Take your Bible with you this morning, open up to Hebrews chapter nine. We've made it to chapter nine here in our study, the holiest of all. We'll be looking at verses one through five this morning, as we're introduced again to the new covenant last week in chapter eight, after seeing Jesus as the high priest in the order of Melchizedek in chapter seven. Now, as we've looked at the new covenant, we're gonna contrast that with the old, with the earthly sanctuary this morning, with the tabernacle. and then with the temple, and then moving through chapter 9. I'm going to see something interesting this morning that in chapter 9, up until this point in the book of Hebrews, the word blood in reference to the sacrifice of Christ has not been used. The word blood did appear once in chapter 1, talking about flesh and blood. When we talk about the blood of Christ, That word has not appeared in all of this up to this point. In chapter nine, we are going to have the word blood in reference to the sacrifice of Christ 12 times. The only other chapter in scripture that uses the word blood as for atonement more is Leviticus chapter 17, where it appears in 16 verses 22 times. As we look at the holiness code, in Leviticus, the law that was given, and we see now the temptation to go back under that law, the contrast, of course, that's being made, and we'll see it in chapter 9 and chapter 10, the blood, as much as it's often in Leviticus 17, only served to point truly to the blood of Christ, because the blood of bulls and goats, no matter how often sacrificed, could not make true, full atonement for sin. But we're introduced to the earthly tabernacle, the things that have been replaced by Christ in his fulfilling the law and fulfilling the covenant so that we might have this new covenant made between the Father and the Son. Unconditional, we are the beneficiaries of the covenant between them. So verses one through five, now, even the first covenant had requirements of divine worship and the earthly sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle prepared, the first part in which were the lampstands, and the table and the sacred bread which is called the holy place and behind the second veil there was a tabernacle which is called the holy of holies having a golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold and which was a golden jar holding the manna and Aaron's rod which budded in the tablets of the covenant and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail." Now one of the great things about preaching is when the writer of the text says we're not going to go into too much detail here. Watch me. He didn't, as recording this sermon, writing this sermon down in this epistle that was sent to the Hebrew believers, there was not a lot of detail that needed to be gone into because the Hebrew believers would have understood what these things were. But we're gonna look at them in a little bit of detail this morning, just reflecting on the tabernacle, on the Ark of the Covenant, what was in the Ark, on the Holy of Holies, and specifically the veil. We know that the priesthood of Christ is a priesthood that has gone within the veil. The veil has been torn in two. It's been removed out of the way. So that which kept us out of the presence of God now has been removed as Christ has become the way, the door to the Father. Murray makes the point, the word blood in regard to Jesus' sacrifice has not yet been used thus far. In this chapter, we have it 12 times. In the first half, we have its efficacy in opening the most holy place and in sprinkling our conscience to enter there. Then in dedicating the covenant and cleansing all connected with it. and after that again in opening heaven and putting away all sin. The first portion begins with a description of the worldly sanctuary, the tabernacle, and its furniture, and he has one great thought which he wishes to press home. Just like we started in chapter 8, this is the main point that Christ is the high priest of a new covenant. The main point now in chapter 9 is that as the tabernacle was constructed by Moses after the heavenly pattern, especially to show forth one great truth, in that truth lies the mystery and the glory of the New Testament, the power and joy of the Christian life. That truth is the opening of the way into the holiest, the access into the presence of God. To understand what it means that we can draw near to God and that he draws near to us. Spurgeon noted under the old covenant, there were outward symbols. Under the new covenant, we do not have the symbols, but we have the substance itself. The old law dealt with types and shadows, but the gospel deals with the spiritual realities themselves. What we have in shadows and types in the old covenant, in the Old Testament now, Christ proves to be that substance. He is that substance that was casting the shadow back on the old covenant. It all pointed to him. He is the fulfillment of all of these things. So everything that we see laid out in the ceremonial law points us to the work that Christ was gonna come and do and finish in his earthly ministry. And he was gonna finish it at the cross. We'll see in chapter 10, especially the focus there is that he's come to do this once for all. Murray says the one thing the writer wishes to direct our attention to is the difference and the relation between the two compartments into which the tabernacle was divided and the meaning of the veil that separated them. The inner sanctuary was called the holiest of all or as it is in Hebrew the holiness of holinesses. It was the highest embodiment that could be of holiness because it was the place where God most holy dwelt. His holy presence filled it. No man might enter there on pain of death, but the high priest, and even he only once a year in the holy place, separated from the most holy by a heavy veil, the priest entered and served. Because God is so absolutely holy and because we are sinful, We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We've fallen short of that mark of holiness and perfection. Because of that, there has to be a separation between us and Him. We cannot be in his presence. To stand in his presence would to be consumed. The high priest had to go through rituals for himself so that his own sin could be atoned for before he could go in and spread the blood on the mercy seat for the sins of all of the people on the day of atonement. This had to be the one day of the year that the high priest most looked forward to and most dreaded because a wrong step behind that veil meant his life. God is that holy and he's that serious about this. That's why I noted last week that Spurgeon made the point, God set out the elements of divine worship. He's told us in his word how he is to be worshiped. We don't dare come to him, or we shouldn't at least, thinking that we can offer whatever we want. That's to fall into the sin of Cain. To think I know what's better than what God knows and I'm gonna give what I think is best instead of what God has commanded that we come and that we give. Now, the true question is, what has he commanded that we sacrifice ourselves daily? It's Romans 12, 1 and 2. To offer ourselves a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to the Lord. Murray goes on, he says, the veil was the symbol of separation between a holy God and sinful man. They cannot dwell together. The tabernacle does express the union of two apparently conflicting truths. God called man to come and worship and serve him, and yet he might not come too near. The veil kept him at a distance. His worship in the tabernacle testified to his longing for the restoration to the fellowship with God he had lost in paradise, but also to his unfitness for it and his inability to attain it. In the fullness of time, righteousness and love would be revealed in their perfect harmony in Him in whom those types and shadows would find their fulfillment. When we see the rooms, the layout, the lampstand, the table, the showbread, the holy place, and then behind that thick veil, the Holy of Holies, with the Ark of the Covenant, with the mercy seat on top, with the cherubim, and then what was inside of the Ark. Again, Spurgeon said all of this was by divine appointment. The forms of the rooms, the style of the furniture, everything, all of it, the layout was ordained by God. And that not merely for ornament, but for purposes of instruction. What we find in the tabernacle, and if you've seen replications of the tabernacle, a beautiful structure, the colors and what it included and what was pictured. And that's because all of these things were used to teach us about the holiness and the glory of God. He dwelt there in the Shekinah glory over that mercy seat. The people knew that he was there. Only the Jews could come there to around the tabernacle and only the priests could go inside. Others couldn't go in, they couldn't look, they couldn't see. When God's presence was there, there were thunderings, there were lightnings, the people were terrified. that these things were to instruct them as to the goodness and the holiness of God. Spurgeon says, as we shall see further on, the Holy Ghost intended a significance, a teaching, a meaning about everything in the old tabernacle, whether it was a candlestick or a table or the showroom. Spurgeon goes on, he says, Now, beloved, when you go to the Lord to worship, the first thing you need is somebody to render your worship acceptable. When Spurgeon talks about the earthly tabernacle and approaching God in worship and God asking us to come near to him and then providing a way for us to come near to him, we realize that we cannot on our own offer acceptable worship to God. We cannot worship in spirit and truth on our own. We can't do it. It's impossible. without the work of the spirit, without the intercession of our mediator, we cannot approach the Lord. So he says, when you go to the Lord to worship, the first thing you need is somebody to render your worship acceptable. See there in the person of your Lord Jesus Christ, a golden censer representing the sweet merit of his prevalent intercession by which you are accepted. Often throughout the scriptures and especially the book of Revelation, we see the prayers of the saints represented as a censer of incense burning before the throne of God. And he says, here, Christ, taking up the golden censer. He says, when the high priest went into the holy place and he filled this golden censer and waved it to and fro till the sweet perfume smoke went up before the mercy seat. That is just what Jesus does in heaven for us. We burn the incense here below, that is our prayers. And the sweet perfume of his merit continually ascends before the throne of the most high and holy God. the word picture that Spurgeon uses here. Beneath the cloud of smoke, we worship. Jesus becomes a sanctuary for us. And you can never worship God aright till you feel that Jesus's merits go with your worship. We worship through Christ because he is the only way to the father. And by going through Christ, Christ then will make our worship acceptable to the father. A sweet smelling aroma to him. So it's beneath that cloud of smoke that we worship with Jesus becoming our sanctuary. He says, if your prayers are perfumed with the incense of your own merits, and you think they will be acceptable, you know not what you are doing. But if you see that golden censer and look to God through the smoke of Jesus's merits, then do you really worship and Christ thus becomes to you a sanctuary. In this sermon, Christ a Sanctuary, Spurgeon goes on, the other article of furniture in the Holy of Holies was the mercy seat, a square casket upon which were set cherubim with outstretched wings. It was before this mercy seat, perhaps, that all prayer had to be offered. There was only one place where Israel's gifts could really come up before God, and that was before the mercy seat. Now, beloved, when we go to God, we cannot go directly to him. We must go to the mercy seat first. I will have nothing to do with an absolute God, said Luther, and he was quite right. We may not come unto God except through Jesus Christ. We look towards God in the person of his dear son, God in the son of Mary, God in the man of Nazareth, God in the bleeding sufferer of Calvary. We look there and we look through Jesus Christ up to the unseen but ever-glorious Father. And with Jesus's merits before us, with his precious blood before our mind's eye, we come to God through Jesus Christ and we are accepted in the blood. Great truth in that statement. It is not that Christ is begging and hoping that you will accept Him. The question is, have you been accepted in Him by the Father? He's the one who does the seeking. He's the one who does the accepting. And to realize when we stand before that judgment seat, And all that we have, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, I think there's probably gonna be a lot more than wood, hay, stubble than we care to think, but even the gold, silver, precious stones, even that which Christ has done through us because it's been done through us as fallen people, though redeemed, even that still yet has to be purified because it's only the work of Christ that is absolutely perfect and acceptable to the Father. But then to know that for God to say when Jesus was baptized and to say at other times throughout the New Testament, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased, to know that our acceptance by the father comes because of our union with Christ. Because he has never for a moment from eternity past seen us outside of being united with his son. That's why we've been given mercy and faith and grace and repentance, all of those fruits of regeneration Spurgeon goes on, beloved, I'm afraid that many Sundays and many weekdays too, we try to worship God without Christ. It will never do it, cannot succeed. If you come out of your closet without the sense of having put the blood before God, you have lost a season of retirement. If you go out of this tabernacle feeling that in all the worship there has been no sense of Christ's presence, no thought of his precious blood, that worship has been worthless, the time has been wasted. Without the incense of his merit, without the mercy seat of his substitutionary sacrifice, there is no sanctuary, there is no worship, there is no drawing near to God. We take great pride at times to know that we can come boldly before the throne of grace, but if we are not coming in an absolute dependence that we are coming only by the Son and through the Son and with the Son, we will never be where we need to be in our worship of God. In a sermon titled The Ark of His Covenant, Spurgeon said, let us think of what was in the ancient Ark of the Covenant, for all that was in the Ark as a type is to be seen in Christ. He's explaining for us an exposition here of Hebrews 9. He is our heavenly covenant Ark above. In that Ark, if you or I could have gone into the holy place and had our eyes strengthened to look, we would have seen first God dwelling among men. What a wonderful thing. Over the top of the lid of that sacred coffer, which was called the Ark, there's shown an amazing light which was the index of the presence of God. He was in the midst of the camp of Israel. He that fills heaven and earth, the infinite Jehovah, designed to make that place his special dwelling place so that he is addressed as thou that dwellest between the cherubims. Here is a part of the new covenant. I will dwell in them and walk in them." It's amazing. I encourage you to go look up this sermon, the Ark of His Covenant. Look this up online and read through it. Spurgeon talking about the worship of God and the ark and all that this points to Christ uses more exclamation points in this sermon that I've ever seen Spurgeon use. I would have loved to hear him preaching this, the excitement in his voice, just contemplating what these things in this earthly tabernacle pointed to and how they found their fulfillment in Christ. He says, oh beloved, rejoice in the covenant that God is no longer divided from men, exclamation point. That chasm made by sin is filled, the gulf is bridged, and God now dwells with men and manifest himself to them. and the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. Next, in that ark, you would have noticed, if you could have seen into it, God reconciled and communing with men upon the mercy seat. Over the top of that ark, as I've told you, was a golden lid, which fitted it and covered it exactly, and that golden lid was called the mercy seat, the throne of grace. There, God spoke with men. He sat there, as it were, enthroned as a friend of men. Now, it is a part of the covenant that God hears prayer, that God answers our petitions, that he meets us in a way of reconciled love. that he speaks to us in tones which the spirit can hear, though the ear cannot. Thank God for a blood-sprinkled mercy seat. What would we do if we had not that our meeting place with the thrice holy Jehovah? Then within the ark underneath the lid, if we could have looked in, we would have seen the law, the two tablets of stone, which represent law fulfilled in Christ and henceforth laid up in his heart and laid up on our hearts also, if we delight in the law of God after the inward man. Now, this is our joy that the law of God has nothing against the believer. It is fulfilled in Christ and we say it laid up in Christ, not to be a stone to fall upon us, to grind us, to powder, but beautiful and fair to look upon as it is the heart of Christ and fulfilled in the life of Christ. I rejoice in the covenant which contains in its stipulations all fulfilled and commands all executed by our great representative. Together with those tablets of the law, there was laid up a rod, a rod which had originally been a dry stick in the hands of Aaron. But when it was laid before the Lord, it budded and blossomed and brought forth almonds. So in the covenant of grace, we see the kingdom established and flourishing in Christ and we rejoice in it. Oh, how pleased we are to bow before his fruitful scepter! Exclamation point. What wonderful fruit we gather from that blessed rod! Exclamation point again. Rain, rain, Jesus, rain! And you guessed it, exclamation point. The more you do rule us, the more you are absolute sovereign of our hearts, the happier shall we be, and the more shall we delight ourselves in you. There is no liberty like complete subjection beneath the sway of Jesus, who is our prophet, priest, and king. To be his, and we'll see more of that, prophet, priest, and king, from Lamentations this morning, chapter four. Back to the sermon, Christ, the sanctuary. Spurgeon says the sanctuary was a place in which only one person ever dwelt, and that was God himself. The mysterious light, which was called the Shekinah, shone from between the wings of the cherubim. There were the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, the symbols of the divine presence. It was God's house. No man lived with him. No man could. The high priest went in but once a year and out he went again to the solemn assembly. But now, in Christ Jesus, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, we find a sanctuary to reside in, for we dwell in him, we are one with him. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. And as God was in Christ, so it is written, you and me and I in you. Such is the union between Christ and his people. Every believer is in Christ, even as God is in Christ. So Christ is the sanctuary where God and man may meet together and live in perpetual delight and solace. And there's another exclamation point. to dwell in union with Christ, to be united and reconciled to God the Father through him. He asked a question of application. My beloved, do you always dwell in Christ? And the truth is, in union with him, yes, we are joined to him and can't be separated from him. But are we always aware of his presence? Are we always drawing near? Are we always seeking to be walking with him, to be full of the spirit, to be walking in the spirit? There are times often that we are praying and then realize suddenly, oh, we stopped at some point. We drifted off asleep. We got distracted. There are times in our daily walk when we depend on what we know instead of actually consciously depending upon Christ, running to his word, hiding it in our heart. When Spurgeon asked that question, do you always dwell in Christ? This is Spurgeon's answer. I wish I did. I find it comparatively easy to get fellowship with Christ, but oh, it's so difficult to keep it. When one climbs the mountain, gets one's forehead bathed in the sunlight, talks with God and feels the world to be far below in the valley, one feels that it is good to be there. But ah, we are soon down again, mixing with the people, marrying and giving in marriage. We are fighting our battles and buying and selling again. Oh, that we could always live in the banqueting house and see that banner of love always floating over us. And let me tell you, we may do so. There have been some of the saints who have been helped to do it. They have been as much with God when they have been trading across the counter as when they have been bowing the knee. Have you ever met a Christian like that? Where you meet a Christian and they're going about their work and you'd think they were at church worshiping. As they go about their work, they're praying, they're talking about the Lord, they're excited about the Lord, they find the Lord in every little detail of their work. You see, this is when you draw near to Christ and this is how you dwell in Christ. It's when you find Christ in the mundane, in the routine, in the everyday. We are always looking for the mountainside. What about the valley? Spurgeon in another sermon made the point. We've missed it. We've got it backwards just so often we do. If you look at a mountaintop, what do you see? Now, not a mountain in Texas, real mountains. If you look at a mountaintop, what do you see? Nothing. It's barren. It's bald. There comes a point where the tree line stops. Nothing's growing up there. And yet we want to be on the mountain. Where's the growth? In the valley. There in the valley where the river is, that's where the growth is. Spurgeon says we need to learn that it is walking through the valley of the veil of deep sorrows where we find comfort by his rod and his staff. When we find those Christians who just seem to make everything about Christ, these are people who have learned to pray without ceasing, to redeem the time. He says there, they have been as much with God when they've been trading across the counter as when they've been bowing the knee as much with Jesus in their daily toils as in their Sabbath rest. Why should it not be so with us? I covet, I covet beyond all luxuries to walk with God, exclamation point. If I might have this, I would not ask for anything else beneath these skies. You see what we see in this earthly tabernacle that the writer of the letter to the Hebrew believers tells us of these things we cannot now speak in detail. If we do look into the detail, we find Christ. It's all pointing to him. It's all fulfilled in him. He is the embodiment, the substance of every type and shadow that we see. And that should be sweet to us, not to be carried away with the types and shadows. We can be fascinated to see how they point to Christ and how he fulfills it. But ultimately, what we find is that Christ really is all in all. It all points to him. We should be able to, and we can, with the Spirit's help, we can find Christ on every page of the scriptures, every page. He's there, it all points to him. He is the living word revealed in the written word. And it all points to him as he is the mediator of this new covenant to reconcile us to the Father. to bring us near to God, to bring God near to us where before there was a thick veil that could only be gone behind once a year. Now he's the veil. That physical veil, it's been written to, it's gone. Can you imagine on that day that Jesus was crucified? Can you imagine if you were the priest in the temple and here's darkness and an earthquake And this veil that stands between you and the glory of God that you've been warned will kill you if you see it, suddenly is torn from the top to the floor and falls away. Not too many years later, that temple is destroyed. That covenant lost the time. They've made movies. Everybody thinks they know where it went. I think we don't have the ark because we'd make an idol of it. It's gone. because it pointed to Christ. It was fulfilled in him. And for all the glory that we see in the Ark of the Covenant and the Old Covenant, it all points to Jesus. To find all of these little things, little things that we might not even understand the significance of, but to know that they all point to Jesus. So that we, like Spurgeon, can contemplate Jesus. And the more we contemplate him, the more exclamation points there should be in our worship. I've heard people say that they are kind of concerned because they've been told that heaven is just sitting on a cloud playing a harp. That if heaven is just worship, how boring would that be? If you think worship is boring, especially when you are there in the presence of the lamb who was slain, I have doubts as to whether you even know him. To know that we will have eternity And think about it, we will have eternity to express the glory of God. And that won't be enough time because he is that glorious. We need to see that glory in Christ now with the eyes of faith. to strive, to walk with Him, to commune with Him, to know that our prayers are coming to Him and through Him to the Father, to know that the Son and the Spirit both interceding before the throne of God for us. We should not have any hesitation about coming to God about anything. I would be careful bringing complaints. But if we do have complaints to pour out, David shows us how to do it. First you do it, then you repent, confess, depend upon God, express his sovereignty once again, because usually our complaint is just really a lack of faith in him truly being sovereign. And it's that time in prayer, not where we've taken a list to him, but where we're communing with him, where we actually, our prayer is worship. We're worshiping him in that time of prayer. And in worship, in all worship, God does what he promises to do with his word. He sanctifies us. So then in that prayer, we might start with a complaint, and midway through, we're gonna hit a confession, and by the time we're done, it's gonna be praise, because God has brought us through that complaint to see him again for who he is, to remind us of his goodness and his providence, and to teach us that if it's in our life, it's because he's sovereign over that life, and he only gives good gifts. Don't try to understand that. We want this side of glorification. There are things that we endure and will endure in this life that we wonder how in the world can that be good? We have to trust that it is because God says he only gives good gifts. And everything we have, Paul says, is a gift from him. You don't have anything that you didn't receive. And he only gives good gifts. That means if we do come with a complaint, we need to dig out that root. Because if the root of that complaint is a doubt about the character and the nature of God. That's where the serpent started in the garden, didn't he? Did God really say, you can't trust what he told you? No, he's got ulterior motives. And from that doubt came denial and came disobedience. Take your complaints before the Father. But in that time of worship, take the time to see the Lord high and lifted up. Leonard Ravenhill said it this way. When we come to pray, we need to come like Isaiah saw God in the temple. We see God exalted, high and lifted up. We see our sin as a result, woe is me, I'm undone. We see the sacrifice of Christ, the tongues that bring the coal from the altar to clean the lips and thereby the heart where what is coming out of the lips. And then as we commune with God, we hear his will and his purposes and his causes. And what's our response at that point? Our response is to see Him lifted up, to see us as sinful as we are, then to see us sanctified by that sacrifice. And then we see the needs of the world. And what do we say? Here am I, send me. That's the foundation of missions and evangelism right there. It's not seeing the lost for who they are, it's seeing God for who he is and knowing that his program is for us to be converted and cleansed and convicted so that we might go and preach so that others, other sheep, might hear the shepherd's voice and come and repent and believe. and that process to be repeated over and over and over again. As we learn to find Jesus, not just in every page of the Bible, not just in every passage of scripture, but we come to find Jesus in every moment of our day, every single moment. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you how these earthly things, as made after the pattern of heavenly things, ultimately serve to point us to our blessed Savior. I pray in our worship this morning as we spend time praising your name, glorifying you, reading your word, praying, preaching, hearing your word preached, I pray that you'd put the exclamation points on our worship, that as we come to strive to worship in spirit and truth, as you've told us to come, that we realize that means to come through Jesus to the throne, as he is the way for us to come. As we do, we ask that our worship would be pleasing to you, that your name would be exalted, that we could do what we profess to want to do this morning, that we could give unto you the glory, do your name, do your name alone. Do that through us this morning, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. And that hymn,