And let's open our Bibles to Hebrews chapter 9. And for the children, I want you to try to listen as hard as you can, because what I'm going to say this morning is very easy to understand. So it's not difficult to understand, but it's very important. This is the most important thing. that you could hear this morning. This is the most important thing that you could hear. Eternity hangs in the balance on these matters. And as we get into this, I'd like to look at Hebrews chapter 9 today, but we're going to look at it in a more general way. And then next week, we'll get into the specifics of each part of this chapter. But I want you to listen as hard as you can. to try to understand what we're saying. Let's go to verse 11 though. We'll start at verse 11 and we'll read to the end of the chapter. It says, But Christ, being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building, neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats and of the ashes of heifers sprinkling the unclean sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh, How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God? And for this cause He is the mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the First Testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must also be necessity the death of the tester. For a testament is of force after men are dead, otherwise it is of no strength at all while the tester lives. Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people, according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet, and wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without the shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the The patterns of things in the heaven should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is 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. nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest enters into the holy place every year with blood of others, for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the world has he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Let's pray. Dear Father, I pray, God, please help me, Lord, as I speak. Help us here as we listen, God, please. I pray, Lord, that you would give attentiveness to each one here, God, please. move supernaturally, God, that salvation would come today, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. There's one key statement in the last verse of this chapter that gives us much insight into the whole chapter. If you look at verse 28, it says, So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. And today I would like you to title this sermon, Jesus Christ, Our Great Sin-Bearer. Jesus Christ, Our Great Sin-Bearer. And for He has certainly bore our sins and we are in need of such a great sin-bearer. For our sins are many, and our sins are greatly offensive to God. But what I want you to see today is that Jesus Christ is the provision of the sacrifice for our sin under the new covenant. For there was none other who was able to take away the sins of his people. If our precious Lord had not made a way for us to come to God, there would never be a way, and we would all die in our sins and be in hell forever. However, in God's sovereign plan, because of His graciousness of who He is, God has chosen another way. And that way is that salvation would come through the perfect Lamb, the perfect sacrifice, Jesus Christ. This is what salvation is, is that Jesus Christ is our substitute. He's the sin bearer. He took sin upon Himself. It is sin. It's the penalty of sin that separates you from God. if you are not born again, if you don't know Christ personally, if you haven't been regenerated, then the thing that separates you from God is the penalty of sin. It's like breaking the law. If you break the law here, what happens? You have to pay the penalty. And God gave us that example on earth to help us to understand. But now Christ has borne He has bore the penalty that we deserve. He is the great sin bearer. And this is the crux of the gospel. If you don't get this point, you won't understand the gospel at all. And this is what this chapter is talking about. It's talking about Christ, our great sin bearer. and he is the perfect sacrifice, the sacrifice of the only Son of God. God himself, the Lord Jesus, humbled himself and became a man in order that he might be the perfect sacrifice for the sins of God's people. What is our greatest need as humans? You should ask yourself that. What is your greatest need? And some here might say, well, I need to be healthy, I need money, I need a better relationship with somebody, I need this, I need that. My friends, the greatest thing that we need is to be forgiven of our sins. We have sinned against God. We have broken God's law. And the greatest need we have is to be forgiven. This sounds simple, Yet so many people miss it. We talk to so many people who know a little bit about the Bible, and they are deceived because they do not see their great need for forgiveness. And even worse, they do not see the great provision for the forgiveness of sin, which is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The sermon today may be very basic, but I am shocked at how many people who even claim to be Christians do not know the very basics of what it means to be a Christian. And secondly, if you think that hearing, again, the basics of Christianity is somehow boring, because you already know it, then I think you need to do some serious inventory in your heart, because the true believer never should get familiar with the basics of the Gospel, But instead, we are greatly edified and brought to the worship of God when we hear of the greatness of our sin. And then we hear of the greatness of our sin-bearer. And really, this is what this chapter is all about. It's about the greatness of our sin, but it's more than that. It's about the greatness of the one who took my penalty. who bore my sins. Have we ever made it personal and seen it as a personal thing? That Christ, Christ has bore my sins. He took the penalty. He took the penalty for my sin that I might go free. This is what the gospel is. And this is what God offers today, is the forgiveness of sins. In the first 10 verses of this chapter, we have a detailed description of each part of the tabernacle in the Old Testament. The tabernacle was the place where the sacrifices under the Old Covenant were performed. And next week, Lord willing, we'll get into what each part symbolized in the tabernacle. For each thing and every ceremony in the tabernacle represented what was to come in the New Testament, or under the New Covenant. And the word covenant as we see it used often in the 8th, 9th, and 10th chapter of Hebrew simply means an agreement. A covenant is an agreement. A covenant is a legal contract. Under the old covenant given to Moses, it was conditional. But now the new covenant that has been given to us through Jesus Christ It is unconditional. In John chapter 1, 16 and 17 it says, And of his fulness have we all received grace for grace, for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Under the new covenant, it's unconditional. Jesus Christ has paid it all. He is the sacrifice for our sins. He is the one who has paid for our sins. He is the great sin-bearer. He is the great sin-bearer. And I would ask the question, were people saved by obedience to the Old Covenant? No, they were saved by faith. We'll see that in Hebrews 11. Some of us looked at that last week in Hebrews 11. That the Old Testament saints were saved by faith. They were saved by faith in what the Old Covenant represented. The tabernacle represented a picture of God's coming provision. And in the tabernacle was the sacrifices. The daily sacrifices were done in the outer court. The yearly sacrifice in the inner court, and we'll get into next week or the following week what that means, but the sacrifices were the main part of the tabernacle. But we see the sacrifices going on. We see Adam and Eve sacrificed and their children sacrificed. So it's that sacrifice that is pointing to the provision to God's coming provision, which is Christ, the great sin-bearer. And first, the Old Covenant, through the sacrifices, pointed toward God's future provision for sin. And second, the Old Covenant, through the law, showed them and us our great sinfulness and our great need for forgiveness. The Old Covenant was conditional in the sense that God said, you do this and I'll do that. So the old covenant was conditional. But now the new covenant, the new covenant is unconditional. It's unconditional. It's all based on what God does and has done for us. If you think that you're doing something for God, You're not. God has done everything. He's provided everything for us in salvation. First, he provides the sacrifice and provision for sin, which is the payment for sin at the cross. And he also provides the gift of righteousness, which is the robe of righteousness given to those who believe. Secondly, as we When over last week at the end of chapter 8 he gives us the will and the power to do his will by the power of the Holy Spirit. Philippians 2.13 says, For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. So the provision of salvation is through Jesus Christ that he has paid for our sin. And now God fills us with His Holy Spirit and gives us the power to serve Him. Now serving God does not pay for my sin. Only through what Christ has done are my sins paid for. This new covenant is unconditional. God provides everything by His grace. And that is the very definition of grace. It is the unmerited favor of God. which means there is nothing you can do to get it. It is freely given. Salvation is freely given. It is the free gift of righteousness in Romans 5.18. It's the free gift of righteousness. But even in the midst of God providing the Old Covenant in order that people might hope in the coming provision, And then you might see their sin through the law and the penalty of sin through the sacrifices. But instead of seeing what it represented, people trusted in the system itself. These people, in the Old Testament, when they were under the Old Covenant, many were trusting in the system itself, instead of what the system represented, which was God's coming provision. And we see the same problem today. People trust in what? They trust in the church. They'll even trust in the fact that they have some knowledge of the Bible. They'll trust in the fact of all these things, but not be trusting in Jesus Christ. This is who you must trust in. It's not necessarily what you believe, but it's who do you believe in? Do you believe in Christ? Do you trust Him? That is the key. That is the key. Church can't save you. Only the provision of Jesus Christ can save. You praying a prayer can't save you, unless that prayer is a casting of oneself onto Jesus Christ. Baptism can't save you. But baptism represents that you have already been saved by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you have been saved, Knowing the Bible can't save you. Feeling sorry for your sin and saying you'll never do it again and not even doing it again can't save you. Thinking that your good will outweigh your bad cannot save you. Being a good citizen cannot save you. Being a good father, mother, son or daughter cannot save you. Being a good church member cannot save you. Sacrificing For the good of others cannot save you. There is only one way to be saved and that is through Jesus Christ. It is by repenting of thinking that I can be saved by any other way and believing that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation. He is the only way to salvation through bearing our sins upon himself. Do not trust in any system of religion. Do not trust in yourself, but trust in the perfect Lamb of God, our great sin-bearer, Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2.24 says, Who is, speaking of the Lord Jesus, own self, bear our sins in his own body upon a tree. 1 John 3.5 says, and you know that Jesus Christ was manifest to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin. Ephesians 1.7 says, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. If you're here and you're not sure of what's going to happen to you when you die, what you need is the forgiveness of sins. And that has been provided through Jesus Christ. He is our great sin-bearer. That's what all the sacrifices are pointing to. The sin went on the sacrifice to point to the fact that Jesus Christ is our sin-bearer. Are you trusting today that hopefully God will overlook your sin because He loves you? Oh, read the Bible. He will not. Are you trusting in the fact that somehow you've done enough good that God will forgive you? He will not. He has provided a way, and that way is through His Son, that He bore our sins upon Himself This is the way to salvation. And it's so clear in the scripture all through the Bible. Go to Isaiah chapter 53. And we'll read a few verses in this precious portion here. Look at Isaiah chapter 53. It says, Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. and we hid it as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely, here it is, listen, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. And with His stripes, we are healed. We are healed. We are made right with God by the punishment that Jesus Christ took. That's what this is saying. He bore our sin. He bore our grief, our iniquities upon Himself so that we might go free. This is the best news in the world. There is no better news that Christ has bore our sins. And I know, even as a believer, I need to hear that. Because even as a believer, I fail and I look and I see my precious Savior, that He has bore my sin. And you know what that causes me to do? It causes me to love Him. It causes me to love Him and say, Lord, I don't want to do it again. Change me. And He does. He changes us through that love. through that precious love that we have with Him because we see that I deserve hell. But yet Christ bore my sin on my behalf. And that's available to whoever will come to Him. Whoever will come to Him, He offers the forgiveness of sin. The Lord Jesus bore our sins upon that cross. The wrath of God was poured out upon Him. in order that our sins would be forgiven. How offensive to God it must be when we think that we can or we try to pay for our own sins when the price has already been paid, the provision, the sacrifice for sin that Jesus Christ has provided is big enough for whosoever will come. In Isaiah chapter 1 verse 18 the spirit of God he pleads with us he says come let us reason together sayeth the Lord though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool we went over that last week talking about the though they be as scarlet which means bright and although they be as crimson which means deep Our sins are clearly seen. They're clearly seen. And they're deep. They're crimson. They go deep into our heart. But the Lord Jesus cleanses us through His blood. Through His blood. And though our sins be bright or clearly seen, and though they be red and run deep, deep into our heart, into the fabric of who we are, though our sins are bright and deep, Through Jesus Christ, we are made whole. For He is our great sin-bearer. He is our great sin-bearer. And some people would say, and this question is probably coming to your mind, and I want to answer this last question today, is how can one person die and pay for the sins of so many? And pay for so many sins? How does that work? Well, we have the answer here in Hebrews. Turn back to Hebrews. The writer answers that question. And the answer before we get into the verse is that Christ, Jesus Christ, was the only one qualified to be the sin bearer. No one else could have died and paid for sin. Look in verse 13, for if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? to serve the living God. We'll come back to our question in a few minutes. But first I want to look at this. But all the millions of sacrifices under the old covenant could not atone for sin. But this one sacrifice has taken care of sin forever for those who come to Christ. How much more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. First we want to look at that it is the blood of Christ that purges our conscience, and then in the middle of the verse you're going to see how that works. So these dead works, I would say, are the works that the Hebrews were performing still under the old covenant, trying to make themselves right with God. And these same dead works are in the hearts of every man and woman who is trying to get to heaven by their own merits. Are you trying to get to heaven by what you are doing? Are you trying to get to heaven by what you are doing? Are you trying to get to heaven by thinking that you are a good person? Well, that is referred to as dead works. It's dead works. It has no value in terms of salvation. Turn from your dead. works, and trust in the Living Savior, the One who bore our sins. He will purge your conscience, truly purge the conscience. We'll get more into that in the future, what that means to have your conscience purged, but I want to stick to our point this morning because I want you to understand this. I'm pleading with you to consider what Christ has done on our behalf, that he has bore our sins, he has carried our iniquities upon himself, how much more, how much more, this is the answer to our question, the measurement is eternal, how much more are a person's sins forgiven who is trusting in the person and work of Jesus Christ versus the one who is trusting in their religious system. Well, the person who's trusting in their own religious system is trusting in the sacrifices of bulls and goats. How much is, I mean, it's not the difference between it is the blood of bulls and goats in verse 13 versus the blood of Jesus Christ. The blood of bulls and goats represented Jesus Christ, so it did have significance in that manner. But in and of itself, it had no power to forgive sins. These were animals dying. And even man is greater than animals. For God gave man dominion over the animals in Genesis chapter 1. But here is God, Jesus Christ as God, Jesus Christ God himself, how much greater is Jesus Christ than men? And that's the difference between how much greater are the work of Christ versus our dead works or our trying to make ourselves right with God and Jesus Christ has provided the salvation for whoever will come to him for he is the one who spoke all things into existence and all life comes from his breath this is how it's possible that one man can die and the sins of so many will be covered this was just no ordinary man This was God. He was of an eternal nature. And many people ask that question. But the answer is that this man is God and has an eternal nature. Therefore, his sacrifice has eternal implications. Those who are trusting in Jesus Christ not only have the temporal forgiveness of sins, but the eternal forgiveness of sins. This is why God cannot remember the sins of the saints, as we read in Hebrews 8.12 last week. Because the blood of Jesus Christ, in an analogy, it is running ahead of the sins of those who believe. Our sin is temporal, but has eternal consequences, because we have sinned against an eternal God. But now, through the eternal sacrifice of Jesus, we, through him, have eternal forgiveness. This is how one can die and so many be forgiven. And he offered himself without spot to God. What a perfect Savior. He is without sin, without blemish. God became a man. And in Jesus Christ, He is fully God and fully man. The only one who was qualified to bear the sin of His people. Jesus Christ was qualified. That's why, that's how He can, through the sins of many, can be covered by this once and for all sacrifice. This once and for all sacrifice. that Jesus Christ is, and that He became on that cross. That He became on that cross. I was going to close with the last three verses of this chapter, but we'll get into that at another time. I just want to end by saying this, that our sin is great. And if you have never sensed the greatness of your sin, I would please pray that you would see that God does not take it lightly. Please, read the scripture. Read the Bible. And you'll see that sin is a very serious thing. We may lie and tell a little lie here and say, oh, it's funny or whatever. Everybody does it. But my friends, God does not view it that way. One lie will send a person to hell forever. God is holy. He's separate from sin totally. 100%. He can have no association with sin. And I believe the great problem we struggle with today is that sin is so common. And the consequences for sin that people don't even know what that is. They think that it's okay, but God does not. But I'm here to tell you today that if you want to see the ugliness of sin, look at the cross. It cost the Son of God his life. He was brutally murdered and brutally beaten, and his beard was plucked from his face. This was the cost of sin. that He took it upon Himself, the perfect Lamb of God took it upon Himself. He took your sin and my sin that we might be forgiven if you will trust in Him and turn from thinking that there's something you can do. If you think there's something you can do, It's not the New Covenant. The New Covenant is amazing. God has provided everything for us. God has provided everything for us. And the greatest thing He has provided is the forgiveness of sins through His Son, Jesus Christ, the great sin-bearer. And I would pray today that you would come to Him. Come to Jesus. Trust in Him. Trust in Him, and you can have confidence that your sins are forgiven. And you can say, my sins are forgiven. My hope is in Heaven. There's an eternal hope in Christ, because He is our sin-bearer. So let's pray right now. Dear Father, I pray, God, that You would please work through Your Word and through Your Spirit right now, God, in the hearts of individuals sitting right here, God, that they would come to true repentance, God, and true faith in you, Lord Jesus. Oh, Lord Jesus, you are our great sin-bearer. You took our sins upon yourself. I pray, God, please work that reality in our hearts, God. And I pray that you would save those who need it. Lord, please work today. Bless this time we have. together afterwards. Lord, please guide us by your Spirit. In Jesus' name, Amen.