I’d like to welcome all of you this morning to the last meeting of the youth meeting. You now are young people. I’ve wiped years off some of your lives, and now you get to join in with the young people.
We’ve been having a wonderful time this weekend. The Lord has shared through various brothers and through the fellowship times we had in the groups. It was a wonderful time.
We were singing a few songs—actually, some songs we sang back in Ken’s book, just by way of remembrance. You’re welcome to join us in the songs. Young people, I want you to sing and help the other folks learn these songs.
The first one is our little Irish ditty. This is for Cecilia. She looks so downcast—we have to sing a song.
You ask me how I can walk this way
When things are looking down;
You ask me how I can talk this way
With problems all around.
You ask me how I can sing
When everything is going wrong;
But ever since Jesus came into me,
I’ve been singing a brand-new song.I’m singing a song of victory, redeemed;
I’m singing a song of victory, redeemed, redeemed.
He touched my heart and He captured me;
I live as Jesus lives in me,
And now I can’t help singing of victory.
Now, some of you older brothers didn’t join into the “ba-ba-ba.” Now, Lord, help them become a little younger.
Let’s try that song one more time. You noticed how the women and the men split there in the middle, right? The men sing, “I’m singing a song of victory, redeemed,” and the sisters sing, “My Savior died on Calvary.”
There’s a song that Margaret Barber wrote many years ago. I don’t actually know the original tune; I’ve never heard it. But I saw this in a book, and I started singing it myself, as I often do in my own devotion. The young people learned it this summer.
It is precious. Our brother Stephen shared with us yesterday about the whole burnt offering and keeping it burning. This is a wonderful song about prayer and keeping our hearts before the Lord.
Keep the incense burning
On the altar fire;
Let thy heart’s petition,
Let thy deep desire,
Be a cloud of incense
Breathing God’s own throng,
Till His will among us
Shall be fully done.Keep the incense burning
On the altar fire;
See the flame, Lord Jesus,
Till Thy whole desire
Shall in us, Thy children,
Find expression be;
Breathe through lips anointed
For this ministry.Keep the incense burning,
Though thy faith be real;
Though in words you cannot
All thy longing speak.
Silent heart petition,
Spirit God will hear,
Gloriously answered,
Brought by God for thee.Keep the incense burning;
Oh, let it rise
Till from open heaven
His consuming fire shall fall
And kindle all our hearts to flame,
Making us a glory
To our Savior’s name.
Dear Father, we come to You this morning with such thanksgiving in our hearts, as we have been able to realize more fully than ever how much Your Son has done for us. No wonder He is the apple of Your eye. No wonder He is the desire of Your heart.
And in our hearts, we keep that flame alight—that burning desire, that burden that goes deeper than words, the aching that draws us toward Yourself.
We thank You for all the brothers and sisters who come before Your throne and worship You. Especially, we thank You for these young people visiting from various places. May it be that the distance they traveled is some indication of the hunger in their hearts.
Grant that, as they go back to their various places, they could carry, as it were, the embers of the fire of the Holy Spirit kindled in their hearts and take it back, even setting aflame all the brothers and sisters back home.
Now, Lord, as we attend to a final word and reminder, we pray that Your Holy Spirit will help us be attentive to the Word and worship You by receiving what You would speak to us. Help me as speaker and help us as listeners to receive and to act, to be faithful to Your Word.
You look for those who have kept Your Word and have stood within the word of Your patience, even in this dark hour. We pray that we would be found among those who take the Word with that kind of preciousness.
Lord, by Your Spirit, speak living words. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
We’ve been sharing from the book of Hebrews. I’d like everybody to turn there, please, and we will continue. I trust that the Lord will help those of you who were not here yesterday to be able to enter in and understand, and find your home right in these words.
Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.
He was faithful to Him Who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house.
For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house.
For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.
Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later;
but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.
Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts.”
Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God.
But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us.
Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith,
Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider Him Who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.
You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;
and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons:
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He scourges every son whom He receives.”
It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
“This is the covenant that I will make with them
After those days, says the Lord:
I will put My laws upon their heart,
And on their mind I will write them,”
He then says,
“And their sins and their lawless deeds
I will remember no more.”
Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.
Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,
by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,
and since we have a great Priest over the house of God,
let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He Who promised is faithful;
and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,
not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.
Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
For we know Him Who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge His people.”
It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
We have stated the fact that the book of Hebrews is an exhortation. It is a word from God. Since it is a word from God, we know that it is a two-edged sword. It has great promise and great blessing, yet on the other edge, it has great warning.
Throughout the book, the writer speaks about our so-great salvation. But he warns us, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” He tells us that we have become, by the mercy of Jesus, the house of God—whose house we are if we continue steadfast, firm until the end.
Throughout this book there is an exhortation, this twofold word. It comes to us powerfully by way of encouragement, and it comes to us also powerfully by way of warning.
Brothers and sisters, may the Lord renew our hearts so that when we hear His Word, we receive not only the promises but also the warning. They are just as precious as the promise.
The writer is telling the saints, as they walk in their heavenly calling, that they need to consider Jesus. As we remarked yesterday, in the book of Hebrews the writer has in mind especially that we look at Jesus in His humanity.
Of course, He was divine, the Son of God Who created the world, as he says in Hebrews 1. But in order for us to walk in this new and living way, in this heavenly calling, we need to consider Jesus as the Apostle and the High Priest of our confession—or, as he says in Hebrews 12, as the Author and Perfecter of our faith.
We have tried to make this simple illustration, which does oversimplify a little bit, but makes the point. Jesus is the Author and Perfecter of our faith. He knows how to begin us—He is the Author—and He knows how to bring us to the end—He is the Perfecter.
Yesterday we tried to look at the fact that Jesus, as our Apostle, gets us started in the walk of faith. Jesus, the High Priest, brings us to the fullness and the finish.
I say it is oversimple because the truth of the matter is that it is the Priest at the beginning Who gets us started and also finishes us at the end. It is the Apostle Who gets it started at the beginning and builds His church completely at the end. You see, it is the same Person.
But I tried to make an illustration so we, as young people, can sort of hold on to something. If we want to walk in this heavenly calling, we cannot get instruction from our biology book, nor from our psychology or sociology studies in college. If we are going to learn how to walk in this heavenly calling, we have to get our instructions from the Author—the One Who walked the way.
When Jesus was on earth, He walked in heavenly power upon this earth all the time, with a relationship with heaven. He passed through this world victorious as the first Son of God, Who had been highly exalted. Now He brings many sons unto glory as the Apostle.
For the writer of Hebrews, when he is thinking of an apostle, he is not thinking so much of the New Testament apostles. In fact, he is thinking about Moses and Joshua. They were the Old Testament apostles.
Jesus is an Apostle greater than Moses. Moses led the people out into salvation, out of Egypt, but he could not get them into the promised land. Jesus got us into the promised land.
Jesus is greater than Joshua, because Joshua got them into the promised land, but once they got into the promised land they still did not have rest. As you remember from the book of Judges, they had fighting on every hand because every man did what was right in his own eyes. But when Jesus brings us into the promised land, He brings us into rest.
He does it through His agency as the Apostle: the agency of His precious Word.
Our exhortation yesterday to the young people was this: if we want to live in the good of Jesus’ apostleship as we walk in our heavenly calling, we must be living today where we hear His voice and obey that voice.
In other words, let us bring the Apostle down to where we can see Him. We need to love His Word. We need to study His Word. We need to hear Him speak through His Word.
This is the only way we can live contemporaneously with our Apostle. He is saying, “Today, today.” We need to listen today. “Today, if you hear My voice.” This is how we walk in the heavenly way.
This is our privilege as Christians: to hear the voice of God through His precious Word, breathed upon by the Holy Spirit. What a new and living way we have.
In the second half of the book, there is more emphasis on Jesus the Priest, the Perfecter, the One Who will bring us through. Just as we see Moses bringing the children of Israel through the Red Sea, and Joshua bringing the children to the Jordan, so we have seen Jesus the Apostle saying, “Enter into My rest through the Word.”
Jesus the Apostle not only brings us into the land, but by His Word—which is living and sharper than any two-edged sword—He cuts and separates soul from spirit and brings us into spiritual rest by His precious Word. What an Apostle we have.
But He is also our High Priest. If I can put it this way in earthly terms, the writer goes on at great length to show that Jesus as High Priest is much greater than Aaron.
If you remember, as they went through the Jordan to go into the promised land, it was the high priest who had to put his foot down and lead the way with the ark in front of them.
Now Jesus says, “If we want to walk to the end, if we want to run with endurance the race that is before us, you have to follow Me. I have opened the new and living way by My precious blood.”
It is as if our High Priest walks before us, going before us as the ark of the covenant and sprinkling the way with His precious blood so that we can walk.
It is necessary for us not only to be those who adhere to His Word, but those who understand, know, and live under His precious blood. For the Apostle, we must listen to His Word; and for the High Priest, we must live by His blood. This is the only way we can go forward.
We are to enter into the rest by the Apostle. We are to enter into the Holy of Holies by the High Priest. We are to hear the Word and respond by faith and obedience. For the Priest, we are to know His precious blood and enter with confidence. Let us draw near with confidence.
These Hebrew Christians were Christians, and they knew about Jesus their Savior. But they lacked confidence in continuing to walk in the way because they faced so many dangers.
Because this is a word of exhortation, there are words of warning. It says that it is possible to fall away, as we read in Hebrews 3:12—to fall away from the living God by hardening our hearts to His Word.
In the same way, it is possible, as we read in Hebrews 10, to shrink back. Even as the High Priest bids us come into the holy place, we shrink back. We are warned against that.
We are told in Hebrews 3, regarding the Apostle, that our hearts can become hard. We are told in Hebrews 10, regarding the Priest, that our conscience can become evil.
We are warned in the early part, regarding the Apostle, that we can lose the experience of our rest through disobedience. Then, regarding the Priest, it says that we can find our place in this very dangerous position of willful sinning.
So we have great promise, and we have great warning. Would that a fear of God could grasp our hearts. Our God is One with Whom we have to do, and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, because He is a jealous fire.
Once you have been bought with the price of the blood of the great High Priest, He intends to do everything necessary to hold on to you and me and not let us go. This is a fearful thing to consider. Our God is strong and determined, and we have to deal with such a God.
The writer is writing this to the Hebrews because, in their context, something is going to happen that they do not yet realize. Because they are running into many problems in the short term, they are not looking at the larger picture.
This writer obviously has a prophetic burden to share with these Hebrew Christians that it is time for them to make the total transition, because a great shaking is coming.
In fact, the great shaking for these Hebrew Christians came a few years after this letter was written, when the temple was destroyed in Jerusalem and they no longer had any system of sacrifice.
The writer is passionately warning these Christians that it is time to stand by faith—by the blood of Jesus, and by His blood alone. That was the issue: Is the blood of Jesus enough, or must we also have animal sacrifices?
No. His blood avails for me, and upon this rock I stand. Are you willing to stand by faith in Jesus, Who will lead you through even if He strips you of the Jewish feasts and holidays, the Jewish religious accoutrements and ceremonies?
Do you believe that you are still God’s child even if you are not doing religious things—just hearing a voice and trusting in blood? This is what it gets stripped down to.
He is warning the Christians to beware of religious accoutrements, the things that make us somehow feel secure. They were about to be stripped away from these people.
Before the temple was destroyed, these Christians were under great pressure, under persecution from their families. You can imagine what it would be like being in a Jewish family, and now you are converted and believe Jesus is the Messiah.
They say, “Come up to Jerusalem. The whole family goes to Jerusalem during the feasts and worships and offers. Just be like the family.” There were pressures from family and persecution from people around them because they were Christians.
These pressures and persecutions were working on them. They were wondering, “Is my only confidence in Jesus? Can I rest in Him alone, or do I need some other props? Do I need to compromise a little for the sake of my family or my peace and well-being?”
Some had already lost their homes and lost their jobs. Some had been thrown in jail for their faith. It was a tempestuous time, and they were being tested whether they could follow their Apostle and their High Priest.
Of course, the writer of Hebrews says that we can put our total confidence in the Lamb of God—our High Priest, our Apostle. His salvation is full salvation.
He says, brothers and sisters, our High Priest not only saves us, but saves us to the uttermost, saves us to completion, saves us to perfection. He is enough.
What you need to do in this terrible time, what you need to do in the time of shaking, is draw near to the Priest. Draw near to the Priest. Do not back away from Him in this hour of trial. Draw near to the Priest.
He shows us such a beautiful picture of the effectual priesthood of our Lord Jesus. He begins by showing them that in order for Jesus to be our High Priest, He paid a great price just to come down to earth and be a man. Think about it.
The Son of God was formed in the womb of a woman and became a man.
Every high priest, taken from among men, is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God.
He can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness.
You cannot be a high priest of men if you are not a man.
Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.
A high priest has to have been there to understand what someone on this earth is going through.
For we do not have a High Priest Who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One Who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
He is not One Who cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmity. He knows us. He knows our weak frames. He has been there. He has been through it. He was faithful. He was tempted at all points as we are, yet without sin. That is the difference, and that is why He can be our High Priest.
When He died on the cross, and they placed Him down in the grave, something great happened in the eternal realm. We find from Hebrews 9:11-12 that our Messiah, even the Christ, appeared in heaven in the heavenly tabernacle.
But when Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation;
and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
There He offered His precious, pure blood as a one-time sacrifice for you and me—one time cleansing us, forgiving us of every sin there in the heavenly tabernacle. What a Priest we have.
The priests before had to make a sacrifice every year, and that was a covering. It did not remit, it did not do away, it did not cleanse. But this one sacrifice, once for all, removed our sins far from us and established us in the new covenant.
We are new-covenant people. As we read in Hebrews 10, the result of this great sacrifice is that our sins and lawless deeds He remembers no more.
Jesus was the one offering for sin. There is no need to offer a cow, an ox, a ram, or a lamb when you go down to Jerusalem. There is no need for that, because Jesus offered the one sacrifice as the great High Priest. Now our sins are remembered no more.
After having done that, Hebrews 7:25 says that He was enthroned. After performing this great act of sacrifice and worship, He was enthroned.
Hence, also, He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
For it was fitting that we should have such a High Priest: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens.
He made the one-time sacrifice, and He sits enthroned as our High Priest, having done this perfect work of our salvation by His precious blood. Even there upon the throne, He intercedes for us one by one, by name.
He knows. He intercedes for us. We will one day fall down and worship our High Priest for the things that He has done that we have no knowledge of—the protections He has brought under His precious blood, the roadblocks He has placed in our way by His precious blood.
Oh, what a story we will hear when we find out about His intercession for us all along the way.
Do not think that our perfection is worked out as some kind of mechanical thing. Our perfection is worked out from the moment of our salvation unto our own personal perfection by the personal, hands-on work of a High Priest Who is human and loves us.
It is hands-on, taking us all the way to perfection. Think about it: all the saints all over this world, and somehow Jesus is very hands-on—knowing our names, knowing our conditions, knowing our weaknesses, sending angels here and there, sending help by the Holy Spirit, and sending an encouraging word over here.
What a wonderful High Priest we have. He is not sitting back on the throne rocking. He is busy and working. It is very personal and hands-on.
Do not ever think you are in some kind of mechanical process where you say, “Well, I am going to be completed somehow. I do not know how, but it is kind of like by heavenly gizmos.” No—by a heavenly Priest Who now waits for us, we will know this full salvation.
Hebrews 10:22 says:
Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Salvation affects people in different ways. We become aware of different things.
For me, the joy of my life is that when I was twenty years old, I asked Jesus into my life and asked Him to cleanse me of my sins. A whole load of sin was cleansed out of my conscience.
For the first time in my life, at twenty years old, I had a good time. I was clean. I did not feel ashamed. I did not feel guilty. It was a marvelous work, to be sure.
At that time, I was far from perfect. Of course, you can see I am now! But I was far from perfect back then.
Still, He cleansed my conscience, and I felt that I could talk to Him and He would talk to me. Oh, what a wonderful day that was.
Now it is this High Priest Who tells us to draw near with confidence to His throne, to live in this place under the blood. If we want to live in the “today” of His salvation work, we must listen to His Word and not turn away from it, and we must always draw near and not shrink back.
Every brother and sister is tested on this point of salvation—every brother and sister. Especially as a teenager, many times you are tempted and tested to wonder about these kinds of things.
You saw the great warning we read at the end of Hebrews 10. I do not even want to read it again; I do not want to scare you anymore. But the Word of God is true.
Basically, it says, brothers and sisters and dear young people, you have only two ways to go: you either live under His blood, or you walk out from under it.
Just outside that rim of His blood and the protection of His blood, in your experience, when you have been bought by His precious blood, you cannot leave the vicinity in your position, but in your experience you can know that which is outside.
We live in grace so much that we take most of it for granted, and we presume upon these blessings that we own.
It says in Hebrews 10:26 that if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment.
It is possible for a Christian who is truly born again, truly bought by His precious blood, to turn away from the Lord and rebel in such a way that they come under a sense of condemnation. Suddenly they begin to say, “I do not think I am a Christian. I do not think I am forgiven. I do not think God loves me. I feel condemned.”
That is not the provision for a Christian. That is a place a person can find themselves, and it is a dreadful place. How would you like to live every day thinking that at any moment God is going to drop the other foot? This is no way to live.
Better that we live under the blood. Let us make no mistake about this. Do not be confused: if you live under His precious blood, you can still be dealt with by the Holy Spirit.
We read this passage on discipline. He still disciplines us under His precious blood. He still strives with us. You may still sin, but if you are under the blood, you come back and confess. You come back and let Him deal with you. You ask forgiveness, and you cry at night because of the things you do—but you are under the blood, under His protection, and under His care.
How much this High Priest loves you. But you need to stay there. Do not walk out and start sinning willfully. Do not shrink so far back.
If you do, you must realize that the Holy Spirit has to protect the Son of God. If you have been saved and yet you throw His name on the ground, start cursing in His name, make small the precious blood that washed you, cleansed you, and saved you—if you despise it and insult the Holy Spirit—there will surely have to be some discipline in your life to bring you back to Himself.
How we need to know this loving High Priest. He is jealous for every one of us, jealous with a godly, loving jealousy. Every one of us will be dealt with and go on to perfection.
This is the trouble: we get saved and know His precious blood forgiving us of all sins, but how do we go on and keep going on? We need endurance. We need the discipline that leads to endurance.
We need not have naïve ideas, but realize that the Lord will struggle and strive with us in some way, bringing us unto perfection for the rest of our lives. But that does not mean we are outside of the camp.
He loves us, and when He disciplines us, He disciplines us as sons. What a wonderful thing. May one day we have our minds so renewed that we look on discipline as a wonderful thing. It is His way of growing us up, bringing us unto perfection.
But, oh, listen: we are not ignorant of the enemy and his ways. Especially for young people, I have seen so many young people just give up.
The enemy is our accuser. He accuses us night and day and wants to bring condemnation into your life. He says, “You will never make it.”
Some young people were sitting here yesterday while our brother Stephen was sharing about what we should do daily as a sacrifice to God. We should worship Him, pray to Him, read the Bible, offer sacrifice, and consecrate our lives.
By the time he got through, the devil was already knocking on some young people’s door, saying, “I can never do that. I just cannot come to that. Brother Stephen is an exceptional person. He is a strange dude, but a human cannot do this. There is no way I can do this.”
Some young people, the devil came in and spoke to you and said, “You can never make it. You can never make it. You can never be that way.” Condemnation starts coming in.
Are you willing to stand in confidence under the blood?
The problem comes when we know our imperfection. Do not think these Hebrew Christians were somehow unaware of their imperfection. They sensed their compromise. They sensed the struggle in their hearts.
“My family pulls me this way. The world pulls me down. What do I do?” They sensed that struggle. They knew they were not perfect. They knew they were still sinners. So they thought, “I should stay away from the throne. I do not think the Savior has a provision for me.”
Yet through it all, we hear this loving Priest saying, “Would you come unto Me? Do you not know I was a human too? Do you not know I am your best friend?”
“Do you know I have been interceding for you, waiting patiently for you to come back to the throne, to find some grace and some mercy to help? That is all I will give you if you bow down here at the throne. I will discipline you. I will keep you. I will protect you. I want to help you. Will you not come?”
There are probably a few young people who were here this weekend who, through the whole thing, felt outside—afraid to draw near because you think you are not worthy. You think you are not disciplined enough. You think you are too distracted by the world.
I will tell you there is only one place for such a one, and that is to fall down before Jesus, the High Priest, and say, “Old Friend of mine, You must capture and help my soul. It is wrestling in the night, but I come unto You. It is the only place I can come. I draw unto You, the High Priest.”
Even if the Lord is dealing with you regarding sin, do not stay away. Go to Him. Let Him deal with you. Wrestle with Him. Talk to Him. Pray.
He has the power to deliver by His precious blood. Do you believe in the power of His precious blood?
Under His precious blood there is the working and delivering of the Holy Spirit, His sanctifying work. There is the cleansing of the water of the Word. Under that precious blood, there is protection from the enemy and all his lies and assaults.
Under that precious blood, there is so much provision for sanctification. But you need to be there. The devil just wants to keep you outside.
Some of you have been outsiders all this weekend. But I tell you in the name of Jesus, if you have been bought by His precious blood, you have just as much right to be in here as anybody else in this room. We are all bought by that same precious blood.
Come and draw near to His throne of grace and find what you need to get on through. It is the only way we are going to make it.
Brother Alan shared his precious testimony with us last night. While he was sharing his testimony, I saw sort of a picture. I saw the love of Jesus—the great Fisherman.
I thought Jesus was a great Fisherman, casting His line out and throwing the bait right out there to where that little fish, Alan, when he was just a little boy, saw the love of Jesus and snagged that line.
How the Lord reeled him in, let him play freely, skipping on the water with the other saints, then drawing him in. Sometimes, in the drawing, there was resistance; yet He was playing and drawing, keeping him there on the line.
He told us about that dreadful time when he went through a year and a half of rebellion. He went that way; some other school drove him off that way, and the Lord had to release the reel—but He still had him on the line.
The Lord does not let go of His own. He drew him back in, drew him back in. Finally, Alan realized one day that that was where he wanted to be: in the boat.
That is what happens to you and me. Of course, we struggle and fight. We think, “I am so unholy. He is so holy. I can never make it.” He has got His line of love, and He will bring you to perfection if you will come under the precious blood.
We start out by the Word. Sometimes we start out by faith, stepping through that Jordan.
What do you think was scarier for the high priest: to take the first step down into the Jordan when it was all wet and full of water, or going into the Holy of Holies? Which was scarier? I would not want to choose. I bet you both times he had to take nitroglycerin tablets.
Yet he stepped down in that water, and the way opened up. The Apostle was right there, and they went through their Jordan.
But we are bid to come into the Holy of Holies. Brothers and sisters, the Lord does more sanctifying work and more delivering work in our lives than we will ever understand. Sometimes, just in His presence, things drop off us. It is an amazing miracle of His priesthood.
We will never understand all the intercessory equipment that our Lord uses upon us, including our friends and our parents. Thank God for all His godly provisions.
They keep our hearts from going hard. When we are tempted to shrink away and when we forsake the assembling of ourselves together, feeling sure, “I am disqualified. There is no reason for me to come in. I cannot even take the table,” some friends come along and say, “Do not forsake.”
The practical application of walking with Jesus under His precious blood is this: stay in the assembly. Stay with those people. Let this table be before you. If it is a conviction, let it be before you. Do not leave the table. Do not leave this provision. Do not leave the assembly.
Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. There comes a point where you realize that the Lord even heals the rebel who sits outside and does not partake but sees the table.
This is our practical provision: we have one another.
The Lord knows all of us are sinners here. If there is any young person under this delusion, make no mistake about it: everybody here has been bought by the precious blood.
You have as much right to take that table as anybody sitting in the front row or in the back, because you have been bought by His precious blood. There is nothing more precious to the Priest than your soul. He knows you by name—every one.
He prays for you.
Thank God when we have manifestations of that kind of love. Brothers and sisters, pray for young people.
Many of you were saved and had no idea how many people were praying for you. What a wonderful thing to live in the house of God. Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together.
Do not forsake the only thing that can save your soul, keep you alive, keep you convicted, and keep you in the light. Thank God when there is a brother who comes along and provokes you to love and good works.
This is the living way we have to walk in. If you are convicted, if you feel like you are a sinner and you are on the outside, then come here. Be convicted until the Lord can deal with your soul. We have a great High Priest in the house of God.
So He says, “Draw near with confidence.” Remember the good of this new covenant: two things. You will know Me. People will not have to tell you; you will know Me. The anointing of the Holy Spirit inside will speak to you about Who I am.
And your sins will be remembered no more.
Do you really think that the blood cannot cover your sin? I tell you, your sins are remembered no more. But we draw unto Jesus.
Here is the exhortation: live in the good of this. Be a student of His Word. Just as you say you love Jesus, so you should love His Word.
I wrote a little question there, a little discussion thing: if Jesus were here, would you come talk to Him? Sure, everybody said, “Oh, yeah, yeah, I would come to Him.”
Well, now, how about if He started sharing warnings? If, when you came around Him, you sensed conviction and sensed how imperfect you were in contrast to Him, would you come around Him then?
“Oh, yeah, yeah,” we all say that. Yeah, right. I wonder how long we would stay. He is a little truthful. He is a little strong. His life emanates something that makes us realize who we are.
Yet He did not tell His disciples, “Get out of here.” He said, “Stay right here.”
He says to us, “It is My precious Word.” If we love Jesus, then let us hold to His Word.
If we want to be perfected by that great High Priest, I recommend nothing other than His precious blood as our way into this place of communion, this place of fellowship.
It is a new and living way, and it is in the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies is a scary place. But with His presence there, as your eyes become acclimated to His glory, what a precious place to be—in His presence.
My brothers and sisters, I want us to have a prayer for a moment. I want us to pray especially if there are any young people here who need to be right in the middle but are still standing on the outside. Let us pray.
How precious is Your blood. How precious is Your love. How great is Your salvation. How wondrous Your provision.
Would You give us eyes to see in such a way that we would be lured toward the boat, that we would allow You to catch us in the net of Your love and perfect us?
Oh, Lord, I thank You for disciplining us with a sense of conviction, a sense of our imperfection, even a sense of our sinfulness, and a sense of how far we have to go.
But, oh Lord, we know that all we need to do is turn, and there You are—Your throne of grace right there. You have been waiting, waiting for us to turn from the world and turn to You, waiting for us to turn from ourselves and turn to You, waiting for us to turn from our own sense of inadequacy to Your great redemption.
I pray for the brother and the sister who feels outside. Maybe they are very undisciplined. Maybe they are very lazy. Maybe they are very tempted by the world, but they belong to You.
Oh, Jesus, win their hearts by Your mighty wooing. Let the Spirit break their heart with Your mercy and love.
Help us come to Thee, Lord. Help those smoking reeds find the fire of Thy love.
There is no one here You desire to snuff out, but You would have every weak one and every strong one own the name of Jesus and live in the good of Your precious blood.
Draw them in, Lord. Take those young guys who have a rebellious streak in them, and, oh Lord, help them draw to the throne to find the help they need.
Take those young girls, so tempted by all the fancy of this world, and help them to see that their real value is in the Lord Jesus.
Oh, break their hearts, Lord. Let them know they have a home, that they will never be sent away.
Maybe some others could pray.