one of the Bibles in your seats. This is the Word of God. Hebrews chapter 7 and beginning at verse 11, this is the Word of God. And now, if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, for which no one has ever served at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe, Moses said nothing about priests. This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek. who has become a priest not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. For it is witnessed of him, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness, for the law made nothing perfect. But on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God. And it was not without an oath. For those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath, but this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him, the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever. This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. Amen. The sermon is entitled, Change of Administration, part two, question mark. In our times and our moment today, historically speaking, people, strangely, contrary to the past, want to try to say and indicate that all faiths have equal value. None is unique. None is the way. All are a way, or ways and routes to God. And so in the endeavour and with the goal of global world peace, we have to call a truce. And that's especially true with the three great monotheistic Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Islam and Christianity. That's a widely held view. It's a mainstream view, but it is a novel view. This is in fact, of course, a wrong view. It's incorrect. It's not consistent with the documents themselves of these three religions. And it may sound very narrow to say it, it may sound ultra-dogmatic in this climate of openness and tolerance and acceptance, but the message of the Bible is really very clear. There should be no haze or fog or confusion in our minds about it, that if we halt at, veer from, or move past Christ, if we stop short or go beyond Jesus, we get the cults or something less and forfeit life for death. That's the message of the Bible. Really simplified in a nutshell, there is only one way, and that way is Jesus Christ. That's the only hope. And yet, as we've seen, it's the good news. It's a blessed hope. It's a wonderful hope. It is a sure hope. It is an anchor for the soul. So let's, in the storms of life and the storms of culture, wars today that's cast the anchor so that we hold fast to him. We saw that the Hebrews were tempted under pressure having moved past their Judaistic roots to place their confidence in Christ. But that brought with it all kinds of difficulty, lost employment, social ostracisation, dangers and even the risk of imprisonment and death, disowned by their fellow countrymen. And so they're tempted under pressure to turn back to the old ways and the old worship of the old covenant. And then, therefore, the writer to the Hebrews, after stressing the excellence and superiority far above all other ways and mediators, the divine Christ and the human Christ who took flesh to die in that flesh to save his people, to give his people rest, he moves on and explains why. There had, in fact, to be a change in the law by which he means the ceremonial rituals and the Levitical laws of worship, not the moral law of God, God forbid. He's not teaching that at all. But he is teaching that the Old Testament self, the law and the prophets and the writings both in Genesis through Moses and David through Psalm 110, which we spoke of, spoke of a superior priesthood in the order of Melchizedek, which would be without beginning and without end. It would be an eternal priesthood. And actually the whole of the Old Testament hinged and depended and rested on this. And so the first reason we saw last week was that temple worship was always temporary and never ultimate. The second reason we gave was that the priesthood had, when it changed to bring a change in law, because that's on which the ritual was based, the priesthood, and when it changed, the worship had to change. Thirdly, we were taught that the order of priests that David predicted and preached in Psalm 110, a remarkable thing really when you think about it, because he was the one who planned all the ranks of the priests and the structure of the temple and gave the blueprint for it all. He even says in Psalm 110, that this Levite ritual is really pointing to another one, the priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. So we were taught that the order of priests that David predicted is of a different rank, and the reason for Christ being unable to continue the Old Testament at legal rules for worship was because he had no Levite genes. He did not have the DNA of Aaron because that was a family hereditary order which couldn't be passed to Christ. Just in case the Hebrews were tempted to argue like this, well, maybe Christ is just the best of that Old Testament order and maybe we don't have to change. No, there's a definitive change because Jesus came from the tribe of Judah. I hope you're able to at least vaguely follow the thread of argument that's being made. So the fourth thing we see this morning is that Christless Old Testament rites, that is the rituals of the ceremonial law, when they're detached from Jesus, are imperfect and not impactful in any way. They're imperfect and not impactful. The tent and the temple worship was never meant to be permanent. it was always intended to be provisional. In and of itself, if we forget the Christ to whom it was a picture and a prediction and preparation and to whom it pointed, if we take Christ out of the equation, which was inbuilt, of course, it could never cleanse the conscience. The blood of bulls and goats could never wash the stains of the people away. It's the blood of Christ only that does that. And so, while in the Old Testament, who used that ritual in faith looking to Christ, it did really work. because power was granted from Christ in advance of his sacrifice by God, left to itself. It is imperfect and has no impact. That's what we see here in Verse 16, for on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness. Verse 19, for the law made nothing perfect, but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced through which we draw near to God. The words weak and useless are used here. Isaiah the prophet uses weak to describe the false gods of the nations who are wood and clay and stone and gold and silver and have no ears or eyes or hands or feet and can't move. They're do nothing gods. They're weak. Useless, powerless, no effect. That's what the Old Testament ritual, if you take Christ away from it, was. That was the effect that Judaism currently has, apart from Christ. It doesn't work. There is no power. All the power comes from the order of Melchizedek, from Jesus Christ. or high priest. The word weak is also used by Paul when he says to Timothy, his pastoral understudy and trainee, have nothing to do with quarrelling because it's a waste of time and space. It goes nowhere fast. It doesn't benefit all these disputes about various regulations of the law. They're weak. You see that? There's nothing to be gained by it because it's weak. And that's also true of the Old Testament ritual system when it's severed from Christ, when it's detached from the order to which it was always bowed and submitted, the future order of Melchizedek, or Jesus Christ, our great high priest. It was weak and was also useless. And that's a term applied to something that is empty, vain, or has no cash value. Worthless. Sprinklings of beast blood, priest's robes, water washings are empty rites. They may look attractive and impressive. You may say, oh, that's very interesting. Something's happening, actually, in church. It's interesting, fascinating. They may build up the pride. Well, at least we're doing something for God, not just listening. We're doing something physical. That's very appealing to unspiritual people who have no grasp or sight on the realities of the gospel. that something is happening of far greater weight and far more importance and of eternal significance when the word of God electrifyingly, radically changes lives as it flows from the throne of the grace and mercy of the kingship of Jesus Christ. I'm not sure that this is a terribly helpful way of illustrating it, but I guess we might compare it to a caretaker president or VP. They're not actually the one in power. They're just holding the reins until the next president comes. It may be helpful or not as you think about it, but that's what the Levitical priesthood was. It was an interim moderator, if you like. Not the minister who would be called, who in this case was Christ. Or as the scripture itself describes the function of the law as a pedagogue or a private educator or tutor to train and discipline and lead to maturity and knowledge and understanding. The Old Testament ritual was all designed to point forward to the goal or the end point or the original purpose or the telos, the end. For Christ is the end of the law. He's the last train on the main line, on the terminal, where the Old Testament priesthood arrives. He's the grand central station of the worship of God. You know, I like Poughkeepsie Station, I've been there once, but it's not Grand Central. Or it's not the halt at Teterboro, like there's nothing there. It's all because of the destination. And that's what the Levitical law was like. So if we strip away Christ from Aaron and all the successive generations of Levitical priests and all their many ranks which David organized in their impressive white linen robes and their turbans. It was a spectacle, but if we strip Christ away from that, there's nothing left of any effect. It's just an empty shell of hollow priestly rights which have no effect or impact, spiritually speaking. So do you see the point he's trying to make? Why on earth would you go to Poughkeepsie again when you can be in Manhattan and Grand Central? Why on earth Would you go to this little model Lego village of a temple set on earth when you can stand in heavenly courts by the Spirit of God in Christ? It's not all the difference in the world. It's all the cosmic difference The confession of faith, and I don't normally quote the confession of faith in preaching. It's not that I have anything against it, but it's just not my normal practice. It can be very wordy. But because these points are prone to be misunderstood. It can be helpful to have a nice, concise statement just to keep us within broad guidelines. You may judge this helpful or unhelpful, I don't know. In chapter seven, verse five, talking about the worship system, this coven was differently administered in the time of the law. and in the time of the gospel. So there's a difference between law and gospel. Under the law, it says, it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal or Passover lamb, and other types or models or imprints or shadows and ordinances, the sacrifices and so forth and the feasts and the worship of the temple delivered to the people of the Jews. And this is really important. All four signifying Christ to come. It wasn't about them. It was all about Him. Now, they didn't know Jesus as we know Him, but they knew Him in the types, and the priests, and the beasts, and the feasts, and the rites. Christ was present. How else? Like Abraham. who didn't even have those things, set his heart on leaving his homeland for a city whose builder and architect is God. That can only be by the power of Christ. How else did Moses give up in the Hall of Fame in chapter 11 of Hebrews? How did he give up the pyramids and the palaces and the pleasures and the riches and the wealth and the pomp of the superpower of that day, Egypt? How did he wave it all goodbye and leave it all behind to lead a grumbling group of people through the desert for 40 years and then die? How did he do it? It was Christ's power in Moses. Did you see that? How was it that the prophet Isaiah was happy to be stuck inside the trunk of a tree and so on in two? Because he had seen the king in his glory in chapter six, and he looked forward to the day when by his stripes, his bodily wounds and his spiritual sins would be healed by the power of Christ. These things, the Confession goes on to say, were for that time sufficient and efficacious. They worked. Now, I'm not a pragmatist. I don't do things just because it works. Although, you know, it's sometimes a common sense thing to do something because it does actually work. It's not broken and doesn't need fixed. It works. But we act on principle. Not because it works, but this worked. That time it was sufficient and efficacious through the operation of the Holy Spirit to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah. And this is wonderful. This is our hope just as it was theirs. in the promised Messiah by whom they had full remission of sins and eternal salvation. And that's why, I guess, when Jesus appeared in glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, Elijah was there and Moses was there because they were saved by the same blood of the lamb of the priest in the order of Melchizedek. That's why I don't know if he'll have much time for me, but I'll be able to ask David about the sling and the stone that killed Goliath. Because my saviour is his saviour and was his saviour in the Old Testament. I'm sure you'll have your own heroes and your own questions, but one saviour. So, practically speaking, these Hebrews who are tempted under pressure to give it all up and go back to empty shells are not to be tantalized or enticed or entranced or indeed under cultural pressure of families or communities be enslaved. They're to break free. from the Christless days, the Christless seasons, the Christless years, the Christless times, the Christless feasts, the Christless food and drink and postures, the Christless robes and the Christless even stained glass. There's nothing wrong with stained glass if the light of Christ shines through it. The spells and the bells and the choirs and the guitars and the drums may be atmospheric and cause a tingle down the spine and attract the heart. But the accompaniments of worship in the old and new covenant are not the power of the worship. Yet when our hearts are attuned by the Spirit of God to the Word of God, power downloads from heaven. I wonder what your battery like on your phone or iPad. I'm quite confident my iPad will be It'll be okay today, because it was charged up, it was plugged in, and the power coursed into the battery. At times we're like, whether you've got an Android or an iPhone, I don't know, but our device goes slow, and it's flat. we recharge on the power of the gospel in Christ, spiritually speaking. Gospel instruction, gospel supplication or prayer, gospel mission. Even in the face of persecution, there is power. There's power to cheer the soul, And there's power to change the soul. And there's power to conform the soul to Christ, our great high priest. This gospel, this new ministry and worship brought in by Jesus Christ, our great high priest in the eternal order of Melchizedek, is the power of God to the salvation of everyone who believes. From whatever culture they come, if they will only believe. in Jesus and come to God through him. The fifth thing we see, the second point today then, is that Levitical priests cannot bring worshippers to God. Levitical priests cannot bring worshippers to God. What happened on Mount Sinai Aaron and the priests in the Levite order swung the covenant into operation. An attentive meeting was arranged and arrangements made for it. But what happened at Sinai when God came down? Well, in Exodus chapter 24, one through two, we read a remarkable thing. God was present on the mountain. But in chapter 24, then the Lord said to Moses, come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and 70 of the elders, and worship from afar. You see that? They weren't near. Moses alone shall come near to the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him. Isn't that what they did at Mount Sinai? They stood terrified, trembling, far off. because God was emblazoned holiness on the mount. And they were conscious of their guilt. And they said, don't let us come near. And God in fact said, don't bring them near. And what was true on Mount Sinai that the people were kept at arm's length, physically speaking was true on Mount Zion. in the temple in Jerusalem. Remember the system of the courts. The inner, the inmost, the outer, and then beyond the peel. Beyond the peel, the Gentiles were shut far out. that they were only on the fringes of things, even if they wanted to draw near God. Regular Jews, not of the tribe of Levi, the priests, stood a little nearer God in the outer court, just in the periphery of God's presence. The Levite priests and the order of Aaron regularly went into the inner court, the holy place, with their holy robes and their holy service. And what about the holy of holies? the very inmost presence of God where the Ark was set with the golden cherubim on the mercy seat and the Shekinah glory of God present enthroned above with the tablets of the covenant underneath. Who went in there? How often? Well, on the 10th day of the big festal month in the Jewish calendar, the seventh month, on day 10 of month seven, on Yom Kippurim or Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, the high priest, dressed in his robes, went in behind the veil. That was it. That was as close as you got to the presence of God. You'll maybe remember in the Gospels how the birth of John the Baptist was announced to his father to come, Zechariah. He was taking his turn and he was doing his duty. He was operating on the road of shift and serving in the inner court, the holy place. And angel Gabriel appeared to him and announced the good news of the birth of the forerunner of Christ. His name would be John. And of course, Zachariah was struck dumb because he didn't believe. And the people were standing outside because they couldn't see inside. They were far away. And so they hadn't a clue what had happened until he signaled. They were far off from God. They didn't have access. And so the access to God physically was restricted, remote, secret, high level, and once yearly only. That was it. But that's not what we see with the ministry of Christ. What are we told about the ministry of Christ in chapter seven? Verse 18, for on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness, but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced through which we draw near to God. It's not that we draw near to God in the temple on Mount Zion. but spiritually we draw near to God in the heavenly sanctuary, the heavenly Mount Zion and Jerusalem. That's where we're brought near to God. And so now in the gospel, a better hope has been introduced. There's a bringing in besides of a better superior hope that works. and benefits. The racial barrier has gone, Ephesians tells us that in chapter two, verses 11 through 22. We don't have time to meditate upon that. And all nations gain access to God in the person of Jesus, their high priest. Maybe you've seen the movie, I don't often quote movies and sermons, I'm doing a lot of things today that I don't characteristically do, please excuse me. But it was hard not to be moved on the best parts of the movie of the Titanic when the string quartet, remember the tune, they struck as the boat was about to go down and people were clambering into the lifeboats. Nearer to thee, my God, nearer to thee. Not near death, but near life. That's what the gospel brings. Christ was the one who was plunged in the depths, that we might be brought nearer in the heights Someone has written, not all the blood of beasts and Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away its stain. It couldn't do that, couldn't bring us near to God, but Christ, he continues, the heavenly lamb, takes all our sins away. Through faith in his blood we must come to him, we must seek pardon, we must turn away from what's ungodly and what's wrong and trust in him. But Christ the heavenly lamb takes believers' sins away, a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they. We were talking this morning in Bible class about volumes of liquid. How many gallons and rivers of blood were slain in the Old Testament? For every worshipper throughout the ages, blood shed. And yet, that blood itself never washed so much as one little white lie, or peccadillo, or tiny sin. Not one. It was the blood of Christ, through faith in those sacrifices. looking to him, which washes the stains of his people, which is why I think, one of the reasons at least, why Jesus said on the night he was betrayed in John 14, 6, that he was going to prepare a place for his people. He wasn't doing a kind of remodel on heaven, getting it comfy for them in that sense. This is a priestly image and picture. He entered that sanctuary by his shed blood so that we might be brought into the presence of God. And that's why he said, I am the way and the truth and the life. And the secularists today will say, preach on brother. But then the smile will turn to a frown when we hear what he really meant when he says, no man comes to the Father, to God, but by me. Because he is the priest in the order of Melchizedek. So I know that people are attached their priests. I guess they also used to be in a bygone day a little more attached, and this is no comment at all, please don't misunderstand me on you good folks in Ridgefield Park, but they used to be attached to their pastors. They saw the pastor or the priest or whoever their religious figure was as the hotline to God. If only they could cling to their priest. My friend, Jack Rozovich, who came to Christ in his 30s in France through the witness of my parents, he wept for two days when the Pope from Krakow, his hometown, died. Wept because he had been brought up to believe that This was his way to God, if he could only hold on. To his fellow countrymen, he would be brought to God. And we see it everywhere, don't we? Little shrines to the Virgin Mary. As if the mother of God, blessed though she was, could bring us to God. But this is why we love Jesus Christ, and we delight in gospel worship, because by the blood of Jesus, we come to enjoy invisible, unseen, glorious gospel realities. It's a bit like what a man called Thomas Vincent, who was a Puritan pastor during the Great Plague in London in the 1660s, I think it was. He laid down his life to minister in the plague with those who were so struck. He survived the plague actually himself, by the mercies of God, but he wrote a little book It's published by Soli Deo Gloria. It's a lovely little book. It's not an easy read, but it is a profitable read, which was really just expounding and explaining 1 Peter 1 3-10. It was this sense of God's grace in the soul through the gospel that shone glory into that dark place in the plague and into the hearts and minds of those who heard and read it and heard him preach. And you know what it was called? This is the title. The true Christians love for the unseen Christ. The true Christians love for the unseen Christ. Joy unspeakable, full of glory, And as someone has sung, and the half has never yet been told. That's what we get with Christ, our great high priest. So why would we ever deflect from that? And thirdly and finally, The Old Testament rituals set in motion by instruction are set aside by the Gospel reality, which comes by divine oath, which we've looked at previously, so we'll leave that to one side, and an indestructible life. An indestructible life. Think about the life of the Son for a second. Let's just read here in verse 15. This becomes more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. That makes him with the oath in verse 20 to the guarantor of a better covenant. So the life of the Son of God. He died for our sins. He rose from the dead. He ascended to the right hand of God. He's seated as a majestic king in glory and power. He's enthroned as the guarantor, as the mediating priest, the eternal son of God for the church. Why so? That we might benefit from his death and we might be blessed by his death, his death as the mediator of the covenant who puts all the promises of God into effect and rolls them out upon the church from heaven. I was walking past a corner yesterday in New Milford, Grant Avenue, and there were little skeletons crawling out of the ground to, I think, celebrate Halloween or the Day of the Dead or whatever it is. Kind of spooky, isn't it? It could have been Aaron, couldn't it? It could have been Levi and all the other priests. It could have been The Blessed Mother of Our Lord, who incidentally has two graves I discovered, one allegedly in Jerusalem and one in Ephesus. Probably, this would be my take on it. I would need to research more carefully. An unmarked grave was used. Remember what they cried, the ladies of Jerusalem, blessed are the womb that wore you and the breast that nursed you. And Jesus says, not in any way demeaning or diminishing the importance of Mary, but blessed are those rather who hear and obey the word of God. That's what's important. That's what the Bible teaches for the good of our souls. But it couldn't have been Christ on Grant Avenue. Why? Because he's risen from the dead and he is Lord. Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father and he's at God's right hand in glory. He's high priest on the basis of his everlasting life. That doesn't mean just that he doesn't die, but that he cannot die. The term here is one that's linked to our words, lysis and catalysis or catalytic or catalyst. Now what happens when you put human cells in pure water? Well, they swell because there's this salt gradient through a semi-permeable membrane that's called osmosis, and the fluid is drawn into the cells, swell and swell, and they pop. They lyse. There's lysis. There's destruction. Or what happens when you put a catalyst or enzyme into a chemical reaction? You speed it up so that everything is broken down. With Christ, there's no lysis. There's no catalytic breakdown. There's only life that persists, world without end. Now raised from the dead, he sits at God's right hand evermore, the unchanging one. He's the same today as he was yesterday, as he was in eternity past, as he will be tomorrow and in all eternity. This is the life he has. He has it as living God. He's always been everlasting. He is from everlasting to everlasting. He doesn't grow tired or weary, we read this morning in the Bible class. He doesn't age or decay. He lives. and he lives evermore and he gives life and existence and health and strength to everything. He's the source of life, natural and physical and spiritual and eternal. He's living God and he is exalted Lord, having atoned for sin. As a reward for his finished work, he received the gift of eternal life to bestow it on you and you and me. His once thorn-cursed brow. Remember that? They mocked him as a king and set the thorns upon him as a curse. His once thorn-cursed brow is now crowned with radiant light of the glory of God, the crown of life that will never fade away, which is one for us, his faithful servants. The glory that lit his face on the Mount of Transfiguration before the Apostle's sight will never dim or diminish in any way. in his lofty, glorified human state as God and man. He's immune from death. He is not dead. No, he is alive. But that's not all. He is life. Isn't that what he said? I am the way, the truth, and the life. That's an amazing comfort, isn't it? I was chatting to a man in New Milford on Thursday night, reading Hebrew together, and he said he's the last one of his group of friends that remains on earth. I don't think he has a hope. of life, but we have a hope in death, that death is not the end. And because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone, because I know he holds the future and he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Comfort it, and you should be comforted. And if our bodies dissolve and decay, his life, joy, and glory will never be broken down and will become ours one day. Because he lives, my sin is forgiven. your soul is sheltered, the bodies of all believers kept safe to await the first rays of the dawn on the morning of the resurrection. And because he's worn the wreath of a curse, we will wear the crown of light and of light through faith in Jesus. So whether, and the writer's speaking to the Hebrews, they would face sickness or death or martyrdom or be completely disowned by their families for their commitment to Jesus, we're safe in the hands of this priest who ever lives to plead for us. In conclusion then, is your religion useful? Does it work? I hope it does. If it's faith in Christ, it will profit, change, and benefit. I hope your heart isn't lured back to what is empty and sensual, just shells. Have your prayers and praises brought you close to God? Or do you still feel a little bit like the publican and the tax collector standing far off? Well, that's a good start. Have mercy on me, O God, a sinner. And if we pray that, he'll bring us close. And surely we can see this morning from the word that external outward religion in and of itself is dead. We're to pray for life as we pray and we preach and we praise so that we would know that love on our hearts for the glorious unseen Christ. Now the page has been turned There is a new administration. There is no going back to the past. There's only, with Jesus, moving on and moving up. May God grant us grace. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the power and the truth of the gospel.