Hebrews Chapter 10 Verses 1 – 4

• What a great point! This is so practical! If the sacrifices as prescribed in the law were sufficient to do the job…to make sinful man acceptable to a completely perfect God…then why do they need to be done continually!? If they were sufficient then it should be once and done…and so it MUST be that they are not sufficient and therefore a shadow of something better coming!
• How are shadows formed? How do they exist? When something is blocking the light! I love this! The law cast all the shadows! Why? Because it was blocking mankind from the Light, the Way and the Truth! So as soon as the law was taken out of the way, sufficiently satisfied finally not by the blood of bulls and goats but by the precious perfect blood of the Savior…no more shadows! Now we see the light clearly!
• That is what is meant by, “For the worshippers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.” Think of it this way. To be conscious of the world around you is to be alive to it. Based on the conditions of your world, your environment, you make your moment to moment decisions. You are conscious of the world around you and thus you are alive to it…
• Under the law, year after year, sacrifice after sacrifice, what was the constant reminder, the conscious environment to the Jew? The fact that they remained in sin! Why else continually offer sacrifices?! But what did Jesus say as He instituted the communion table, “Do this in remembrance, in consciousness, of Me!” And so in the Law, under the Law…the schoolmaster, the shadow caster, all are made alive to sin…but because of Jesus Christ, all can be made alive to the light…

• No more decisions based on sinful and broken wisdom. Now the light calls out from our very heart of hearts, “This is the way, walk in it…” Our environment no longer dictates our decisions because not we by the enlightened and purified dictation of our decisions, shape our own environments…moving things all the time to bring them into obedience of the Word of God and therefore even losing consciousness to sin! Losing life to sin…which really means > COMING AIVE! This is powerful stuff!

• So what good then is the Levitical system for the Jew? What good then is the Old Testament teachings for the Christian? Very much indeed! We read of the foreshadowing of Jesus Christ and are edified in our faith but not only that, educated in our walks! The laws are no longer our goals, they are now our gain!

Hebrews Chapter 10 Verses 5 – 10

• Father, You don’t want sacrifice and burnt offerings for sin? They don’t do anything for You? No pleasure? You don’t think it good? Then why institute it in the first place? That’s my question, right? I mean I understand why He is not well pleased with the sacrificial system of the Law…it didn’t heal anyone…His children remain sick…so I understand why He would take no pleasure in it but then my question is, why have it at all?

• Simply put. It is all about Jesus. The sacrificial system of the Law was all a promissory note of sorts…not from man to God…a promise to pay for our own sin…but a promise from God to man…that God Himself would pay our sin debt.
• The one-dollar bill in your pocket would be a worthless piece of paper if not for the Government of this nation. Washington D.C. puts its weight behind it, guaranteeing its value. Now suppose you buy a trunk in a yard sale and when you get home to open it you find stacks of one-thousand dollar bills BUT the image on them is Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun! You might get a couple bucks for them on eBay for their antique or nostalgic appeal but the bills wouldn’t be worth a fraction…a shadow…of their original value, why? Because the Confederate Government no longer exists…
• The same is true of the sacrificial system. It once had some weight because it represented the blood of the coming sacrificial Lamb of God…but now that government has imploded…exploded with the ballistic power of the blood of Jesus! (Now the government is upon His shoulders…Isaiah 9) Can you imagine trying to pay for your groceries with Confederate money? You’d be arrested! Why? Because the New Government, the New Covenant is in place and the currency of the old is now not currency at all but has passed away!

Hebrews Chapter 10 Verses 11 – 20

• Stop for just a moment. Think about that! Every other sacrifice, every other work ever done to make one self acceptable to God…whether it be the offering of a sacrifice by a priest under Judaism or it be us trying to turn in a “good day” or “do good” to make ourselves acceptable to God…all of those sacrifices were dead…here’s what I mean…they were killed there on the altar and all of our good works, they are gone aren’t they? They are all in the past…but Jesus is a whole new thing man…He is a LIVING way…THE good work, THE sacrifice and He is utterly set apart because although that is true, this is also true, He lives still!

• So cool because we are told in Luke 20:38 that God is a God of the living, not the dead! So the good works of the past, the future good works even, they ain’t alive right now! The sacrifices of Judaism, they’re dead. God is not pleased. He cannot be the God of the dead! But with Jesus…He is well pleased and through Jesus, Life Himself, God is able to be our God and Father! BOSS thought!
• And did you catch the veil thing? The veil is a picture, a type, a pointer to the body of Christ. The perfect man…it was the perfect man (man must be perfect to be in the presence of God) that stood in the way of the Holy of Holies…and that Perfect Man came and by Him, having our sins washed away, we are made acceptable through Him…and so, the veil split! How? By His body being split! Hebrews just unlocks SO much about the temple for us!

Hebrews Chapter 1 Verses 21 – 22

• Where else are we told to “draw near to God?” That’s right! James Chapter 4…here in these verses we are told precisely how to…with a true heart…not a pure heart, not a clean heart...but a true heart.
• Man we hide behind our circumstances or we hide behind our pasts or we hide behind our rationality and certainly we camp out behind our pride…but God’s desire, Psalm 51 is a broken and a contrite heart…and the secret is…we are all broken…just some refuse to faith (face) that truth.
• Here’s the deal, when we come to Him in truth, we will never be forsaken…All things work together for the good, right? Finish the verse…to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose…
• His desire is for us to have the courage to stop hiding…and to allow humility to build a home in our hearts…and the name of that home is truth.

• How are we to draw near to God? In truth. “I have blown it, I am completely revealed…but I know that what Jesus did is sufficient…” When we get there…then we get here…Verse 22…full assurance of faith.

• That is not that I believe more…that is I see the design man… washing of my understanding happens and now, now that I have submitted to truth…in full assurance…I run to the Father…and as I do, He runs to me!