Let me read the first 18 verses of the 10th chapter of the book of Hebrews. It's on page 1193 and 1194. This is the Word of God, commencing at verse 1. For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered each year, make perfect those who draw near. But otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins. But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings, you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. When he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings. These are offered according to the law. Then he added, behold, I have come to do your will. He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 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, and the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us. For after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds. Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. Blessed be God, and may God bless His word to us, entitled this sermon, Either the Shadows Flee or the End of Sacrifice, and you can take your pick From ancient times, all over the face of planet Earth, sinful men and women have felt compelled to offer sacrifices in an attempt to obtain forgiveness or to somehow deal with their guilt before God to take away their sin, for they realize in their conscience it registers on their mind and it leaves them uncomfortable that they've offended the living God. by their thoughts and words and deeds. They are guilty and that guilt registers and so they offer sacrifice in some kind of attempt This sacrificial impulse, I think, not to under-complicate the matter, which is no doubt multifactorial and many-layered, but this impulse to try to atone for ourselves through something we do or something religion does for us, lies behind fertility cults of various sorts, harsh ascetic practices of the bodies and various dietary regulations, third temple aspirations and hopes of the Jews, the Islamic Hajj to Mecca, and Roman Mass. It's all really the same instinct. If only we can do something to sort out sin. which is a constant bugbear for the human heart. Blood sacrifice is not a primitive notion of early hominids as the evolutionary teachers suggest, as if we have somehow moved on from this barbaric slaughter to this higher, more spiritual, ethical plane of worship. Not at all. It's not that blood sacrifice has been set aside by bloodless worship. Rather, we're taught in scriptures from the start that bloody rites are the only true and right path by which a God whom we've offended by our sin through our breach of his commandments and his law can be approached, there is no other way than by the way of blood. For without the shedding of blood, we've learned in a previous text, there is no forgiveness or pardon of sin and there's no handshake of peace with God either. There must be blood. Christianity is a religion of blood. And Satan then by his craft has perverted this old bloody gift into various sorts of grotesque, beastly rites, harsh afflictions of the body, or some other sort of false gospel of good works. The blood is the ancient and the true thing. and it's that to which we must always return and from which we must never depart the blood. And here we learn three things about the end of sacrifice by the one sacrifice of Christ. The first thing we see is that it is a provisional sacrifice that's mentioned, that of the law in chapters 10 verses 1 to 4. What are we to make of the beasts offered by the priests in the rites of the Tent of Meeting? Well, they were provisional, they were temporary, they were shadowy, they were not the substance or the reality and they could not deliver final forgiveness of sins, though they pointed to it, and those who saw through them to the reality in Christ were truly forgiven in that period. Animal sacrifice could never remove sins. any power that those rituals had under the law of Moses, particularly in context here, we're not speaking of the moral law, the 10 commandments, but the ceremonial rights of the priests and the Levites in the tent of meeting and the temple later. All the power came from the cross, which cast its shadow long. on the pages of the Old Testament law or Torah. That's what we read about in verse one. You'll see it on page 1193. For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of the realities. The law was a shadowy thing. So we're to try to think, or at least let's try to think of the rituals of the Levitical priesthood in the Old Testament like a kind of path which eventually leads after a very long period of time and distance all the way to the foot of the backlit cross of Christ. And the Son of Revelation is rising in the sky of Revelation and casting the shadow of the Christ back on the law of God and the sacrifices of the Old Testament so that the shadowy sacrifices of the priests are cross-shaped. It's, I guess, like a shadow. It's a kind of vague thing. It's a kind of outline. The light intensity is not strong. You don't see all the details of the object that's shadowed back. But you do get some kind of vague impression. So the law stands in the temporary fleeting shadows of the great gospel of God. Its truths are, by comparison, dim and faint and obscure, fleeting and temporary like a shadow. They're not designed to last. And then, when the sunlight of Revelation rises high above the noontide of the cross, the shadows disappear. Calvin prefers a slightly different view of this. He refers to the shadow graph of the law, not the shadow, but the kind of architect's drawing or an artist's outline impression where there's no colours or details filled in yet. But whichever way we look at it, The point is the same. The law was a shadow or a shadow graph of the gospel. Things are seen, but not plain and clearly. But now that Christ has died, the shadow has fled, and the radiant light of the gospel blazes from both covenants as the scriptures are read and the veil is removed. So even when we read a psalm like Psalm 40, we can say, there's Jesus. Because the son of revelation is high in the sky. But of course, if you think of that, impression on your mind that picture of the cross on the shadow cast back and you take away the cross, what are you left with? Well, all you're left with if you remove the lordship and life and love of the Lamb of God from the law is really a bloody and a beastly inexplicable mess. And that's the point. Now that Christ has come, we can't just go back to the Old Testament, which looked forward to him and remove him, which sadly and tragically is the position of modern Judaism. What you're left with with no cross in the Old Testament, or its shadow, is that it makes no sense, it cannot save, and it's a religion without any hope. So as we've said, let's be clear that the law did have power to save, but that all the power of the shadowy rituals came by the reality of Christ. And that's why in over 1,500 years of the endless round of rituals of weekly Sabbaths and five sacrificial types, the three great annual feasts and the annual Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur, the rivers of blood themselves could not cleanse the conscience, could not pacify the heart, or assure Israelites that their slate of sin was cleared, that their account with God was now in the black, and their debt of the sin and guilt they had accrued had been settled, paid, and wiped out. In fact, the opposite was the case. The system was designed to remind the worshiper of the coming sacrifice. that more better blood to come of a better final sacrifice was required. And that's what we see in verse two. It can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins. But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. So we're given for further reasons why it should be self-evident that the repeat rites of priests and beasts cannot ever deal with our guilt fully or finally. The first is, as we've said, it is a shadowy ministry. Animal sacrifices aren't the substance and reality of the gospel, but only point to them. It's shadowy. Secondly, because of its repetition. The fact that the sacrifices keep on being offered again and again, over and over for a millennia and a half shows that the sacrifice has to be offered the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, because something more needs to be done. That God had not yet sent the final sacrifice where the ceremonies would halt and stop. It hadn't happened yet. And that repetition speaks of the need for finalisation. The third thing is guilt. The fact was that those who shed blood of animal substitutes for their sins still felt guilty that something hadn't been done finally for total cleansing so that no high priest could say as we say, the Christian people who believe in Jesus, all your sin past, present and future has been dealt with. The Old Testament could never say that because it hadn't been fully and finally dealt with in history yet. And it's only when we see Christ saying it is finished in the mind of our heart and we draw to him and we believe in the finalisation of our accounts for sin settled at the cross. that our consciences are fully persuaded and convinced that everything has been done. And the fourth thing, simply put, the Old Testament system was not adequate. One tiny shred of sin before an infinitely holy God whose eyes are purer than to behold, trace wickedness and trace guilt, is an infinite crime of eternal magnitude, which deserves an eternal condemnation in hell. There are no white lies, but only extremely black lies. It's not saying that All lies are of an equal gravity, but all lies are black. Before an infinitely holy God, before whom the angels veil their faces, those burning creatures with the reflected holiness of God, the existential separation and the moral purity of one who is infinitely and superlatively good and righteous and just. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. His eyes can't just lift the carpet of our lives and sweep sin under it. You can't look at sin and shrug shoulders and say it doesn't matter. You can't wink at sin. Sin is a massive problem. It's a devastating problem. And so the action, the involuntary passive submission of a goat or a bull or a sheep to death who doesn't even know why it's been sacrificed. It could hardly be a substitute, a fit substitute for a human being who's offended God. And even a human being, willingly and voluntarily giving himself can't provide an eternal sacrifice. It required one who was both perfect man and eternal God to satisfy the demands of God's law and to bear the penalty and weight of our guilt. So that's why it's impossible. It just can't happen. that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin. And so the law was a shadow. What does this mean? Well, I think we need to be aware to pray and to care for Jewish people all around us, who despite their Jewishness and religiousness and commitment to their own faith, have no sacrifice. are perishing in their sins and on the road to hell. If you see an Orthodox Jew in their garb, let it register in your heart to make you care and make you pray and somehow seek an opportunity to bring the barrier down and speak and befriend but let it register in your mind, that soul will perish if they do not have Christ. We can't just say, well, that's their thing and this is our thing. Because it's a bloodless, Christless religion that doesn't even register right now, as we saw in the Bible class, its need for Yom Kippur right now. It's actually in a worse position than it was at the time of Christ and the time the temple fell in AD 70. There are no daily, weekly annual feasts and rites to remind them. You see, back in the Old Testament period, these regular reminders, well, let's not forget sin has to be sorted out, but now the reminders have gone. And so to them, Torah or law has become line upon line, rule upon rule. They've a great concern to maintain their history, and their genes, and their nation, and they've suffered greatly. And yet, the brutal horrors that they've suffered in their holocausts, and damage that they've suffered sometimes at the hands of Christians. are nothing compared to the eternal torments and the eternal holocausts and agonies of the pit into which all unbelievers outside Jesus Christ, whether Jew or Greek, from every nation, tribe, and tongue will be cast if they do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They're perishing in their sins. Did I pray for them, or for one of them, last week? Their phylacteries and ringlets and masseuses on their doorposts and their traditions and the Talmudic commitment cannot save them. And the same goes for prayer and prayer for Roman Catholics all around, whether they're in Ridgefield Park, in North, not North Bergen, but North Bergen County. Because they have the repeated ritual of the mass, In some senses they're in a better position, at least they're a reminder regularly that sin has to be finally sorted out. But not by the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Christ as we saw last week. Because Christ has made full and final atonement for sin. Let's be very clear that repetition rules out redemption. Whether it was under the old covenant or some kind of gospel plus Christian teaching under the new covenant, repetition rules out redemption. Because Christ has said, it is finished. And that's a message we need to bring to the folks all around us, living all around us in New Milford or Dentfield or Ridgefield Park or Teaneck or Galway. Surrounded by folks who've no settled account with God. And we can ask, God to so work in our lives and fill us with such a sense that we have been cleansed and we have been washed so that the joy and the peace and the life and the freedom of the gospel would radiate from us attractively and attractionally that they might meet Christ in our lives. And then, not just for Jews and Catholics, for it's easy to talk about those out there without prayer and care for our own soul. Because this truth is a tool to show us where we are at today as we sit in the pews in Richfield Park with God's remedy for guilt. Have you got a conscience that is clear from every stain of sin? Or do you think that something else is required to take away your guilt and pacify your heart? There's three alternatives that I have thought up that might apply if we haven't got a pacified conscience. I was hearing of a little child whose pacifier went missing last week and he was not a happy baby. We're not happy children if our conscience isn't pacified. Well, here's the three alternatives I've thought of. I'm sure you can think of more. Maybe it's the fact that as yet you haven't understood the gospel properly or put your trust in Christ's better sacrifice. Yes, you kind of want Jesus, but your whole weight and trust and hope is not in Christ, and you're not fully persuaded that that's enough. If that's the case, trust Him, believe God's word, and be saved. Or maybe you lack assurance of it. You've come to Christ, but as yet the conscience hasn't been pacified. Or maybe as a Christian, you have been pacified, but the old doubts have crept back. You know the kind of thing where you say something or think something and do something, and you think, how could I possibly be a true Christian? Well, you need to, again, look to Christ, hear His voice, and apply his blood and the knowledge of his death by the Holy Spirit to your ongoing, indwelling, sinful habits that keep on tripping you up. And you need to confess your sins each day and keep your accounts with God short because if you don't, then there will be this feeling of buildup And fourth option, of course, is if you enjoy Calvary's peace. And isn't it a wonderful thing? You know, it's a really assuring thing. There's sometimes as Christians, and it's not, I hope, because we're just thinking it doesn't matter, but we generally, we genuinely, have the peace of God in Christ that passes all understanding, and we know we're going to glory, and we're confident of our position, and we're given over to service. That's a wonderful thing, and it is a sign and a mark in our lives that the gospel has worked and been applied to our case. All of us, in whatever state this word finds yourselves this morning, Seek the finality and the pacification of your heart. In Christ that peace passes all understanding. So that's the first thing. The a provisional sacrifice of the law. And the second thing is the predicted sacrifice that would come in verses 5 through 10. And there's a big reliance and leaning on Psalm 40, which I think you'll probably picked up upon. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifices an offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me, and burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. He's speaking to the Father. Then I said, behold, Look at this, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. The prophecies and psalmody of second temple worship should have prepared the Jews for Messiah's coming and Messiah's offering. and Messiah's finished sacrifice. Not once, but several times in the pages of the New Testament, the argument is made that David was long dead. And so when the Jews spoke of the anointed king who would reign, it's gotta be speaking of the son of David, who is yet to come, and who's going to sort out sin. once and for all. It couldn't mean anything else in that second temple, post-exilic, after David had died context. It must have been speaking of the Christ and the anointed one of God. And so the primary aim, I'm not saying the original aim necessarily, but the primary aim of Psalm 40, in which Christ, we're told, articulates by the Spirit to God and to the church, through the son of Jesse's mouth, the aim in light, of the fleeting temporary shadows of the law of Moses was this, to declare he was determined, and he was set, and he was fixed, and he was resolved, and he would sort out sin fully and finally for his people. Nothing would deflect him from that course. And so we read in the Gospels, when he turns aside from Jericho and points his countenance in the direction of the holy city, his face was resolutely fixed like Flint. He wouldn't be deflected. any point, not by his temptations and not by Thomas, who falls in line and says, we're ready to go and die with you. But he must die for Thomas and for us. And so he declares his desire in his humanity, his human nature, for he's both fully and eternally God and fully in time and forever man, one person in three offices, prophet, priest and king. He declares his resolution to suffer for our sins and stem the flow of blood by the finger and the pressure of his cross on our guilt. No more blood, no more bleeding, no more death. Not his blood or death, and not our death, because we have life, Christ. And though the Torah was God-given, God had commanded the sacrifices, and though it contained the outline and the sketch drawing of Christ and the gospel, the Lord, Yahweh, the Father, did not delight in beasts. That wasn't what excited and thrilled his heart. It's not what he really wanted, though he commanded them What he really wanted was this. He was joyfully and delightfully wrapped and enamored and taken with his excellent, anointed, well-pleasing son. What did he say when he came into the world? I've come to do your will. Certainly his birth, by his spirit, mind as a man, would not have been fully developed at that stage cognitively. But certainly at his baptism, where he takes our infirmities symbolically to himself and enters the waters of our guilt, and the father looks on the well-pleasing, delightful Son who commits Himself and says, this is my Son in whom I am well-pleased. Fully equipped by the Holy Spirit and who rests on Christ as the heavens are rent and come down upon the Son for His work. so that by the eternal spirit he might apply that eternity to us. So there's not a moment in time or an eon in eternity when the precious blood of Christ and what it worked and earned and it merited will not operate for the believer. It has eternally effective power. It's in operation now and forever and for endless ages. And this is what rejoiced his heart. It's a kind of strange paradox, I guess, when we see him struggling in the garden and the pressure on his heart and his mind of the prospect of becoming for us the guilty one, though he knew no sin. And the stress and strain on his human nature to such an extent where blood is squeezed out of the tiny capillaries at the base of the sweat glands and oozes out the pores and forms blood on the skin and drops under the weight of gravity and splashes on the dust of Gethsemane. That each precious blood of this oh so saintly saviour is precious in his eyes. And as each blood splat fell, thrilled God to his soul. For he sent his son for that purpose. And he says, nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done. There's a little interesting question here. regarding the statement but a body you have prepared for me you will know in the original psalm it actually says my two ears you have digged or hollowed out Some have tried to attach it. I once heard an electrifying sermon by a pastor in my old congregation. He was over for a mission and he preached on how this referred to the symbolic impaling with an awl of the earlobe on the doorpost of the owner of the slave, symbolically tying the slave to life to the master whom he loved. That's an exodus, I think. Here, I'm not so sure if that's the correct interpretation. How do we explain it? Well, there's various ways of thinking about it, but I think the most likely is this. There's a text in Isaiah 50 which helps us understand, if we didn't get the point already from the psalm, chapter 50 of Isaiah it's on page 7 to 6 where the servant speaks and in Isaiah 50 verse 4 it says the Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught that I may know how to sustain with a word him who's weary morning by morning he awakens he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. Verse five, the Lord God has opened my ear. I will not be rebellious. I turn not backward. I give my back to those who strike my cheeks, to those who pull out my beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. That's the servant of God. And see the point, God has opened his ear. that he might not be deflected from his course of suffering for his people, and he might obey God fully. That's the sense here then. And the ears, or the ear is used as a part of the whole. His ears obeyed, hearing God's word, following his command, And therefore he presented the whole of himself, the whole of his body, which God had prepared for him as an offering to God. Freely, joyfully, determinedly, willingly, gladly in love for you, poor sinner. Your situation was so grave and dire as a guilty sinner before God. There was no other way for the saviour to have an open ear and obey God and go to the cross for us. How do we apply this? Well, there's many things I'd like to say. We don't have time to cover them all this morning. But one thing is the book of Psalms. We'll say this often, but the Psalms are full of Christ. The Psalms are more full of Christ than we realize. Some of us, I guess all of us by nature, find secular songs more entertaining and a better rhythm and tone and et cetera for than the sacred songs of God. That's, I guess, a natural thing. We're put off. by Psalms, which, the truth be told, are quite hard to get a hang of at first. They require hard work. Christ has done infinitely hard work for us on the cross. Can we not put a shift in for him to learn the Psalms? Think of it. Secular songs, what are they? Well, they've got a nice beat. Some of us are quite musical and talented. We like a bit of mood and rhythm. They're designed for zombies, those who are dead in trespasses and sins to make life a little bit less unpleasant. to raise their emotions for a little time, to touch their sentimental heart strings, or make them nostalgic, or jerk the tears, or give a tingling feeling down the spine. That's not the purpose of the Psalms that are given to those who've been born again, who've been raised by the power of God and Christ and united in fellowship to him that they might pour out their hearts to God, the holy righteous God in reverent, joyful love and praise. To express their inmost heartfelt concerns and feelings And so let me urge you, for every 10 secular songs, you tap the foot too. Or for every one secular song, you tap the foot too. Spend 10 times the amount of times getting to learn the songs of God's word. Fill you with peace and joy and delight. And the second thing then is, if the Father looks on the Son. And it's thrilled. If the death of Christ and the self-offering and giving of Jesus to death for our guilt on the cross so moves and is so excellent that the eternal God rejoices in His Son. Huh? How much more ought it to and should it thrill our hearts as we look on the Excellent One? Will he not be well-pleasing to us, who loved us and gave himself for us? When was the last time you looked on the Son and gazed on Christ intently? When was the last time in your prayers, not a quick Our Father or Lord Jesus or recognition of benefits, but focused, concentrated time on Christ and the glory and the beauty and the majesty of what he's done and who he is and his words? This is really the secret to a vibrant Christian life, to beholding the mercy and love of God in the face of Jesus Christ. If there's one thing you could do for the rest of your life on earth, be it over in 24 hours or less, or be it long, be a devotee. of God and Christ. Behold the Lamb. It's not what they do in glory. It's what the choirs sing in heaven. Worthy, worthy, worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Our lives are so busy, but they must not be too busy. to behold him who said, behold, I've come to do your will. And if his heart is full of obedience, I've come to do your will, O Lord, your law is within my heart. He gives us all the power and the grace and the reason and motive to obey the will of God from the heart. So there's two things, I had a third point this morning, but time has run away with us. First thing, the provisional sacrifice and the predicted sacrifice, which would be the permanent and ultimately fully atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, which we'll come back to next week, the perfect sacrifice. The shadows have passed. in the high noon of the gospel. The scripture has been fulfilled, just as Jesus said he would do it, he has done it. And salvation has been secured once for all. That you and I, former rebels, former wicked sinners, and now believing saints, might rest in peace in this life and the next. May the love and devotion, may the peace and the mind and the joy of Christ be yours. Amen. Oh God, thank you for Jesus. Thank you that it's done.