One, if not the greatest theme that is to be found in the book of Hebrews is that of the high priesthood. of the Lord Jesus Christ. We ought not really to be surprised at that, because that is something that is found right from the first chapter. You turn back to Hebrews chapter 1, you will see it for yourself in the words of verse 3. Now in these words we see Christ spoken of as prophet and Christ spoken of as king. But you look at the words of verse 3, and it says, And it draws us to consider the type of his work. as compared to the Old Testament priests who were to offer the sacrifices on behalf of the people. And then you turn over to chapter 2 and the words of verse 17. You have the Savior spoken of it using such terms as, He is a merciful and faithful high priest. Again, the same truth is found in chapter 3 and verse 1. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. But men, when we think of Christ as our high priest, then we must not consider, as Paul endeavors to show to these Jewish believers, that his high priest was just the same as the Old Testament ones. But rather, it was unique. And it was unique in various and in different ways. For one thing, his priesthood wasn't a succession, as was true of Aaron and the Old Testament priests. What I mean by that is simply this. When Aaron died, the office was passed on to one in the family, and so on. There was a succession. a succession one to another. But for Christ, his priesthood is forever. Just cast your eye across to chapter 7 and verse 24. But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. And so we're taught there, he has no predecessor, and he will never have a successor. His priesthood is continuous. And then, for something else that is unique, is the place in which he exercises this ministry. And for us to understand that, it's noted for us in the very chapter which we're reading this morning, chapter 9 and verse 24, where Christ has not entered into the holy places made with hands. which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. He does not minister in the holy places of some earthly temple, as was the case, of course, with the Old Testament priesthood. But rather, his priesthood is exercised in heaven itself. It is in the very presence of God, and it is for us. There is uniqueness about the high priesthood of Christ. And dear people, therein, of course, is a reminder to all concerned that sinful man requires and he needs a priest unto God. You need one who stands between God and you. And in these words, we have the one that is revealed to us. The work of the Old Testament high priest was to come before the mercy seat. It was to offer that sacrifice that would make appeasement, and that sacrifice that would bring peace to the people before God. But the apostle, through these verses, he brings these believers to consider the sacrifice to which all the Old Testament offerings and sacrifices pointed forth in time. And so while their opponents were encouraging them to turn back to the Levitical priesthood, and while the opponents of the gospel were coming to these Hebrew believers, and they were telling them that they had no Hague priest, the Apostle Paul reminds them. that Christ was their high priest, that Christ had a greater priesthood, and that was seen none more so than by the sacrifice, which did not need to be repeated, and the sacrifice which could not be added unto, for it was complete, and it was a perfect sacrifice in itself. The sacrifice brings us to Mount Calvary, and I want us to draw near there this morning. And I want us to look afresh at something which is an old truth, but which is worthy of it being spoken of again as we find it in my text in the words of verse 26. For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world. I want you to particularly note the closing words. But now, once in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. There we have the high priest for sin. That draws us to consider, first of all here this morning, the problem of sin. When we consider sin, as we must do so in the light of our text this morning, and of course many others in the Word of God, then we're dealing with the most basic of problems. There are many problems in the world, there are many problems in Ulster, many problems in Kilkeel today. But here's the root of them. Sin. It's obvious that there's such a thing in this world. Mind you, I have to say, to listen to some, many today, both in the social and the religious circles, you may be doubting whether there's anything such as called a sin. Because they scarcely mention it. The word is never mentioned. But let us understand that sin is something which is undeniable. And that is so because the Word of God reminds us in Romans chapter 5, wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world. Well, who is that? That's Adam. As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and death hath passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. And you consider that the Savior did not come to this world to deny the fact of human sin. He did not come to put forth a theory that sin is something which is harmless. He did not even come to speak of it in lesser terms as a mistake or a tragedy or a misfortune, something which the world will use such language to describe it even today. He did not come to tell us that we don't deserve the everlasting punishment in hell because of sin. Jesus Christ did not come into the world to help you to forget your sin. He has not come to furnish you with a cloak in which to hide your sin. He has not appeared that he might strengthen your minds in order to learn to laugh at your sin. or to make jokes about it, or to defy the consequences thereof. He has not come to lull you into a false peace, nor to whisper consolation which will turn out just to be a delusion in the end. That's not why Christ came to this world. What this verse reminds us that Christ came in to deal with the problem of sin. and to give you a real deliverance from it, and bring you a true peace in which you may safely rest. Furthermore, it's obvious that the resolving of the problem of sin is unachievable by the sinner themselves. You see, the people in the Old Testament could not put away their sin. It took a sacrifice It took an innocent, a sacrifice to be offered. It took the shedding of its blood to be brought before a holy God. Yet consider that with all the thousands of sacrifices that were slain, their sin was not finally put away. A high priest would have to repeat the same thing time and time again. You turn over to chapter 10 of Hebrews, look at verse 11. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sin. And you know what could be said of the Old Testament sacrifices? The Old Testament priesthood can likewise be said by the sacrifices that people make to this day. There are those who will deny themselves. And we're at that time of the year where people deny themselves what is called land. And they maybe think that because they have suffered on this earth or they deny themselves that in some way that alleviates the problem of their sin, that maybe tips the balances in their favor where God is concerned. The words of the prophet Micah answer. If you turn back to the little book of Micah, chapter 6, let me read to you just two verses. Verse 6, he says, Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and by myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burned offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" And they're hypothetical questions put. And we might say there's a going to the extreme where some of them are concerned, especially where it speaks of the very fruit of our body being given to deal with the problem of sin of our soul. are others, and they feel that if they had led a good life, if they followed the commandments as best they can, then their sin will be dealt with. This is the sacrifices of people. This is the ideology of many people today. And how can we forget the rich young ruler? That young man that came running to Christ, and he came running with a right question. Aye, a young man who was upright, a young man who kept the commandments from his youth, yet the Lord who looks upon the heart, he was to look in, and he saw a young man whose heart was covetous. And a young man who was not willing even to deny self and repent of his sin and to follow the Savior. We have it in Matthew chapter 19. We have it in the words of verse 21. where it says, Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell at thy house, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. He had broken the commandment that says thou shalt not covet. The problem of your sin is not that easily dealt with, that you merely have to deny yourself or seek to live a holy life. And what's more, the problem of sin is not only unachievable by yourself, it's not only something that's undeniable, but it is unending. For death in itself does not deal with sin. When a man dies, there are many things that change. The books are closed. The records of death and the books of crime that he may have committed in that land, they're done away with. They're closed. As the word deceased is written over them. but death does not deal with your sins, so that it is forgotten about. How do I know? For the Bible tells us of the rich young, the rich man who died and he was buried, but his sin wasn't buried. For we read that in hell, he lifted up his eyes being in torments. Why? Because he was paying for his sins in the torture and in the torment and the punishment of a lost eternity. We could say that hell itself does not put away your sin. As awful as that place must be, of that place that the Lord described, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched, where the wrath of God is poured out against sin, yet it is endless. And Judas, who betrayed the Lord, went to his own place all those years ago, 2,000 plus years ago. He's still there, as is the dying thief who died unrepentant, as is Herod, who heard the preacher who did many things, who heard the gospel from the lips of John the Baptist. But he didn't get saved. He didn't repent. He's still there. As was those who heard the old preacher of righteousness, Noah, as he preached the everlasting evangel, and as he warned of the coming judgment, and as he pointed to the only safety, the only ark. And yet there were those who perished in their sin. They did not come into the ark. They did not repent of their sin. They're still suffering for it. It is unending, yes, and there's still the lake of fire to come. He said, I tell you, for your sin to be dealt with, it's not an easy thing. Sinner, will you awaken to this? It's not an easy thing for your sin to be dealt with, and you certainly cannot deal with it yourself. You cannot deal with it with anything that you would do. Whether you think of your sin much, whether you think of the consequences about it or much, it's not really the issue. for I tell you on the authority of God's holy word that we are all born in sin and we're all shaping an iniquity and your sin has to be dealt with one way or another. The problem with sin, you say. What about the putting away of sin? For if you were to consider the sins of just yourself, you might think of them just as last week. this last week, and then you multiply by that the number of weeks in your life, past sins, you think of the present sins, you think of the future sins, then you will agree that there are many, many. But did you notice in the course of my text, it's in the singular. But now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin. by the sacrifice of himself. It's not in the plural, it's in the singular, because in the mind of God it is one great mass of evil. But lest a sinner is driven to despair, and lest a sinner is driven to the place of hopelessness and realizing that there's nothing that I am able to do to alleviate my sin, the mass of it, past, present, and future, then we're brought to consider the one who can put away sin. But now, once in the end of the world, hath he appeared. to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. In what the Old Testament sacrifices could never do, there is one who has succeeded in dealing with the sin of his people. In looking at this great problem of putting away our sin, here's a verse which instructs us that there is only one. There's only one who can put it away, and that is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. For the reason of the Savior's appearing, as it is referred to here, is seen as for the putting away of sin. The coming of the Son of Man. in human nature from heaven as God, manifest in the flesh, taking on himself that body that God had prepared for him, was to remove the punishment due to sin and to provide a way of pardon. It took nothing less than the glorious person and work of the Son of God, for there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin. The end of his appearance was to put away sin, the filth of it by his blood, the guilt of it by his atoning sacrifice, the punishment of it by his sufferings and death, the dominion of it by the power of his grace. And this great work of putting away sin begs us to look at it more closely. You and I can't put it away ourselves, but here's the one who can. We can do that. We can take a closer look at it by the way of illustration as to what this little phrase, to put away, really means. I'm going to give you two or three illustrations. It takes on the sense of a husband putting away an unfaithful wife. She's handed a bill of divorce. which means she's no longer his. Up until the time before the Bill of Divorcement, she belongs to him. She is bone of his bone. She is flesh of his flesh. And under the law, they are regarded as one. But since the Bill of Divorcement, the state has all changed. She no longer has any relation to him. She is utterly disowned. with no further claim upon him. The separation is entire. The separation is complete. She has been put away as far as he is concerned. Fornication, the only biblical means for divorce. She's put away. And so it is with sin. It is part of natural man. It is something that is led to our account. Under the law, we are one with sin. We're guilty because of it. It is attached to every one born of Adam's fallen race. But in the person and in the work of Christ, he has appeared to put it away so that a divorce is proclaimed between sin and our souls. Through him, the responsibility for it is removed. It is no longer led to our charge. put away. And the psalmist could say in Psalm 32 verse 2, Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. It doesn't lay iniquity to their charge. I'll give you a second illustration. If you come back with me to Genesis chapter 35. Genesis 35 please. It's in the life of Jacob. Genesis 35, you just read with me the words of verse 1 and 2. And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee, when thou fleddest from the face of thee, saw thy brother. Then Jacob said unto his household, This is the time where he was with Laban, the years now have passed. And he eventually has got his beloved wife, Rachel. And God's saying, Now, Jacob, it's time you're back. I said to you, I'd bring you back into the land again. You have to go back to Bethel, that place where I met with you. You see what Jacob does? Jacob said unto his household and to all that were with him, put away the strange gods that are among you and be clean and change your garments. Let us arise and go up to Bethel. Jacob commanded his household to put away those strange gods that were among them. And you can imagine in your own mind's eye the search that would have resulted, would have caused those idols to be cast out of their tents, and they would have been brought and cast away from their person. And maybe like Moses, who took the golden calf, and he was to break it into such an extent that it could never be recovered. That's how Jacob would have put away the strange gods. You see what he did with them? And he gave them unto Jacob all the strange gauge which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears. And Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. And they journeyed. He buried them. He put them out of sight. And he left them behind. See the illustration? And that is how Christ was to come to deal with the sins of his people. He came to completely destroy and demolish them, to put them out of sight, to make a clean sweep of them, to cast them out, to put them away. And to be absolutely clear as to what this little phrase means, we notice that it is used only one other time in the New Testament. And this is the third illustration. You'll come see it in Hebrews itself, Hebrews chapter 7. The words of verse 18. When this word is used just one other time, hear this. For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before, for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof." And you might have struggled to see where the word is there, but it's translated disannulling, disannulling. It signifies a total abolition, a total annihilation. The appearing of the Savior was to disannul the sins of His people. It was to totally abolish them and to put them away. And dear soul, what you cannot do by the works of your own hands or religiosity or by any effort of yourself, the Lord Jesus Christ has purchased and He has done, and you can know complete forgiveness and you can know a putting away of your sin forever. The moment that you repent, the moment that you embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, and therein alone is found the sinner's hope." There alone is found your hope today. It's in Christ who came to put away sin. And you might say, well, how can that be? That brings me on to show you thirdly here the payment for sin. You'll notice from the words of my text that this putting away of sin was once and for all. For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the world. Now once. The sinless lamb of God was to offer himself but once for in coming to pay the price for sin, he did it once and for all. His offering was to be sufficient to put away sin forever. Turn back again to Hebrews 10 and verse 12. We've read verse 11 about the Old Testament priests. But here, go on and read about verse 12. direct contrast to what you've read in verse 11, but this man, after he'd offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down at the right hand of God. Do you see the season in which he was to put away sin, but once in the end of the world? And that will of course give you understanding that while we can speak about Nibe and the end of the world, so it was from Christ's incarnation in Bethlehem. The period of the end of the world describes that time from Christ's incarnation when he was born to when time shall be no more and he shall return to gather up his own people upon to himself. God sent time for his appearance. It was when the fullness of time was come, he sent forth his son. And it was but once that he appeared in those days to perform this work, to carry out this task. and it was upon Mount Calvary that the Lord Jesus Christ, as the sinner's substitute, was to lay down his life on the cross, dying the death of the cursed. It was there that he who knew no sin yet became sin for us, for upon the cross upon that old Roman gibbet, that which took the putting away of our sin was none other than this verse states, the sacrifice of himself. I want you to stop and think about that. Let that sink in. It was the sacrifice of none other than the Son of God, the co-creator of this very world. It took nothing less to put away your sin and mine. He was made to die a death of pain, enigmony, and anguish, and to pour forth his own life's blood that you, dear sinner, might feel, never feel the sword of vengeance against you on account of your sins. It took a sacrifice of himself. Indeed, the text is very specific in telling us what this sacrifice was. It was himself. Sin was not put away by the offering of his righteous works, nor by his prayers, how we have some of the Savior's prayers in the gospel accounts, nor even by his tears as he wept over Jerusalem. nor even by the presentation of his pains and groans before God, but it was by the sacrifice of himself. He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. The blessed Son of God gave himself, and there on the rugged tree the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all, Isaiah 53. And if you look at your margin that brings out the rendering of that little phrase, it simply means that the mass, remember we were speaking about why sin is only singular in our text? Because in the mind of God it's just a mass of evil, a mass of putrid. And yet that mass of evil and sin and putrid and iniquity, that mass was made to meet on Christ. And the storm of God's wrath broke as he hung there on Calvary's cross, and he was to bear it away in his own body. The hymn writer pended the wrath of God that was my due upon God's lamb was led. And by the shedding of a blood, the debt for sin was paid. Jesus had it all. Calvary covers it all, my friend. What has he done with our sin, you might ask? By his bearing it. John the Baptist could say, Behold the Lamb of God that beareth or taketh away the sin of the world. By his bearing it and carrying it and taking our sin away, he has removed it as far as the east is from the west, so far as he removed our transgressions from us. There is no hint that they will ever come back again. He has said to the repentant sinner and their sins and their iniquities, I will remember no more. They're forgiven in the work of Christ. They're forgotten in the mind of God. They're buried, just like Jacob did with the strange gods and the earrings. And God buries our sin in the sea of his forgetfulness. Dear soul, I wonder this morning, do you know from experience your sin been put away from you? so that you stand today pardoned before God. You stand today washed in the blood of the Lamb as we've been singing about earlier on. You can now. This can be your experience even this morning hour. I'm not waiting till tonight. I'm not preaching to your soul tonight. I'm preaching to your soul now. You come into the house of God of a Sabbath morning and many don't come back at night. I'm preaching to your heart. I'm bringing before you a problem of sin, but I'm bringing before you from this text the remedy, the payment for that sin. And you can know that experience have been pardoned and forgiven now because the Lord says today, if you'll hear my voice, harden not your heart, I would that you would lay hold upon the Lord Jesus Christ by faith alone to save you from your sin. He has promised, I will in no wise cast you out. The pardon, the putting away of our sin can be known in an instant of a moment. Look away to Christ alone and be saved, for realize that. Could your tears forever flow? Could your grief know respite? No. All for sin could not atone. Christ must save. Christ alone. He, the darling of heaven, he made his soul an offering for sin, for to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. But you may go free. I trust that you'll enter into the blessed You'll enter into the power of this verse this morning by experience. You'll come this morning and be saved. I point you to the once for all sacrifice. It doesn't need to be repeated. You see it says that, the start for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world. He often would have done it oftentimes just like the Old Testament, but that wasn't the case with Christ. But now, for now, once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. My friend, he's coming back again. He's going to make another appearance again as we see how the chapter ends. For unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Oh, my friend, do you know yourself to be one who's in Christ? You can look at verse 28 and you can say, that's me, preacher, for Christ has burned away my sin. You know by experience. If not, come this morning. and be saved. Let's bow our heads in a word of prayer, please, in closing. Father in heaven, we thank Thee for Thy precious Word. Thank You, Lord, for the sin burner. Bless Thee, Lord, that we've been considering the great high priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank You, Lord, He's entered into the presence of God for us. And Lord, we rejoice that he did so because he rendered that once for all sacrifice for sin on the cross. He came, he appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Lord, for we who were unworthy, undeserving, wretched sinners only fit for the flames of hell. Yet God commandeth his love toward us. in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Bring this truth, Lord, righted with an indelible pen upon the heart of the sinner this morning. Bring them to an end of themselves. Lord, cause them to look away this morning by faith to Christ. We pray that they might leave this house knowing pardon from sin. They might know, Lord, today their sins have been put away as far as the east is from the west. They might know of assurance that they're going to be with Christ for all eternity. Speak on when the preacher's voice is silent. Part us in Thy blessing, bring us back in Thy will to Thy house tonight. For we ask these things in our Savior's precious name. Amen.