Well, this morning, we're going to get back to our study in the book of Ezekiel. And this week and next week, we're going to finish it out. Only two more major sections that we're going to cover between the last several chapters, chapters 45 through 48. It's been a while since we were in this book together. Back sometime in the middle of November, we looked at chapter 44 as we continue to work our way through this last section. And today, what I want us to do is to look at chapters 45 and 46. That's a big chunk of Scripture and it's sort of laden with all kinds of details and measurements. So what we're going to do today is summarize that and sort of fly over the top of it in order to understand for the sake of time what the message is that God is giving to the exiles here. We don't want to lose the forest for the trees. I think what God is showing us is beyond the details and beneath the details. And so we're going to look primarily at that message. And in this last section in chapters 40 through 48, you remember that what God is doing is giving this massive vision to Ezekiel and to the exiles in Babylon of a new temple that God had showed to them that was going to be built. Now, they're there in Babylon, of course, because of the justice of God. We've been all around the history of Israel together as we've studied this book, from their humble beginnings as a nation that was chosen and established by God, to their incredible prominence and success and wealth under Solomon, to their ongoing stumblings, their failures, their idolatry, the horrific immorality that only got worse and worse and worse every generation after generation after generation. And so when the Babylonians came, and took the fortunate ones like Ezekiel into exile, the unfortunate ones didn't go into exile. They were simply ravaged and killed in the streets of Jerusalem. When they came and did that, and when the city and the temple were torn to pieces and burned by Nebuchadnezzar's armies, it was because God's justice was being poured out against all of the spiritual harlotry of the people of Israel. God is a holy God. That's what we've learned in this book, if nothing else. And God is a just God. We've seen that over and over again. In fact, if there's any single theme that Ezekiel is consumed with, it is that. It is the glory and the majesty of God as it is displayed in His attributes. Because the reason that the Israelites had fallen into such a state of spiritual wickedness was that in their hearts, And in their minds, they had trivialized God. They trivialized Him. They'd minimalized Him and then exalted themselves. And whenever that happens, whenever people do that, anywhere, anytime, people destroy the foundation of the glory and majesty of God and instead build a foundation of their own autonomy. and establish their lives and their cultures and their societies on that foundation of their own lustful, sinful passions, their own depraved, rebellious authority, whenever people do that, then the lives and societies that they build are feeble and weak and will fall apart and will crumble, just like Israel did. It's just like Jesus, in fact, said to His own disciples. He said, everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the wind blew against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it." The rock is Christ, and the rock is the Word of God, the truth of His revelation, the nature and the character of God, His law and His will for our lives. If we build on that, nothing in this world can destroy our lives. They might destroy our body, but they can't destroy our eternal lives in Christ. But if we exchange that foundation for a foundation of our own making, our own wisdom, our own will, our own authority, then we become the worst kinds of fools, Jesus is saying, because we're building our house, our life, our family, our society, we're building it all on sand. And sand can't sustain the weight. of lives and families and societies. And so eventually, all of that will crumble and fall and blow away. And when it falls, it falls hard. And that's what had happened to Israel. They destroyed the foundation of God's glory. And instead of it, they built on the sand of their own authority and their own fleshly lusts. And so in His glory, God was disciplining them, but His goal ultimately wasn't just to destroy them, was it? That's what we've seen in this book. There's a lot of destruction. There's a lot of judgments. But his goal ultimately wasn't just to destroy them. It wasn't just to tear down their flawed, faulty foundation. His goal ultimately was to rebuild the true foundation, to put himself back at the center of their lives, at the center of their world, at the center of their minds, and most importantly, the center of their hearts. And so, the entire book of Ezekiel is not only an account of God confronting the sin of the Israelites, it's an account of God confronting them with His glory, His holiness, His justice, His righteousness, His majesty, and ultimately His great mercy. That's what Ezekiel is all about. Because through all of the judgment and discipline and devastation, through all of the tearing apart of that wicked foundation and the structure that they built upon it, we end up in Ezekiel with God restoring. and rebuilding and redeeming and recreating their sinful hearts, building them back up on the true foundation on the solid rock that He is and that His Word is. And that's what this vision at the end, this temple vision in chapters 40 through 48, that's what it is. It's God's way of declaring to these exiles in Babylon, that a day is coming when God will not only put everything back as it should be, not only is He going to restore everything, He's going to restore and renew and rebuild and redeem and recreate in a way that absolutely surpasses and transcends everything that they've ever known in the past. Everything, even the great glory of Solomon. The new Jerusalem will be better even than their city was in its glory days. because God will make it in such a way that it can never be destroyed. It won't even be built out of the same material. And the new nation of God's people will transcend the old nation, because God will give them new hearts, righteous hearts that love Him and the desire to honor Him and worship Him, and so His blessings will flow to them unhindered. And the new temple that we see in this vision will transcend the old one because there will be an absolute separation between God's holiness in His presence and any defilement that would come in and pollute. There will be no impurity, there will be no wickedness, no pollution will be able to come into the temple like it had come in the old covenant place. That's what this vision has showed us so far with the massive fortified gates and guard stations that we've seen in that new temple in chapters 40 and 43. and the great big high walls and the three-tiered structure making the separation between holiness and defilement both vertical and horizontal between the outer courts and then at the next level the inner courts where the priests were and then finally up at the top. Remember, passing through staircases and fortified gates to get up there, the Holy of Holies where the presence of God dwells. All of that signifies and symbolizes that in this new temple, nothing will be able to penetrate into that layer where God dwells, into that place where His holiness exists. No pollution or defilement will ever be able to penetrate in and defile the presence of God. Most importantly for the people, nothing could ever again defile the sacrifices that were made for their atonement. In the old temple, The priests who made the sacrifices were sinners themselves. And oftentimes they were the ones who were so sinful that they were guilty of bringing the defilement in. They were the ones installing the statues of the foreign pagan gods in the temple. They were the ones bringing in the temple prostitutes. They were the ones performing the pagan ceremonies. And so before the priests could make sacrifice for the people's sins, they had to take care of their own sins. But see, not in the new temple that Ezekiel envisions. In the new temple, there will be such complete separation between the holiness of God and any wickedness and any defilement, any impurity, that the sacrifice that brings atonement will be perfect, and so the people will finally be redeemed eternally. That's the whole point of this vision. And the big question, of course, as we read through this vision of this new temple is, how do we interpret it? How do we understand its fulfillment? And there are a lot of people, all of them, as I've said in the past, very highly educated people, very conservative biblical scholars who all hold God's Word in the highest esteem, and who understand this vision of this new temple to be revealing something physical that will be built sometime in the future, an actual physical structure, built precisely according to this blueprint plan that Ezekiel lays out in chapters 40 through 48. And so, the essence of this vision, for the people who interpret its meaning that way, is that sometime in our future, because as of January 2008 it hasn't been built yet, what they believe is that sometime in our future, God has willed and decreed that this temple structure should be physically built, in Jerusalem, in Israel, and that when it is, God has willed and decreed that the Old Testament, Levitical and Zadokite high priesthood would be re-established. And that when they're re-established, they must resume the practice of animal sacrifice, of sin offerings in the temple on behalf of the people. So it's been no big secret that I disagree with that interpretation of this vision. And for two primary reasons, first of all, because I believe that to say that, that God's big plan is to rebuild an actual temple and resume actual animal sacrifices. I believe that that is a contradiction of his word in the New Testament, especially in the book of Hebrews, especially in places like Chris just read from. And I believe that it's actually an offense to Christ because Hebrews tells us so clearly that Jesus Christ made a full end of the practice of animal sacrifice because His sacrifice for sins was better and was made only once for all time and never needs to be repeated. It was perfect. It never needs to be added to or supplemented or augmented. And so it seems to me that if we say that there is coming a day when those animal sacrifices will be resumed, that we're saying that Christ's sacrifice wasn't enough, that there needs to be more sacrifice, ongoing sacrifices to deal with sin. But of course, nobody's going to say that. Because we all know that Hebrews says the opposite. Hebrews says that the animal sacrifices themselves were hopelessly inadequate. Hebrews 10.4, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. Impossible. It can't do it. It cannot do what Christ did. Because the blood of Christ shed once for all has taken away our sins. And by His blood, we have been given not only redemption here and now, but eternal redemption by a sacrifice that never needs to be repeated. And that was Again, the essence of that text in Hebrews 9, verse 12, Christ 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. So see, it's my belief that God didn't intend for us to interpret Ezekiel's vision as a physical temple structure where actual animal sacrifices would take place, but that through the prophets, God was showing the people the better temple, the better sacrifice, the better atonement that the coming Messiah would bring and accomplish. And God was showing them all of that in visionary form and using pictures and images that they were familiar with in order to illustrate those great realities in graphic and meaningful ways. Christ who called Himself the temple of God. In John 2, 19, when he said to the Pharisees, if you destroy this temple in three days, I will raise it up. And the Jews said to him, well, it took 46 years to build this temple. How are you going to raise it up in three days? But Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body. And when therefore, listen to this, when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. They believed the scripture. When He was raised after three days, they remembered He had said, if you destroy the temple, I will raise it up after three days. And they understood that to refer to His body. Not the actual temple building. And as they realized that, they believed the Scriptures. What Scriptures? The Old Testament Scriptures, because the New Testament hadn't even been written yet. What John is saying is that when Jesus was raised, His disciples believed that He'd raised the temple in fulfillment of the Scriptures, in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. They believed that Ezekiel's prophecy had come true and that in Christ Jesus, the being of God had tabernacled among them, as John says in John 1.14, that He was the new temple of God's presence in the midst of His people. that He was the most holy place where no sin could defile the sacrifice, and that He was the High Priest, and that His sacrifice was therefore perfect and had obtained eternal redemption. That's what they believed. Now, most people who see it the other way, who believe that Ezekiel saw the blueprints for an actual physical structure that would be built and the return of animal sacrifices, most of them, would say that those animal sacrifices are not going to be done for the purpose of the atonement of sins, because they understand that to say that is an offense to Christ, and none of them want to offend Christ. They hold Him in the highest esteem, and they worship Him as their Lord and their God, and they believe the gospel every bit as much as anybody else. Most of them would say that those sacrifices that will be reinstated in that new temple are memorial sacrifices, that they're done as a way to celebrate and remember the great sacrifice of Christ, kind of like we do at the Lord's Table. A visual, graphic representation and way to signify and remember what it was that Christ had done. That's what they teach and believe these sacrifices in this temple that Ezekiel sees will be. And it's good that they say that, because it means that they're not undermining the worth and the value of Christ's death. But there's a problem with saying that. And it comes from chapter 45 and 46, our passages today that we're going to survey. And the problem is simply this. The problem is that Ezekiel nowhere says that the sacrifices in the new temple will be memorials. And in fact, he says the opposite very, very clearly. He says explicitly that in this new temple, the sacrifices in fact will be for the atonement of sins. Look at verse 15 of chapter 45. As God is specifying the procedures for the sacrificial system of this new temple, He says that the people must bring one sheep from every flock of 200. from the watering places of Israel for grain offering, burnt offering and peace offerings to make atonement for them, declares the Lord. And so the point is that if you're going to interpret this vision literally, meaning that it's a physical temple with actual animal sacrifices, then you have to interpret that vision consistently that way. You must interpret the entire vision that way, including the verses that say clearly and explicitly that the sacrifices are performed to make atonement for the people. Verse 17 says, It shall be the prince's duty to furnish the burnt offerings and grain offerings and drink offerings at the feasts, the new moons and the Sabbaths, all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel. He shall provide the sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings and peace offerings to make atonement on behalf of the house of Israel. And verse 20, you shall do the same on the seventh month, on the seventh day of the month for anyone who has sinned through error or ignorance. So you shall make atonement for the temple. If the rule of interpretation here is that the plain meaning of the text requires that there will be a physical temple and animal sacrifices that will be performed, then the same rule of interpretation has to be applied to those verses. Their plain meaning has to require that those sacrifices are performed for the atonement of sins of the people and the temple. Because that's what it says. Which is why I believe that we need to interpret the whole vision differently. And the only way that we can do that is to let God's Word teach us how. We don't have the freedom to interpret it whatever way we want. We have to allow further revelation in God's Word to instruct us about what the actual fulfillment of this vision is. And the New Testament reveals many, many things that help us. Christ says that His body is the temple. Christ says that He came to tabernacle with us as God in human form. Hebrews says that He was tempted as the temple in every way that we are and yet without sin. No defilement, no spot, no blemish, no pollution, no intrusion of sin in the holy place. He is our great High Priest and His unblemished sacrifice needed to only be made once in order to obtain eternal redemption. I believe that the New Testament is God filling in the blanks. God is solving the mystery. God is answering the question of how to interpret Old Testament passages like this one. We interpret them, the New Testament teaches us, by seeing Christ as their fulfillment. In the New Testament, the lights come on. In the New Testament, we understand that in all of these visions in the Old Testament, God was showing the people who their Messiah would be and what He would do. And He was showing them that in ways and in terms that they were familiar with. He was giving them kind of visionary parables that pointed to the Messiah in familiar forms and terms and images. And that's what I believe we've been seeing in this entire section. In chapters 40 through 48, after all of the terror and all of the catastrophe of God's judgment, he turns the page and he gives them this magnificent glimpse of his ultimate purposes of mercy and atoning grace. And they are purposes that will be and only could be fulfilled in Jesus Christ, God and human flesh. So that's how I believe. that we should understand the themes in chapters 45 and 46 as well. In fact, all four of these last chapters go together, save for one chunk at the beginning of chapter 47, which is what we're going to look at next week. But chapters 45 through 48 all go together because they deal with some of the same themes and they teach the same message. And the two themes that Ezekiel deals with in these chapters are, first of all, the division of the promised land, the re-division according to new boundaries, and secondly, the sacrifices that will take place in this new temple. The first eight verses of chapter 45, and then most of chapters 47 and 48, describe the division of the land. verse one, for example, when you allot the land as an inheritance, you shall set apart for the Lord a portion of the land as a holy district. And then he gives a bunch of measurements, 25000 cubits long, 20000 cubits broad. It shall be holy throughout its entire extent. And of this, a square plot of 500 by 500 cubits shall be for the sanctuary with 50 cubits for an open space around it. He's defining a sacred space there, a strip of land that is devoted to God, and smack in the center of it is the temple of God. And then all around it, he goes on to enumerate, all the way through chapters 47 and 48, that that central sacred space of God's presence is surrounded with, on both sides, north and south, strips of land that are divided equally among the 12 tribes of Israel. It's a vision of the promised land being redivided for God's people. Only the division here is very different than the division, according to the old way in Joshua, where some tribes got great huge portions of land and others got smaller portions and they were irregularly shaped and they followed the borders of the mountains and the rivers and the topography of the land. Here, the land is divided exactly equally, and it's divided in perfectly straight strips, regardless of the mountains and the rivers, which is, by the way, another clue that maybe this isn't a literal division of a literal actual topographical land, because it would be very difficult to divide it that way, with mountains and rivers. Nonetheless, God could do that. Here, the land, the point that is being made is that the land is divided equally and in the exact center of all of it is the temple. And that's the key. God is in the center. God is at the heart. The presence of God is in the midst and in the middle of his people. Now, a vision that has to do with the division of the promised land, that would be something that would be very, very interesting and fascinating and exciting to the exiles in Babylon, wouldn't it? These people who had just lost their homeland, these people who had been enslaved in a foreign land for decades now, they'd be eager to hear that they'd be getting their land back. But see, Ezekiel's greatest concern here, and the heart of the message here, is not to just reassure the people that they're going to get back their physical property, and that when they do, it will be distributed among them fairly, because that's not their greatest need, is it? Property is not what they need the most. Don't miss this. Even in the Old Testament where they were given physical property and the promised land, the greatest significance of the promised land in the Old Testament was not the land itself. The reason that God gave them the land wasn't so that they would become property owners, but so that they would be in a place where God Himself dwelt in their midst. That was the reason for the land. And when the Babylonians came and stripped them of their land, they lost not just their land, but the place where God was present in their midst. And that is what Ezekiel is envisioning as being restored. Not physical earth necessarily, but a place where God will always be with them. That's his biggest message. That's his greatest concern. And so the The idea is not that Ezekiel is proclaiming that their property rights are going to be safeguarded and that human equality is going to be safeguarded. His big concern is to proclaim God's sovereignty and to safeguard God's presence in their midst. So the first thing he does is to show God right at the center. In this new division of the land, everything is oriented around the temple. It's right in the middle. And even the strips of land that are allotted for the tribes are oriented east to west, just like the temple, remember, was oriented. And that's very, very different from the Old Testament allotment of the land, where the city of Jerusalem was what was focused on in the center. And in the middle of the center was the palace of David. And the temple was off to the north. But here, everything is refocused on God Himself. God is the true King. His temple is the central place. And His presence is the central reality. And that's the thrust of this vision. That's the hope that the exiles are given. Not that someday they'll get their property back, but that someday they will once again dwell in the presence of God. And He will be their King. And He will rule them with perfect righteousness. And He will protect them with absolute sovereignty. And His Kingdom that He builds will never fail. And will never end. They're seeing a kingdom that cannot be shaken. That's what they're seeing. They're seeing a dominion that is everlasting. And they're seeing a territory that no army can invade. They're seeing something that even the gates of hell cannot prevail against. Because when God is with them and when God is for them, nothing and no one can stand against them. That's the great hope here. Access to God. The everlasting abiding presence of God, a kingdom that is focused on and entirely centered around the worship of God. And that worship is represented in these chapters by the sacrifices that go on in this new temple where God will dwell. They're described as being sacrifices that are made with absolute precision, exactly according to God's prescription. In verses 10-12 of chapter 45, the prince in the vision is told to use balances and weights and measures to make sure that everything that is offered to God is precisely what God requires. There won't be any more strange fire offered in the presence of God like Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu offered. Everything will be precisely what God demands. And there will be no more priests who are fixing the scales and getting rich and fat by extorting the people in the temple. No more money changers tables like those that Christ overturned. Everything that's done in this temple will be absolutely holy and the sacrifices of this temple will be perfect and righteous and therefore completely acceptable to God. And in the rest of these chapters, Ezekiel goes on to describe those sacrifices and the very precise laws that govern them. Because in the Old Testament, it was the sacrifices that undergirded the covenant relationship between God and His people. The whole basis of their being able to be in a relationship with Him was the sacrificial system. And sacrifice functioned in at least four distinct ways in the Old Testament, each way reflecting a particular aspect of the covenant, of the relationship that was being maintained between God and the people. First of all, and most significantly, the sacrifice provided a way of restoring the relationship between God and His people that had been broken by their sin. This was the essence of the burnt offering that was made daily for the sins of the people. When the people sinned against God, when they rebelled against His authority, they broke the relationship between God as their King and them as the subjects because they made themselves to be the King. And so something needed to be done to restore that relationship. And the thing that was done was that there was a substitute that was offered. There was a ransom that was paid and made on behalf of the sinner so that God's justice could be satisfied, but the sinner could go on living. And the sinner could now be found acceptable in God's presence. So the first thing is that sacrifices provide that ransom. Secondly, sacrifice provided a tribute that was paid to God by the people. The sacrificed animal was something that cost the people. It was a statement of God's worthiness to receive the sacrifice. It was an acknowledgement of His greatness and His majesty, His glory and His holiness. and a tribute had to be paid to this great king. And thirdly, the sacrifice ensured cleansing of the people's impurity. That was the essence of the sin offering. A spotless, unblemished animal, oftentimes a bull, was brought in and the sinner was to take and to lay his hands on the head of that animal. And laying your hands on the head of the animal as a sinner signified identification. The sinner was identifying himself with this animal that was about to die. And it also signified imputation. That means that the sins of the people were being accounted to that animal. The animal didn't do anything wrong. The animal was the innocent victim here, but it was dying because it was taking the sins of the people upon itself. So the sinner came saying, I have sinned. I deserve to die. But I bring this substitute which is going to die in my place. And then, because this is a very personal matter, the sinner had to slay the animal himself. No one could do it for him. It was his sin that caused the death of that animal. And so he had to slit its throat. And just as the sin of the sinner was accounted to the animal in that sin offering, the animal's lack of blemish, lack of defect, its spotlessness was accounted back to the sinner. In the sacrifice, the sinner was now free from the stain of his sin. And then after the bull had been slaughtered, its blood was drained into a bowl and the high priest would take the bowl and the blood of that animal and sprinkle it with a hyssop branch. before the presence of God seven times. And that signified that the blood, that the sacrifice, that the substitution was acceptable to God. The blood was worthy to be in His sight. And then the rest of the blood would be taken out and poured out by the brazen altar in front of the great veil before the holy place, signifying that the way from God to man is opened. The sin had been cleansed. Atonement had been made. And then fourthly, sacrifice provided an opportunity for God to commune with his people. Oftentimes in the form of a meal, because the priests on behalf of the people ate portions of the sacrifices that had been made. It was a statement that now that payment had been made, now that the sin had been cleansed, now that the relationship had been restored, now that the way from God to man had been opened, God delighted in fellowshipping with His people. And that's what the sacrifices entailed. And all of the various types of sacrifices in the Old Testament, the burnt offerings and sin offerings and grain offerings, all of them, served one or more of those four purposes to make a ransom payment for sin, to pay tribute to the glory and holiness of God, to cleanse the sin of the people, so that once again God could fellowship and commune with them. And see, all of those sacrificial purposes are portrayed and laid out very precisely in Ezekiel's vision here. You can read it. The point that God is making to the exiles is that when this new temple is built, these sacrifices will be performed and they will be performed in absolute unblemished perfection. And the great hope that this gives them while they're languishing in exile is that finally their sin will be fully dealt with. So that nothing can ever again separate them from their God. That's what Ezekiel is seeing. and looking forward to, and what this vision is anticipating. So again, when and how should we expect to see the fulfillment of that? That place of unblemished holiness, where perfect sacrifice could be made, a ransom paid, a tribute paid, cleansing made, so that people could once again draw near and fellowship with their God. Again, I don't believe that we should look for a time in our future when all of this is fulfilled, because if we do, I believe we overlook and undermine what has already been done 2,000 years ago. Because in the New Testament, all of these sacrifices find their fulfillment of Christ. He's the one who atones for our sins. He's the one who pays our tribute. He's the one who has cleansed us, and it is in Him and Him alone that we have fellowship and intimacy with our God. Think about how perfectly Jesus' sacrifice fulfills everything that the old covenant sacrifices were intended to do, everything that Ezekiel sees here. He is our ransom. He is the substitutionary payment that was made for our sin to restore our broken relationship with God. He said Himself in Mark chapter 10 that He came to give His life as a ransom for many. He's our burnt offering. Only instead of being offered daily, Hebrews 7 says, He had no need, like those old high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for His own sins and then for those of the people, since He did this once for all when He offered up Himself. It never needs to be done again. And, He's our tribute offering. He lived a life of unblemished holiness and perfect righteousness. He fulfilled every single obligation of the covenant in God's law. He was perfectly obedient. He was unblemished and spotless, even to the point of death on a cross. And that righteousness is imputed and accounted to us through faith. And He's our sin offering. Just like that unblemished bull in the Old Testament. Jesus, the sinless Savior, took our sins on Himself and accounted us righteous by faith. God accounted Him a sinner, even though He had committed no sin. and punished Him because He took our sins upon Himself, that we might be accounted righteous even though we're not. Hebrews 10 says this, But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until His enemies should be made a footstool for His feet, for by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. That's justification. That's the Gospel. That even though I'm a sinner, God accepts me as righteous because of what Christ has done. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, God made Him who knew no sin to become sin on my behalf that I might become the righteousness of God in Him. That's the Gospel. Peter says, it was not with perishable things such as silver and gold that you were redeemed, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. And not only is His sacrifice atoned for our sins and cleansed our sins by the imputation of His unblemished righteousness to us, His blood actually cleanses us from our sin. It purifies our hearts and it sanctifies us. John says, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. Not just justification, but sanctification, the removal of sin, growth in grace, transformation by the renewing of mind, being transferred from one level of glory to the next and made more and more to resemble the image of his spotless son. That's what the blood of Jesus does. And because of all of this, Jesus Christ is our fellowship offering. Our access into the presence of God. Hebrews 10.22, 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. And isn't that what we say at the Lord's table? That because of everything that Christ has done to atone for our sins cleanse our consciences and sanctify us by His blood and justify us and reconcile us to God that we can draw near and commune with Him, that we can dine with Him and be fed and nourished in our souls by Him and by His grace. And so when we worship, this is why we worship. In order to celebrate the sacrifice that He has made and fulfilled. We come to worship Him because of the sacrifice. And we come because the sacrifice is done. We come to celebrate that it never needs to be repeated. And we've got to have confidence in that. And I believe that a great many Christians who have embraced a form of worship that resembles the old covenant priesthood more than the priesthood of Christ don't understand what it is that we've got here. We've got access to God. How many Christians continue to struggle with embracing and accepting by faith the perfect, finished, priestly intercession of Christ? How many Christians really believe that they have full and unfettered access to the throne of grace in heaven, the very presence of God on the basis of what Christ has done alone? I think a lot of Christians struggle to grasp that and believe that and trust that. They understand the gospel intellectually. They get it in their minds. They understand the truth that they've been justified by faith and made right with God. But a lot of them continue to live their lives as if they have to gain their own access to God. And when it comes to approaching God, the mindset is that they're only allowed to get as close to God as their merit and their works will get them. We talk about the need to examine ourselves as we come to the Lord's table, and we must. Paul commands us to in 1 Corinthians 11. But we have got to understand that the basis of our worthiness to come before His table is not how good we've been. The basis of our ability to come before the Lord in prayer and to bow and to lay before His throne of grace and to receive His mercy is not whether or not we've earned that right. by our submission or by our obedience. The basis of our access to Christ is Him. He's our High Priest. It's His work. It's His obedience. It's His sacrifice. It's His blood that gets us through the veil into the presence of God. And Christians who are attempting to gain access through their own efforts are really only showing at the bottom line that they don't yet fully trust that the work of Christ is sufficient. They see their sin, and that's good. And they see God's holiness, and that's good. And they feel their guilt and their shame, and that's good. And they recognize their unworthiness, but then they fail sometimes to trust that what Christ has done is enough. And so, they're still committed to this fleshly way of thinking that says, I've got to do something. I've got to make some penance. I've got to earn the right. The entire Roman Catholic Church is committed to that. And it's not true. Not in Christ. We've been saved by grace through faith alone. It is God's free gift. And so if you're struggling with this tendency to cope with your guilt and your shame, by working to be better, if that's the motivation for your holiness and piety, then it's a wrong motivation. Fear and guilt and shame are not what motivate true holiness and obedience. And if that's your life you have not yet fully embraced, the full and free access to God that you have by virtue of Christ's high priestly work. You have not drawn near to God in spite of your sin. And that's the only way you can draw near. That's the only way in which true and genuine obedience will start to transform your life, is when you lay hold of and put your full confidence in what He has done for you. Then the love of God will be shed abroad in your heart. And when you start to come to terms with the fact that even though you're wicked and vile and rebellious and selfish and a sinner, that God nonetheless accepts you and allows you in His presence because His Son shed His own blood to pay for all your sin and imputed His righteousness to you, and that God declares you righteous even though you're a sinner, when you come to terms with that Gospel, your heart will start to be so filled with love for God that your sin will fall away like dead leaves on a tree. You'll hate your sin compared to your love for God. And that's where the motivation to obey and to follow His law comes from. Every time my sons disobey me, and I scold them and I discipline them, every time they know that I'm unhappy with them for something that they've done, after the discipline is over, they look at me with these anxious, desperate faces. You've got kids. You know what that's like. They're standing there and they're wanting to draw near. They're wanting a hug, but they're not sure if they deserve one. They're not sure if they've lost the rights to Daddy's love. Their hearts are full of fear. And the very second that I smile at them and do this, boom! There they are. They come running. And as I hold them and tell them they're forgiven, as they experience the grace of nearness in spite of their sin, guess what happens to their desire to sin? I'm sorry, Daddy. I don't want to do that anymore, Daddy. It disintegrates. It comes back later through temptation, through the flesh. But in that moment of free grace drawing near, embracing love, Their love for their sin vanishes. And I believe that the great hope that Ezekiel prophesied was of a coming day when the people would once more be able to draw near to God who waits for them with open arms and embraces them with free love. And the New Testament fulfillment of that hope is Jesus Christ. In him, God smiles upon us. In him, God throws his arms open wide and says, Sinner, draw near. Come with boldness. Come with confidence. Come with joy before My throne and receive My grace and My mercy and be filled and fed and grow." And that message is one that we can trust and we've got to. We've got to put our confidence in it and we've got to stand absolutely firm on that Gospel truth that having been justified through faith in Him and sprinkled clean by His blood and forgiven, we can draw near to God. because in Christ He has drawn near to us. Amen? So believe on that truth today as you come to the table. Father, we praise You for our High Priest, and we praise You for the sacrifice that He made, the atonement that He gave, the eternal redemption that He has secured on our behalf. And we thank You, Lord, that He has done this in fulfillment of everything that You taught us and revealed to us and prophesied through Your prophets in the Old Testament. We thank You that His sacrifice never has to be repeated. We thank You that it is enough. We thank You that that means that there is therefore now no condemnation for us who are in Him. We thank You that no one can snatch us out of Your hand. We thank You that because He stands for us, no one can stand against us. No one can make a charge against us. And that though they may kill our bodies, they can never destroy our souls. And so, Lord, Fill us with this hope and confidence and use it to strengthen us for Your glory and Kingdom. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.