Amen. Please remain standing and take your Bibles and open up to the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews chapter 13. Before we read this chapter together, let us bow our heads in prayer. Heavenly Father, we praise you for Jesus. We thank you for our mediator. We thank You for Him being our Prophet who speaks to us, who tells us the truth, who preaches to our very soul the eternal things of God. We praise You for His priesthood, His representing You to us and us to You. We praise You, O God, that He is our King. and how He rules with meekness. We praise You for Your Holy Spirit. And we pray that that Spirit would descend upon us, that it would cause us to see Christ, embrace Christ, that Your Holy Spirit would enlighten our minds to this precious Word, this gift that You have given Your people that we might see Jesus and that we might see more clearly the path that we must walk as your people. Shower upon us illumination. Shower upon us grace and mercy, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen. Hear now the Word of the Living God to you this morning from Hebrews chapter 13, beginning in verse 1. Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember the prisoners as though in prison with them and those who are ill-treated since you yourselves also are in the body. Marriage is to be upheld and honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled. For fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have. For He Himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you. So that we confidently say, the Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What will man do to me? Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you, and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited. We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat, for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood suffered outside the gate. So let us go out to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come. Through Him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things. And I urge you all the more to do this so that I may be restored to you the sooner. Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. But I urge you, brethren, bear with this word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. Take notice that your brother Timothy has been released, with whom, if he comes soon, I will see you. Greet all of your leaders and all of the saints. Those from Italy greet you. Grace be with you all. Amen. Thus the reading of the Lord's Word. You may be seated. Hebrews chapter 13 is the final chapter in what the writer calls this short exhortation to the church. This very concise exhortation, and I'm sure that the writer said it that way because, I mean, brothers and sisters, plainly, if you're going to speak about the superiority of Jesus Christ, where do you start and where do you end? He could go on forever speaking of how superior Jesus is to everything and everybody. So he could write forever upon the topic of the superiority of Jesus Christ. But he says, I write to you this brief, this short exhortation that you might have faithfulness stirred up within your hearts. You see, the purpose of this letter was basically twofold. The first purpose was to steer these Hebrew Christians away from following after false teaching. False teaching had crept into the church. We know this by all the matter and the content of the epistles. I mean, when you read the epistles of the apostles, they're correcting some doctrine, they're correcting some idea, they are attacking some vain philosophy, some false teaching. I mean, the Pharisees did everything they could after Jesus had ascended into heaven and the apostles began their preaching ministry, gathering the elect, of God from the four corners of the earth, the Pharisees did everything they could to contaminate the true gospel. They did everything they could to supplant the gospel of grace in Jesus Christ. And that's why you see the majority of Paul's epistles dealing with the idea of legalism. Now, you probably If you've not experienced it yet, you probably will experience this. That is, when you begin using the law of God, those underlying moral precepts, those underlying moral obligations that the law teaches us, if you try to live according to those things, be prepared to have the term legalist placed on you. Be prepared to be called a legalist and that statement is applied to you and attached to you out of sheer ignorance. Most people don't even understand what legalism is. Anybody that wants to use the Word of God as a guide is considered to be a legalist. They actually view the application of following the precepts, the commandments, and the statutes of God as legalism because they have a misunderstanding of grace. They understand grace to just be me and Jesus. That is, if you want to know something about life, don't go to the book. Ask Jesus. Go get alone in your prayer closet and pray and ask Jesus to just somehow put some wiffle dust on you and enlighten your mind to something He wants you to do. You don't need the book. You just need to get alone and hear God's voice. A lot of people teach that that's even the idea of prayer, and that's not prayer. Prayer is not God speaking to you. Prayer is you speaking to God. God's already spoken. What have we learned in Hebrews chapter 1? He has said everything He's going to say. He has said all that He's going to say He's not going to say anymore. And Hebrews chapter 1 says if you want to know what God says, look to what Jesus said. Look to how Jesus lived. Look to the personal work of Jesus Christ. If you want to know what God said, you're going to have to go to the book So you see, there's this misapplication of legalism. Legalism, rightly understood and defined as this, it's taking the law of God and using it for a purpose that God did not intend for it to be used. For example, Timothy chapter 1 tells us, Paul says to Timothy, there is a right and a wrong use of the law of God. And he says, these false teachers have crept into the church and they are misusing the law of God. Therefore, it's a bad use. It's the wrong use of the law of God. They are using God's law in a way that God never intended for it to be used. Therefore, those false teachers are legalists. And we need to understand that, brothers and sisters, because we are not legalists. We don't want to misapply the law. We don't want to misunderstand the law. We don't want the law to usurp grace. What a lot of people don't understand is that those of us who seek to live by the book, Those of us who seek to live by the revealed revelation of God, those who seek to live by God's testimony to us concerning every area of life, we understand the need for grace because we understand the fall of man. We even understand that before the fall, Adam was dependent upon the revelation of God. That even before sin, Adam, who was created perfect in God's sight, the perfect image of God as a human man, needed God to tell him what not to eat and what to eat. And then, when Adam chose to go his own way, to be his own God and to do it his own way, He fell. He died to the things of God. His heart was totally bent and corrupted and polluted and contaminated, totally bent opposite to God's law. And everybody in his posterity, all of us, are totally bent to God's law. But you see, beloved, the fall, the sin of man never changed the moral obligation to obey the revealed will of God. It never changed it. You remember that Jesus is called the second Adam. And I'm laying a lot of groundwork here because as we're closing the book of Hebrews, as we're closing chapter 13, and how the author continues to write to us in this ceremonial language, we need to understand these things, beloved, because you might go out there and tell people mistakenly, hey, we need to keep the ceremonial law. And if you do that, you didn't get it from me. Don't say my pastor said that. Don't speak for me. We're not to keep the ceremonial law, so I'm laying the groundwork, helping us to understand basically even what the gospel is. That Jesus is called the last Adam. Why? Because Jesus comes to set right what Adam failed to keep. Jesus comes to establish and to correct and to set in place those things that Adam would have done if he'd have never fallen, if he'd have never failed. So sin did not frustrate the plan of God. Sin was required in the decrees of God because why? How can God save sinners if there's no sin in the world? God couldn't save you, beloved, if you're not a sinner. And the Bible tells us that you were saved before the foundation of the world, that you were elected in Christ before there was ever even a creation, before there was ever even a fall, before there was ever even sin. God had already elected you to be saved, so there had to be a fall. Somewhere down the line, we had to become sinners so that, as Paul says in Romans, read the book of Romans. I tell you, you ought to read it every week if you could. I know you won't. And I know you don't have time to read the book of Romans every week, but at least a couple of times a year, you ought to read Paul's treatise on justification, because it's a magnificent epistle. It's a magnificent treatise on what God has done to us as sinners to make us right before Him. But Paul says this. He says that God allows sin to come into the world that we might know His wrath and His love. and His mercy in a way that we never would have known it apart from sin. That is this, God in His eternal, infallible, unchangeable wisdom. Please don't try to ask me to explain it any further than this. Please don't come to me after the sermon and say, Pastor, I want to talk to you about God's decrees because I only know what the Bible says and I can only submit my little, bitty, tiny mind. to what the Bible says and agree with it. And that is, before the foundation of the world, God decreed that there would be sin so that it would manifest certain perfections in Him that He wanted you to know. Okay? That is, because He has allowed sin to come into the world, That sin has manifested certain perfections of God that you never could have known apart from sin entering the world. Now leave it alone. Leave it alone. Don't go any further. As Calvin says, let's take counsel from Calvin. Where the Bible stops speaking, we stop asking. We let it lie there, but Paul says that sin, God brought sin into the world that we might know His anger and wrath. You see, beloved, the writer of Hebrews is closing out this epistle. And he writes and he says, listen, I want to steer you away from error. I want to steer you away from those false teachers, those false apostles. I mean, you know, they just followed Paul. They plagued Paul. I mean, they were constantly hammering on Paul. When you read the Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul's really – those are the two books where Paul's really forcefully having to defend his divine apostleship, okay? But they had crept into the church and their sole purpose and their sole desire was to steer that gospel ship away from grace and to bring it to law, because they misunderstood the law. They misunderstood the law. They actually believed that the law actually made them right before God. That is, you know, the Pharisees were big on keeping the law. They were big on obeying all of the minute details of the law. I mean, if it called to having tassels on your garments, what did Jesus say about the Pharisees? They had longer tassels. I mean, if they were going to pray for ten minutes, metaphorically speaking here, hyperbole, The Pharisees wanted to pray for 15 minutes. I mean, they wanted to go, they wanted to do more than what, quote, God required, because they wanted to demonstrate that by doing these things and by doing it longer, doing it better, doing it more, that somehow that made them righteous before God. And since the very beginning of the Bible, God has taught us, I don't desire sacrifice, but I desire mercy. I desire a changed heart. You see, they misunderstood the law. Let me give you a passage of scripture. I want to show it to you because I think it's very telling to our own lives. Turn to Matthew chapter 5. I want to read this section to you in Matthew chapter 5. I want to demonstrate to you exactly what I'm talking about when we talk about legalism, when we talk about obeying the law for a purpose that it was never intended. Look at Matthew chapter 5 in verse 13. We're going to read down through verse 20, but follow the thought here. You are, he's talking to his disciples, and he tells them, he says, you are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket. but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly, I say to you, unless heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until it is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Verse 20. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." Interesting statement. Interesting statement for those who want to live by grace. He says to his disciples, you see around you the activity of the scribes and Pharisees. You see their zeal for the law, even though they misunderstood it, they misapplied it. Now, Jesus, let me follow the train of thought. Now, he talks about them being the light in a city. And he says that men must see your good works. Well, how will they know what good works are unless God tell you what good works are? Because we don't have the ability to choose good. Only God can tell us what is good and evil. That was the whole purpose of God's law. That is, if man does not have a revelation of God, if man doesn't have a clear-cut... Adultery? Bad. Fornication? Bad. Stealing? Bad. Blasphemy? Bad. You see, God tells us what is bad and he tells us what is good. He says, you are the light. You are the salt of the earth. He says, let your light so shine. before men that they see your good works and glorify your father. Now, what he tells him in verse 17, I did not come to do away with the law. I did not come to do away with the revelation of God that teaches you what's good and evil. I haven't done away with it. I have fulfilled it. He says, for truly, I say to you, heaven and earth will pass away before my law passes away. In verse 19, he says, but listen, if any teacher annuls the least of these commandments, he will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever teaches them, whoever teaches my law, teaches my statutes, teaches my precepts the right way, shall be called great in heaven. He says, for I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Now, what does he mean by verse 20? He means simply this. When Jesus came to earth, Jesus never contradicted the Old Testament. He fulfilled it, and he taught it, and he applied it. And he's applying the Old Testament right here. He's applying Psalm 51. When David cried out, he says, Oh God, you desire a broken and a contrite heart. Jesus is telling his disciples, he says, listen, he says, Not to be like the Pharisees. Now, notice what he says. He says, your righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees. But they tithe. They're always at worship. They're always in the midst of some religious rite and some religious activity. Jesus says, yes, all of that is required of you. Every bit of that is required. But the problem is they don't do it out of a heart of love for God. They don't do it out of a heart of love. They're not consecrated in their heart and mind. They do it so that they might be righteous instead of coming to me for their righteousness and do it out of love and gratitude. He says, your righteousness must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, beloved. You've got to do what the law commands, plus. You've got to do it out of a heart that says, like David, oh how I love thy law. It is my meditation day and night. Now listen, that means we've got to understand what laws, what laws are we to be keeping, what statutes, what's the moral precepts. And you know what, if you go back and you read any of the 16th, 15th, 14th, 17th century tracts of the Gospel, any of their treaties upon salvation in Jesus Christ, all of those tracts and all of those Gospels and all of those commentaries that were written basically prior to the modern revival age, all used the Law as a means to point people to Christ. Now, where are we at in our own day and time? You see, the postmodern idea of revivalism shifted the paradigm from the law being the tutor and the schoolmaster, ushering us to Christ, and then after coming to Christ, being that revelation of God that pleases Him, the paradigm shifted to total emotionalism, sentiment. Man becomes basically his own paradigm of confidence and assurance. That man within himself can conjure up assurance of salvation. That man within himself can convince himself that he's right with God because he's had some emotional fit or some tingling of the spine, the hair rising up on the back of his neck when something was said about Jesus, or when they hear the name of Jesus, they weep. But you see, beloved, none of that, none of that gives man assurance. You may cry buckets of tears every time you hear the name Jesus. That doesn't mean you go into heaven. That doesn't mean you love God. That doesn't even mean you love His law. Because, see, the distinction between God's people And those outside the church is a love for God's law. And those who are outside the church have a hatred for God's law. That's always been the overwhelming mark of a true believer. A true believer says, oh how I love thy law. It is my meditation day and night. Oh how I need Christ to minister to me as my prophet. to teach me the truth, to show me the way, to be the truth, the way, and the life. Beloved, that is the distinguishing mark between the saved and not saved. And it's, I think, a sign to our own modern generation, our post-modern generation, to be more correct. Most churches do not love the law of God. In fact, They teach against it. They teach those sitting under their ministry to actually break and violate the law of God. And as the Bible says, if they're saved, let's just say these ministers are saved, they're born again. But even Jesus himself said in this passage of Scripture, they are least in the kingdom of heaven. So you see, brothers and sisters, We, we must understand the law. And that's why I'm taking the pains and the times in Hebrews 13 in the close of this chapter. And I've spent a lot of time this morning kind of laying the groundwork, hopefully helping us to understand the law for us. It's not a cuss word. It's not something we shy away from, it's not something we're afraid of, but it's something that we embrace as beneficial, good. I mean, just like David said, he said, the law of God is the honey of the honeycomb. He said, I'll eat it and devour it and it's good for my soul, good for my spirit. It actually gives me the sustenance I need. It leads and guides the way. Now, brothers and sisters, we talked last week about the ceremonial law and the purposes of the ceremonial law, and I hope I demonstrated to you that the morality of the ceremonial law is still in effect. Even though the external right of the law has been fulfilled in Christ, that moral underpinning of the ceremonial law, that moral underpinning of that ceremonial right is still in effect. There is still a separation between us and the world. The Bible teaches that. Paul continues to teach that there is a distinction between the people of God and the world. That's what the ceremonial law taught. Now, let's just sum it up in two things. Number one, Get this implanted in your mind and in your heart so that when you leave here, so that when you go away from here and you're talking to your brothers and sisters, and you begin talking about the law, and they tell you, oh, we don't need that, it's all grace, you need to say to them, but brother, but sister, can you truly understand the grace of God apart from His revelation? Now, I'm going to give you a couple of passages of Scripture. to prove to you that I'm not wasting your time. I don't want you to think I'm wasting your time. I don't want you to think I'm riding a hobby horse. I want you to understand that everything in this book points to Christ. Everything. And if it points to Christ, it's there for our benefit, and we need to understand it. Now, we spent a lot of time last week, and we're going to spend the majority of the rest of the time talking about the ceremonial law. Now, is that profitable for us? Well, turn to 2 Timothy chapter 3. I want you to see this with your own eyes, because I want to read verse 16 and 17 to you. Because since the ceremonial law is in the Scripture, what does the inspired apostle say about the inscripture, the inscripturated word, the word that's been breathed out of the mouth of God? He says, all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching. The ceremonial law is profitable for teaching. It's profitable for reproof. It's profitable for correction. It's profitable for even training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate and equipped for every good work. Have you ever viewed the ceremonial law that way? See, most of the time, it's just a portion of your Bible that stays white. You know the white part of your Bible? That's the part you don't read. You know, you have your favorite books and your favorite verses and everything, and the Old Ceremony Law just isn't there. So it's the white portion of Scripture, and we need to understand what the Bible says about that portion of Scripture. It says that it's absolutely profitable to correct you, to rebuke you, to train you, and to stir up faithfulness within you so that you might be equipped for every good work. so that when you see Jesus Christ, you see the full revelation of God. You see Him in all of His glory. Because, brothers and sisters, if you don't understand the ceremonial law, you can't understand when John said, Behold, the Lamb of God. Most people, I really believe this, I'm not saying this for a fact, when they hear the term The Lamb of God, they envision in their mind the certain Lamb. Some cute, fuzzy-wuzzy Lamb that's a pet. That's not what John was saying. If you understand the ceremonial law, you understood the victim. He's the victim. He's the bloody, slain Lamb. He's the victim. He's the sin-bearer of your sins and contaminations and pollutions, all of your fornications, all of your lusts, all of your evil, wicked desires that are contrary to the Word. God has placed your sins, your iniquities, your trespasses upon Him. He is the sin-bearer. Just like in the Old Testament, that goat was the sin-bearer. And the priest would put his hand upon that goat's head and pray. A prayer of repentance confessing the sins of the people. The sin bearer. The victim. So we see the ceremonial law is profitable. There's another passage of Scripture. We don't have time to go there. But it's in Luke, I believe it's chapter 21 or chapter 22, where Luke pens the historical account of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus after the death of Jesus Christ. And as these two disciples are walking on the road to Emmaus, Jesus appears to them. He comes down and he begins to walk with them, and that account of Luke says this, that Jesus began to preach to them the Old Testament. Describing how Moses wrote about the ceremonial law? About altars and sacrifices and incense and the priesthood? No. The account says that Jesus preached to them and demonstrated how Moses wrote of Him. And Jesus began explaining to His disciples how everything that Moses wrote pointed to him, how the sacrifices pointed to him, how the incense on the altar burned and pointed to him, how the tabernacle pointed to him, how the priesthood pointed to him, how the thanksgiving offerings pointed to him, how the feasts pointed to Him. And it says the result of Jesus teaching His disciples that He was the fulfillment of the ceremonial law, that He was the actual fulfillment of all of those types and shadows, the Bible says that their very hearts burned within them. When they began to see more clearly Christ, it says their heart burned within them. Beloved, is that the effect this morning On your heart, upon your mind, as you begin understanding, as you begin now even envisioning in your mind these ceremonies and these acts and rites of worship, that as you begin to understand those things, as you see how the ceremonial law points to the Lord Jesus Christ in this person and work as mediator of profit, priest, and king, and how those ceremonial laws acted as fences to separate, to guard, and to protect God's people from the people of the world that would seek to destroy them? Does your heart burn? Does your heart burn within you? Does your heart burn within you knowing you have a greater and a brighter picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, or is it just ho-hum? Does your heart burn within you to know that 6,000 years ago, God began writing the testimony of His Son, starting way back then, describing to you the glory of Jesus Christ? You see, Jesus is so glorious. You cannot encapsulate the glory of Christ in the New Testament. When did God begin writing about Jesus? Way back a long time ago. Because He wanted to make sure that you had a proper understanding of Jesus Christ. He wanted to make sure you had a proper understanding of the victim of the sin offering. He wanted to make sure that you understood how sinful you really are. And most people today don't even think they're that sinful. Some mistakes. Ah, I made a mistake. That Jesus is so glorious in His person and in His work, He could not be contained in the New Testament. That God had to begin thousands of years earlier describing His person and His work. Describing how sinful man really is and what a glorious salvation Jesus actually offers. That's why the apostle in Hebrews says in chapter 2, Oh, how great a salvation we have. That is an Amen. And I'm not being facetious that Jesus is so glorious. He had to begin writing 6,000 years ago, telling us about his person and his work. You see, beloved, The whole Bible speaks of Jesus Christ. Colossians chapter 2 and verse 17 says this, things which are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. All of that Old Testament figures and shadows and types, all were the pointers. They were the electric, lighted signs that pointed to Jesus Christ, and the New Testament tells us that it all belongs to Jesus, Colossians 2.17. Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 1 says, For the law, since it was only a shadow of good things to come, and not the very form of things, that it was just a shadow of the good things, that Jesus Christ is the very form of the good things. That's why the New Covenant is called a better covenant. My friends, Jesus is not only typified in the ceremonies. Jesus Christ is so magnificent. He's so superior. He is so glorious. He is typified by persons in the Old Testament. All persons of honorable stations and particular qualities and works of calling, their wise and faithful performance, their remarkable success, represent Jesus as mediator of a new covenant of Savior and men. Adam was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, being immediately given to us from God, coming from God to us, to earth, perfect in his likeness to God. Adam was also man's federal representative. As Adam fell, we are all condemned. And as we are in Christ, we are all holy and have access and acceptance through his work and sacrifice. In Adam, we all died. In Christ, we all live. was another picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, His self-dedication, His preaching of judgment, His walking uprightly with God every day, that He was so faithful that God translated Enoch out of this sinful world and brought him on into His glorious presence. You know what it says about Enoch. We said it before. Enoch walked so close with God that one day Enoch went for a walk, and as he walked with God, God said, Enoch, we're closer to my house than we are yours. Just come on home with me. Enoch walked with God. He was a perfect picture of a human, as far as a human could be. He was a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, because our Lord walked with God. Our Bible tells us that Jesus sought secret times to be with God, secret times of prayer, that as the disciples slept many times, Jesus was praying. Jesus understood that the sleep was not as important as communion with God. He knew that he needed that every word that come out of the mouth of God, he knew he needed it in order to fulfill the task at hand. Enoch. is a representation of God. Noah is a type, an example of the Lord Jesus Christ. Noah, the Bible says, was the righteous man on the earth. The most righteous man on all of the earth. Oh, how that could be said of Jesus! That when Jesus walked the earth and God spoke from heaven, He said, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, Jesus Christ, as a man, Jesus, is the most righteous man on the earth, just as Noah was. Just as Noah was. Just as Noah was called to offer sacrifice to God, and God accepted Noah's sacrifice. Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice, and God accepted His sacrifice. Just as Noah was the new covenant head of a new world, so Jesus is our new covenant head, brothers and sisters, of a new world. Just as God in the days of Noah cleansed the earth and had Noah as its figure, so God will cleanse the earth. The Bible tells us plainly and clearly, there's no mixture of words, there's no mixture of thought, that all his enemies will be placed under his feet. And I'm asking you, you go home and define all for me. You can be amillennialist, you can be a premillennialist, you can be whatever millennialist you want, but unless you believe that Jesus Christ is King and reigns over the earth and that all of his enemies are going to be put under his feet, you're wrong. You don't understand eschatology. You don't understand the victory that Jesus purchased with his own blood. Noah was a preacher of judgment. Jesus was a preacher of judgment. Melchizedek is another type and prefigure of the Lord Jesus Christ because we don't know the genealogy of Melchizedek. It's not because Melchizedek was divine. It's just that God hid his lineage from us so that when we looked at Melchizedek, we don't know where he came from. You know, Jesus doesn't have a lineage apart from divinity. He has a mom that was used to incubate him within her womb, but Jesus is the divine Son of God who came from God, who was conceived in the womb of a virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit. Melchizedek was divinely installed as a priest. We don't even know how he become a priest, but we know that he was a priest. Because Abraham offered tithes to Melchizedek. And Abraham would not have done that. Abraham would not have recognized somebody that God would not have recognized. Make sense? Just as Jesus comes, he's not in the order of Levi. You know, Jesus is not of the tribe of Levi. He's of the tribe of Judah. He's the divinely appointed high priest. He has God's seal of favor, just as Melchizedek has no successor. We have no record of any priest coming after Melchizedek. In fact, most commentators say this, after Melchizedek, there's Jesus. After Melchizedek, you have Jesus. And you know what? There's not going to be another high priest after Jesus. He's it. He's, as Hebrews says, our eternal High Priest. Abraham is a type and prefigure of the Lord Jesus Christ because the Bible says that Abraham was the friend of God, that Abraham experienced great favor and blessing of God. Because Abraham deserved it? No. Abraham was a filthy, rotten sinner just like you and just like me. But God honored Abraham because He chose to honor Abraham. Abraham was the head of the covenant of grace. God told Abraham, Abraham, walk outside and look up into the stars. Count them, because that's going to be your seed. Just as Abraham, even if he could count all the stars, what kind of number would it be? We don't even have that number now. I don't know what the highest number is at Google. I don't know. It's on up there. Like 100 to 300 zeros after a one. The seed of God will be more numerous than that number. Beloved, there will be more people in the kingdom of heaven than in the kingdom of hell. That Jesus Christ's seed is innumerable and we see a vision of it. We see a small part of it in the book of Revelation. We see where there's thousands upon thousands upon tens of thousands. That was the highest number they had. That the hosts in heaven are innumerable. You can't number them. He's like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob all prefigured the Lord Jesus Christ. Joseph prefigured the Lord Jesus Christ as the darling son of his father, but despised by his brothers. His brothers hated him just like Jesus' brothers hated him. What does John chapter 1 tell us? That Jesus came unto his own and his own received him not. They hated him. Joseph prefigures the Lord Jesus Christ with his many trials and afflictions, his manifold, of being falsely accused, his manifold temptations that he endured, and he remained true. Joseph is a prefiguring type of the Lord Jesus Christ, just as Jesus was the darling son of our heavenly Father, who experienced manifold trials and temptations, and Jesus remained faithful. Joseph was known for being trustworthy, wise, and God blessed him and he was very successful. But the Bible tells us in the New Testament that grace was poured out upon Jesus like no other. That He was the instruments of God's grace and glory. That there's no other person more wise, more successful, more obedient than the Lord Jesus Christ. And He will receive the fruits of His wisdom and His labor. My friends, I'm telling you right now, if you don't have an eschatology that understands that God has given the earth to Jesus Christ because of His wisdom, because of His thankfulness, you don't understand Jesus. You don't understand his work, his power, his glory. You don't understand the Old Testament, how all of these men prefigured the Lord Jesus Christ, and the success they had, and how Joseph ruled over the kingdom, and how Jesus rules today. Samuel the prophet, his marvelous birth. an early dedication to God, a faithful servant of God, a prophet and deliverer of Israel, prefigured and typified Jesus Christ, being dedicated. There's nobody more dedicated than Jesus Christ. That's why I don't like those gospel presentations that tell us you've got to be 100% sold out to Jesus. I don't know anybody that's been ever 100% sold out to Jesus. I don't know anybody that can be 100% sold out to Jesus. That's why we need Jesus. Because we can't be. We need Jesus because He, like Samuel, dedicated to God fully and in a way that Samuel only typified. That Samuel was only a small example. Remember, Samuel, Abraham, Enoch, Isaac, Jacob are little bitty tiny lives compared to the Son of Jesus. What they typified, Jesus magnifies and glorifies and is the radiance of all of that light. Moses typified and gave us an example of the Lord Jesus Christ because no one before Moses was like Moses. Moses is perhaps the greatest Hebrew that ever lived apart from Christ. Moses, as a man, was probably the greatest Hebrew that ever lived, and he is worthy of all of the accolades that Israel gives him. Even the Bible, even divine writers in the New Testament spoke about how faithful Moses was as a servant of God, and he was a prophet. Moses preached the Gospel. The Bible says Moses was a priest. He was of the tribe of Levi. The Bible says that Moses was a king. He was a monarch over the theocracy of Israel. Moses was the great deliverer of Israel out of Egypt. It was by the mouth and the hand of Moses, so to speak, that Israel was brought out of the promised land, even though God was working in and through Moses, just as the Son of God on earth. Moses is the mediator of Israel. When you see Israel sinning against God, and God is fed up with Israel, and He tells Moses, I'm going to go down, and I'm going to strike these people out, I'm going to take them out. I'm done with them, Moses. Moses falls on his face before God, and he pleads with God, and he says, Oh God, did you bring them out in the wilderness to kill them? And, of course, Moses, in a very humanistic way, pacified. Of course, it wasn't in God's decree, or they'd be dead. But Moses, in a very human way, as prophet, priest, and king, pacifies God's anger, and he subsides, and he mediates between the people and God. David is a prefigure and type of the Lord Jesus Christ. His fidelity, patience, meekness and zeal. His eminent devotion. His firm faith and high favor of God. David was known as the young man who was familiar with God. How about that? Familiar. He knew God. In fact, God said about David, he's a man after my own heart. Now remember, beloved, we know some of the sins that David fell into, and shame on him. But he's a man that the Bible says, he's a man after my own heart. And even how he typified in a small light, he magnified the Lord Jesus Christ. What did Jesus say? I come to do the will of my Father. I eat and sleep and drink the will of my Father. I eat the words of my Father. I've come to not do my works. I've come to do absolutely nothing of my own pleasure. I come solely dedicated and bent to the will of God. My pleasure is to obey my Father. just as David sought to obey God. David is known for his great exploits and great zeal for the worship of God. The Psalms that David wrote all have a tone and a rhythm of worship of God's people to God. David loved worshiping God. He loved being in God's presence. He loved being numbered with God's people. He loved the gathering of God's people. He loved the temple worship. It's David who says, one day in thy courts is better than a thousand anywhere else. How much more? When Jesus came to earth, what was one of the first things he did to start off his ministry? He cleansed the temple. He did not want the temple and the worship of God to be blaspheme, to be an abomination, so he cleanses the temple. He runs out the money changers. He runs all those people out that do nothing but blaspheme God's name. David had a zeal for the worship of God, Christ more of a zeal. You know, it's interesting when we talk about the exploits of David. Of course, one of the most familiar exploits of David we all know is David and Goliath. We all know that story. But you know, it's not a child's story. David and Goliath is not a child's bedtime story. It is a historical narrative of the power of God working through His servant and how His servant, no matter how small, no matter how young, will defeat a skilled, warlike giant, cannot stand before God's servant. It's a picture of Jesus Christ as a man who comes preaching the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven. What weapons does Jesus have? What battle skills does Jesus have? Jesus is a man known for being meek and lowly, being a servant of God. How can this servant conquer death, hell, and the devil and all of his hordes? How did David conquer Goliath? By the power of God. Amen? You see, beloved, we are amazed when we watch a sporting event and we see two teams compete against one another. And the underdog wins and maybe wins by a landslide. And we sit back and we go, that was amazing. That was great. That was an awesome game. How? They both train to throw the ball. They both run the ball. They both practice five, six days a week. They both have skilled athletes. I mean, that's not truly amazing. One's better than the other on that given day. This is amazing. This was a young shepherd boy. He was not battle-tested. He had a sling going up against a nine-foot giant with armor, with a spear. with a sword, battle-tested, tried, true, a warrior. There's no way you'd have bet on David. That's how God works. That's why God works through His Son and through the preaching of the gospel, not the preaching of a fallible, stinky preacher like me, but the preaching through Jesus Christ. He conquers the earth and He takes down these big Goliaths who think they're so proud, who think they're so warlike, who think they're so skilled, who think there's no way the preaching of the gospel can thwart the kingdom of Satan, but it's doing it right now. Right now, I pray that the preaching of this Word and the superiority of Jesus Christ and you seeing Jesus Christ in the Old Testament is pushing sin back in your own life. That you have a desire to fight and to mortify sin in your own flesh greater today than you did yesterday and last week. and that you understand when you look around you, even though your eye doesn't see institutions that glorify the name of Jesus, you can say proudly from the tops of the hills, this belongs to Jesus. You're just buying your time. Whenever Jesus gets ready to thwart, take you down, brother, you're going down. It's all in God's plan. Jesus is victor over the earth. Elijah, Elisha, Joshua all typify Jesus Christ. Not only is Jesus typified in His glory, magnified through people, it's magnified through classes of people, through the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel is called the Son of God. When you look at the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, it typifies the glory of Jesus Christ because you see a people and a nation that had overwhelming favor poured out upon it. Brother, that's gone. There's no need for Israel today. There's no need for us to have Israel typified in its nation and in its rites and in its ceremonies. We have Jesus Christ! Jesus calls, I mean God calls Israel to be a mighty nation, typifying what God would do through Christ and His church. He's typified by being the firstborn among the Hebrew males. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 23 that Jesus Christ is the church of the firstborn. That the church is called the church of the firstborn of Christ. Revelation 1-5 says that Christ is the firstborn of the dead. The kinsman redeemer in the book of Ruth typifies the power and glory and the redemption of Jesus Christ as our kinsman of the elect, that Jesus Christ is our relative. That because God had elected a people before the foundation of the world, Jesus Christ comes as our elder brother, Hebrews says. And because He is our elder brother and our kin, He redeems us from the curse and wrath of God. He is our kinsman-redeemer. You see how the Old Testament points to Christ, but I'm not through. The Levites, the priesthood, the high priests, the Nazarites, by their voluntary separation, you know, all the Old Testament prophets, I don't need to speak about that, you know, understood what the old prophets did in the Old Testament, all typify Christ's glory and power. What about the typified events? I'm here to tell you, beloved, all of the Old Testament speaks to the person and work and glory of Jesus Christ. Everything speaks to Christ. Everything in the Old Testament points us to this great mediator of the new covenant. It's typified by the ark. Jesus Christ is the ark. If you want to be saved from the coming judgment, if you want to be saved from the judgment that will encompass the whole world, if you want to be saved from the wrath and curse of God, you better be found in Christ. He is your ark. He was also the pillar of fire by night and cloud by day. We are told, what did the pillar of cloud and fire do? It guided Israel. It protected Israel. They were able to follow the pillar of fire by night and watch where they were going. In nighttime, the pillar of fire lit up their surroundings and they could see where they were walking. What did the cloud do in the daytime? In the hot, steaming desert, the cloud sheltered them from the sun. Instead of the sun beating down upon them, the cloud blocked the rays of the sun and sheltered them from its heat. The Lord gave them a shade. What about Jesus Christ? The Bible tells us in John 14 and verse 6 that He is the truth, the way, and the life. Jesus is our pillar of fire and cloud. He's the Word that guides us. He calls Himself, I am the Word of God. His Word, He is the Word that guides us and protects us. What about the manna? The manna that was freely given by God to his people, plentiful, daily, every day, early every day, the people would go out and gather the manna in abundance. Jesus says in John 6, 35, I am the bread of life from heaven. Just as the nation of Israel would abundantly feed upon the manna, brothers and sisters, are you abundantly feeding upon Christ? Do you see and view Christ as your very life? That if you don't have Christ, you die. You wither up and you die. That's how precious Jesus is. That's the illustration of the manna. Aaron's rod budding. Evidence of God's call upon Aaron and the priesthood. A dead stick. A stick that had no life to it. bore almonds on the head of it. Jesus was dead and been resurrected and He bears fruit. Jesus has been resurrected from the dead. He's no longer dead, beloved, and His resurrection is the sign and evidence of His ministry, of Him being called divinely by God that He is your mediator and only Savior. I can go on and on. I want to talk about the Passover, I want to talk about circumcision, those typical places, the cities of refuge, the city of Jerusalem, Mount Zion, the tabernacle. Talk about Hebrews chapter 9 where it says everything in the tabernacle pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ. Sin offerings pointed to Christ, the burn offerings pointed to Christ, the trespass offerings, the drink offerings, the thanksgiving offerings, the meat offerings, all of the feasts and festivals all pointed to Christ. The whole Bible speaks of the glory of Jesus Christ. I've got to stop, but I want to go on. I'm telling you, I heard it said many years ago in a sermon, and it seems appropriate now. The old pastor said, the old Baptist minister said, I tell you, you can take this Bible and anywhere you cut it, it'll bleed Jesus. And he was right. Anywhere you cut this Bible, it will speak of Jesus. The point is, beloved, do we have the spiritual eyes to see Jesus? Do we really understand the glory of Jesus? Do we really understand when a people begin, as they begin to follow another gospel and another teaching, that they are forsaking this glorious Jesus? That they are forsaking the truth, the way and the life, the very life of their soul, the very one who ushers them into the presence of God, The very reason you have acceptance, acceptance to God, that you stand before God, not only with that access, but with that acceptance that when you stand before God and He sees you, He sees the imputed righteousness of Christ. He sees that you have been justified by Christ's death, burial and resurrection. Beloved, that Jesus Christ is your all, and that's exactly what the writer of Hebrews, that's the emphasis of Hebrews 13, when he says in verse 10, we have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. He says those who don't have Christ don't have a right to eat of this sacrifice. They don't have this mediator. They don't have access to God. They think they do. They don't. What did verse 9 say? Don't be carried away by very strange teachings for it's good for the heart to be what? Strengthened by grace, not by foods. We're not legalists, brothers and sisters. We believe in the grace of Christ. It's grace. But grace does not usher out and sweep away the law. You can see, understanding, the law magnifies Jesus. if you understand it. Let us pray. Our Father, we, as humbly as we can, cast ourselves to Your grace. We praise You for Jesus. Oh, how we need to see Christ, embrace Christ, eat Christ, Devour Him, O God. Give us the grace we need to go out to the camp to be with Jesus. Give us the grace we need, O God, to bear His reproach. O Lord, let any of the mockings and accusations that fell upon Christ fall upon us. We are not ashamed of this glorious Mediator that You have provided for us. O Lord, continue to strengthen us. by demonstrating to us Your grace, by showing us more of Christ. We pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen.