The Aaronic Covenant

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So, Ottivists, Chapter 28.

Do you think maybe the most dreadful reality, the thing that you would have nightmares thinking about?

I know you may think facing Satan in all his rage, how he hates, how he's merciless, rich, vengeful, dreadful.

You may think hell itself would be a dreadful reality.

But the most dreadful reality you could face is to have your sins, to have your sins uncovered, unappeased, unattoned for, have your sins and enter into the presence of God.

We are completely, not completely, but a large part blind to the terror and the wrath of God.

We don't understand the love of God if we don't understand the wrath of God.

We don't understand the mercy of God and the kindness of God and the goodness of God if we don't understand the wrath of God.

We like a God that is just kind and loving and faithful, all those wonderful positive attributes.

We enjoy that, but those things don't really come to life and see the glory of His mercy and His kindness and His love if you don't understand His justice and His wrath.

And we close our minds off to that side of God.

But think what you would be if you had no mediator between you and God.

That you had to die and face God and defend yourself before God with no one to take your side.

No one to be your defense lawyer.

No one to advocate on your behalf.

It would be the most dreadful of all realities.

We do not need to forget this about our God.

Because there's sin, we need a priest to go before us, not alongside of us.

We need to stay back.

We need to stay back as far as we can, not get close to that dreadful mountain unless we are killed.

We stay back.

And sin an advocate on our behalf.

We need someone who will go and represent us and to take our sins for us so we don't have to bear them, someone else to bear our sins and take before the Almighty God.

To atone for our sins.

We have to have a priest.

And in Exodus 28 we see the covenant that God made with Aaron and his children.

And let's read a few of these verses as we work our way through this nature of the Arionic covenant.

Starting at verse 1, "Then bring near to you Aaron and your brother and his sons with him from among the people of Israel to serve me as priests, Aaron and Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar, Ethmar.

Look at verse 2, "And you shall make holy garments for Aaron and your brother, for glory and for beauty." And then skip down to verse 29.

Verses three all the way to 28 is going to talk about the garments and how beautiful they need to be and how precise and all the details surrounding the garments.

Then in verse 29 it says, "And Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breast piece of judgment on his heart, when he goes into holy place to bring them to regular remembrance before the Lord.

And in the breast piece of judgment, you shall put the Urim and through them and they shall be on Aaron's heart when he goes in before the Lord.

Thus Aaron shall bear the judgment of the people of Israel and his heart before the Lord regularly.

So you need a priest that take your name and engrave your name upon his heart to take your sins, your judgment, and go and bear that on your behalf.

down to verse 36. You shall make a plate of pure gold and grave on it like the engraving of a signet holy to the Lord and you shall fasten it on the turban by a cord of blue.

It shall be on the front of the turban. It shall be on Aaron's forehead and Aaron shall bear any guilt from the holy things that the people of Israel consecrate as their holy gifts. It shall regularly be on the forehead that they may be accepted before the Lord.

So not only do the priests need to bear the judgment on your behalf, they need to all your offerings. If you bring a lamb or a pigeon, turtle dove, whatever you bring, a green offering, you bring it to the Lord as your sacrifice to Him. The priests need to bear the sins of that sacrifice.

So even your worship and even your service needs to be purified by the priest if you're going to go before God.

And so we see here the nature of the Arionic Covenant is a covenant of works.

You see, it was built upon the Mosaic Covenant, which the Mosaic Covenant is a covenant of works or a ministration of the covenant works, which is built off the Abrahamic Covenant, which was also a covenant of works.

Now why is it so important that week after week after week, I've been hammering the fact that these covenants are a ministrations of the covenant of works.

It's because this is what separates us as Baptists.

The Presbyterians will view these different covenants as administrations not of the covenant of works but of the covenant of grace.

Thus they seek to take many of these Old Testament realities that would be you and your children be circumcised and they want to apply it to the church.

And they say the new covenant is a covenant of grace and the old covenants are covenants of grace and therefore these the new covenant is just a better more improved administration.

So what was true in the Old Testament needs to be applied in the New Testament even though there may not be any direct exhortations or commands to baptize our infant children.

And one of the main reasons that they'll speak of the Old Testament and especially the Mosaic covenant as a covenant of grace is they look at the Arionic covenant and see look it's got sacrifices, it's got priests, it's got forgiveness, it's got a way of reconciliation, it's got the gospel foreshadowed in all these types and shadows and the offerings and so forth.

So they look at particularly the Arionic covenant as a proof or as an expression of grace and mercy and thus they apply that to be saying that the Old Testament covenants are administrations of covenant of grace. However, I'm gonna make the case today a strong case today. Even the covenant made with Aaron and his children was not based upon grace, but it's based upon strict justice. Strict works. Yes, you may think of the forgiveness that comes from this, but don't jump over the death that that forgiveness requires.

Don't jump over the responsibilities and the dreadful duties of the priest and how they're to be holy before the God, and if they were not holy that they would be struck dead instantly.

So yes, there is grace, but remember grace comes out of works.

Grace comes out of death.

If there's no sacrifice, if there's no atonement, if there's no cross, there's no salvation.

The new covenant of grace is built off the covenant of works because Jesus Christ fulfills all the legal demands and takes care of the sacrificial death on our behalf.

So we can't jump quickly into the covenant of grace until we understand the severity and the strictness and illegal demands of the covenant of works throughout the Old Testament.

Particularly the Arionic covenant is very strict and it demanded holiness from those who would represent God's people.

So first of all, as we think about the Arionic Covenant being a covenant of works, we need to consider its fearful and deadly responsibilities placed upon the priest.

Now what are priests?

If you're taking notes, the first responsibility of a priest would be man's representative before God.

They function as ambassadors of humanity in the courts of heaven.

That is, for a priest to be a priest, he can't be an angel.

He can't be some other heavenly or earthly creature.

He has to be a man.

He has to be one from our ranks.

This is what we see in verse one.

bring near to you Aaron and your brother and his sons with him from among the people of Israel to serve me as priests I choose a particular person in his children from among you I choose those who will be my priests who will come out of you represent you and come before me Thus we need a representative. Mankind has fallen and our sins has separated us from God and we dare not enter into the God's presence in our sins unless we die.

In fact the Lord condemns us. Stay back. Now we understand the New Covenant. We understand that Jesus is coming to me. He invites us. He welcomes us to come.

But you've got to understand the message of the old Covenant was stay back, stay back dare not come do not come unless you die we don't understand the beauty of Jesus saying come unto me unless we understand the the nature of God's justice and out of grace he says stay back don't come unless I pierce you and destroy you and so we need a representative you need a representative I want you to see this this morning, especially if you're lost, that you would be scared to approach God without someone taking your place, without a legal representative, without a priest to go before you.

And this is why those who come out of man need to be the best of men.

You don't choose our worst candidates to go before God.

You choose the most holy, the best among us.

going to represent us, we want to send our champions. Think about the Olympics. We want to have those who represent the USA. We were sending our best athletes, not our worst ones. And this is why in Leviticus it says if there's any deformities within the children of Levi, the sons of Aaron, that they cannot serve as priests. In verse 16 of chapter 21 it says, "None of your offspring throughout their generations who have a blemish may approach the offering of the bread of his God. For no one who has a blemish shall draw near a man blind or lame or one who has a mutated face or a limb too long." And it goes on and lists all these disqualifications of those who should not go before God. This is why they're to dress in a holy garment that's for beauty and glory. We're to send our best representative to put our best face on if you would. Who is the best among us to go and represent us so that God's not mad at us. He could be pleased with us. And by the one advocate that God looks upon human race and says look they're not too bad. Look at this champion.

Look at this holy person and they represent you and I and that holy person can please and appease God's wrath on our behalf And God says this is not too bad man is good But not only there to take themselves in and be holy before the Lord and have holy garments and be set apart and They're gonna take with him an offering Offerings that are holy without blemish.

They're not to take some lamb that is to be cold out and say, Hey, I don't want that lamb.

It's squany or it's got a broken leg.

No, you take the best of your offerings.

Those without blemish, those are holy before the Lord.

And not only that, these priests are to live a life that is set apart for God.

Their lives are to be holy, not just holy acting when they're in the temple complex carrying out their priestly duties.

But throughout their lives, they're to live holy lives.

Leviticus 21 says, "Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, 'No one shall make himself unclean for the dead among his people.

They shall not make bald patches on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts on their body.

They shall be holy to their Lord God and not profane the name of their God.

For they offer the Lord's food offerings, the bread of their God.

Therefore they shall be holy.

They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who has been defiled.

Neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband.

For the priest is holy to his God.

You shall sanctify him for his offerings the bread of your God.

He shall be holy to you for I the Lord who sanctifies you am holy.

So a priest is to live a holy life so he can represent us who are unholy.

So this is the first thing a priest is, one who goes from the ranks of man, represents man in the presence of God.

Secondly, priests are those who have been set apart or chosen by God Himself.

We see in Numbers 18, seven, it says, "Only you and your son shall attend to the priesthood for everything concerning the altar and what is inside the veil.

And you are to perform the service.

I am giving you the work of the priesthood as a gift.

But any outsiders," that is Gentiles and all the other 11 tribes, "who come near to the sanctuary must be put to death.

So they were set apart and the high priests were set apart at the age of 30.

And they were set apart and consecrated through a baptismal ceremonial washing.

There was a basin full of water and the priest would take off his normal clothes, his everyday clothes and he'd dip himself into this basin and then once he's cleansed, set apart by God he would be adorned in his new priestly beautiful clothes where he can go before God and serve him. Third, priests stand in the place of sinners. You see, their mediators are representatives of a guilty party. You know, they're kind of like defense lawyers, they don't have a defense. They don't have a argument to vindicate us. What kind of job would that be? Okay, you're going to be a defense attorney, but you know that the judge already knows that they're guilty. You know they're guilty. The judge knows he's guilty.

Now you go represent that person. It's like, I don't think so. I'm going to lose. I don't have a way to to rearrange their lives.

And that what you know, they were they didn't really know what they're doing.

And, you know, let's look at Adam and they inherited this depravity.

And you could make all these excuses to vindicate the center.

But the center is guilty and God knows it.

You know it. And the center knows it.

Now, that's why the priest is up against.

The priest has to, it's not just representing a guilty person.

You're going to have to bear that guilt.

Now who volunteers to be a priest?

Now it's one thing to be a defense lawyer and if the one you're advocating for, you're defending is guilty, he goes to prison and the lawyer goes home.

He loses the case and he feels bad, but he goes home.

How would you like to be a defense attorney and represent a sinner but you go to jail?

You take on this guilt.

You represent the sinner to the point that the sinner and you both go to hell.

That's what a priest does.

He legally stands in the place of sinners and takes on their guilt, takes on their judgment and bears that with Him as He goes into the courtroom of God, into the Holy of Holies.

Who wants to be a priest under such conditions?

Fourth, priests are called to make an atonement.

They're to propitiate and appease the wrath of the Almighty God.

We're going to remember God is not like the pagan deities that have to have all these sacrifices because they're whimsical and they're unpredictable and they're unjust and they're just going to throw a fit and you just got to somehow appease them.

That's not the God of the Bible.

He needs to be appeased.

It's not because he's unjust and whimsical and unpredictable.

He's very much predictable.

He's holy.

And He's angry with all the workers of iniquity.

He's consistently holy.

He's pure light in which none of us can stand without being burned up.

He's angry.

He must be angry to be God, to be just, to be holy.

to go before him and to appease him, to calm the wrath down. You remember the story of David protecting the shepherds and the sheep and of Nadab?

A Nabal, I mean Nabal was a man of a foolish heart and David in his army was out protecting him. And then David is hungry and he asked for Nabal to provide some provisions.

And Nabal in his foolishness says, no, you know, it doesn't matter that you've protected me. It doesn't matter if you've been a wall between me and the enemies. No, I'm not going to do that. I don't owe you anything, Nabal said. David was so angry.

He told his men to put their swords on and he was going to go take care of Nabil.

But Nabil had a beautiful wife, Abigail, and she knew what David was going to do.

And she goes and prepares food, tons of food, and hurries before and meets David in the midst of the battle right before David gets there she meets him and she says take let me she says let the guilt of my husband be on me and when David saw all the food and saw the courage of her and the wisdom of her He was appeased. That's what a priest must do. Go before an angry God, a just God, a God that we have a hard time understanding, and appease that wrath on our behalf. We've already seen in our text, Exodus 28, that they're to go and and bear the judgment of Israel. And there too, and we see in verse 38 there to build to bear the guilt of the offerings and numbers 18 one it says, then the Lord said to Aaron, you and your sons and your father's house with you shall bear the iniquity related to the sanctuary and you and your sons with you shall bear the iniquity associated with your priesthood.

So everything about the priest, they have to bear their own sins, bear the sins of the animal sacrifice, bear the sins of the people.

This is what priests are called to do.

And we must see that is a fearful thing to be a priest before God.

It talks about them being bells upon their garments.

And it says in the text, it says, unless they die.

I mean, everything had to be just soul because it was going to be very scary and was very scary to go, especially on the day of atonement where the priest only once a year entered into the holy of holies into the very midst of the Shekinah glory of God.

How dreadful must that have been?

Listen, we come and thankfully we can.

Thankfully, you can come to church, I can come to church and we could be daydreaming about whatever we can come and and not have a heart right we can come and be gossiping in our minds towards someone else we could come in in our sins and set down and God is so gracious and he speaks to us and he encourages us we leave and we don't realize it all the sins that we had as we come in but God was just good to us How would you like to go to worship service like this?

Well, the sons of Aaron, Nadab and Bahu, they're going to go and start the sacrifice and they needed a fire.

And they thought to themselves, you know, we don't have any matches.

And our bit ladders out of fluid.

How about we just take a stick from this fire from outside the camp and just take that with us?

That'll make things so much easier for us.

Surely, that's not a big deal.

Surely, just bringing a little fire in with us will speed up the process, make things so much easier for us.

We can get the fire going and get the sacrifices offered.

God, we're seeking to please the Lord with holy sacrifices.

And what happens when they bring in what the Bible says, strange fire, unconsecrated fire, fire that God hasn't sanctioned.

They bring in a little campfire into the temple complex and they light on fire and fire comes from heaven and devires them.

In fact, this is what it says in Leviticus 10.

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron each took his censer and put fire in it and laid instance on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them and they died before the Lord. I mean that is a scary thing. They make one little mistake, one little minor, little easy to understand mistake. Who of us wouldn't made that mistake and it cost them their lives.

And this is Aaron's own son. What do you think Aaron's thinking?

Aaron is like my boys. What? And Moses comes to Aaron and he says, this is what the Lord has said among those who are near me. I will be sanctified.

And before all the people, I will be glorified. So Aaron could not even grieve the death of his sons.

He could even bury the deaths of his sons. He had to close his mouth and realize God is holy.

Now with this said, with this is the responsibilities of priests, who wants to volunteer to be one?

Who says I can represent myself and other sinners?

Who says, okay, I think this is a covenant of grace under such circumstances?

No, we see here it's a dreadful responsibility that will cost you your life if you do not do everything just right.

The second reason why the Arionic Covenant is a covenant works is because Aaron and his children failed.

They failed from the beginning.

It didn't take long before this covenant was destroyed.

Exodus 19 when God is establishing the Mosaic covenant with the nation of Israel. He says you shall be a kingdom of priest before your God. You will be my people. I will be your God.

And you will be not just a little group with some priests. You'll be a group of In fact, we learn coming out of Egypt that God separated all the firstborns as the priest of God for the family.

So every firstborn of every family was to be the household priest for all the children of Israel.

But as Israel agreed to the terms of the Mosaic covenant, Moses goes back and appears before God and gives God the news, yes we agree.

And down below hear Israel with all their first born children, Aaron included, are making a golden calf.

They commit idolatry from the very beginning.

And so God comes down, Moses comes back down and he breaks those tablets of stone and God God says I'm going to kill them all.

Move away Moses.

I'm going to kill them all and I'll start a new nation with you.

And of course Moses acted as a priest and interceded on behalf of Israel.

God says okay come back up.

And when Moses went back up God reissued the Mosaic covenant the second time.

So it's the second giving of the Mosaic covenant.

But the second giving of the Mosaic covenant has a major alteration.

It has a major revision.

The first Mosaic covenant was a priest for all the firstborns.

The second revision says, no, I'm separating the Levites, the children of Aaron, as the priest.

Because you're an unholy nation, you cannot be priests before Me.

Therefore it's going to be restricted to one tribe.

And as we learn, it's not just the whole tribe, but it's just a small segment of the tribe of Levi.

In fact, Numbers 3, 12 says, "Behold, I have taken the Levites from among the sons of Israel instead of every firstborn, for the first issue of the womb among the sons of Israel.

So the Levites shall be mine." In Deuteronomy 10, 8 it says, "At that time," talking about the golden calf, "at that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord and serve him and to bless in his name until this day.

So what we see at the beginning of the of the Mosaic covenant was failure.

There were to be a kingdom of priests, but yet they failed to be priests.

And God says, no, you're not a kingdom of priests, only a tribe of priests.

But then we see how it didn't take long till Nadab and Abihu were killed.

And then think about Eli.

He had two sons that served as priests, but they did what was wicked before God.

And Eli never corrected them, so God killed them.

In fact, you read throughout the Old Testament, just like the Israelites did not keep the Mosaic covenant, the children of Levi did not keep the Ariana covenant.

In fact, at the end of the Old Testament, it reads in Malachi 2 verse 1.

Malachi 2:1

And now, O priests, this command is for you.

If you will not listen, you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts.

Then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings.

Indeed, I have already cursed them because you do not lay it to heart.

Behold, I will rebuke your offspring and spread dung among their faces, the dung of your offsprings, and you shall be taken away with it.

says, "But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi says the Lord of Hosts." And Nahum says the same thing in chapter 1329, "Remember then, oh my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites." So here we see the Arionic Covenant, the covenant made with Levi, has been broken and defiled before God. And not to mention all the animal sacrifices we learn in the New Testament that no animal sacrifices can actually atone for sins. This is why the priests had to continually day after day after day after day after day offer one sacrifice after another sacrifice after another sacrifice. It was a bloody, bloody mess within the temple complex. Blood without the shedding of blood. There's no remission of sin and these animals just weren't sufficient.

And it was just one slaughter after another trying to atone for people's sins.

But they're not able. I want you to see the utter hopelessness of the Arionic covenant.

Israel had failed as a nation, now the Levites have failed as a tribe.

Rather than appeasing the wrath of God, all the priests had done is incurred more wrath.

How would you like it that your priest that represents you makes your judgment all the more hotter?

It's like, what good are you?

You're supposed to appease God's wrath and you've just made him more mad.

What are we to do? I mean, it's almost like you have to understand. I mean, we understand the end of the story. So we we're not shocked by this, but you've got to read the Old Testament. If you if you didn't really see the promises and it didn't take heart in that God's going to send someone, you may be coming to the end of the Old Testament. He's like, we're undone.

We have failed as a nation and our priests have failed us and we have no representation.

We are in strict judgment.

What are we to do? Now that's for the Israelites and we gentiles had no priests.

We had no representations. What are we to do?

Even though there is much failure and judgment and wrath in the Old Testament, there are seeds of gospel sprinkled throughout the Old Testament. And sometimes we find the very gospel in the very depths of the judgment as if when God judge Adam and Eve and the serpent, that's when we see the gospel message of hope. In fact, one of the things you got to see, to see the gospel, you've got to see death.

You don't understand mercy until you see God's justice.

God can't just be merciful without taking care of sin, your sin, and paying for it.

And in the very time that God was going to judge Eli's sons as priests, listen to this, he sends a message of hope.

1 Samuel 2 verse 34.

1 Samuel 2:34

"And this they shall come upon your two sons, Hefni and Phineas, shall be the sign to you.

Both of them shall die on the same day.

And I will rise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind.

And I will build him a sure house, and he shall go in and out before my anointed forever. You have failed but I'm going to send me and I'm going to provide me a faithful priest. And this is why we see in the Old Testament the Arionic Covenant is actually a covenant works that literally just brought more judgment upon Israel. But in this we see that there is a great need for a new high priest from the ranks of man.

There is a need for a new covenant with a better covenant, better promises with a better high priest.

This is what we have when we turn to Hebrews chapter 7.

Hebrews 7 · chapter mention

You see Christ is the new high priest.

He's our high priest.

And he's not from the lineage of Levi, but from the order of Mikheelzedek.

It tells us in verse 11 of chapter seven, if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need would there have been for another priest to rise after the order of Mikheelzedek?

than one named after the order of Aaron.

For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well for the one of whom these things are spoken belong to another tribe from which no one has ever served at the altar.

For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah and in connection with the tribe of Moses said nothing about priest.

This because even more evident when another priest arrives in the likeness of Mekelzadek who has become a priest, not on the basis of illegal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life, for it is witnessed of him. You are a priest forever after the order of Mekelzadek.

You see the Old Testament we learned that there is a priest that is not a Jew.

In fact, he's not a Levite, but he was a priest.

Even Abraham offered a tenth of his possessions to God, to this priest, Mikkelzadegh.

And what lineage does he come from?

The point is we don't know.

We don't know where he comes from.

He's not definitely not of Israel and he's definitely not of the tribe of Levi.

And so as there is the possibility that he is from the ranks of man, he is a human.

But we don't know from what tribe or what race or what ethnicity.

So it is true that there could be a new priest that comes from a new lineage, one who is not necessarily from the tribe of Levi.

And thus we have hope that God would send us a priest.

You see, Christ is one of us.

You realize there's no way of salvation for us to have a priest that represent us unless he comes from one of us.

And there's not one of us all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

God searched the human race and he says there's none good.

There's none good.

There's no, not even one.

Why are we so prideful?

You know, don't look down your nose upon all the debauchery that's going on in this world and think I'm better than that.

Don't be like the Pharisee who says thank you that I'm not like this scribe or this publican.

You're not good.

You wouldn't stand a second in the presence of God.

You have no holiness to present to Him.

You have no sacrifice to atone for your sins or appease His wrath.

We are all guilty before Him.

We all stand condemned under His wrath.

And so there's none of us.

I mean, let's look around.

Who's the best one we have?

Who would you sin?

I mean, take the Lord Jesus out of the equation.

Who would you send to think of history go through all of history and think of the best one we have.

You want to sing King David after King David did what he did with Bathsheba.

You want to sing sin him.

What about Moses?

Moses was a good man.

Would you send him to represent yourself?

Every one of us, our best heroes, are sad failures.

So God looks and He has no one to sin.

So what does He do?

He sends His only Son.

And His only Son has to become a man.

There's no other way.

I mean, He's like, "Well, God could just have forgiven us." No, He couldn't have.

There has to be a man.

There has to be a legal representative from our ranks.

So He can't find one from among us.

So he sends his only son and his only son becomes incarnate and is born of human flesh and takes on humanity to himself.

He becomes fully man.

And because he's one of us, I mean flesh and blood.

I mean he's God but yet he's man.

And it's important because he's got to represent us.

know a prophet represents God, a priest represents humanity. And so he has to be one of us. And the Bible says it's important as a priest he can sympathize with us. Hebrews 4 15. We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who is every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Think about this. You know, you've had hard days, you get irritable because you're tired, you're stressed, you've got all, you got the heat of the sun on the neck of your back and you're been laboring your sweating. The Lord Jesus knows how that feels.

Never been hungry and irritable. He went 40 days without food.

You know what it's like to be the frail humanity. Sometimes we pray, Lord, remember I'm but dust.

I'm but dusk. I'm a week. I'm frail. I don't know if I can handle much more. Well, The Lord Jesus knows exactly how that feels. He's one of you.

But He's without sin.

But He knows how to sympathize with you. He knows how you feel. He knows your troubles.

He knows your temptation. He knows what death feels like and sickness feels like.

He knows what it's like to grieve when His friend dies. He knows how you feel.

He's one of you. He's one of us.

But he's without sin.

And he's well pleasing of God. He's been chosen of God.

Hebrews 5.1 says, "For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin." Verse 4, "And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when he is called by God." God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, you are my son. Today I have begotten you.

As he's also says in another place, you are a priest forever after the order of McKelzidak.

So God waited like all priests he waited to his 30 years old. And the age of 30, he, he asked John the Baptist to baptize him and John says no I can't do this. He goes you have must allow me to fulfill all righteousness because all priests go through a baptismal worship and setting apart and they take off their old clothes and come on and put on their priestly garments and then they're set apart for the Lord to represent man before God.

And Jesus did not call himself to be priest but he was pointed by God and he goes through this baptismal ceremonial worshiping and after he comes out of the water he is anointed by the Holy Spirit and the Father says this is my beloved Son and whom I am well pleased.

But that's the beginning of his ministry. He serves faithfully before God in holiness and righteousness and beauty and glory. But he has to go behind the veil. The Bible tells us in Hebrews 1020 that he did go behind the veil and it puts this little parathetical phrase that's just very important which is his body.

How is the human flesh, the body of Jesus Christ, the veil that separates God from man? Well, in one way Jesus veiled his deity by putting on human flesh, so his human body is function as a veil hiding the Shekinah glory of God before man. But But in other ways, everybody's body functions as a veil.

Your body is what keeps you from seeing the glory and the presence of God.

Now God is omnipresent.

He's everywhere.

But you're blind to the glory of God.

You're blind to the presence of God.

And what keeps you blind to God's presence?

It's your flesh.

But if this flesh drops off, the Bible says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

So cut your flesh off, cut the veil off, and you're going to be immediately in the presence of God.

Now, if you don't have a mediator, if you're not saved, if something happens to your body, you're going to face the wrath of God immediately.

And the only thing that keeps you from the wrath of the Almighty, the only reason you're not under God's burning hatred, wrath, and with his eyes of blood and fire looking distinctly upon you, ready to consume you.

Only thing that's keeping you is this little frail body that is already perishing.

Imagine that.

Children, you think your body is healthy, but it's not.

Your little body is the only thing keeping you away and out of God's judgment.

You're already under the wrath of God, but you don't see it.

Two astronauts went up into outer space and one was a Russian and one was American and that Russian was an atheist and he's up in outer space and he says, I don't see God.

The American says, well, take off that mask and you'll see him.

You will see God.

You're going to see God.

As soon as this veil, your body falls off of you.

As soon as you depart from the body, you'll be in the presence of God.

Christ had to die.

To go behind the veil, his body had to die.

He had to enter into, not into a man-made structure.

He did not get off the cross and marched back into the city and go into the Holies of Holies and the temple remodeled by Herod.

He went into the real temple.

The earthly tabernacle was just a pattern.

He went into heaven itself and entered into the presence of God.

And this, as he contemplated the dropping off of the veil, going behind the veil, dropping off his body he went with fear and joy. He went with fear as in the night before he cried out with blood sweating from him. If any other way let this cup pass from me. But Hebrews tells us because of his love for you as a faithful representative as your high priest it was the joy that was set before him that he He endured the sufferings and endured the wrath of God.

Now imagine this.

He's under the wrath of God upon that cursed tree, all the judgment of the covenant of works, the Mosaic covenant, the Arionic covenant, all these curses are coming down upon one man.

All the sins that you have committed are being born on him.

And then his last words are, "It is finished." Here's some closing applications.

One, there's only one mediator.

There's only one way to the Father.

A.I., there's a Jewish guy who says we need to rewrite the Bible with using A.I. technology.

They asked them what would we do, what would AI do to make the Bible better?

They would say make it more inclusive.

Speak of other religions.

Let me be bold and say there is no other way.

There is no way of salvation.

There's no way to God.

There's no way of pleasing and getting you out of the wrath except by one priest and that priest and that mediator is the man Jesus Christ.

The Bible tells us in Hebrews nine for Christ has entered not into the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf, nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enter into the holy places every year with blood, not his own. For then he would have to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is written, he's appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once. And after that comes the judgment. The second application here is you don't have to be afraid to enter into God's presence.

You don't have to be afraid to come to church.

You don't have to be afraid to pray.

You don't have to be afraid to enter into the presence of a loving, merciful, just holy God because you had someone enter in before you.

You had someone that says, "No, you stay back.

stay here. God is angry. I want to take care of that wrath on your behalf. And after I say it's okay, after I offer my own body as a sacrifice, after I endure the wrath that you deserve and I appease and atone for your sins, then come, then come to the father and he will receive you. And this is why Hebrews 10 says we have bold confidence to enter into the holies of holies. Why do we not pray more? Why do we not run to God? Why do we not say,"Hey, I can go to the living Lord. He will receive me. He will accept me. He will be pleased with me because I go not in my name. I go in the name of my Savior, of my high priest, the name above all names, the name of Jesus Christ. It is Him that I walk behind and then I am accepted. I'm accepted as if I am Jesus himself.

You can come to God through the priestly intercessions of Christ.

You see, just as the Old Testament priests were to sanctify the offerings, Christ has sanctified your offerings.

You know, you don't have, and you and I, let's just be honest, our best prayers need sanctifying.

Our best worship needs sanctifying.

My sermon today and my preaching today needs to sanctify a toning work of the blood to make it acceptable before the Lord Jesus Christ. You think I or you or any of us humans could do anything perfect and well pleasing before God? No, we can't. But because of the work of Jesus Christ, His work sanctifies our work. So my preaching and your prayers and your listening and your services are actually a sweet Savior before the Lord and He accepts it. He's well pleased with you. He is satisfied with your offerings, he's satisfied with your worship, he's satisfied with your singing, he's satisfied with you and you're no longer under his wrath, you're no longer under any judgment, there's not one ounce of frustration that God has on you, not even a little irritant.

Can you imagine that everything you do, everything you do, even your weaknesses, any of the things you're ashamed of, everything you do now is put through the blood. And God says,"That's my son. That's my daughter. That's my child. I'm so pleased with you. How can it be?

How can the Lord be pleased with Jeff Johnson? How can that be?

How can I be a sweet savor of aroma to the Lord? Who, me? How can that? I tell you, is because we have a faithful, wonderful, high priest who is perfectly pleasing before the Lord. And he's done his job wonderfully, and we can enter into with boldness and with joy we can run to the Lord. And this is why Jesus says, "All you who are heavy laden, all you are tired, all of you," he says, "I'm trying to be good. I'm trying to be good.

I want to be a good kid. I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry, Dad. I just wish I could be better.

who are just trying to be good and you keep on failing and you keep on making mistakes and you know that you just don't measure up and you're so tired you're tired and you said Lord oh Lord I can't do it well good come if you are tired and if you're heavy laden with guilt and you feel like you're overcome with remorse and you feel like I just don't measure up you who are so tired and you know your sinners come and he'll give you rest you'll have perfect peace You'll have perfect risk because you'll be fully atoned for by the one man's sacrifices Why don't you come Why don't we come You see The Bible tells us though Israel did not become a people a priestly people the Levites were rejected as priests The Bible says in 1st Peter You yourselves are like living stones being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood To offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Lord Jesus Christ you see Now we are priests We're about to celebrate some baptisms and Jesus just as Jesus was baptized and enter into the priesthood Our baptism represents the fact that we through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ are now priests before the Lord and we can go before God. You can intercede for your children. You can pray for others. You can go before God and you go underneath the name of Jesus. You don't go in your own righteousness but you can go because of Christ and you can enter into his throne room and he's going to hear your petitions and he's going to hear your cries.

And your cries are a sweet aroma unto the Lord because now we are a kingdom of priests.

The church is the true priest unto the Lord.

You see, everything in the Old Testament points to one man, and he owes, we owe him all of our worship.

We owe him all of our praise.

Not unto us, dear Lord, not unto me.

Don't look to me.

Keep your eyes on Jesus.

He's the perfect one.

He's the one who represents you.

Amen.

If you're being baptized, this is be the time to be prepared, getting prepared for that.

Mm hmm ours