Sermon Cloud

The Time of Reformation 3

Hebrews 9:27-28

Grace Fellowship Church

March 9, 2008

Series 3 Sermon 37

²⁷ And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, ²⁸ so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Introduction

They tell us there are few certainties or sure things in life. Two of them we all are aware of. They are: death and taxes. So I decided to do a little research and see if I could find if people thought there were other certainties in life. I did find a few that I found slightly amusing. Let me share those with you. First there was the certainty of not so bright people hurting themselves followed by the headline “Teenage boy accidentally set himself on fire.” Here is the story. He was stealing gas from a fire truck and got gas on his pants. He then used a cigarette lighter to find out how wet his pants were from the gas.

Another person wrote and our wives will agree with this wholeheartedly I am sure that among the other two certainties of life, death and taxes, the third certainty is laundry. Others said that among life’s certainties was leaf blowing, grass mowing, and your air conditioner choosing the hottest day of the summer to break down. Anything man made is certain to break at some point and will normally choose the most inopportune time to do so.

Speaking on the certainties of life:

It is the last day of the spring semester, and the seniors in the law school are attending their final lecture. "I have just one last thing to tell you," the professor says. "When you are lawyers, remember: You will win some cases and you will lose some cases, but you will most certainly charge for all of them."

We can think of personal certainties about what we do on a daily basis. You wives and moms know that cooking and cleaning is going to be a certainty. You kids know that school work is a certainty. You men know that work and problems are waiting for you the minute you clock in to your job. There is a routine and there is certainty when you start your day that certain things are going to have to be done.

But one thing that life brings us that we are not so comfortable with is change. We are single and then we get married and with that comes change. Children are born and they bring lots of change. They start walking and talking which brings about mountains of change in how you do things. Have you been in a restaurant and there is a couple there with a new baby? The baby begins to cry and the new mom and dad immediately get nervous and begin to sweat because this new baby has created all kinds of change. The truth of human nature is that we prefer the certainties. Change makes us uncomfortable.

The lives of the original readers of this letter to the Hebrews that we have been studying seemed to be in constant flux. There was persecution and probably more to come. They were not just worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ who was now their savior but they also had the task of defending this new faith against the attack of those still in the bondage of Old Testament Judaism.

Have you ever debated someone on a theological issue? What about that friend or family member who disagrees with you whole heartedly over a biblical issue? You know how stressful that can be. Imagine having to defend your faith against the onslaught of someone who now hates you and knows that if you do not turn back to their way they can have you killed or your property seized or you thrown into prison.

This life was not easy for these first believers. We have the privilege of worshipping in freedom while most of these early Christians were often forced to worship in secret. We have a voice in our day, a voice that is rapidly weakening, but a voice to claim our rights as American citizens to worship freely.

The Lord has blessed us in many ways in our day to have that privilege but He could also take it away from us in just a matter of moments. All of a sudden it could become illegal to be a Bible believing Christian. We would have to begin to meet in secret. Some of us would lose our jobs because our bosses already know we are Christians. No job, no house payments and we would lose our homes and many of the other conveniences we have. Imagine if the government raided your bank account and your retirement funds just because you are a Christian. You go from comfortable to poverty in a matter of minutes. You have no recourse and now it is a struggle just to have bread for the day. We have all felt the financial sting of higher gas prices and food prices but imagine not having that gas and grocery budget to stretch?

Life would not be quite as good as it is now. All of a sudden the thought of eternal salvation seems much more inviting. I don’t know about you but I do know about me and I do not think about Heaven very often. Even at its most difficult, life here is often too good to even think that Heaven will be better. We live lives of fullness and meaning and these are gifts from God. But there is a serious lack of a longing for Heaven in our lives as believers. Sure, when the occasional trial comes along we think of Heaven or if a loved one dies. We might think of Heaven if the doctor told us we have a few days or a few weeks or even a few months to live.

Which is probably why our passage of Scripture that we are going to look at this morning is so often snatched out of context by well meaning evangelists and preachers to remind people that death and judgment are two of life’s certainties. Look at verse 27.

²⁷ And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

It is true that this passage is guaranteeing at least a couple of things. It is guaranteeing the decree from Genesis that death is going to overcome the fallen human race and that we must give an accounting to God at death. However, many would preach this passage as if it is aimed at unbelievers when in fact it is written to believers in a time of intense persecution as a reminder that this life is not all there is. There is a glorious promise in these two verses that the writer of Hebrews guarantees for some very special people.

Who are these people? What is this promise? How can we know for sure that this indeed will come to pass? What is the proof of it?

PNP

Over the last couple of weeks we have been looking at ten accomplishments of the once for all sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ from Hebrews chapter 9 and 10.

Context

Two weeks ago we saw from Hebrews 9:11-14 that Christ, as the New Covenant great High Priest, through His death had accomplished and secured some very important realities that the Old Covenant could merely be a picture of. Do you remember what they were?

1. Christ’s sacrifice accomplished eternal redemption.

2. Christ’s sacrifice accomplished purification of our conscience.

Then last week we saw three more accomplishments of the once for all sacrifice the Lord Jesus Christ.

3. Christ’s sacrifice accomplished the promise of our eternal inheritance. (15-17)
4. Christ’s sacrifice accomplished the promise of immediate access to God. (18-24)

5. Christ’s sacrifice accomplished the promise of putting away of sin. (25-26)

Today I want you to see the sixth accomplishment of the once for all sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.

6. Christ’s sacrifice accomplished salvation from this present sinful world.

Purpose

My purpose in preaching this section of Hebrews is to show you what the writer says about the accomplishments of Christ as the priest and mediator of this New Covenant with the hopes that you will walk in freedom and joy in your salvation in Christ. And that you will be able, by looking to Christ, endure the hardships, struggles, temptations, and persecutions that come with living as an enemy of the world.

RPNP

So look with me at the sixth accomplishment of the once for all sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.

6. Christ’s sacrifice accomplished salvation from this present sinful world.

Look with me at verses 27-28.

²⁷ And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, ²⁸ so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

The writer of Hebrews has done a masterful job at showing these first readers and us of the glory and majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ as the superior prophet and the Great High Priest of this New Covenant. He has skillfully used the Old Testament to show that the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed the messiah and savior and that we must hold fast our confession in Him until the end. We have been warned of the spiritual danger of falling away and heading back to the old ways because it may be easier and more comfortable. In Chapter 9 the writer has shown how the Old Covenant system was destined to be replaced with the new and that those who are in the New Covenant have some wonderful promises and privileges.

We have been given eternal redemption, the purification of our sinful conscience in order to serve the living God, we have had our eternal inheritance secured, given immediate and full access to God through our Great High Priest, and our sin past, present, and future has been put away or annulled by the one time sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.

All of these are wonderful promises. We rejoice in the grace that God has bestowed and lavished upon us in the beloved. But let me ask you this: have you personally ever had a semi-Job experience in your life? Have you ever suffered in a way where you looked toward Heaven and asked, “God will you deliver me from this mess?” Or even said, “Lord where are you in this situation?”

Have you ever cried out with the Psalmist as he did in Psalm 6:3-5….

^“3 And my soul is greatly dismayed; But You, O LORD—how long? ⁴ Return, O LORD, rescue my soul; Save me because of Your lovingkindness. ⁵ For there is no mention of You in death; In Sheol who will give You thanks?”

When we are not crying out like that it is because God has been so gracious to us we feel no need to be delivered. But the day will come.

Suffering is a part of the Christian life. Paul told the Philippians in chapter 1:29 of that Epistle, “For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake…”

But no matter how spiritual you are, no matter how mature you are in the faith, suffering is never fun. It is painful. The realities of suffering when they come your way will often cause you to wonder if the Lord who has saved you actually truly cares about you. The normal New Testament pattern for suffering is outward suffering brought on by people and spiritual enemies who oppose you because of your faith in Christ. But that is not the only suffering that we are called to.

What about illnesses? Suffering from physical ailments may cause you to question whether or not the Lord cares about you now. Sure the future is bright and Heaven is glorious but if your body is ravaged with pain what about relief from that?

What about the constant struggle and suffering from your Christian duty of killing your own sinful flesh and walking in the Spirit? That is often very painful and stress filled as you grow in grace and learn more of what it means to walk in a way worthy of the One who called us into the Kingdom of His Son. The Lord God has many elect children and one only begotten, yet he has no children who have not, are not, or will not suffer. Whether it is persecution, disease, or the killing or mortifying of the flesh; if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you are going to suffer. That is the biblical truth.

Everything that you experience here serves God’s manifold purpose of conforming you and I to the image of Christ.

Paul told Timothy in I Timothy 3:12, “¹² Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

So when we are under attack and the battle is waging and we are losing our grip and the enemy seems to be winning every round, what hope can be offered to us now? Eternal redemption is a wonderful truth but if you are like me and probably most Christians you can’t see much further than the length of your arm spiritually speaking. If we get sick and are in severe pain we go get help don’t we? “Well Maude I think my leg is broken, I can see the bone. I think I will wait and see if the pain goes away on it’s on.” No you head to the ER and hope for a shot of pain killer immediately.

The writer of Hebrews in chapter 9 verses 27 and 28 lays out for us our hope in the midst of suffering. He bases the security of that hope on two unchangeable facts. Look at verse 27 again.

²⁷ And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

The first unchangeable fact is that as human beings, from the oldest to the youngest of us, we all have an appointment with death. This is the decree of the Lord because of sin entering the human race. The decree is found in Genesis 3:17-19. Listen as I read.

¹⁷ Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. ¹⁸ "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; ¹⁹ By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."

This is one of the things that none of us can get away from. Dr. Bellamy works very hard to prolong the inevitable but he has lost patients and will continue to lose them until he dies himself. We all have an appointment with death. And those of us over 25 understand that as we have watched the years fly by already our remaining years will move much faster until we take our last breath.

I will be 35 next month. If the Lord allows me to live to 70 years old, the day after my birthday I am on the downhill slope moving at breakneck speed toward my appointment. Whether you realize it or not, so are you.

The next guarantee is that of judgment. Look at verse 27 again.

²⁷ And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

Judgment is a very common theme in Scripture. It was also the message of the early church in evangelism. Paul appealed to Felix in Acts 24:25 this way.

²⁵ But as he was discussing righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix became frightened and said, "Go away for the present, and when I find time I will summon you."

What frightened him? Righteousness? No, he could have invented his own moral standard. Self control? Absolutely not. He was in charge. Self control was at his own discretion. What frightened was knowing that he would be judged by a standard that he could not invent.

In his sermon on Mars Hill Paul used the theme of coming judgment. This is Acts 17:30-32.

³⁰ "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,(repent! Why?) ³¹ because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."
³² Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, "We shall hear you again concerning this."

Notice the crowd did not sneer because Paul mentioned judgment. It was the finality of death that caused them to sneer. The idea that one was raised from the dead caused them to question Paul’s message. Firmly within probably all of them was the notion that all are judged after death. They may differ on who does the judging but most realized judgment cometh.

One of the greatest and grandest lies of Satan in our day is that some people believe that there is no judgment after death. That when you close your eyes in death that is the end. But it’s not. Many atheists have closed their eyes in death only to open them as full theists in eternity being judged for their deeds. There is no such thing as a dead atheist. The minute they day they change their mind completely.

These two established facts of death and judgment will also serve to establish the fact that the writer is pointing us toward. That fact is in verse 28. Look at it with me.

²⁸ so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

I want you to remember the verb in verse 27. It is the verb appointed. Most just take it to have to do with the fact that we are appointed to death and that we are appointed to judgment after that death. But because Christ came as the offering that would pay the sin debt of many, as verse 28 says, He is now also appointed to do something else. What is that something else? Look at verse 28 again.

²⁸ so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time,

This is speaking particularly of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the coming which will be the fulfillment of ultimate salvation.

Folks, I want you to see the picture that has been painted for us by the writer of Hebrews. What these first century believers would have been familiar with is the tabernacle and sacrificial imagery the writer is employing. It is told by an ancient Hebrew historian how there was great expectation on the Day of Atonement when the High Priest would offer the blood on the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies where he was allowed to go once per year. He would go in with fear and trembling into the presence of God with a basin of goat blood and a hyssop branch to sprinkle the blood. If God accepted the sacrifice then he would be able to walk out of the Holy of Holies. The people of the Old Covenant would wait prayerfully and expectantly as the High Priest fulfilled his duty. The curtain would open and the High Priest would appear and the people would know that the sacrifice had been accepted.

When Christ died on the cross, He entered the Holy of Holies in Heaven where His own blood has been sprinkled on the mercy seat and we know that the Lord has accepted that sacrifice because Christ emerged from the tomb where the curtain was a stone. At His first appearance there were none expectantly waiting. But at His second coming there will be those who are.

In the rest of verse 28 we learn what Christ is not coming the second time to do and what He is going to do. Look at the rest of verse 28.

²⁸ so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin

The reason is because He has already once and for all dealt with sin. He has put it away for all those in the New Covenant. We already have eternal redemption and a purified conscience. What is it that we need now? What is it that we need when the weight of sin, trial, and persecution is coming down on us? Look at the rest of verse 28.

²⁸ so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save…

So often we think of the word “save” to simply refer to eternal salvation. But here in the mind of the writer was both the promise of eternal and temporal salvation. The word save, “so-tarian” in the Greek, also means deliverance, rescue, and salvation. Just like the English equivalent, “so-tarian” can mean saving in different degrees. There is rescue from eternal judgment in this salvation that is coming. There is consummation of eternal uniting with God at this coming salvation as well.

But in our context there is the idea of rescue from this present evil world. There is the salvation provided by God from the suffering of this age be it temporary or permanent and by the way, the only way you get permanent salvation is for the Lord to take you to Heaven. Everything else is temporary. One trial may be relieved while the next one is on its way. But whether we have temporary relief or permanent relief either way we are commanded to persevere as believers.

There were some churches in the New Testament that desperately wanted the Lord Jesus to return. To the church at Smyrna that was enduring persecution the Lord Jesus said in Revelation 2:9-10.

⁹ 'I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. ¹⁰ 'Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.

To the church in Pergamum that was enduring theological persecution the Lord Jesus said in Revelation 2:13-17.

¹³ 'I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is; and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. ¹⁴ 'But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality. ¹⁵ 'So you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. ¹⁶ 'Therefore repent; or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth. ¹⁷ 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.'

To the faithful church at Philadelphia the Lord Jesus said in Revelation 3:10-12:

¹⁰ 'Because you have kept the word of My perseverance , I also will keep you from the hour of testing , that hour which is about to come upon the whole world , to test those who dwell on the earth. ¹¹ 'I am coming quickly; hold fast what you have, so that no one will take your crown. ¹²

In other words, God sovereignly chooses how we are going to be delivered. What is obvious from these passages is that some will be kept through great difficulty and some are kept from great difficulty. And this is not necessarily contingent upon faithfulness. Both Smyrna and Philadelphia were faithful churches and yet the Lord allowed one to endure intense persecution while the other was kept from the trial that was coming on the whole world.

The point is, either way, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, whether we suffer a little or a lot, our hope is always in the salvation that only Christ can give.

Now this is why the writer gets very specific in verse 28. Christ is returning not to save everyone but to save His elect who have been given a very specific spiritual quality. Look at the rest of verse 28.

…to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

“Christ is thus the Consummator. The consummation has already begun secretly in the adoption of Christians in faith. It will reach its climax with the public manifestation of the sonship of Christians when the creation, too, will move from the corruptible form of expectation to the incorruptible form of consummation. This will take place at the return of Jesus Christ…”^[1]

Because we are believers we are eagerly awaiting the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ who will rescue us. This will be the completion or the consummation of the New Covenant in Christ.

There is a big difference between us and the unbelieving world. They wait for death and the coming judgment. Life may be good for them now but in the very near future death and eternal judgment waits for them.

But for us…. We have something much better. We have something to look forward to. And listen to Philippians 3:20-21 to find out what that is.

²⁰ For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; ²¹ who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

So whether the Lord allows us to suffer a little or a lot like the first readers of this letter, we look forward eagerly with expectation for the appearing of our Lord and Savior who is mighty to save, who has and will save us to the uttermost.

And because we are going to receive this promised salvation we can run the race of faith with endurance. Let me close with reading Hebrews 10:36-39.

³⁶ For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. ³⁷ For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; ³⁸but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” ³⁹ But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

Let’s pray.