the old law system at all.

Not 10, not 9, not 11, none. Zip. Nada. Israel will be under the new covenant. Israel will be under the new covenant in the coming millennial kingdom. So a time when things will be set right for the church is when Christ died and was buried and rose again and was ascended and seated. Things were set right for us in the church. Things will be set right for the ethnic people of Israel who believe in the coming millennial kingdom Israel, the people of God, will know the law from the heart.

They won't need a rabbi. They will be empowered by an indwelling Holy Spirit to live out the law. All of them. And they will be blessed in the land. And they will be in the land. That's Israel's coming new covenant. So things will be set right in the church. Things will be set right in Israel. But under two different programs, if you will.

Now, why bring up all these things to these believers? That is, why is the author of the book of Hebrews bringing this thing up to these believers? The author of Hebrews wants his readers to opt for, to choose, for the reality rather than the shadow. Christ the Lamb, our heavenly high priest, he's telling them, is the one in whom we are, and who is in each of us.

You want to be close to God? You don't get there by sending the high priest into the Holy of Holies once a year. Don't do that. All you do is you believe that Christ died for your sins, was buried and rose again, and Christ is placed in you, and you are placed in Him.

The One with whom we have an eternal relationship. A real relationship, not let's go through the motions. Not even let's let somebody else go through the motions for us. We have an eternal relationship with Him. The One who has called us to fellowship and gives us all access to the Father.

The Jews, it's, you'd better only send the high priest in there, and he better do it on the right day, and he better do the right things or he's going to die. And nobody else goes in there. That's it. We, on the other hand, through Christ, by means of the Holy Spirit, come running up to the Father and jump in His lap and say, Abba, Papa. We have access. We have access. That is amazing. That's phenomenal. That's wonderful. Access to the Father. Fellowship. Fellowship. Okay, let's pray.

Lord, thank you for the access and the fellowship that we have in sharp contrast to what was presented as a picture to those who were operating by the tabernacle. Thank you for the reality that we enjoy. Thank you for the access we have. Thank you for the fellowship and the eternal relationship that you've given all by your grace. We thank you for that and we just entrust the remaining hours of the day and the remaining days here in this year to you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.