Well, take your Bibles, open up with them back to Hebrews chapter 9 this morning. Look at this morning at verses 6 through 10. And the title of the lesson comes from right at the end of verse 10, where we are told that there is going to be, that the old covenant is there until a time of reformation. So let's read together verses six through 10. And when these things have been so prepared, the priest are continually entering the first part of the tabernacle, performing the divine worship. But into the second, only the high priest enters once a year, not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of people committed in ignorance. The Holy Spirit is indicating this, that the way into the holy places has not yet been manifested while that first part of the tabernacle is still standing, which is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly, both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience since they relate only to food and drink and various washings requirements for the body imposed until a time of reformation. What we're reminded of this morning is that the old covenant was not a covenant designed to save. You can't be saved or justified by the law. Paul makes that clear for us, that the purpose of the law was to condemn us and to drive us to our need for an atoning sacrifice once for all, which chapter nine is gonna tell us and chapter 10 is gonna highlight that that was what Jesus had come to do. But this old covenant could not save because, not that it was an imperfect covenant, but it was not faultless because of the people that it was made with. those who couldn't keep the covenant. And what we've got here in these verses tell us that this old covenant was there as a symbol for the present time. Accordingly, both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience. Even while there was sacrifice and there was atonement by the sacrifice of the animals, it could not actually take away sin because those sacrifices pointed to the sacrifice of Christ, which is the only true atoning sacrifice that deals with our sin and that gives to us a clear conscience, knowing that we have been pardoned by God. Spurgeon says here, the high priest could not go within the veil because he was not perfect. We miss this so often that we think that we're just supposed to do the best that we can do. No, the standard for the Christian life is perfection. We're to do good works to glorify the Father, Jesus says, so that we could be perfect just as the Father is perfect. Now, how could we ever attain that level of perfection on our own? We can't. It has to be given to us. It has to be done for us. The high priest wasn't perfect. He might have been sanctified, set apart. He might have been holy. But Spurgeon says he had to be sprinkled with the blood, and that made him officially perfect. But when the next year came around, he was not fit to go within the veil till the blood was sprinkled on him again. And so, year after year, the high priest who went within the veil needed to be made perfect afresh in order that he might obtain access to God. We who are the priests of God are perfect, for the blood of Christ has been sprinkled on us, and therefore, our standing before God is the standing of perfection. We focus so often on what it is that we need to be doing and what we should be doing that we think that what we should be doing is the basis of our justification and our sanctification. No, we are made perfect because of the sacrifice of Christ. It's his righteousness, it's his perfection, it's his work that's accomplished in us. Spurgeon says our standing in our own conscience is imperfection and this is true even as we stand before God justified and still the doctrine of justification should blow our minds every morning when we get up in to know that I am alive today and serving God today and right in his eyes completely today because it's finished work of Christ applied to me. because he gave me the gift of faith and I exercised that gift and trusted what Christ had done, my standing before God is pardoned and perfect. Because we, as Paul did, we, as we are sanctified, we see more and more of our sin and just how deep that sin is rooted in our flesh. And that's why we grown to be free of this body of death. We see the imperfection, but we have to trust that what God has declared is true. that in his eyes were perfect. Christ is gonna present us before the throne blameless. Not a charge is gonna stand against the elect. Not one single charge because Christ has dealt with it on the cross. Spurgeon says, just as the destroying angel passed over Israel, so this day when he sees the blood, God passes over our sins and accepts us at the throne of his mercy as if we were perfect. This is the only basis of our fellowship with God, for all of the sweet fellowship and communion that we have with him, worshiping him, praying, meditating, singing praises to his name, hearing his word preached, reading his word, all of this we can only do because of the finished work of Christ. Because he looks at us as if we were his son. and he looked at Christ as if he were us on the cross. Spurgeon says, none entered the sacred precincts save one man and he but once a year. The great teaching was God is hidden from men. Sin has made a division between man and God. The way of approach is not yet made manifest. When we see the old covenant, when we see Moses at Sinai, when we see this kind of glory over the tabernacle, the people were genuinely frightened when God was present because there were thunderings and earthquakes and rumblings and darkness and clouds and smoke and fire. They could only go and see the high priest enter once a year. And if you can imagine, here he's going one time a year, he has to have done everything in a pristine manner so that he has his sin covered by the sacrifice so that he can go and then sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat for the sins of all the people. And while he's in there doing that, all of the people are waiting and watching and hoping that he's done what he's supposed to do because if not, God's gonna kill him. And then their sins are not gonna be atoned for. So here they come in this one great day a year, and it's not just the priest who had to enter trembling. Can you imagine the anticipation among the people as they sit and they watched? They didn't know what God was going to do. The way of approaching him, again, had not been made manifest. It hadn't been shown to them. Yet even then, Spurgeon says, there was a hint given that an entrance would be made manifest. For the division was not a piece of brickwork or even an arrangement of cedar overlaid with gold. It was a veil which once a year was solemnly lifted that the high priest might pass beneath. This hinted that sinful men were yet to be permitted to draw nigh unto the most holy God through the Christ of God. The very arrangement of that veil over the Holy of Holies meant that it could be lifted and there could be an entrance made. The question is, what was that entrance to be? And of course, the Spirit revealed that to be the Son who was promised unto us. A child is born, a son is given. We see that sacrificial servant, that sorrowing servant in Isaiah 53, who was going to come and was going to replace that veil with his own body. And just as his body was torn by the nails and the cat of nine tails, he tore that veil top to bottom, opening the way into the presence of God. Spurgeon says, notice especially these words, not without blood. There can be no approach to God under the old dispensation without the shedding of blood. And there is no access to the Lord now without the precious blood of Christ. And as much as the new covenant was not the type, but the substance, a more precious sacrifice was needed and nobler blood than any, which is found in the veins of bulls or goats. Jesus the Son of God must die or the covenant would be unsealed of the testament without force. No covenant blessing comes to us apart from the death of our great sacrifice for without shedding of blood is no remission and remission is one of the earliest of the gifts of grace. To come to realize that in our conversion We've been forgiven. John Bunyan describes it. Pilgrim with that great burden on his back. And when he comes to the cross and when his eyes are opened, when he's regenerated by the power of the spirit and that burden suddenly falls away. You remember this when you were converted, don't you? The burden for sin, the conviction of sin. This was what drove Martin Luther in the book of Romans to try to find a salve for his guilty conscience. He couldn't find a way. And he went to the priests above him and those who were leading him. And he asked, how do I deal with the guilt for sin? How do I get rid of this burden of guilt for sin? And everybody gave him things to go do and none of them worked. And then the spirit opened his eyes while he's reading Romans chapter four and chapter five. and he sees justification by faith and he places his faith in Christ. This is Christ who he as a priest would have been preaching for years, but he didn't know him. But that guilt for sin, that work of the spirit to convict him, drove him to the cross. And when his eyes were opened, when he saw Jesus for who he was, when he realized that in Christ alone, by faith alone was the forgiveness of sin, the burden, the guilt of sin was gone. Now we still are convicted, we still suffer and battle against guilt, but it's different now that we're saved, isn't it? Because there's actually a sense of relief and conviction. It's always interesting to me, in preaching and administering and in shepherding, watching the reactions of different people to conviction. And there are some who are convicted and they're just absolutely miserable and they fight against that conviction. And there are others who are convicted who find that that drives them to repentance. And they find that conviction a sweet grace of God, because it's a demonstration of the love of God to not leave us in our sin. I think somebody who fights conviction probably isn't born again. because when you're born again and the Spirit convicts you and drives you to that place of brokenness, you find there sweet relief in realizing that the whole purpose of that conviction is to remind us those things that we're doing that we ought not to be doing, they've already been paid for and forgiven. Now, some would say, well, if we've been forgiven, then we can sin and get away with it. It's always easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. No, when you understand full part, when you truly understand forgiveness, when you truly understand the conviction and the discipline of the Lord, that's a motive to avoid sin, to stay away from it because we know what it costs. And we realize that it's not just our conviction and our guilt, it's the life of Christ. It's his life that had to be given so that we could be forgiven. He had to die. Lender Gravenhill used to preach it this way. He said this all the time. Are the things that you are living for worth Christ dying for? Put it in that context. We now have God communicating with guilty men and women. through an atonement, and that atonement was the life of his son. Murray says the Holy Spirit has charge of the way into the holiest, both while that way is not yet manifest and when it's opened up. He alone has the knowledge and the power to reveal this mystery, for it is still a spiritual mystery, though everything that scripture reveals of it can be studied and understood by men of intelligence, and a clear conception can be formed or an exposition given of what it means The living power of the truth, the actual experience of entering in through the open veil into the presence of God can only be communicated and wrought in the life within by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit alone can reveal in the heart what the way means, both where it is not yet made manifest and where it is. He can work in a man the deep conviction that he does or does not know the true nearness of God in his own experience. This is the spirit of truth leading us into all truth. The spirit reminding us what we do know and what we should know. This is Paul and this is the writer of Hebrews also back in chapter six. You should know this already. You should be doing this already. Why? Because we have the word and we have the spirit. The problem is we don't take advantage of the gifts we've been given. We neglect them. We leave the Bible on the shelf. We don't walk daily in the spirit and depend upon the spirit. I do believe the more we grow in grace, the more we are sanctified, the more dependent we find out that we have to be on the Spirit every day. It was, it was John Wesley who said at one point in time, I have so much to do today, I need to get up four hours earlier and spend that time in prayer or I'll never make it through the day. We're not that mindful, are we? We're just not, but that's the work of the Spirit in us. To do that, we have to be taking advantage of the means of grace. This, I loved it. a friend of mine, Pastor Kofi, up in Oregon, he said this week, he posted this week, he said, the longer he's in ministry, and I think he's been in ministry about 10 years, he said, the longer I'm in ministry, the more I realize the power in the ordinary means of grace. Sitting under preaching, worshiping, fellowship with the saints, prayer, spending time in the word, reading the word, meditating on the word, memorizing the word, these ordinary means of grace that are available to us And we have to think, before the time of the Reformation, before the advent of the printing press, and you understand, Luther could do what he did, and Calvin could do what he did, and Basic could do what he did, and Melanchthon could do what he did because of the printing press. Because now everybody could have a Bible. You weren't just depending on what the priest told you that the word of God said. You could have the precious word of God. And now I've got a whole shelf full of Bibles. I will have very little excuse when I stand before God. because the tools are here and the spirit has been given to make the way manifest, to show us, verse eight, the Holy Spirit is indicating this. The spirit leads us into this truth, to take us through the word and show us that the word reveals to us Christ. Spurgeon said it was necessary that you should take away the sacred tent, the tabernacle, and take away the temple too, before you could learn the spiritual meaning of them. You must break the shell to get to the kernel. So God has ordained. Hence there is now no tabernacle, no temple, no holy court, no inner shrine, the holy of holies. The material worship is done away with in order that we may render the spiritual worship of which the material was but a type. Jesus told the woman at the well, God is seeking those who will worship him in spirit and in truth. Now, it's not a matter of where. It's not a matter of the adornments. It's not a matter of all of these things that were involved with the tabernacle, with the temple, the courtroom, the dress of the priest. You understand, all of that points to Christ. Even the robes that the high priest wore demonstrate for us a picture of the living Christ. Each part of what he wore to go into the presence of God was something that was attributed to Christ because it's only coming through him that we have access to the Father. So we don't do the material. We don't need all of these extra things. Now, some have taken that so far as to say, well, I don't need to go to church. I need to worship God out in the wilderness wherever I am or doing whatever. No, there's a real rebellion against gathering with the church. And here's the truth, and I really do believe this. If you don't love Jesus's wife, You don't love him. If you don't love his bride, how do we know this? John tells us this. If you don't love your brother, the love of the father's not in you. If we love Christ, we're gonna love his bride. Now, are we all gonna get along? We're still family. Thanksgiving's coming up. You know what this is. For some people, it's a holiday. For some people, it's a truly holy day. But for a lot of people, it's just a holler day. Listen, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, you wanna shorten what you have to buy people for Christmas this year, bring up politics at Thanksgiving. That'll take care of it. You'll get blocked and banned. But here we come to this day and we see what God has done and we see what's been provided for us. And we see all that we have to be thankful for. And we see that it's not a matter of the building that we meet in. Think about this, the New Testament church in Rome was driven to meet in the catacombs. That's the graveyard. They were underground where bodies were embalmed. And why did they do that? Because the Romans were scared to pursue them down there to arrest them. And so they knew they were safe. Can you imagine a modern day megachurch going and just meeting among the graves? No sound system, no air conditioning, no lights, no smoke, no fog, no music. MacArthur said it, turn the lights on, turn the music down and have a man stand behind the pulpit and preach the word. And the sheep will come because they're hungry and they want to be fed. They want to hear what the spirit says. So it's not the form and the function. It's not that ritual. It's coming to worship God in spirit and in truth. Spurges says, all of these sacrifices and ceremonies, although full of instruction, were not themselves able to give peace to the conscience of men. The new and better covenant does give rest to the heart by the real and actual taking away of guilt. But this first covenant could not do so. These ordinances were only laid upon the Jews and only laid upon them until the better and brighter days of reformation and fuller illumination. This is verses nine and 10. This in the old covenant, in the tabernacle, in the temple, symbols for the present time. Accordingly, both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience, since they relate only to food and drink and various washings, requirements for the body imposed until a time of reformation. And then we'll start next in verse 11. This now is the new covenant. The new covenant, this is the true great reformation. The Reformation with Martin Luther and John Calvin in these, that was just a ripple effect of people getting back to understanding Sola Scriptura, coming back to the scripture and making sure everybody had the scripture to hear the truth of the gospel of justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, all of this by God's grace alone and for his glory alone. But the first true Reformation, is the reformation of this new covenant, where God said that old covenant is faultless because the people can't give it. So I'm going to reform everything and I'm going to establish a covenant with myself through my son. And all those who are in him get the benefit of his finished work. And they get to stand before me with a perfect conscience. I'm looking forward to that day. I don't think we get the perfect conscience until we get glorified. But then we will. And how much more precious then will victory over sin be? To know that we're completely freed from all of it. Spurgeon goes on, it is astonishing that there should be any who want to go back to the miserable elemental spirits of the old Jewish law. And again, to have priest and an elaborate ritual. And I do not know what besides these things were faulty and fell short of what was needed even when God instituted them for they were never intended to produce perfection or to give rest to the troubled conscience. So of what use can those ceremonies be that are of man's own invention and they're not according to the new covenant at all. This is the heart of the epistle to the Hebrews. Spurgeon understands it. From what is being preached and written here, why would you be tempted to go back into that old system? That old system had a fault and the fault is you. Now you've been removed from the equation. Now you can't mess it up. This is the glory of the new covenant. We can't break it. Over and over in the Old Testament, the people broke the covenant, had to renew the covenant, had to refresh the covenant, had to recommit to the covenant, and then they would break it immediately. They kept breaking the covenant, breaking the covenant, breaking the covenant. We can't break. Now, it's not a challenge. Don't go try. But we can't break the new covenant because the new covenant is based in the work of Christ and Christ alone. That's imputed to us. Our sin was imputed to him. His righteousness imputed to us. And now, why? He says, it's astonishing that there should be any who want to go back. There's a temptation, though, to go back to the ritual, to go back to what I can do. This is the heart of humanistic religion, isn't it? That I'm gonna build a God in my mind, in my imagination, that serves me like I want to be served, and I don't have to serve him at all. It's amazing. There was a time in my life I got really tired of hearing the song, just as I am, because that hymn was sung and sung and sung until some poor soul walked down the aisle so the preacher would stop singing it. Just as I am, just as I am, just as I am. But if you go back and actually read the words of that hymn, I promise you people have sung that hundreds of times without even understanding what they're saying. Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me. You see, it's not come just as you are. It's I have to come just as I am because I have nothing to bring, the empty hand of faith. My only plea is the blood of Christ, the blood of the new covenant. This has opened the door. The spirit has shown us that this is the way. that it's not about the rituals, it's not about the duty, it's not about the washings, the food that you eat. Hallelujah, now we can have sausage and bacon, hallelujah. The glories of the new covenant. But the reality is now, we don't have to be dependent on what we can do for God, we just depend simply by faith on what he has done for us. That is why the wages of sin is death. And that old covenant enforces and brings that death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. His gift to us. And the gift really isn't the salvation. You understand that. The gift for unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. so that his life lived in perfect obedience, sacrificed at the cross, buried and risen and ascended, now stands as our representative before the throne of grace. Let's thank him this morning. Father, we do thank you for this new covenant. We thank you even more, especially for Jesus, who has come and ratified it and sealed it with his blood. We thank you for the work of the Spirit to make the way manifest, to show us Christ as the true and only living way so that we might be reconciled to you, forgiven, fully pardoned, made righteous, enabled to want to do what is right and to be able to do what is right by your grace. We thank you for all of these gifts, the gift of your Son, the gift of your Spirit, the gift of your Word, the gift of eternal life, all so that we might have fellowship with you, knowing that rooted in all of this is your desire for fellowship with those who you loved before the foundation of the world and saw fit to join us to Christ through this gospel so that we might be made able to come and to worship you in spirit and in truth. We thank you for that transformation and we yearn for its completion. Even so, come Lord Jesus. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.