Hebrews 10

… Let us turn to the 10th chapter of Hebrews. For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offer year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered, because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In birth offerings and sacrifices for sin thou must have no pleasure. Then said I, lo, I come. In the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, sacrifice and offering and birth offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein which are offered by the law. Then said he, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever sat down on the right hand of God. This is how it should read, the comma should be after sins forever sat down or sat down in perpetuity on the right hand of God from hence forth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. For after that he hath said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore brethren boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful of promise, and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as ye see the day approaching. We have a kind of a summing up in this chapter of what has been written previously in this epistle to the Romans, and as is well known this epistle was written we believe by the apostle Paul, although it does not give the anyone's name as writing it, and that would have been out of place because the apostle in this epistle is the Lord himself. We are told consider him who is the apostle and high priest of our confession Jesus, but there's no doubt from the internal evidence of it, and also the traditional evidence that it was written by Paul. It was Paul's letter to the converts from among the Jews, from his own countrymen, as the other epistles that he wrote were written to assemblies and individuals from among the Gentiles, and he shows the great contrast between law and grace. One of the key words of this epistle is the word better, and he shows that everything in Christianity is better than what we have under Judaism, and the perfection of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ is brought out, showing how that his work is perfect in contrast to the work of the priests in the Old Testament, and the sacrifices in the Old Testament that were imperfect. And he reminds us to start off in this chapter that if the law had been able to bring in something perfect, then the work would have been finished. It was only a shadow of good things to come, and under the law no one had a knowledge of acceptance. No one had a full knowledge of forgiveness. I suppose that a Jew bringing his offering and seeing that the offering was accepted for him would have some realization of the fact that that particular sin had been atoned for, but to have a knowledge of an acceptance with God through a finished work was something that was unknown to them. That is something that awaited the completion of the work of the Lord Jesus on Calvary's cross. And so the question is raised here in verse two, but then would they not have ceased to be offered? Because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. And if that had been the case, all of those sacrifices would have ceased to be offered, but they didn't cease to be offered. And so we're reminded that in those sacrifices there was a remembrance of sins made again every year, even on the day of atonement. The day of atonement, an offering was made, and we might say that God was satisfied to dwell among the guilty people for another year on the basis of the blood that was sprinkled on and before the mercy seat. And then it goes on and points out the various types of offerings in the Old Testament, and this of course is taken from the 40th Psalm. And if we turn back to the 40th Psalm, I just want us to turn back to a minute to the 40th Psalm. David is writing here in the 40th Psalm, and he says in verse six, sacrifice an offering thou did not desire. Mine ears hast thou opened, or as the margin says, mine ears hast thou digged. Burnt offering and sin offering thou hast not required. Then said I, lo I come in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea thy law is within my heart. Now this is quoted in this 10th chapter of Hebrews, but we notice quite a difference in the quotation. In the quotation in Hebrews, instead of saying, mine ears hast thou opened, or mine ear hast thou digged, the apostle writes, but a body hast thou prepared me. Why does the psalmist say, mine ear hast thou opened? And why does the apostle Paul in writing this say, a body hast thou prepared me? Well you know, I believe this, the one thought is just the extension of the other. What, what is the use of an ear, unless it's connected with a body? An ear by itself is of no value. An ear by itself would just be useless. But an ear as a part of the body, an ear that is able to listen to a message and translate what is said into practice, the body doing what the ear hears, the body, the body obeying the command that the ear has listened to, we understand what that is. And so when the psalmist says, mine ear hast thou opened, he's referring to the fact that in incarnation, as having become a man, the Lord Jesus had an ear opened to the message from his Father. We have that in the 50th Psalm, the 50th of Isaiah rather. If we turn now to the 50th of Isaiah, we get a little clearer understanding on this. In Isaiah 50, we find there that it says, in the fifth verse, this is the Lord, well we read verse four, this is the Lord speaking, and he says in verse four, the Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. This is referring to the Lord, because the next verse says, I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheek to them that plucked off the hair, I hid not my face from shame and spitting. This is the Lord Jesus, the Lord with the open ear, listening morning by morning to the message from his Father. And so when the Psalmist says, my ear hast thou opened, the Apostle in referring to this in our chapter says, a body hast thou prepared me. The body that was the vehicle for the carrying out of the will of the Father. And so the Lord, as the dependent man, listens morning by morning to his Father, and he could say, I do always those things that please the Father. And of course that will lead him onto the cross. It's interesting to notice that really these verses, where he speaks about these offerings, they cover every type, I shouldn't say every type, but the four main types of offerings that we have in Leviticus. We have, it says, verse five, when he comes into the world, he says sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not. I understand that the sacrifice there means the peace offering, and the offering means the meat offering. As much as to say, when he cometh into the world, he says, peace offering and meat offering thou wouldest not, but the body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. So we have the peace offering, we have the meat offering, we have the burnt offering, and we have the sacrifices for sin, which would include the trespass offering. So that takes in the trespass offering and the sin offering. The offerings that are mentioned there, starting off in Leviticus, the first chapter, with the burnt offering, then the meat offering, the burnt offering speaking of Christ's offering himself to God, the meat offering speaking of his perfect life, the peace offering speaking, it's what's been called the fellowship offering, where God had his portion, the priest had his, and the offerer had his. Then the sin offerings, both the sin and trespass offering, which correspond to the Lord's being made sin for us, making an atonement for sin, and bearing our sins in his own body on the tree. But why does the psalmist say, when God had ordained those offerings, why does he say that thou wouldest not have these offerings? Is he meaning then that the offerings were valueless, that God didn't intend them? That's what the modernists tell us, you know. They say why those Old Testament offerings were just some pagan idea of approaching God, and that the Lord gave the prophet, caused the prophet to say that he didn't want them, and that God was not pleased with the Israelites offering up those offerings. That's not what it means at all. It doesn't mean to say that God was not pleased with them, God ordained them. That was God's way of approach. But it does mean that they in themselves were not God's final desire. That they in themselves could not meet the claims of God. They're only pointed on to the one who would come that would meet the claims. It only means that they in themselves were insufficient until one should come who would be the complete offering. And so in the fullness of time, the Lord Jesus came. And so that's why this is brought in here, a body hast thou prepared me. It's really the incarnation. It's one of the verses that show us that the Lord Jesus became a man, and he came here and took upon himself a human form, that he might make an atonement for our sins. A body hast thou prepared me. A body on which he was able to go to the cross, and there on that cross bear our sins on the tree. A body in which he became the fulfillment of the meat offering, and the burnt offering, the trespass offering, the sin offering, the peace offering. He was the fulfillment of them all. They were all fulfilled in him. And it took all of these different types of offerings to set forth the different aspects of the person and work of the Lord Jesus. But he was the one who fulfilled every one of those types through his work there, through his life on earth, and above all through his death on Calvary's cross. Because the meat offering not only sets forth, it doesn't exactly set forth the Lord's death, that sets forth his life. And we do notice one thing about the meat offering, or the food offering it really was, the meal offering, we never find it offered except in connection with the burnt offering. I think if you look through the scripture you'll find that the meat offering is never offered on its own. It's always offered with the burnt offering, letting us see that God wants to stress the fact that the life of the Lord Jesus is not looked at as available to us, and as of any value to us, apart from his death. We only get the benefit of the life of the Lord Jesus when we have first come to see the value of his death. And it's we who know the value in some measure of the Lord's death, and know that he's our savior, can then appreciate what his life, the value of his life, and that he left us an example that we should follow his steps, an example of obedience to his father's will. And so as we have these various offerings brought before us, and above all the Lord coming into this scene, saying to his father, father I know that these offerings were not in themselves sufficient, but thou has prepared me a body, and in that body I've come to do thy will. And so it says, then said I, lo I come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will O God. So we have the will of God. This goes back into the past eternity. In the volume of what book was it written? Some have thought that this is referring to the book of God's eternal counsel, back in the past eternity, because David writes in the psalm, he uses that same expression, in the volume of the book it is written of me. And so it seems that it goes right back to that past eternity. There was the book of God's eternal counsel, and back as far as we can go in eternity, it was written that the Lord Jesus in the fullness of time would come to do the father's will. In fact we have that in Galatians where it says there in the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son. Some have said well why do we have it that the 4,000 years of this world's history had to go by before the Lord Jesus came? Well those 4,000 years were God's time of testing for the human race. Up to the cross man was under probation. God was testing him, and God tested him out in every form to see if under any of those forms man could produce fruit for God. Of course God knew what man could do, it isn't as if God didn't know, but God had to prove to man that he couldn't. Man was tested under innocence in the Garden of Eden. He was tested under conscience after the Garden of Eden. He was tested under promise, or rather first of all he was tested under government after the flood. He was tested under promise that God gave to Abraham, the promise of the coming sea. He was tested under law from the time of Moses on, right down to the time of Christ. Every one of those times ended up in failure. The testing under innocence ended in the fall. The testing under conscience ended in the flood. The testing under government ended in idolatry, and God having to call out Abraham. The testing under promise ended in the people in slavery in the land of Egypt, and the testing under law ended in the crucifixion of God's beloved son, when God sent his son and they crucified him. They were under law right up to that time. So the cross was the end of God's period of testing. So it says in the fullness of time God sent forth his son. I think there's a similar thought when we get the history of the children of Israel. We get the brazen serpent, and the lesson of the brazen serpent is the need of new birth. You don't get the brazen serpent at the beginning of the wilderness journey. You get it at the end of the wilderness journey, and those 40 years only proved that the people of Israel were a rebellious people. That they weren't able to please God, and that's where the Lord allows the serpents to bite them, and the brazen serpent comes in setting forth the great truth that man needs to be born again, and we get that at the end of the wilderness journey. So we might say after 40 years, after 40 centuries of probation, God sends his son, and the son of man is lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. Even so must the son of man be lifted up, that those who were a believer in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Well to come back to our chapter, here we have the will of God. God's will. What was God's will? God's will was that his son should come into this scene, come as a man, a body hast thou prepared me, the body prepared, a true man, and yet God with all, that he might go to Calvary's cross to glorify God. So we have the will of God. Then we have the next point that we have set forth in this chapter, is the work of Christ, and so it goes on and says in verse 9, lo I come to do thy will O God, he taketh away the first that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. So we have the work of Christ. The Lord Jesus has come in accordance with the will of God. But what has he come to do? He's come to do the Father's will. His whole life was a life of doing the Father's will. He could say there when he was 12 years of age to Mary and Joseph, wish ye not that I must be about my Father's business, even though he hadn't started his public ministry, he was here to do the will of God. And it was also in the will of God that as a 12, a boy 12 years of age, he should be subject to those who were there as his parents, Mary and Joseph. And so it says he went down to Nazareth and was subject to them. When he starts his ministry, he even has to give Mary a gentle rebuke when she comes and tells him that they have no wine at the marriage of Cana of Galilee, because now he's taken his public place as the promised Messiah. John has pointed him out as the Lamb of God, the one who was to go to the cross. Now he's begun his public ministry. He's pledged himself to that work. By his baptism, he's pledged himself to the being baptized on the cross under the judgment of God for sin. And so he goes right through. He's doing the will of God. Every action of the Lord's life was according to the will of God. But that will in its completeness leads him on to the cross, leads him right up to the time when there on the cross he's offered up. So it says, by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands up daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. You know it's been pointed out that in the tabernacle there were no seats for the priests. There were no seats for the priest in the tabernacle, nor in the temple for that matter. There was no place actually in the place where they officiated in the offering of the sacrifices and of the sprinkling of the blood and everything like that. There was no place for the priest to sit down. The work was never finished. The priest had to offer their daily sacrifices, their weekly sacrifices, their monthly sacrifices, and their yearly sacrifices. The high priest once a year had to go into the Holy of Holies and sprinkle the blood once on seven times before the mercy seat. But there was no place there for him to sit down. His work was never finished. You know when you've finished your work, when a man works all day and he comes home at night, how nice it is to sit down. Especially if he's been having to stand up in his work all day. He comes home and sits down. If you're doing some job and you're working and you're standing up or you're walking around and your work is finished, you sit down. And so I believe that's the thought that we have here, that God wants to stress before us. The priest's work was never finished. They had to continually offer, and that's why it is which they offer year by year continually. They could never make the comers there unto perfect. Their work was never finished. For one thing, the priest was an imperfect person. For another thing, the sacrifice was an imperfect sacrifice. It was perfect typically. That is, it was to be without blemish. But it was imperfect in the sense that it could not atone for sin. It could not put away sin. All those sacrifices could do was that they covered up sin until the one should come who would put them away. And so everything was imperfect. But when the Lord Jesus came, he was the perfect offerer and his was the perfect offering. He fully met the claims of a holy God. And having offered that one perfect sacrifice that fully met the claims of God, it says he sat down in perpetuity at the right hand of God. He finished the work and he sat down. And the Lord is looked at in heaven as sitting down at the present time. You know, God uses expressions that we human beings understand. That is why these expressions are used. They're used, people say, well, is that true that we can speak of the God of the Lord in heaven? That he takes into account place and time and that the Lord is actually sitting down or standing up? The point is that God uses expressions that we understand. The Lord Jesus has taken his place. He's there in a body. He's carried humanity with him to heaven. I've no doubt that the Lord literally sat down because he's there in a body. But God uses these things to express to us in language that we can understand what it means. The contrast between the priest always standing and never being able to sit down in the tabernacle or the temple and the Lord having finished the work and having sat down because the work was finished. It's conveying to us in an expression that we can, we finite human beings can understand that the work has been done. The work has been finished. God is satisfied. You know, it's a wonderful thought, beloved brethren, and if there's any here that have any doubts about salvation tonight, beloved friend, you should not have any doubts. God has been satisfied with the work of his son. The Lord Jesus having finished the work has sat down. God's satisfied with him. He sat down at the right hand of God. He offered one sacrifice. He sat down in perpetuity. He's not, as it were, sitting down for a little while and jumping up again to do a little bit more. No, the work's finished. You know, in the Roman Catholic Church, sad to say, they teach that every time the priest says mass, that he offers afresh upon their altars the work of the Lord Jesus. And that the Lord Jesus is dying again every time that they offer this sacrifice, as they call it, a corruption of the Lord's supper. What a travesty. The scripture, very plain, it says he finished the work and sat down. That's a work that can never be repeated. And once, beloved friends, we grasp hold of that work, how, what assurance it gives us to see that God has been satisfied with the work of his son. And if God's satisfied, we can be. When our hymn says God is satisfied with Jesus, I am satisfied as well. How wondrous that we can be satisfied, completely satisfied, with that work that has been accomplished. From henceforth expecting, it says, till his enemies be made his footstool. There he is. And the present church period is going on because it says he's expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. And so he's there in heaven now while God is calling out the church. And when the church is completed and the Lord Jesus comes to take us up to be with himself, because the Lord's entering in there, is looked at in scripture as not, that the work not complete until all the redeemed are there with him. And then when we're all there with him, then he's going to come forth and judge and his enemies will be made his footstool. So the Lord is there and in the meantime God is calling out the church. And then we have added the words in verse 14, for by one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. And this word forever is the same as the word forever in verse 12, and it means in perpetuity. He has perfected in perpetuity. This is something that gives us an additional security. That not only has the Lord sat down in perpetuity, but those who know him as their savior, they're perfected in perpetuity. The Lord doesn't save our souls, and then after having done that work to save us, and after having saved our souls, then let us get lost again. When the Lord truly saves a soul, that one is perfected in perpetuity. That is, we are perfected through the perfect work of Christ. Not by anything we are in ourselves, but in all the value of that finished work. Then we have, beginning from verse 15, the third point that we want to make in this chapter, the witness of the Holy Ghost. We have the will of God, we have the work of Christ, now we have the witness of the Holy Ghost. The will of God was expressed in the past eternity. The work of Christ was what was accomplished here on earth, during the Lord's ministry and ending in his death. Now the Holy Ghost gives witness, and the witness of the Holy Ghost is connected with what was already written. The will of God had already been made known in the Old Testament, there as we read it in the 40th Psalm. The work of Christ was typified in the Old Testament, in all of those sacrifices that were offered that pointed on to Christ, the Holy Ghost gives witness in the Old Testament. And so we find that from verse 15, he quotes here what is said in Jeremiah, and he says in verse 15, Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us, for after that he had said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now he'd already referred back to this in the 8th chapter, he mentions this covenant also, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, and if we, we won't turn back to it, but if we turn back to it, we find that this is what's referred to in the 31st chapter of Jeremiah, and the 31st verse, we have the new covenant that God is going to make, and he says he's going to make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It hasn't been made yet, but the blood of that covenant is the blood that was shed by the Lord Jesus on the cross. And this is in keeping with what is being written here, because this is being written to those converts of the Jewish nation, who had entered in now to all the value of that new covenant. And that is true for all of us Christians, that although the covenant will be made with Israel, we enter into the good of it. The new covenant is in his blood, and that's why I believe that in the institution of the supper in Luke, the Lord doesn't say this is my blood of the new covenant like he does in Matthew, he says this is the new covenant in my blood, because that is looking at it from the from the Gentile point of view as it were, that in the Lord's blood, through the Lord's blood, through that sacrifice, we get all the spiritual blessings of that new covenant. Their sins and iniquities remembered no more. And so he quotes that, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Why will they be remembered no more? Because they were dealt with. The Lord dealt with them at the cross. The Lord put them away at the cross. The Lord shed his precious blood. The old covenant, as we were mentioning this afternoon, the old covenant, the covenant that the Lord made with them when they came out of the land of Egypt, the covenant of the Ten Commandments, that had a condition to it. Man promised to obey it. They said all that the Lord has spoken will we do. But they didn't do, they couldn't do. No doubt they meant to. How many people ever since have made promises that they're going to keep the law? You know there are certain denominations that have an ordinance that they call confirmation. And young people go into this confirmation and they make promises. They make a solemn promise before God that they're going to forsake the devil and all his works and all his ways and they're going to do the will of God from henceforth. And no doubt many of those young people really mean it. They fully intend that that's what they're going to do. But they can't keep it. They can't do it. Why? Because they're making a promise that they can't fulfill. They're trying on their own strength to please God and to do his will. And they're not able to. God doesn't intend that we should be making promises like that now. God tested Israel out under that and only proved to them that they couldn't do it. They said all that the Lord has spoken will we do. And before Moses had come down out of the mountain they'd broken the first commandment and they were dancing around the golden calf. They couldn't do it. Thou shalt have no other gods before thee. The first two commandments they'd broken. Thou shalt not make to thee any graven image. Here they were. They'd made the promise but they couldn't keep it. Now when God makes the new covenant with Israel in the coming day it's going to be an unconditional covenant. God says their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. But he doesn't say you've got to keep certain conditions in order to get your sins remembered no more. No. He says my as if it's just as if he says my son has so completely finished the work and I'm fully satisfied with it. And all you have to do is accept that finished work. And that's all that souls have to do now. As in realization of their great need is to turn to the law of Jesus. Owning their need and trusting in that finished work. And so it says where remission of these is there's no more offering for sin. No more offering needed. What else does it say? Having therefore boldness brethren to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. The high priest only the high priest in the old time could go into the holy of holies once a year not without blood. But when the Lord Jesus died on the cross the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. I'm sure that those priests who were officiating in the temple on that day if there were any there maybe they were all out on Calvary watching the Lord die. It doesn't scripture doesn't tell us that. But if there were any priests in the temple they must have heard the terrific caring and as they look toward it they see that that that that veil rent from the top to the bottom. Why does it say from the top to the bottom? If it was from the bottom to the top it might have been some some man doing it. It was the top to the bottom. God rented. And if there were none of them there and they're all out on Mount Calvary when they got back into the temple what a testimony that must have been to them. To see that veil of the temple rent. I believe that some of them were there and that's why it's recorded like that. It says the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. And you know the priest must have either sewn that old veil up or else put a new one in its place. But they put the veil back again and they left kept it there ever since. And God was making known that he'd done away with it. And so the apostle can say we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Right there where the high priest went, not without blood once a year. That's our place. As our hymn says the sanctuary is our place where now we dwell before the Father's face. All as we sang this morning the veil is rent. Our souls draw near unto the throne of grace. The merits of the Lord appear. They fill the holy place. Yes we enter right into the very holy of holies. That's our Christian position. Of course we think of it perhaps especially when we come together on Lord's Day morning you remember the Lord. But that's our position all the time. Our scriptural position is we're in the very presence of a holy God. And we have boldness. Not boldness in the sense of being, how shall we say, daring to go into something that we shouldn't go into. No. But boldness in the sense that it's a holy boldness. We can go in there without fear. Without fear. It's like a big business man, you know, that has his office away in the interior of his business there. And no one gets in there to talk to him unless they go by two or three offices and different ones have to give him a permit to go in. But his little boy can go right in and talk to his father if he wants to if he's got something special. He goes in there with boldness because that's his father. Well that's the sense in which we come into the presence of God. We have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Yes the work has been complete. The work has been complete and the Holy Ghost is giving a witness to it that the sins and iniquities are remembered no more. And so we have boldness to come in. So and also it says by a new and living way which he has consecrated for us through the veil. That is to say his flesh. Because the flesh, the veil, was the pipe of the flesh of Christ. And having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near. I don't think we should say that the veil has been fully taken away. But that we go through the rent veil. We go through it. But for us the veil is rent. We see the rent veil. That is, the rent veil is a continual reminder to us of the finished work. The veil, the rent veil in a certain sense to us is typical of the marks of calvary that the Lord bears in his flesh. Because the veil speaks of his flesh. But through the rent veil, through our mediator, we come into the very presence of God. And then we're exhorted. Let us draw near. It's our privilege. Israel worshipped the far off. They couldn't come near. Even the priests went, or even those who could relatively come near. Only the high priest could come into the holy place once a year, not without blood. That's our place at all times. We draw near. In contrast to Israel worshipping afar off. And if this is so, beloved, shouldn't we also heed the words of excitation that we have here? Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as we see the day approaching. How we should, in view of all that has been done, the will of God, the work of Christ, and the witness of the Holy Spirit, how should, how we should realize the great privileges that we have, and our corresponding responsibilities, and endeavor to gather together with the Lord's people, and meet the Lord with his people every time possible. You say, well of course we can meet the Lord at home. That's true. We do meet the Lord at home, and we should meet the Lord at home. We should have our individual times of meeting the Lord, in prayer and reading of his word. We should have, we should meet the Lord around our family table every time we have a meal, and when we read the word together, when we pray together. But we need to meet the Lord with his people, in the gatherings of his people, on every opportunity possible. And I believe that we should be at all the meetings we can possibly be to, and to receive the blessing that the Lord has for us. I'm sure that every time we stay away from a meeting, no matter what meeting it is, whether it's the breaking of bread, or whether it's the prayer meeting, or the bible reading, or even the preaching of the gospel, or the ministry of the word, we lose something. And our brethren lose something through our not being there, and above all the Lord loses something, because he's not receiving. There's a full portion that he should receive from his people when they gather together. Scripture says when two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. I heard a brother told me once that a sister hadn't been coming to the meetings, and when he went to talk to her she said, well of course I can't often get out for meetings, but she said, I listened to a message on the radio. Well he says, I suppose you've been reading that verse that says where two or three are gathered around the radio, there am I in the midst of them. And she didn't know what to say, of course, because she was deliberately staying away. Now I know that it may be times when the saints can't get together, and they might listen to a good message on the radio, I'm not decrying a message that anyone might hear, but this was an excuse that the dear soul was making, and the Lord used that perhaps to cause her to have some exercise about that. But we should endeavor when we can, and that's what the scripture says, after all that we see that the Lord has done, and all that has been accomplished, not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. So much the more it says as we see the day approaching, what day do we see approaching? The day of the Lord's return. That day is approaching, and then as we look back we'll say, well I wish I'd been a little more faithful when I was down on earth, I could have got together to more meetings if I'd put forth a little more effort. It'll be too late then, so we want to take advantage of our opportunities beloved, while we have them. Not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, and so much the more as we see the day approaching. Let us pray. Gracious God our Father, we thank thee for the day that thou hast given us, we thank thee for thy precious word, we pray that thou bless all that we've had before us, we thank thee for reminding us of the work of thy beloved son, thy will our God in sending him, his work when he came, and the witness that thou hast given from the scriptures themselves of the Holy Ghost, and also that thou hast reminded in this same portion of our responsibilities. Now we commit us each one to these, we separate once again our gracious Father, and give thanks in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. …