Thank you so much, Pastor Ray, for leading us in prayer. Again, good morning. Take your Bibles, if you would, and turn to the book of Hebrews. And our theme this morning is Jesus Christ. And our text is Hebrews 10, 19 through 25. Hebrews chapter 10, verses 19 through 25, and I'll just quickly add what really is true every time, but definitely today as well, which is that our text is going to be taken in context, which means, of course, the verses that come before and the verses that come after, and the book as a whole, and the Bible. So hopefully you're there, or at least listening carefully. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 19. We continue our series, Jesus is Better. Hebrews 10, 19. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh, Hebrews 10, 21, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. With our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. That's a great little phrase tucked away there in the middle of our passage. He who promises faithful. Verse 24, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. This is the word of the Lord. We say thanks be to God. We often stand for the reading of scripture, but if you're physically able, let's stand for prayer at this point, if you would. Just reminded again of these banners. They've been up for a couple of weeks and simple and yet profound truth. Let's pray together, shall we? Father, you are our Father and we do indeed pray hallowed be your name. Lord, you are holy. Even as we want to remind ourselves with these banners here in our auditorium, we remember Isaiah chapter six and the book of Revelation and the whole Bible. Lord, you are holy, holy, holy. And would you this morning set your name apart as holy. Lord, our God, our Father, through Jesus Christ, we do not ask only for your help this morning. We do ask for your help. But not for your help in the sense that we can do some of it and we need you to help us with the part that we can't do. Lord, we need your help in totality. Lord, we need you for everything. Everything. So we pray that you would come and help us now. Grant faith and repentance by Your mighty work and through Your Word, Lord. Lord, certainly in and of myself, I have nothing to bring, but Lord, we have everything through Your Word and through Jesus Christ. We pray in His name. Amen. You can be seated. Thank you. I said I certainly wanted to pay attention to the context. Would you look with me at verse 26? Hebrews 10.26 says, For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God? and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace." Hebrews 10.30. For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, and again the Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. By the way, last week, If this helps at all, we looked at this whole big paragraph, 19 through 39. And so today, having looked at the whole thing in kind of a general overview, now we look a bit more at one specific aspect of the big picture that we looked at last week. Our text specifically is Hebrews 10, 19 through 25. And as I said, our theme is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Let me give you just a few short sentences from a man named Thomas Brooks. These are all from Thomas Brooks about Jesus Christ. He said, Christ is the most sparkling diamond in the ring of glory. He's the most sparkling diamond in the ring of glory. Thomas Brooks says of Jesus Christ, They do not love Christ who love anything more than Christ. He says, miss Christ and you miss all. And then he says this, Christ's blood is heaven's key. So our focus this morning is Jesus Christ. When you come to Hebrews 10, 19, you really come to the beginning of what we might call the practical section of the book. Now that's helpful and not helpful to say that, but you come, you're in the short rows, there's only 13 chapters in the book of Hebrews, and here we are on the cusp of Hebrews chapter 11. And as I said, Hebrews 10, 19 begins transitioning from the glorious truth that is in Jesus Christ, really some, you know, pretty deep stuff. Hebrews is not a shallow book. He's been giving these deep truths about Jesus Christ, and then he begins to transition to show, to flesh out what this looks like in our lives. So this is really a wonderful hinge paragraph, 19 through 25, because it contains both the beginnings of what we normally call practical application, and it also summarizes and certainly continues the glorious truth about Jesus Christ. His person and His work. Jesus Christ, His person and His work. Now maybe you already noticed in our reading that we did earlier, maybe you already noticed that this passage certainly also has to do today with the church. And if we talk about the church, which we want to do today, we're not really talking about something totally different, are we? Well, over here you've got Jesus Christ, and over here you've got the church. No, the church is His body. And so we see that we're going to look at here in just a bit. You notice again, verses 24 and 25, Hebrews 10, 24 and 25, do you see that there? It doesn't explicitly say church, but it does say, let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near." You know that this is maybe a famous or a favorite passage of preachers to really emphasize the church, and so I'm going to take this opportunity just to browbeat you this morning with verse 25. There's a way to misuse verse 25 that does not do away with the fact that it's there in the Bible. It's there. So to speak of the church and to speak of Jesus Christ is ultimately to speak not of two separate things, but of one thing. The church is his body. I thought this was so helpful. I came across this. As you think about the church, a father, listen to this, a father was showing his young son through a church building. I guess giving his son maybe a tour of a church building when they came to a plaque on the wall. Curious, the little boy said, Daddy, what's that for? His father said, oh, that's a memorial to those who died in the service. The little boy said, which service, Daddy, the morning or the evening? So we do want to focus again, and we may even come back to that little nugget of a story as we think about the church this morning. Jesus Christ is our focus. Because it's the focus, because He is the focus of the author of Hebrews. Jesus is better. And so what I want us to see this morning is I want us to see Jesus Christ. I want us to see, if you're trekking along with us, I want us to notice Jesus Christ and His covenant. Jesus Christ and His coming. And Jesus Christ and His command. And maybe next week the sermon points will start with the letter D. It's not my typical plan to do alliteration, but every blue moon I do, so we have His covenant, His coming, and His command. But first of all, before we get to that, let me say this. Jesus Christ, do not turn away from Him. Jesus Christ, do not turn away from Him. in the context of our very important paragraph. It really is one of the, maybe one of the most important small paragraphs in the book of Hebrews, 19 through 25. In the context, just after it says this, it says, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. The author says just immediately after our passage today, Right after verse 25, he says this, he says, for if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. Very important that we get that. For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment. I actually want us to see that this so-called warning passage, which begins in 26 through 31, this heavy, heavy, sober warning passage, The answer to it is in our text today. So think with me for just a moment. Imagine that you're in a properly functioning school. Probably not too many of those today. What we might call, I don't know, the woke mob or all these things. Imagine you're in a properly functioning school and you're an older elementary student, maybe a fifth grader. And you decide, maybe on some whim, on a prank, you decide it would be funny to do something that is obviously not that cool. You go and you spit in your classmate's face. Well, the teacher finds out that you have spit in your classmate's face, and that's not cool. Of course, it was just a prank, but there's still punishment, and so you get punished. You're a fifth grade boy. That's one thing. That's one thing. It's quite a different thing if you're in this properly functioning school and you're in the cafeteria and there's the table over there with the teachers and with the administrators and you decide that you're going to be really bold and you go and this time you spit in the face of the headmaster of the principal. The question is simply, in a properly functioning school, do you not think, maybe think about, I don't know, 200 years ago, would there not be some type of greater punishment for spitting in the face of the principal of the school versus a classmate? Oh, I'm sure we could only imagine. It might begin with the word, or with the letters whooping. But this text says here in verse 26, It says, if we go on sinning, and again, of course, we're noticing the context. If we go on sinning deliberately, this is not just the sins that we unfortunately commit every day. We do that. This is not just any old sin, although all sin is heinous. If we go on sinning deliberately, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Dear friend, he's talking about hell here. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment? One thing for the teacher to say, you should not have done that to Johnny, your classmate. It's another thing for the principal to say, what did you just do to me? Come straight to my office. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the Spirit of grace? It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Now, what he's talking about here in the context is he's talking about the issue, really, you could say in verses 19 through 39. In verses 19 through 39, he's dealing with this issue of apostasy, of believers, of professing believers falling away, abandoning the faith, and he gives us the answer for that actually in the paragraph before. What is the answer? Well, first of all, it's that you, dear Christian, dear church member, need to know that you're not saved yet. According to the New Testament, you're not yet saved. We have been saved. We are being saved. We will be saved. You're not yet saved. And so if you get off the road, if you get off the course, there's danger. But the Lord gives us his wonderful provision here. He gives us His provision for apostasy because not one of God's elect people will fail to make it to the end. Not one. Jesus Christ, His covenants, His coming, and His command. First of all, notice His covenant. Look at verse 19. Look at Hebrews 10, 19. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, then he's about to, beginning in verse 22, he's about to start giving us some gracious commands. But first of all, just 19 through 21, Jesus Christ and His covenants. We see there in verse 21 that we have a great priest over the house of God, but I want you to notice the very first word of these three verses. Notice the very first word of these three verses, and it's the word therefore. This word, therefore, yes, comes on the heels of verse 18, but not just on the heels of one verse. This word, therefore, as I've already said, represents a transition point in the letter, and so he's bringing together He's bringing together in a wonderful, listen, in a tight summary for us. It's really helpful. In a tight, brief summary, which is verses 19 through 21, He's giving us what He's been teaching us for at least the last three chapters. At least the last three chapters. So just look at verse 18. Again, what I'm saying is the word therefore, you know, what's the word therefore, therefore? Well, it's there because it's assuming that we will pay attention to what's come before. Where there is forgiveness of these, Hebrews 10, 18, there is no longer any offering for sin. Dear friend, never take for granted the blessing of forgiveness of sins through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. the central blessing of the gospel. Here at the end of Hebrews 10, one through 18, at the end, follow with me, at the end of the section that comes right before our section, he's talking about the new covenants. In the context that comes right before our paragraph, he's quoting from Jeremiah chapter 31. I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin." He's speaking about a new and better covenant. He's quoting from Jeremiah chapter 31. And really you could go back because his main teaching is chapters 8 through 10. His main teaching about Jesus, our high priest, is chapters 8 through 10. And just get this, this is helpful. You can go back and read this and look this up later today. In chapter 8, chapter 8's really important. Chapter 8, he introduces the new covenant and Jeremiah 31. There's 13 verses in Hebrews chapter 8. He quotes a lot from Jeremiah 31. And so you can see in chapter 8, the new covenants, and then here in chapter 10, the new covenants. Also in chapter 8, he quotes Psalm 110. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. And the same thing here in chapter 10. Look with me back at chapter 10, verse 11. See the cross of Jesus Christ, see his cross. Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, Hebrews 10, 11, speaking about the Old Testament priests, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, Psalm 110. waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering, compared to thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of offerings, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us for after saying, Jeremiah 31, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds. Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Jeremiah 31. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. Therefore, Therefore, brothers. So he's assuming, do you see he's assuming the end of chapter 10? When he says, therefore, he's assuming the teaching of chapters eight through 10, the new covenants. Jesus Christ, better sacrifice, better tabernacle, better covenants. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places, not only do we see Jesus Christ and his covenant, but then secondly, we see Jesus Christ and his coming. Jesus Christ and his coming. And we see this at the end of our paragraph there in verse 25. He says, all the more as you see the day drawing near. all the more as you see the day drawing near, Jesus is coming soon. Now I don't know, I don't claim to say it may be, it may not be in my generation, it may not be in the generation of my children, it may be many generations to come. We know that it's been what's been 2,000 years, we know that the scripture is clear, that the Lord himself is clear, that his timetable is not our timetable, But we say that the day is drawing near. Verse 25, Jesus is coming. The King is coming. We see Jesus Christ and His coming. Or you could glance down at verse 37. You could glance down at verse 37 for yet a little while and the coming one will come and will not delay. That's Habakkuk, by the way. That's Habakkuk chapter 2. The coming one will come. He will not delay. Pastor Ray was talking to us in our prayer time this morning, as he alluded to. He just lost a dear friend at work through what we typically call a freak accident. And I believe what Pastor Ray said to us this morning is, we don't know our times. Friend, we don't know our times, but we do know this, the coming one will come and will not delay. Or, and I know I'm looking at different places, but at the end of chapter nine, At the end of chapter 9, verse 28, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, chapter 9, verse 28, friend, Jesus Christ came to bear the sins of all of His people for everyone who will believe. For every believer Jesus died on the cross, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, He will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him. It's not an option to believe in the second coming of Christ. It's not even optional to eagerly wait for Him. And so we see this in 928. We see it in 1037. We see it clearly in 1025. The day is drawing near. And now we come to our third of three points. Jesus Christ and His covenant. Jesus Christ and His coming. Jesus Christ and His command. Jesus Christ and His command. And here I want to look with you, and this is so wonderful, I want to look with you at verses 22 through 25. You remember what I've been saying. He's transitioning. He's still giving us the same truth, the doctrine. He's giving us the doctrine. He wants to tell us how to have our deeds, deeds in light of the doctrine. And so He gives us both. Here's the structure of this passage. Look at the structure of this passage. Here it is, 19 through 25. It's since, since. Let us, let us, let us. Since, since, let us, let us, let us. Truth, truth, practice, practice, practice. Doctrine, doctrine, deed, deed, deed. I want to look with you at 22 through 25 on our third point, but just notice the structure. Therefore, brothers, verse 19, since, We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh. You see that? You see that? Let me read to you Mark 15, 38. And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. You know that story from the gospels? You know the death of Christ? Jesus died, he utters a loud cry, the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Since 19 and 20, verse 21, and since Hebrews 10, 21, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, do you see since 19, since 21, and now three times, let us. Verse 22, let us draw near. with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Here's what he says to you this morning. Here's what he says to us. It's very simple, really. He says, draw near, hold fast, and help others to hold fast. Draw near, hold fast, and help others to hold fast. First he says in verse 22, let us draw near. You know, in the old covenant, it was not like this. It did not say, come, come near. It said, you better stay away. In the old covenant, it actually said, you better keep your distance. Say for one man and that man on one day a year, you better be careful. You better keep your distance. He is holy. That never changes. But now, in light of Jesus Christ and in light of His person and work, no longer does it say, you better keep your distance, but it says to you, it says to you this morning, it says, draw near. How? How does it say draw near? Because of the two senses. Because 19 sense. Because of 21 sense. Because, in other words, because of the truth of the gospel. The truth of the gospel in 1921, where he summarizes what he's been saying. In a tight, brief way, we have a great high priest who has entered a better tabernacle, who offers a better sacrifice, who brings a better covenant. Let us draw near with full assurance. Conscience, evil conscience, sprinkled clean, bodies washed with pure water. Probably an allusion to what? For 22, baptism. 23. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. Since, since. Let us draw near. Hold fast. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope. Look at verse 35. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. If you're a believer here this morning, you're not yet saved. You must endure to the end. All of God's elect people will endure to the end. You must know the danger of apostasy. You must know the danger of verses 26 through 31. Apostasy is falling away and God's answer to that, God's answer to that is ultimately the new covenant. Hebrews 10, 15 through 18, I will put my law in their hearts and write it on their minds. The sacrifice of my son is final. This is the answer to apostasy. Draw near. Hold fast. Help others to hold fast. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Ends verse 24. Sense, sense, draw near, hold fast, help others to hold fast, The third, let us, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Let me explain to you more of what I mean. Paul says, verse 25, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. And don't forget what we just read at the end of verse 23. Don't forget that. He who promised is faithful. He who promised is faithful. I love the funny stuff that the boy says, what's that plaque? The dad says it's for those who died in service. What service? The morning or the evening? Kent Hughes says this, listen, He says people have a thousand reasons to stay away from church. Oh, here he comes. Listen. There is a way, there is a way that, yes, there is a way that 24 and 25 have been misused. You probably know what I'm talking about. If you're not at church, every time the doors are open, you're not a good Christian or you're not a Christian, you know that we don't teach that. We do teach the Bible with God's help. And this verse does have something to say to us. I'm telling you that it has to say, this is God's answer to apostasy. Don't think you're immune. Don't think that you are immune. You need Jesus Christ. If you're a believer, you need his body. If you're a believer, Kent Hughes says people have a thousand reasons to stay away from church. This is not a new problem. The early Jewish church had a fall off in attendance due to persecution, ostracism, apostasy, and arrogance. Today, persecution and ostracism may not be our experience, but people find many other reasons to absent themselves from worship, not the least of which is laziness. Well, that's heavy. That's true, that's true. But de-churched Christians have always been an aberration. Which as you know, just means that's not normal at all. As so many great fathers of the faith have pointed out. There are solid biblical reasons why no one should forego church. Let me continue quoting. Listen to this book called Hebrews, An Anchor from the Soul. Listen. We meet Christ in a special way in corporate worship. I prepare to preach. I get ready to preach. I come into the service, I'm speaking first person here, and my mind is in different places, and I'm nervous, or this or that, and Jason comes down off the stage and gives me an encouraging pat, and I hear you sing, and I think about the beauty of corporate worship, how this, in many ways, is better than anything that you can do on your own. We meet Christ in a special way in corporate worship. It is true that a person does not have to go to church to be a Christian. He does not have to go home to be married either. You can laugh. He does not have to go home to be married either. But in both cases, if he does not, he will have a very poor relationship. It's true that a person does not have to go to church to be a Christian. You don't have to go home to be married either, which is to say, A churchless Christian is something of which the New Testament knows nothing. A churchless Christian is something of which church history and the New Testament does not have a, the Bible doesn't have a concept for a churchless Christian. You say, what's your point? You're just trying to come down heavy? I'm trying to say that in context, if you call yourself a Christian, Are you a member of a church? If you're a member of a church, don't be a member and be on the sidelines. Don't be active in a church and not be a member. Because in the context here, he's talking about apostasy. Do you call yourself a Christian? Church member of Crossway Church or not? Do you this day call yourself a Christian? Then know that you're not yet saved. Oh, I do believe in once saved, always saved. We are saved. We're being saved, but we're not yet saved. That's what the New Testament teaches. We must endure to the end and the way that we endure to the end, the way we endure is through the people of God. Verse 25 says, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some. If you go on in this way, for if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, verse 26, but God's answer is to draw near. The blood of Jesus Christ has made a way for every person, for every believer, everyone who will believe, draw near through the blood of Jesus Christ. Draw near, hold fast, and help others to hold fast. draw near, hold fast, and help others to hold fast. Of course, this passage is interpreted by Hebrews. This two verses, 24 and 25, mutually interpret one another. What am I talking about? Chapter 3, 12 and 13. You don't have to turn there, but just listen. Listen, take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. but exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. What is a Christian? A Christian is very simply one who follows Jesus Christ. By a miracle of grace, a Christian is somebody who has a love for God, who has a love for God's word, who has a love for God's people. A Christian is somebody who says, man, I actually do want to be there every time the doors are open if I can help it. Because I know my own heart and I know my own sinful tendencies and I know that Christianity is outward looking and it is first upward looking. And we look to God who by his sheer grace has given us the new covenant through the blood of Jesus Christ. We see Jesus Christ in Hebrews. I'm pretty good friends, I think, with Ben's brother, so I think I can say, yes, my sermons are shorter. If you think mine are long, remember Will's sermon. This guy, 13 chapters, I still think it's Paul. This guy, Hebrews 13, 13 chapters. At the end of this, this is a sermon. He says in 13.22, he says, this is not exact, but he says, thank you for bearing with my brief word of exhortation. That's exact. He calls it, he calls it my brief word of exhortation. And what I'm simply trying to say to you is that this paragraph probably is one of the most important in his sermon, in what he calls in 1322, his brief word of exhortation. Since, since, let us, let us, let us, draw near, hold fast, help others to hold fast, Do, as a believer by the grace of God, do way more, do way more than be with the people of God super regularly. But don't do less. Do way more than be with the people of God super regularly. These two verses are not just talking about being at church, it's talking about verse 24. I'm so engrossed with the people of God, I'm thinking about how I can help this brother over here and this sister over here walk in good words. I'm spending an hour this week thinking about how can I help Bill and Janet, don't you love those random names? How can I help Bill and Janet stay with Jesus and walk in good, how can I stir them up? How can I prod them? How can I poke them? That's verse 24. And I'm telling you, verses 24 and 25, And chapter 3, 12 and 13, those mutually interpret one another. When all is said and done, here it is. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom so that we can draw near and have full assurance of faith. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Thank you, O God, for your grace. We praise you and thank you, O God, the Holy Spirit, for so working in our lives, removing the veil, as Paul says, in another place, so that, O Lord God, we could see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Help us to endure to the end together Help us to endure together. And Lord, if there be someone here who feels like for them that this talk of churches getting ahead of themselves, I pray that they would first repent of their sins and trust in you, be joined to your people through faith in Christ. We thank you for Jesus Christ. And Lord Jesus, we pray that you would lead us as Crossway Church.