We'll be turning to Hebrews chapter 10. So in our study of the book of Hebrews, This is now message number 30 in this series, entitled, Help Each Other. We're gonna be looking at Hebrews chapter 10, verses 19 to 25. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast a profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful that promised. And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another in so much the more as you see the day approaching. Well this country certainly has quite an obsession with sports and of course I have to confess I've loved sports for as long as I can remember always playing pick up this or that and in any sort of leagues or whatever at school, whatever was available to me. I just loved the competition, loved the challenge. And another great thing about sports is the camaraderie of teammates. When you're working together with others and you're trying to accomplish a common goal and you're sort of helping to push each other to get better and to maybe take another step with your abilities and skills and such. And so I played a lot, officially, unofficially. I didn't, by the way, accumulate a lot of championships along the way. But I abounded in opportunities to, at least this is what the coaches said, build character. And probably had many opportunities for some sportsmanship awards. Not all sports, though, get equal attention. And so when it comes to Division three, girls, state, high school, track and field. Attention is going to come mostly from the families of those that are competing. However, the Ohio State Championship in 2012 did actually gain national attention, at least the finish of one race in particular. So West Liberty-Salem high school runner Megan Vogel competed in the 1,600-meter race in this state competition, and she won it. She won first place and did so with her personal best time in that event. And so as oftentimes the case, she also had another event to compete in and had just a very short time between the two. The second event was a distance event, a 3,200 meter. And so she didn't have a lot of time to prepare and to rest and all that sort of thing. So understandably, after her efforts in the 1,600 meter race, she fell behind pretty quickly in the longer event. And she said that it became clear to her early on in this race that she wasn't going to win it. And she wasn't probably even going to place in the top three or anything. And so she sort of adjusted her goal as she's going on in this race. And she just wanted to finish. She wanted to cross that line. She wanted to do it. She knew she couldn't win, but she wanted to keep going even though her body, you know, sort of wanted to quit. She wanted to keep going so that she could finish. And as she was drawing near the finish, about 20 meters or so away, this 3,200 meter long run, Megan was in last place. But she was at least going to accomplish her goal. She was going to get across that line. But then she saw the runner ahead of her, a girl named Arden McMath, who had collapsed on the track from exhaustion. Been a long day, many of them competing in other events, and she was just exhausted. Well, Megan stopped and she helped her up to her feet. She supported her they talked about how shaky that her legs were and all these things that she essentially carried her That last 20 meters to the finish line and she even as she got to the finish line She sort of she sort of put the girl ahead of her so that she actually finished one spot in front of last and Megan finished dead last at 15th well This was a story that began to spread and so all the media from all over the country were picking up on this story and they all wanted to talk to Megan and she just expressed amazement that so many people were interested in it and wanted to talk to her about it because she simply saw it as the right thing to do. She helped a fellow runner and she pretty much thought that probably a lot of the other girls would have done the same for her if it had been her that had collapsed on the track. Obviously that is a great story, and it's certainly not the first time something like that's happened, nor will it be the last, but it is a good illustration, actually, of this last section of the letter to the Hebrews. And if we wanted to sum up this final section of Hebrews that starts here with chapter 10 and verse 19, we could sum it up by saying it's an exhortation to run the race. It's an exhortation we could say to help others run the race too. So. We finished this last time, the major portion of this book that's dedicated to the priesthood of Jesus Christ, and really that began all the way back in chapter 2 when the priesthood of Jesus Christ was brought up. By the end of chapter 4, the writer of Hebrews started focusing more and more on it and give us extensive treatment. In fact, the only book in the New Testament to give this treatment of the priesthood We can find many other aspects of Christ's person and work throughout the New Testament, but Hebrews gives a detailed and extensive treatment of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. We really could call it an exposition of that priesthood. It really is concluded by the time you get to verse 18 in chapter 10. And then after this, the writer begins to make exhortations, applications, and he is charging these readers to faithfulness, and he's warning them against apostasy, turning back from Christ, to go back to the old covenant, the old sacrifices, the old priesthood, all of those things. And so the writer brought out the witness of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit through their words to the effectiveness of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the doing away with the Old Covenant to establish the New. So Christ and the New Covenant were what was better to come. And the writer of Hebrews has talked about that several times, that there was something better to come and how the Old Covenant and the tabernacle and those animal sacrifices and those priests, all of that was just a shadow of the better that was to come and the better is Jesus Christ and the new covenant. Now beginning here with verse 19 and for this first little section verse 19 to 25. The writer begins to make direct application of what he has established from the Old Testament to this point pertaining to Jesus Christ, His priesthood, and the New Covenant in particular. And so in verses 19 to 25 that we're going to look at now, He gives two foundational reasons for three direct applications that we can easily identify in the text by those words, let us. Three times he says that, let us. Let us do this, let us do that. Three times. So we're going to look at this, verses 19 to 25. where really we turn a corner as now the writer is going to speak more directly to what should and shouldn't be done. So let's start with verse number 19. Now both verse 19 and 20 here sort of echo the verses at the end of chapter 4 verses 14 to 16. And I've talked about this a number of times as we've been in Hebrews, how it's somewhat circular. He'll bring something up and then he seems to come back around to it. And so if you read chapter 4 verses 14 to 16, which is right there at the end, and you really want to understand then read everything between there and here in chapter 10 and verse 19 and 20, and you'll get a full explanation to understand what he was saying there at the end of chapter 14. So he circles back, and the way that he circles back sort of brings a climax to this whole long section, major part of this letter. But the therefore, having therefore, That word connects to what has come before. So on the basis of what he has been saying, it's presenting a necessary consequence of it. And he says, we have therefore, and he addresses them as brothers, which he's done once before, he will do again before the letter is over, that he's writing to in particular. Brothers, he says, therefore, we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. The word for boldness, and I think maybe some of the newer translations might say confidence or something like that, but the word for boldness means a freedom to speak. I'm tempted to say frankness, but I don't know that we use that word as much maybe as we ought to, being frank, being open and honest, speaking clearly and without restriction or reserve or hesitation. So he is saying, we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Now the holiest, we've already seen as we've been working our way through Hebrews, he's talking about the true holy place, not a tabernacle or a temple in Jerusalem, the true holy place in the presence of God in heaven. That's what he's talking about. And note that he's here, the writer's not speaking of our going to heaven when we die. He's not saying that we have boldness because we're going to go to heaven when we die, which we're told that our spirits go to be with the Lord when we die, awaiting the resurrection of the body. But that's not at all what the writer of Hebrews is talking about. He's writing to his readers about right then, right now. We might say if we're applying it to us today, this is right here, right now. While we are living and breathing on this earth is what he's talking about. We have boldness to enter into the holiest. So he's not talking about a future literal standing in the presence of God. What he's talking about is the access that we have to God, which was not at all there in the Old Covenant. We've already gone through all of the case that he made for that. It is a free and unrestricted access through the blood of Jesus Since we don't have to go through the Old Covenant, the priesthood, the sacrifices, all of this, we don't have to go through all of that. And he's already shown that the Old Covenant didn't actually provide that access as long as it was in force. So that's what he's talking about. We have boldness. We have a freedom to speak. to enter into the holiest, into the presence of God. Now, just as back in chapter 4 verses 14 to 16, this means, for here and now, what this means is direct access to pray to God. In other words, those who believe in Jesus Christ have direct access to speak to God directly. We don't have to go out and select a lamb, and bring it to the priest, and have it slaughtered, and have the blood sprinkled, and be washed, and go through all of the various rituals that were there in the Old Covenant. We don't do any of that. We have direct access right here, right now, to speak to God as if we were literally standing in His very presence in the holy place in the heavens. Unhindered. We're not kept out by a veil. Everything is not covered in the shadow of the smoke of the incense that's filling the tabernacle. There's no ceremony, and we don't need to go find some man that can go between us and God. Here and now, we have direct access to God. So he's already established that. In other words, he's not arguing that we have that. He's saying on the basis of our having that, he's already established that fact. And then he goes on in verse number 20, "...by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh." The writer explains the boldness to enter into the presence of God. Now this way, again, he's already made clear it wasn't available under the old covenant. It's what he calls a new way. It's a new way. It's new as in the new covenant in distinction from that old. And it's a living way because the one sacrifice was resurrected from the dead and lives eternally as great high priest. Now that is a contrast to both the sacrifices of the Old Testament. They died, they were offered, they were burned, and they were gone. And then some other animal would be offered the next time. And the priests themselves, the Aaronic priests, Aaron being the first high priest under the Old Covenant, but he didn't continue to live, he died. And eventually he's replaced by another, and by another, and by another, on and on and on throughout the generations according to the Old Covenant. But that's not the case in Jesus Christ. So this way that has been opened up, it's a new way in distinction from that old way of access and it's also a living way. That it is a way of life that Jesus made and He ever lives as Great High Priest. You know, Jesus actually spoke of the fact when He was here on this earth about the fact that there would be a new way. The conversation with the woman at the well, John 4, verses 20-23, the woman was speaking to Jesus. She said, Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. And so it was a generations-old debate between the Samaritans and the Jews over whether or not it was that you had to go up to the temple in Jerusalem or whether you could go there in the mountain in Samaria, you know, the place where they had to worship. And Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. In other words, there's coming, the time is coming There's not going to be priests. There's not going to be animal sacrifices. This is not the way that you are going to approach God. That hour is coming. And he said, you worship you know not what we know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews but the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father seeketh such to worship him and Jesus was talking about this new way there's a change that is coming in the way that you are going to approach God Now the word for consecrated has the idea of initiated. It was opened up. Jesus made and established a new way by his sacrifice, by his priesthood, when he ascended to the true holy place and was seated at God's right hand, which the writer has referred to extensively throughout the recent passages that we've been looking at. And notice how that the writer of Hebrews, just sort of how he is communicating at this point. He's using imagery of the Old Covenant. He's using imagery of the Old Covenant as a shadow of the true and greater to come. So he talks about that we've been given away through the veil. And that is to say his flesh or his body, the body of Jesus. Well the veil was that that separated the holy place from the most holy place where the Ark of the Covenant was. And it separated the priest. Only the high priest could go into the most holy place behind that veil. And the other priests could go into the holy place, but they were separated by that veil. And of course we know that When Jesus died on the cross, we were told that that veil in the temple in Jerusalem was torn completely into from the top to the bottom, according to Matthew chapter 27 and verse number 51. And this, of course, symbolized the opening of this way that Jesus spoke of by the tearing of his body. So the offering of his body as a sacrifice has opened up this way for us. Then we get to verse 21. That was the first foundational reason. We get to verse 22, or 21 rather, he says, and having a high priest over the house of God. This is the second foundational reason he's giving. Again, he's not trying to establish or explain these things here. He's already done that by this point. And he's simply saying, now, given this and given this, He's going to give an exhortation. So here's the second foundational reason. We have a great high priest over us as believers. He's in the heavens right now, the right hand of God. And he's, of course, waiting the time he's going to return. But right now, that's where he is, a great high priest over us, just like he talked about back in chapter three in verse number six. So this is just encompassing all that the writer has said pertaining to the priesthood of Jesus Christ. And this is a consequence of that. We have such a great high priest. And since a new way has been opened, giving us free access to approach God, and since we have such a great high priest, he then is going to go on to give us three exhortations, beginning with let us. So let's start looking at those. Verse 22. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." So this is the first exhortation, the first word. In other words, when he's telling us to do something or not do something, as the case may be, but he's telling us to do something here. When he talks about drawing near, and again, he's not talking about what happens after we die with our spirits going to be with the Lord in the presence of God in heaven. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about right now, as he's writing to those readers. Let's approach God, obviously not by means of the old covenant and the priesthood and the tabernacle and the sacrifices and all that ritual and ceremony, not that way. Let's approach God to his throne of grace, as he talked about it back in chapter four. Something unthinkable under the old covenant. See, we're so far removed from us, it doesn't strike us. I mean, if we were to go back millennia and we could grab some common Israelite, say, from the tribe of Benjamin or something, And tell that Israel, you know, you can just boldly stride into that temple and go on to the inside and just go right behind that veil, go to where the Ark of the Covenant is in the presence of God and speak to Him. That was unthinkable. The thought of it would probably strike the deepest fear in the hearts of them. You know what'll happen if I try to do that? I'll die if I try to do that. There's no way I'm doing that. That's not even possible. Now again, we're so far removed from it. It just doesn't really occur to us just how outside the realm of possibility that such a suggestion is. But here the writer says, listen, you've got boldness to enter into the holiness by the blood of Jesus, so let's draw near. Let's approach. Let's come into the presence of God. The drawing near refers to entering, to that approaching, coming boldly directly to God to petition Him. And again, he's continuing to use this imagery of the Old Covenant that he's already said was a shadow of the better things to come. And he's describing here, once again, our prayer access to God in this life. And that was plain all the way back from chapter 4, that that's what he's talking about. We can obtain help, he says, for our needs at the throne of God's grace in his presence without any of the old covenant trappings. We don't need any of it. We have direct access to speak freely to God that way. It is help for this life, that's the immediate concern. And if you remember back in chapter four, he talks about how Jesus as a high priest is sympathetic. He has suffered in every way, he's been tempted in every way like that we are, except he has not sinned, did not, will not, never sinned, but yet he's a sympathetic high priest. I'm not trying to obviously downplay or belittle what we have in the future, and neither is the writer of Hebrews, and he'll talk some about that more as we proceed in this last section of this book. But the immediate concern again is here and now, life on this earth as a new covenant believer, that new covenant state of mind that we talked about in the previous message. He says, not only can we draw near, we can draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith. I think some of the newer translations may say sincere, the word for a true heart, that sort of description. Maybe the best way to conceive of it is a pure heart or without hypocrisy. Without hypocrisy. And it really, when you think about it, it goes right along with that boldness that he's talking about. You can speak freely. In other words, you're not putting on any pretense for God. You can come into his presence directly with sincerity of who you are and wherever it is that you're at. And you can do so, he says, full assurance, complete confidence of faith. The word for faith doesn't have to do with how much that we believe or how strong that our faith is, so to speak. It actually has to do with our conviction of belief. In other words, you can have confidence in the truth of Jesus Christ. Particularly as it's presented in this letter. Not in your ability, my ability to enter into God's presence and to speak words that will sound particularly holy. Words that will be received because they'll be so well put or so well spoken. You don't have to worry about that. You have full confidence in what you know to be true about Jesus Christ. What this writer has particularly been writing about. So we can think of this as, again, against the old covenant Israel and the idea of entering the most holy place to speak directly to God. Why? Because, he says, we've been purified, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. So he's continuing to use this imagery of the Old Covenant to speak of the greater that's to come. So the sprinkling of blood and the washing of water were things that were involved ritually in the Old Covenant to accomplish what could be described as ceremonial cleanness in order to be able to enter the tabernacle or even the camp of Israel or for whatever the ceremony was and particularly you see this, you see this especially on the Day of Atonement. You go back and read Leviticus chapter 16 and you read all of that ritual, everything that had to be gone through by the priest and by the high priest in particular in order to do what was required of him on the Day of Atonement. He had to go through a lot of washing and a lot of blood and a lot of things involved in order to be able to go and to make the offerings of the Day of Atonement. Well, the writer has already shown that the old covenant rituals could only cleanse externally. They could only accomplish what could be called a ceremonial sort of cleanness. They could never clean the inside of the person. They could never clean the heart. They could never purge and purify the conscience from the guilt of sin. But the new covenant, through the blood of Christ, cleanses, and we could say inside out, so that we all have bold access to God in heaven. Now an evil conscience that he refers to here, an evil conscience is a conscience that condemns by guilt. That's what an evil conscience is that he's talking about. But the new way involving full and permanent forgiveness of sins so that the conscience is as he put it previously purged from guilt or purified or cleansed from guilt. That is why. we can pray to God sincerely. If your sins have been forgiven in Jesus Christ, of course, that doesn't mean that you will not sin tomorrow and that you don't need to pray to God over that sin, but you're not condemned. You're not condemned. It's not that, well, I sin tomorrow so I'll have to have another sacrifice and to go through all of this again. That's what they did under the Old Covenant. It's not that way in the New Covenant and the blood and the once for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We could pray to God sincerely. You know what that means? That simply means that you can just openly, honestly, frankly confess your sins to God. It's not that we don't have sin or that we don't have awareness of sin. But we confess those sins to God because we're not condemned, because we're justified through the blood of Jesus, and therefore we can go to God without hypocrisy. The writer is not talking about being made sinlessly perfect in this life, but rather being forgiven so that even though we still sin, and we are aware of sin, we're not condemned by it. So we openly, frankly confess those sin to God and confess our weakness and just as he said all the way back in chapter 4, obtain help. in our times of great need. And of course, we could mention the letter to 1 John, 1 John 1, where he talks about how if any man thinks that he doesn't have any sin, he's just a liar, he's just deceived, and he's deceiving himself or herself. But if we confess our sins to God, what does John say? He says, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Why? Because we've been forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ. So you can go without hypocrisy boldly to the presence of God. Verse 23, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering for he is faithful that promise. So this is the second exhortation now. Let's hold fast. Let's grip, let's keep secure. The profession of our faith. Now he's mentioned that before back in chapter four in verse 14, I believe. And he's referring here the profession of our faith. He's not saying, sometimes maybe in modern language we would talk about profession of faith and like giving of a testimony, a testimony of how I was saved or something of that nature. That's not what he means here. The profession of our faith refers to the content of our faith. It is the conviction of the truth that we believe, particularly as explained in this letter. So it's content. In other words, it's our knowledge of the truth in Jesus Christ, not our feelings. not our experiences, not our emotions. It is the knowledge of the truth in Jesus Christ. That's what he's talking about. That's the profession of our faith. And he's saying, let's hold that fast. Don't let that go. Do so, he says, without wavering, that has the idea of leaning, maybe like swaying back and forth, leaning this way, leaning that way. Let's do this without wavering. Let's be committed to our knowledge of the truth in Jesus Christ. Verse 24, and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. Now the word for consider is quite strong actually. It means to observe fully or to fix the mind upon. So it's not talking about just sort of a passing thought or just a mere recognition or acknowledgement. Let's observe fully. Let's fix our minds, he says, on one another. phrasing there one another and it appears numerous times particularly in the church epistles in the New Testament it does describe some sort of a mutual relationship there's some sort of mutual responsibility some sort of mutual accountability in in this relationship and so he's saying let us fully observe let us fully consider one another and particularly as we see in the context, that of a congregation of a local church. Now the word for provoke, it can be negative or it can be positive. And here it is positive. And just more generally, it just means to stimulate or to incite or maybe to try to stir up, to move someone to some sort of action. So help motivate. Let's fully consider one another to help each other be motivated to love and good works. In other words, just like a runner helping up and supporting a fallen runner so that they both finish the race, maybe not in record time, maybe not ahead of the field, but they both finish the race. And in verse 25 he says, Now this, what he has just exhorted us to in verse 24, he sort of gives from a negative standpoint, you can't do this by forsaking the congregation of believers that we belong to. In other words, you can't fulfill verse 24 by forsaking that body of believers. Now, the word for forsake, it means to desert. It means to abandon. As preachers, we love to come to this verse and to talk about somebody, you know, missing Bible study on Wednesday. And it's not really about church attendance in that way. Don't forsake Don't leave a body of believers. As Christians, I'm fully persuaded, the New Testament teaches we should be members of a body. There should be others that we have this mutual relationship and mutual accountability and mutual love and mutual support and mutual help that we give to one another. We should consider one another and how to help motivate us in our lives of faith and for us to just keep on keeping on in service to the Lord. Don't leave the local church behind. Now the word for assembling, it's not the word for assembly, ecclesia, it's oftentimes translated church. It's actually where the root of it is the word from which we get the word synagogue for, and it's joined with a prefix here that essentially means a complete gathering in one place. Now the word for synagogue itself means a collecting together, a convening together, but what he's here describing is the gathering of a local church body together. And again, just like we are doing here this morning and do particularly on the Lord's Day. So he's describing that gathering of that local body together and that mutual relationship and responsibility to one another in that place. And some apparently, Some that would have sort of been in the demographic of his readers and particularly first century Jewish believers. And we know that his primary warning in the whole of this letter is do not lead, don't turn from Jesus Christ. Well apparently some were already deserting. those local assemblies. Of course, we know that that conflict between the Orthodox Jews and between those that embraced Jesus Christ, that became more and more pronounced as that first century went on and then the Roman Empire gets involved and there was a lot of persecution coming from a lot of different directions and some of them, it seems, had already begun abandoning These local assemblies had already began abandoning. Maybe they were saying, well, you know, I'm not going to I'm not going to abandon Jesus, but I'm just going to abandon this and probably because of the persecution. He says, don't don't do that. The day approaching refers to that second coming of Christ. He brought that up in chapter nine, verse 20, and he's going to mention it again here in a few verses later in verse 37 in this chapter. So, in other words, what the writer is saying is is that we do have a need for one another. And the passage of time doesn't relax that need. Getting closer, as it were, to the second coming of Jesus Christ, that doesn't relax that need that we have for that community of believers. In fact, it should make us even more concerned to be able to exhort one another. And that word for exhort that he uses there, and I've used it several times in this message, and the writer is going to use it in this letter more and more. The word actually has quite a range of meaning, and it can mean encouraging, it can mean comforting, it can mean strengthening, it can mean challenging, It can mean inviting in the sense of calling someone to go along with you. So it has quite a range of meaning and I think that the writer uses this particular word because really I think he's covering it all in a sense, covering it all, exhorting one another so much the more as you see that day approaching. Well, once again, these exhortations speak to life here and life now. In other words, there's not anything any more relevant than what the writer of Hebrews is saying. And yes, he's directly addressing these first century believers, but this directly applies to us as well. He has shown in this part that sort of transitions into this final section of the letter, that knowledge of truth is vital to perseverance. I mean, think about what he's saying. He's saying, go forward, don't go back. He's saying, run the race. He's saying, keep on. He's saying, don't quit. He's saying, help others finish the race. Knowledge of truth is vital to perseverance. Why do we as a church put so much emphasis on the teaching and preaching of this word. Well, right here, the writer has explained. Let's hold fast to that profession of faith, that content, that knowledge of truth in Jesus Christ. It's vital to perseverance. Obviously, it's vital to evangelism. It's vital to salvation. It's vital to keeping on. And he also shows us in this little passage, he shows us what we need. And I'm thinking of three things in particular. What we need. What is it that we need? What do we need right now? What do we need today? First of all, we need to be forgiven. Because every one of us are sinners before God. I mean, you can't look into this word and really come to any other conclusion. We are sinners before God. We need to be forgiven. Secondly, we need knowledge of and commitment to the truth in Jesus Christ. And thirdly, we need a community of believers. And he says even more so. As that day, that time of Christ's coming, as it draws closer, we even more so need a community of fellow believers that we have that mutual relationship with that he's describing, particularly in verses 24 and 25, so that we are able to help another and another is able to help us as well.