Sermon Cloud

Probably most of you have dramatically changed theologically over your Christian life. When you first became a believer you had certain things that you thought you had your mind wrapped around that you later realized you did not. Maybe in your Christian life you have had to struggle through some theological issues and it has greatly affected your life. Maybe it was coming to understand the doctrines of grace that caused this tension in your life or even the conviction that the way church is done in 21^st century America may not be the way God told us how to do it in His Word. So you developed this uncomfortable, uneasy feeling about things and you may not have even understood why you felt the way you did. Then the Lord begins to deal with you and starts to show you from His Word the truth and you absolutely can not stay where you are.

But what you soon discovered is that it is extremely hard to break old habits, especially religious ones. We all look up to the people that led us to Christ and helped disciple us early on even when we realize their intentions were good but their theology was not correct. So to do something different is almost like we are disrespecting them or at least we feel that way. And often times we find that going against the grain is extremely difficult.

But did you know that many people never change their patterns of religious thought? What they were brought up in is what they tend to stay in as an adult right, wrong, or apostate. They are convinced without thinking it through that what they are doing is indeed the right thing to do and they shall not be, they shall not be moved.

Those of you here this morning know what I am talking about. God has shown you through a series of events and realizations in your life that what you previously did religiously was not the right thing otherwise you probably would not be here this morning. Many of us come from different religious backgrounds whether it be Methodist, Baptist, Charismatic, Presbyterian, or even agnostic or atheist. But having had conversation about this with most of you I know that many of your early theology has changed dramatically over the years. And this has been difficult at times. I know that my theology has changed dramatically over the last eleven years. And so I understand the difficulty that can come with no longer holding in common certain theology and methodology as those who trained you early on.

To separate from a group of people over religious and theological differences is a painful proposition. For one you can feel like an outcast and a rebel. You may constantly question if what you are doing is correct. Those of you who have either read about or watched the movie about the life of Martin Luther saw that when he was put on the spot to either acknowledge his new found faith or recant he asked for some time to think about it. So what happens when you separate?

The people you formally worshipped with now look and act differently toward you. There is a sense of discomfort around that old group or person and you may even worry that the subject that separated you may come up and make things even more uncomfortable. And then you will have to enter into a very uncomfortable dialogue with this person about what the Scripture says and often times you find that this person really has no desire to know what Scripture says.

By our nature people seldom enjoy change. Change creates stress and stress creates all kinds of issues in our lives and it makes it difficult to cope with life. The changing of a job, or the selling of an old house and buying a new house is stressful. So spiritual change is even more uncomfortable and we must have good reason for putting ourselves through that stress.

The people the writer of Hebrews is encouraging know this stress all too well. Not only has their lives become uncomfortable in social situations it has become downright dangerous. Because their theology changed people wanted to kill them and put them in prison. Because they have left the former group people have plundered their property and humiliated them publicly.

What the writer of Hebrews has been doing is showing this group how the change that they made in religious thought and pattern was indeed the correct way and that even though life might not be so good now, the promises of God were going to be fulfilled. The readers were being exhorted to hold fast their confession in Christ who is the Great High Priest and mediator of this New and better Covenant.

The writer of Hebrews ends chapter 8 with a very startling and profound statement. Look at Hebrews 8:13.

The Old Covenant, given to Moses at Mt. Sinai to the people whom God had rescued from Egyptian bondage, was being done away with and in its place was a new and better covenant.

We have seen over the past several weeks how God’s grace was manifested and revealed in this New and better Covenant mediated by Christ. That was the “what” of the New Covenant and now in chapter 9 and the first part of chapter 10 the writer turns his attention to exactly “how” these promises of divine favor, grace, and blessings in the New Covenant are secured on our behalf.

The writer is going to show what is passing away and why this Old Covenant is indeed obsolete in chapter 9:1-10.

So your two points this morning are:

1. The reason the Old Covenant must vanish away is because of its earthly place of holiness.

2. The reason the Old Covenant must vanish away is because of its regulations for worship.

My purpose in preaching this passage is to show you why the Old Covenant has been fully supplanted by the New Covenant and to show you that in the very fabric of the Old Covenant is the proclamation of something New and better.

Think back over Old Testament history. The tabernacle was set up according to the patter of God given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. It was a tent that went with the people everywhere they went. Once they were settled in the land and King David was able to secure all the land that tabernacle seemed to him too small of a place for the presence of God and a place for worship. So he inquired of God about building a temple that would be set up like the tabernacle. God would not let him build it but allowed him to gather the material for it and his son Solomon would build this glorious temple that would become the focal point for all of worship for Israel. Of course when the tribes split there was another temple built in Samaria that was in competition with the Jerusalem temple. We find this competition even in the New Testament where the Lord Jesus Himself stated that one day soon the temples in competition with each other would have no spiritual significance. Listen to John 4:20-24 as the Lord has a conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. She say:

And then in Matthew 24:1-2 we find this:

But the writer does not use the language of the temple in this passage. He uses the language of the tabernacle. What he does is to go back to the prototype, the desert tabernacle, to show that in God’s providence He had already planned to do away with this Old system for the New and Better way. And he shows that whether it is the tabernacle or the temple, both are incompatible to the glory of the New Covenant that will be experienced in spirit and in truth.

Now you can probably imagine that those still in Judaism must have given the early Christians a very hard time. After all, the Temple in Jerusalem could be pointed to as the pinnacle of Jewish power and the apex of Jewish worship. And what did the early Christians have in comparison to the Temple? They met in each other’s homes or on the streets. They did not have synagogues even to meet in. Many Christians were poor and some were even widows and orphans because of the persecution they experienced. They were castigated for their new faith and had nothing physical to point to.

Human nature is the same now as it was then. A temple was a sign that God was blessing you just like in many people’s eyes today size and the architecture of a church building means to them that God is blessing them.

So the writer of Hebrews turns this thinking on its head and shows how that in its very design the Old Covenant was intended to vanish away.

So look with me at these two reasons the writer can say with full confidence that the Old Covenant must vanish away.

Look again with me at verse 1.

Notice that this was an earthly place of holiness. It was the place where the presence of God would be among His covenant people. God told Moses exactly how to build this tabernacle and exactly what to put in it.

2 For a tent was prepared, the first section, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence. It is called the Holy Place.

In this second section, the Holy of Holies is where the presence of God was dwelling. This was the place of great importance in Judaism. The Most Holy Place was the place that only the High Priest could enter once a year to make the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement. This was the high day for the Jewish nation. This day symbolized the need for continual covering of sin. Look at what was contained in this second section. Notice verses 3-5.

This was a place of great dread and awe. Fear would overcome the High Priest as he walked into the Holy of Holies once a year. It must have been a frightening experience to go near these vessels that the Lord had called holy. In the mind of the High Priest was probably the stories of Nadab and Abihu who offered strange fire to the Lord and the Lord struck them down. Or even Uzzah who reached out to steady the Ark of the Covenant and the Lord struck him down.

Also the writer was aware that there was great symbolism in this set up of the tabernacle. But before he goes into that we find a startling statement. Look at the rest of verse 5.

Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.

The writer is at least doing one of three things here. First he points out that the prototype is no longer available for viewing since the tabernacle was gone and a temple had taken its place. Or he is saying that right now is not a convenient time to go into detail. Or third, he is pointing to the fact that only the High Priest in the Old Covenant could go into this place and see what verses 3-5 showed us was in there.

If I am correct in the third option then what the writer is doing is highlighting the fact that in the Old Covenant system the worshiper had limited access to the presence of God. But in the New Covenant we have a commandment to come boldly before the throne of grace in time of need. The New Covenant command to come boldly before the throne is set in sharp contrast to the Old Covenant command to not enter the Most Holy Place where the presence of God dwelled. The writer will highlight this in the next section. So let’s move on there. We have seen now that the Old Covenant had an earthly place of worship with the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. If you look back to chapter 8 and see verses 4-5 you will notice that this earthly place of worship was merely a copy of the heavenly tabernacle where the Lord Jesus performs His High Priestly functions. Look at the verses with me.

Now I want you to see the second point.

Notice verses 6-8.

Again we have the obvious problem with the Old Covenant and that was limited access to God. Access to God must come through a mediator and that mediator in the Old Covenant was a sinner just like you. So the same thing happened over and over. The Day of Atonement sacrifice was a covering that only included the Jewish nation. This left the nations with no hope. Can you image trying to travel from South America or North America to Jerusalem living in the ancient world to participate in this once per year sacrifice? You would never make it. So those who were far off had no idea that a sacrifice could be offered. But even those who were close by were in bondage to this system. The average Jewish man, woman, or child had very little access to God. Could you image having to live in a time where you did not just ask for people to pray for you or with you about something but you actually needed a priest to intercede for you with God?

This is why the Lord’s prayer is such an amazing prayer to be able to pray. The disciples came to Jesus and asked Him to teach them to pray. At first glance at this you might scratch your head and think, “Why would they need the Lord Jesus to teach them to pray?” It is because the Lord Jesus modeled a type of prayer that was unlike the prayers that they were accustomed to hearing. And the amazing thing about the Lord’s prayer is that it begins with the words, “Our Father.” Go do a search of the prayers in the Old Testament and see how many begin with these words. You will have a long and tedious search but in the end I don’t think you will find them. The relationship of father to child in the Old Testament was very important. In that relationship was the conferring of character and the conferring of blessing. You know the Old Testament stories of Isaac blessing Jacob instead of Esau. So when the Lord teaches His New Covenant people to pray we approach this throne of grace with the words, Our Father. This signifies the new and right relationship with the Lord of the Universe through the atoning death of His only begotten Son.

Yes, the Old Covenant tabernacle must have been a fantastic place. There was all the sights and all the sounds and the smells of incense and the burning of animal flesh but yet with all of the outer sensory stimuli there was no way that any of us if we were in that covenant could have uttered the Lord’s prayer. That dividing curtain was still in the way. That veil was a huge do not trespass sign for all the Jewish men in the nation save one High Priest. It was worse if you were a Jewish woman because you had to go to your own section not in the Holy Place. And if you were a Gentile then you were even further back. The access to God was denied by family, gender, and even race.

But there was worship and service that happened in this Old Covenant. Look at the rest of verse 9.

This is a stunning statement. The conscience of the worshiper can not be perfected by these sacrifices. Why? Hebrews 10:3 tells us why.

So when we get to the New Covenant then the New Covenant has to also deal with the conscience of the worshiper. It can’t merely be a temporary covering for the sin. It has to fully and finally deal with the problem.

Here in South Mississippi we are all familiar with the blue roofs. If you say that to someone that has not had to deal with the hurricane then they will not have a clue what you are talking about but you know. There was such a need for roofs after Katrina that those blue canvas tarps were put on all these houses as a temporary fix for the roof needing to be replaced. And some houses two years later still have a blue roof. In these blue roof houses and Fema trailers there is a constant reminder of Hurricane Katrina. Those of you that were here will never forget.

And that is what these yearly and daily sacrifices done in the tabernacle did for the people. It was a constant reminder that they were sinners and had fallen short of the glory of God in His righteous standards and Law. It was the never repaired blue roof that was only temporary.

That phrase, “until the time of reformation” is very important here.

The temporariness of the earthly tabernacle and even the Temple should have been obvious. The tent made of the skins of animals would certainly have to be repaired over and over and ultimately replaced. The stone of the temple would need to be fixed as the earth moved and cracks would form or invading armies would come in and plunder the treasures and do damage to the structure.

The regulations for worship could only temporarily and superficially cleanse a sinner.

These truths should have pointed to the fact that something better and greater was coming. And that is exactly what Hebrews 9:11 through 10:18 tells us. It is an exposition of this phrase “until the time of reformation.”

The word reformation is the word diorthosis and it means to change from a former order to a new order.

The whole of the Old Testament pointed to this time of reformation that would ultimately be fulfilled in Christ Jesus and the expression of His eschatological covenant community, the church made up of His people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

And that is what we will begin to see next week when we come together.

Let’s pray.