“Sometimes it’s hard to get up isn’t it?” My first words to Madison on Friday morning…, “But it’s better to be awake than to be asleep…”

Hebrews Chapter 9 Verses 11 – 12

• This thought, this scene is so intensely heavenly it’s almost hard to grasp. Jesus, the forever High Priest, the real one…entered into the heavenly temple with an offering for sin…He went into the Holy Place in heaven; in other words the very presence of the Father, and made His offering…and yet His offering, was His own blood. He was and is both the High Priest and the sacrifice. Which means, in the grand scheme of things, He is everything.
• And so He takes the blood of the Lamb, (Himself), and it is sufficient not to cover sin, but to pay for it…That’s what that word redemption means there at the end of verse 12. It’s a legal term. Lytrosis which comes from the root word, (one of my favorite Greek words of all time), lytroo…which means to be released at the receipt of full payment! Jesus Christ is the full payment for your sin and for mine…the writer puts it this way, “once for all.”
• So you and I, broken and fallen and sinful…because of Jesus, free to go…It almost sounds “too good to be true,” but man THIS IS THE GOSPEL! The GREAT news! Did you know that there is a “Too Good To Be True Product Hall of Fame?” The Reebok EasyTone shoes. Promised to firm your hind parts…Reebok was order to refund $25M to consumers!
• Dr. Clark’s Zapper. This wrist-worn contraption looked like a mutli-meter and promised to kill disease-causing parasites in the body…
• The ET Atari Game! Developed and delivered to market in 5 weeks! Just in time for Christmas! And it was HORRIBLE! Millions of copies…dumped in a landfill! HA! The gospel too, may sound sooooo good but man here’s the good news! It’s real! In fact it’s the only thing feasible, rational, it’s the only answer for sin that makes any sense at all if you really think about it!!
• Lytroo. Again it’s a legal term. Literally you have appeared before the judge, the charges have been read, the sentence has been pronounced and yet the penalty has been paid in full by whom? You! NO you’re already pronounced guilty, bankrupt, unable to pay! By the one who is able!

Hebrews Chapter 9 Verses 13 – 14

• This is such a cool thought and point. Satan, according to Revelation 12:10, accuses us day and night, always telling us that we’ve blown it…always working to discourage and confuse us and even intimidate and depress us by never getting off his soap box about how unworthy we are…but in Jesus, a full understanding of the Gospel, we can stare Lucifer right in the eyes and say “duh! Still I will serve the Most High God in spirit and in truth!”

• Why? Because when you consider, accept and breathe in the truth that Jesus has done it all, and it is because of Him I am clean, because of Him I am called holy and righteous…not because of me…then I don’t go around carrying the baggage of a guilty conscience! I accept Jesus as Lord and Savior and in that, says right here, my conscience…cleansed!
• Satan points out all the bad stuff about me and my reply is, “You don’t know the extent of my putrescence! You aren’t behind my eyes! But I know my Redeemer lives and you reminding me of these things only makes me all the more amazed at Jesus for what He has done on my behalf!” Talk about, “Get behind me Satan!” YES!
• You see when the people brought a lamb to the High Priest for sacrifice, what was the first job of the temple staff? To inspect the person for spot or blemish? NO! No point in that! But to inspect the lamb! You see we approach God, we commune with God, we have a clear conscience even before a holy and a just eternal judge not because we are without spot and blemish but because He is…and through the cross, offering Himself as our perfect sin sacrifice, He has imputed that righteousness to us…
• Now real quick, this ain’t a sin meal ticket…what’s said here is that our conscience is cleansed from dead works…not alive works…if your conscience is all busted because you are currently in sin understand…you are not released from until you repent…the discussion here is about first the fallen nature of sin and second sin that is in our past…the point is that we should not carry guilt because it defiles our conscience and kills our confidence towards God…and so the cure, available to us because of Jesus, repentance…turn from it…and find this surge of strength through purity! Make sense?

Hebrews Chapter 9 Verse 15

• Awesome permanent, rock solid words there…redemption, promise, inheritance…how do we get at it? Earn it? Pay for it? Figure it out? Attain to it? Work to it? Simply says here…receive it…

• And this word for redemption is different than before! This completes the thought! The first was lytrosis…pronounced guilty and yet the penalty is fully paid…and now this word, apolytrosis, (which puts a wrapper around the same root word), and it means released and even implies fleeing!
• So the complete thought of verses 12 and 15 together are that we have been ransomed by the sufficient blood of Jesus out of sin, “having obtained eternal redemption,” as it says there in verse 12 and so we are free to run out of the court room! Escape unscathed as it were from the power of sin! I love this because to me this is a scene man…a court room scene where one condemned learns of their freedom and just slaps the bailiff’s hands off of them and flees the courthouse!
• That is what Jesus has accomplished for you and for me!

Hebrews Chapter 9 Verses 16 – 17

• It’s a pretty neat thought and admittedly I don’t have it all worked out yet myself but check this out…when one writes a will, a last and final testament, that will doesn’t get cracked, read and administered until when? Until the person dies, right? How odd it would be to distribute someone’s estate according to their final will while they yet lived…HA!
• Well the testament of Jesus was and is the New Covenant. The promise of eternal inheritance was and is freedom from our fallen state, liberation from sin like we just talked about…and so here’s the thought. The testament or will does not take effect or come into force until the will maker dies…yet Jesus had, has, was and is…eternal life. Eternal life doesn’t die.   Right? But in order to impute this inheritance to us…in order to execute His will and testament…He had to somehow die!
• To transfer His eternal possession to His children legally and fully which He willed it to us…it was and is His testament to anyone who would receive it…the eternal life that pumped in His very veins…the point being made here is that it was by His free will offering death that that eternal life was inherited by His children…my mind hurts…could it be that we have only scratched the surface in this realm as to what Jesus actually did for us? WOW

Hebrews Chapter 9 Verses 18 – 28

• So think about it. If it is appointed for men to die once but after this the judgment…and yet Jesus bore our sins…then what is the judgment? For sin? One could say…yet the most correct answer would be for what we’ve done with Jesus Christ…this is why the writer here uses the word…, “many,” and not, “all.” Because many will come to Him and through Him many will be saved …but many will not…that is the final judgment…where are you at in that?

During the early days of the Salvation Army, William Booth and his associates were bitterly attacked in the press by religious leaders and government leaders alike. Whenever his son, Bramwell, showed Booth a newspaper attack, the General would reply, "Bramwell, fifty years heace it will matter very little indeed how these people treated us; it will matter a great deal how we dealt with the work of God." 

I love what Andrew Murray once said…which is right in line with our study as we finish up today…God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him…

“Sometimes it’s hard to get up isn’t it? But it’s better to be awake than to be asleep…”