If you have your Bibles with you this morning, I invite you to open and turn with me to the book of Hebrews, to the book of Hebrews chapter 9 today, Hebrews chapter 9. And as you do so, I would just remind you that we saw when we were going through Hebrews chapter 5 that the writer wrote to his congregation that he had much to say to them But it was hard to explain. And he says that the reason these things were hard to explain is because his congregation had become dull of hearing. And you remember there in chapter 5 that he rebukes, in a sense, his congregation and he says, you're not mature. You ought to be eating solid food at this point, but you need milk instead. And then you remember as we got into chapter 6 that the writer said, let us push on to maturity, let us push on to these difficult things. And indeed, as we are about to read Hebrews chapter 9, we come to difficult things. This is not spiritual milk. As one pastor has recently said, Hebrews chapter 9 is like a ribeye steak. that is perfect in its cut and seared to perfection. As we come to look at chapter 9 in the upcoming weeks, undoubtedly it is going to require some very strong muscles of faith in order to digest these words. So we come to Hebrews chapter 9 this morning. We'll read all 28 verses. But we will focus this morning on the first 14. So please pay particular attention to the first 14 verses, though we ought to pay attention to all 28. So please hear the word of our God this morning. Now, even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. For a tent was prepared, the first section, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the presence. It is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the Most Holy Place, having the golden altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna and Aaron's staff that budded in the tablets of the Covenant. Above it were the cherubim of glory, overshadowing the mercy seat. All of these things we cannot now speak in detail. These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, performing the ritual duties. But in the second, only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. By this, the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened, as long as the first section is still standing, which is symbolic for the present age. According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of Reformation. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands that is not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls in the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Therefore, not even the first covenant It was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, this is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you. And in the same way, he sprinkled with blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Thus, it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own. For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, And after that comes judgment. So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Thus far, the reading of the Lord's Word. May he bless it. Please join me again in prayer. O gracious and merciful Lord, we come with hearts that are ready to receive your word from your hand and by your spirit. We pray that as we look into this most meaty chapter that you, O Lord, would help us to understand the simple and the plain meaning of it, to be led to the glories of Jesus Christ, that he might be held out before us in all of his beauty and all of his glory and all of his saving power and grace. And it's into his hands that we commend ourselves and our time here. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. As we read through or just read through chapter 9 here in the book of Hebrews, my guess is that to many of us, this language sounds very foreign. And in one sense, it sounds foreign because it is foreign. Even those of us who grew up from the youngest age hearing the stories of the Bible and reading the Old Testament and knowing about Moses and the Exodus and the tabernacle. Even those of us who grew up knowing this, this still seems like it is worlds apart from where we are today. We have trouble perhaps in our minds thinking of this tabernacle that Israel loved so much. And thinking of over a million Israelites who made their way out of Egypt and in the time of the Exodus were desert nomads who were wandering about in their clothes and with their children and their donkeys and their camels. And to think as we read the Old Testament of these priests who were dressed in these magnificent and beautiful garments. or to walk around the camp of Israel and hear the continual bleeding of sheep or the snorting of bulls, or even picturing ourselves in the presence of the tabernacle and smelling the stench of blood as it flowed down from the sacrificial altar. or the burning flesh of these animals that were being sacrificed on a daily basis, or the scent of incense that is filling the air. This seems foreign to us, because it is foreign. And as the writer comes here in chapter 9, he speaks of this tent, or this tabernacle that we've been speaking about, that rested in the very center of Israel's camp, and all the 12 tribes camped around this. And he speaks about how this tent that we have trouble even picturing in our heads was divided into two great rooms, the holy place. where only the Levitical priests were allowed to go. And he speaks of this holy place and all of this furniture and these utensils that were used there, of the lampstand that stood continually burning before the Lord and before the people. And he speaks of this table that was there in the holy place and of this bread of presents that the Levites would come and exchange every so often. And he speaks here in these opening ten verses, bringing us to not only the furniture in the holy place, but to the most holy place. Into this cubicle room that was separated from the holy place by a thick curtain. And here in the most holy place, a priest could only go but once a year, and the furniture that was there of the golden incense, or the golden altar of incense, and this Ark of the Covenant that we read so much about, and these cherubim of glory who sat above the Ark and their wings touched, and Israel believed that God dwelt there in the circle that these cherubim formed. The writer brings us to speak of all of this furniture, and it sounds foreign to our ears. And almost we could hope that the writer would just show us, well, why? Why did all of this matter? He says there in verse five, that of these many things, we cannot now speak in detail. And then he moves there, beginning in verse 6, not only to speak of this furniture that's formed, but of these ritual duties that seem so foreign to us. speaks of this high priest there who go regularly into the first section performing their ritual duties. And then in verse 7 of the ritual duty of this high priest that went only once a year on the day of atonement taking blood that he would offer for himself and for the sake of the people. He would sprinkle this blood on a mercy seat and Israel would rejoice believing that their sins had been forgiven by God. These rituals are so confusing to us. They seem so foreign. In many ways, as we read these first 10 verses, if we were to sit here and think about it, we would probably think, this sounds like it has more in common with Hinduism or some sort of animalistic religion or superstitious fable than 21st century Christianity. It's difficult for us to place ourselves in the shoes of these Israelites when we look around at our worship. We have these beautiful buildings that are enclosed and situated on so many street corners. You sit there on your nice padded and comfortable seats and you look around at people around you and we're all clothed in fine clothes, some of us wearing suits and we come together on the Lord's Day and we sing very simple songs being accompanied by a simple piano. You sit there and you hear a minister preach a sermon to you week after week. How foreign the world of the Israelites can seem to us. In the day of animal rights activists, in the land of wealth and prosperity and pomp, we're far more civilized than these people. And we have, or at least we think that, and we have so much trouble wrapping our minds around this furniture and these religious duties that the Levites performed. And we think we live in the land of social progress and civilization. These verses sound foreign to us because they are foreign. And as we come to a chapter like Hebrews 9, and we hear these words, we can respond in one of several ways. We can respond as many do in hearing this word, and they think, This doesn't matter. That was the Old Testament. I live under the New Testament now, and what these Israelites did has no bearing on my life. And so it's completely inconsequential to bring up these furnitures and these religious duties that the Levites reportedly did. We could read these words and We could think, well, good, this shows to us how Israel worshipped. Wonderful, that just gives me a little more information in my head. I enjoy studying the philosophy of religions or sociology, and this just gives me more head knowledge about what's going on and how Israel worshipped God back in the Old Testament. Or when we come to foreign words like this, we can say, well, yes, they're foreign, but undoubtedly they're important for us. Because as Paul has written, and we know this verse well, all scripture is God-breathed, and it's useful for teaching and correcting and training in righteousness. Reading something like Hebrews 9, and even though it seems like it's worlds apart from me, isn't really worlds apart. There's something here that I ought to be gleaning and learning. This is important to my faith and to my practice. Well, that's the biblical response. It's how we ought to view this as we come to Chapter 9. Chapter 9 and all of these strange details are given to us for our good. But why? Why is this for our good? What I would propose to you this morning is that these words that we have here in Chapter 9, they're important to us. Because even though we're worlds apart, several thousand years lay between us and the tabernacle, that we share something fundamentally in common with these Israelites of the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, I don't think it's just we who share this, but there is a common thread, if you will. We all, as humanity, in every time and place, in every country, on every continent, we share something vitally in common with these Israelites that binds us together. And that's what chapter 9 wants to drive home into our heads. Yes, foreign, but this is really important for us to understand. And when we consider what is it that we have in common with Israelites, or with Africans, or with Chinese people that relate here to verse 9, or to chapter 9, I think we can say that we share two common things with Israel of old. And the first thing that we share in common with Israel, and therefore why these verses are important to us, the first thing is that we are all creatures of worship. When you look at the Bible and the way in which God created the world, we know that he created Adam out of the dust of the ground, he created Eve from Adam's rib, and we read back there in Genesis that God placed Adam and Eve into the garden to work and to keep it. So we read in Genesis chapter 2 verse 15 that Adam and Eve were created to work and to keep the Garden of Eden. Now as we think of Adam and Eve there in the Garden of Eden, God didn't simply say you need to be a couple of gardeners here, day laborers. But these words there in Genesis 2.15, these words for work and keep, have the idea of worship. Every other time these words are used in the Old Testament, they are used in the context of worship. Adam and Eve were placed into this Garden of Eden to worship God, through keeping it, and through working it, and through gardening. And in many ways, when we think of the Garden of Eden, We know from the Bible that the Garden of Eden in many ways was the first temple. If we had time to look at the connections as the tabernacle was built and later the temple under Solomon, If you look at the details of that, there's so many horticultural terms that are used and different plants and vines that were to be etched and sketched into the buildings of the tabernacle and the temple. This is because the Garden of Eden was the first temple where God dwelt with his people and his people were to come and they were to worship him day and night. What we share in common with all of humanity is that we were created to worship God. But have you ever noticed that the Bible ends where it began? Revelation ends in a temple with God's people worshiping Him. What we read in Revelation chapter 21 is that as this glorious new Jerusalem descends from the heavens, John records for us that there was no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And we read further in chapter 21 that it's to this city, this New Jerusalem, this temple that descends from the heavens, that the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, that nothing unclean will ever enter into it, and that all of the nations will gather there to glorify and honor God and the Lamb. The Bible ends where it began, in a temple with God's people worshiping Him. And so the first thing that we share in common with these Israelites and with people from every tribe and tongue and nationality throughout all of history is that we are creatures of worship. Worship is engraved into every fiber of our being. It's not just Christians who worship, even non-Christians worship. They can't help but worship because worship is engraved into our very DNA. We are creatures of worship. And this is what binds us together with all of humanity, whether you are African-American, whether you are Caucasian, whether you are Chinese, whether you are some other nationality, we are all bound together, we share this in common, that we all worship someone or something. And the whole plot line, if you will, of the Bible teaches us how God brings sinful men and women back to himself so that we can worship him once again in communion with him. First thing that we share in common with all humanity and with these Israelites is we were created to worship God. But the second thing that we all share in common is that we all have a guilty conscience. There is not a single man, woman, or child that is born into this world who naturally knows how to worship God. And this is what Paul teaches us in Romans chapter 1, that in our sin we have exchanged the glory of God for the glory of things that are made with corruptible hands. all of us by nature throughout all history and time share this in common with every other human being that by nature we serve the creature rather than the creator and therefore all of us have a guilty conscience. All of us are sinners. All of us have been defiled. All of us have perverted the worship in which we were created to give to God. All of us are polluted by the nature and the essence of sin. So what Hebrews 9 begins to get at is that if we are to worship God again, as he demands that we worship him, our guilty consciences must be dealt with. You can't worship God and have a guilty conscience. And so God, in creating man to worship him, and in the glory of the consummation of the ages, his people will again worship him. The one thing that stands between us and God and our rightful worship that he deserves is our guilty conscience. And so that must be dealt with. You see, that's the main point that we have in these first 10 verses. These first 10 verses where the writer looks at all of this furniture, and he looks at all of these ritual duties that the Levites performed, the main point of these opening 10 verses is to show that everything that these Israelites did at the tabernacle, it was ultimately insufficient, it wasn't able to deal with man's guilty conscience. All of these furnishings that the tabernacle had, all of these sacrifices that the priests would offer, all of the blood of bulls and goats that ran down from that altar creating a puddle around the sacrificial altar, everything that they burnt in incense, none of that was sufficient to deal with the guilty conscience of worshipers. But I don't want you to miss the point here. Because Hebrews is not saying, therefore this isn't important. Rather what Hebrews says is that this is important, as we read in verse 10, because it is through this tabernacle, it is through this furniture that's spoken about, that the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing. And so when we read these opening 10 verses, why are they important to us today? Because by it, the Holy Spirit reveals to us, it teaches us that there is no way into the holy places where Christ dwells. as we will see, except by the blood of Jesus Christ. That all of this tabernacle worship, that for all of these sacrifices that these priests made, that the way was not yet open. But that everything we read of the Old Covenant and the Old Testament, they're like pictures that the Spirit was using to direct the faith in the hearts and the mind of people to Jesus Christ in whom alone there is satisfaction for a guilty conscience. And that's why the writer writes here in these opening 10 verses that this first section, this tabernacle, this temple had to go. It had to vanish, it had to be done away with, because as long as this tabernacle or later the temple was standing, there is no access through all this service into the holy places where Christ himself is seated. The curtain that kept the Israelites out of the most holy place had to be torn in two. That's what we see happens when Christ is nailed there on the cross before he dies, and there's a great earthquake, and that curtain is ripped in two, showing that the way into the holy places has now been opened, not by the blood of bulls and goats, but by the blood of the only begotten Son. And this is what it was supposed to do. The tabernacle was supposed to be destroyed. The temple wasn't to remain. And that's why, at least from a biblical perspective, it seems a bit ridiculous to some of us. There are so many who hope that the temple will be rebuilt. We're clamoring and donating millions of dollars and trying to fight these Arabs and these Muslims so they can rebuild a temple when the writer of Hebrew says it needed to vanish. It needed to be destroyed because, as he writes in verse 9, He says, according to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper. All of these sacrifices and religious duties were merely external. It couldn't touch into the heart and the soul of God's people. And our consciences aren't something that we can pluck out of us and throw into a washing machine and take out and stick back in us and say, look, I'm purified. And the writer shows here that all of these externals had to disappear. They needed to be done away with because the consciences of worshipers needed to be purified. And that's why we need verses 11 through 14. Now I note the great unfortunate thing here that the ESV has labeled verse 11 with a new subheading. I don't know if the other biblical translations have done that, but it ought not to be there because verses 11 through 14 continue on with this theme of verses 1 through 10. Verses 1 through 10 teach us that these sacrifices that these Israelites made They couldn't perfect the conscience of worshippers, so what's needed? And that's what we read of here in verses 11 through 14. Now in these four verses, verses 11 through 14, there is far more here than we could possibly begin to unpack this morning. We might actually come back and look again next week at these four verses, but what I want you to see here is I want you to see the connection that verses 11 through 14 have with verses 1 through 10. So Old Testament tabernacle, the furniture, all the ritual duties that were done, they're unable to purify the conscience, But what we read of here is a Christ sacrifice that his blood can do just that. We read the main point of this in verse 14. The writer says, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. So you see that connection. Verse 9, the Old Testament worship couldn't purify the conscience of the worshipper. Verse 14, Christ's blood can. And that's the main point that the writer of Hebrews wants us to take away from the first 14 verses, is that the blood of bulls and goats, they serve for the purification of the flesh. They did nothing for the conscience, but look to Christ because Christ's blood doesn't just cleanse the flesh, it cleanses our very consciences. It cleanses us from these dead works and from these sins and from the guilt that gnaws and pricks at us because we are sinners. And I want you to see what Hebrews does not say at this point. Hebrews does not say, this guilty conscience that you have, you shouldn't feel so guilty. He doesn't say, hey, just ignore it. You're beating yourself up needlessly. He doesn't come here and say, you want to know how this guilt is relieved of? Stop thinking so much about it. Stop being so introspective. Just live your life. He doesn't say, Dude, these are misplaced emotions here. Be positive. Hebrews knows that our consciences are guilty because they ought to be guilty. And he doesn't brush it away, but he says there is a remedy for guilty consciences. He doesn't sugarcoat guilty consciences, but he blood coats our consciences with the blood of Jesus Christ. And he says, here is where the purification is found. Not in these rituals, not in these ceremonies, not in the formalism, but here, here in the blood of Christ. And brothers and sisters, this is the very heartbeat of the Christian religion. It's the blood of Jesus Christ. I recently heard a gospel message where the minister preaching preached the love of God presented to sinners. But he didn't once mention the bloody cross of Calvary. And I imagine that this wasn't just one isolated sermon that I heard. But that too often we think of ourselves as far more civilized than this. We think of ourselves as having made social progress that we don't need to talk about blood, and we don't need to talk about death, and we don't need to talk about sacrifices. These aren't cute and wooing and warm things that make the cockles of my heart feel fuzzy. We think of ourselves as far too civilized, of God as far too gracious to nail his son there upon a cross. But as Hebrew shows us here, a Christian is a person of blood. A Christian is somebody who is bought by blood, who is purified by blood, who lives because of blood, who bathes himself in the blood of Jesus Christ, who loves talking about blood, who hopes in blood, who sings about blood, who drinks the blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper by faith. who knows that they need blood in order to atone their guilty consciences. And the writer of Hebrews shows us this blood is here, it is the blood of Christ. It's not the blood of goats, it's not the blood of bulls, it's not the thousands and thousands of sacrifices that flow down from the altar there in Israel, but Christ's blood is the only sovereign remedy that guilty consciences can have. And this is why God himself says, come and reason with me, says the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. And as Peter writes that we have been bought and redeemed, not with gold and silver, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. And the writer of Hebrews shows here that if this tabernacle and these sacrifices couldn't cleanse the guilty conscience, dear friends, every other door is closed except Christ's blood. Christ's blood alone is able to make even the fallest clean. We have to push on with one more point this morning. That is to recognize that blood isn't an end in itself. Even being purified from our guilty conscience isn't an end in itself. Wouldn't we sometimes like to think of it that way? Sometimes a gospel message is presented as, I'm sinful, God is gracious, Christ has died for me, I'm forgiven, the end. But I believe that that stops short of the true gospel message. All those things are true, yes, indeed. But you note that little clause there at the end of verse 14. Christ offered himself through the eternal spirit without blemish to God to purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. I want you to see a connection here that isn't necessarily readily apparent in the English, but I do think that it's of the utmost importance for understanding these verses. We read here that we've been cleansed from this guilty conscience from dead works to serve the living God. And when you read this little word serve here, I'm not sure what goes through your head. Perhaps you're thinking of a butler when the door knocks and he goes and opens it, or you're thinking of a maid. Perhaps you're thinking back on the days of slavery that these men were servants who did the whim and will of their master and were just kind of told to shrink back in the darkness and they weren't allowed to talk or read or learn. Perhaps when you read this word serve here, You think of, well, I go out to a restaurant, right? This is my server. My server's gonna do everything that I tell this server to do because this is their job to serve me. And if my burger isn't warm enough, I'm gonna send it back because, hey, I'm the most important person in this restaurant. I don't know what you think of when you hear this word serve, but this word serve here in verse 14, literally translated, it means worship. And it's a word that's actually used four times throughout chapter 9. We read of it first there in verse 1, the same word is there about these regulations for worship. We read of it again in verse 6 as the writer talks about these Levites who performed their ritual duties. It's actually ritual worship that they were performing. We read of it again in verse 9 as we've just read that these sacrifices, they couldn't perfect the conscience of the worshiper. And here again in verse 14, we have to serve, that is to worship the living God. The exact same Greek word is used four times throughout this chapter. Well, what's the importance of noting this? The importance of noting this is to note that the end of our purification is not simply that we would stand without a guilty conscience declaring that we've been forgiven, but the end of being purified, the end of Christ's blood, is that we would be made to serve, that we would be made to worship the living God. You see, the way back into the Garden of Eden, The way past that flaming sword that God placed there of judgment, the way for guilty consciences to get back into the Garden of Eden or into the New Jerusalem to do what we were created to do has been opened by the blood of Jesus Christ. Our guilty consciences, when we come to them in faith, have been cleansed. And now that they have been cleansed and judgment no longer resides over us, we're given this freedom in Christ to do exactly what we were created to do, to worship God. to worship Him day and night, and therefore the gospel message does not stop with, I'm sinful, God's gracious, Christ has died for me, and I'm forgiven, but it pushes on to say, why has all of this happened? So that God can be glorified in the midst of His people, that He can be proclaimed, and known, and adored, and relished, and treasured in. That's why Christ has come to die. We ought not to think lightly of Christian worship. If your view of worship is not drenched in the blood of Jesus Christ, it's not worship. You see, our worship begins with this, that we have access to God through his precious blood. And the end of our goal is this, that we would worship the lamb who is seated upon the throne. And the writer of Hebrew shows us here. This is the reason why Christ was nailed to the cross. This is the reason why Christ has purchased your conscience, in order that through Him we might worship Him in spirit and in truth. And dear friends, if we can be so sober this morning to say, if Christ's blood doesn't give you a desire to worship God, you ought to seriously reflect on whether that blood means anything to you. And what precisely is worship? What precisely has Christ done to purify our conscience that we might worship him? We could spend a whole other week addressing this question alone. The biblical view of worship is to give God his due, to love him, and to honor him, and to value him, and to treasure him, and to delight in him, and to take joy in him, to live a life that is pleasing to him, because he is our chiefest good, and he is the greatest aim of our lives. But worship in this age and in this time and this life is primarily seen as we gather together on the Lord's day with the Lord's people to worship the Lord himself. Christ has spilled his blood in order that we might gather even this morning. to do what we were created to do and worship our glorious and triune God. So dear brothers and sisters, if you have come to Christ in faith, and you have come to him to have your consciences purified, and now worship him forever. Worship Him who alone is deserving of all of your faith and your heart and your very lives. And worship Him in the splendor of holiness, for indeed it is in our worship that heaven itself kisses earth. And by faith we are taken in the presence of God to do that which we were created to do. to serve the living God. Amen. Please join me in prayer. Oh, our gracious and merciful Lord, we would come to you humbly and ask for forgiveness and grace. For if my heart is anything like anybody else's heart, how often we have failed to value the blood of Christ. and how often we have treated this blood as an end in itself, not seeing that the lamb is worthy of the reward of his suffering. We pray that as we gather for worship on your day, that you, O Christ, would meet with us and that by faith we would be taken even into the heavenly Jerusalem, the festal assembly of saints and angels, the blood of the covenant that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Help us to cling tightly to this blood that purifies our conscience, May you, O Christ, receive all the worship and adoration and praise of your people, both now and for all of eternity. And we ask this in the name of Christ. Amen.