Hebrews 9:13-14 KJV For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: [14] How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
I. INTRODUCTION—THE NECESSITY OF HOLINESS
-My exposure to a writer named Jerry Bridges came about 25 years ago. Shortly after Teresa and I got married, we were unpacking some of her books from JCM and there was a tattered little paperback book among them. It was by Jerry Bridges and was entitled “The Pursuit of Holiness.” I can remember flipping through it and then putting it on the shelf where it stayed for a long period of time.
-Then in the early ‘90’s, I heard a sermon preached by Pastor Anthony Mangun from Alexandria, Louisiana that he called, “Holiness and Righteousness.” At some point later, I managed to have a conversation with him and mentioned that sermon to him and he directed me to a book called “The Common Made Holy” by Neil Anderson and Robert Saucy.
-I lived in that book for several years, trying to get a grasp and understanding of the responsibilities and conditions of holiness in my own personal life. I spent long hours meditating on Scripture, poring over the Bible, grappling with God in prayer, and then trying to live out my life in such a way that it would honor God through this hunger for holiness.
-Anything that was remotely related to holiness, I would try to purchase it. There were sermons on cassettes, CDs, and then on MP3. I gathered books and notes that would fill bookshelves in an effort to understand what my responsibility to God was all about. I have had hours upon hours of conversations with preachers on the phone, at church functions, and then at tables in restaurants.
-All of those men helped me to make a little more forward progress in my walk with God. However, I am coming to understand that there will always be angst in the soul when it comes to the pursuit of the absolute, pure and perfect holiness of God. In fact, I don’t believe that any man can attain to the highest level of holiness that God has for us as long as we are chained to the human body!
-On the other hand, I do know that when we are filled with the Spirit that we have an ability to walk in the Spirit as deemed in Romans 8 (the whole chapter) and we are able to walk as “super-conquerors” (Romans 8:37). Furthermore walking in the Spirit is very closely tied to our own desire to live a godly, disciplined, and holy life (1 Timothy 4:7-8)
-So just recently I again came into contact with some of the words of Jerry Bridges. He was just interviewed for an article that came out in a magazine called TableTalk. The title of the article was called, “The Pursuit of Holiness” and appeared in the January 2012 edition.
-Several quotes stood out to me as I read that article:
There are so many needs in the church today that it is difficult to single out one as the greatest. However, if I had to pick one, I would say the most fundamental need is an ever-growing awareness of the holiness of God.
From my earliest contact with The Navigators, I sensed the need to apply the Scriptures specifically and intentionally to my life. But I struggled with the question, “What is my part and what is God’s part?” Finally, the Lord enabled me to see from the Scriptures the principle I call “dependent responsibility.” We are responsible to respond to the moral commands of Scripture, but we are absolutely dependent on the Holy Spirit to enable us.
But I soon realized that a pursuit of holiness that is not founded on grace and the gospel can lead to a performance mentality and even to discouragement. That’s when I began to emphasize grace and the gospel as foundational to the pursuit of holiness. . . It is my desire that as a result of reading my books, people will seek to pursue holiness out of gratitude for what God has done for us.
He was asked about a more recent book he had written called “Respectable Sins” and had this to say about that title: I observed for some years a growing tendency among conservative evangelicals to focus on the more flagrant sins of society but to overlook our own sins of pride, selfishness, gossip, and the like. Again, it goes back to this: “He who is forgiven little loves little” (Luke 7:47). Because of our self-righteousness, due to focusing on the major sins of society, we do not see our own desperate need of living by the gospel every day.
-My greatest desire prior to us partaking in communion in a little while is to help you to understand the grace of God and its connection to our living a life that is pleasing to God. We have to contend with a world that is progressively becoming more and more ungodly every day but God has ordained some over-comers to live above it!
II. THE GREAT DEMAND OF HOLINESS
-If there is a personal quest to be holy, especially if there is the constant interaction with the world and the Word, we often may think, “who is able to do it?”
-Everywhere about us are the constant temptations that assail us. Our minds are literally assaulted at every turn with a society that has very little inclination toward anything spiritual whatsoever.
-Every temptation of the devil is nothing more than an attempt to get you to fall.
James 1:13-16 KJV Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: [14] But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. [15] Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. [16] Do not err, my beloved brethren.
-The Proverbs have some reminders for us.
Proverbs 4:20-23 KJV My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. [21] Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. [22] For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. [23] Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
-When you begin to meditate on passages of Scripture like these, there are guardrails that are put up in the soul that help us to navigate this life and walk a pattern of holiness. But then with each progressive degree of spiritual growth and knowledge the Lord gives to us, we increasingly become aware of how holy God is and how unholy we are.
-Then if that is not enough, some of the red-letter words of Jesus come to mind.
Matthew 15:16-20 KJV And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding? [17] Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? [18] But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. [19] For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: [20] These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.
-The hope for progress of holiness comes almost to a screeching halt with this information. More and more you will become to a heightened awareness that if there is no grace of God and no Spirit of God that is invested into us, then none of us will be saved.
III. THE CONSCIENCE
-Enter the conscience. One man called the conscience the soul’s warning system.
-If you have received the Holy Ghost then you have a conscience that has been super-charged. But the way the conscience moves into this state is for the Word to dwell richly in us (Col. 3:16).
A. Quotes on the Conscience
J. I. Packer—There are two sorts of sick consciences, those that are not aware enough of sin and those that are not aware enough of pardon.
Anonymous—‘Let your conscience be your guide’ is only valid if God’s Word is guiding your conscience.
Elton Trueblood—It is important to cultivate an uneasy conscience. The good conscience is an invention of the devil.
J. Oswald Sanders—Every conscience needs instruction. Its delicate mechanism has been thrown off balance by the Fall. Just as a bullet will reach the bull’s-eye only if the two sights are in correct alignment, so correct moral judgments are delivered only when the conscience is correctly aligned with the Scriptures.
B. Illustrations Concerning Conscience
If you have ever ridden a bicycle by a yard that has an invisible fence, you probably are not aware of what it is like to have a dog to come charging at you and suddenly rear up and yelp and turn back toward the house. But those dogs that have been equipped with a collar that will begin to beep and then emit small shocks when they get to the buried wire known when to turn around and go back home. The conscience can work like that if it has been Spirit and Word filled. When we start to approach a boundary, the conscience begins to beep and it will jolt us if we cross those barriers. It serves as an invisible fence.
-Erwin Lutzer wrote a book called “Hitler’s Cross.” In that book he gave the startling details of how that Adolf Hitler trained his SS troops to do some of the heinous things during World War II. Heinrich Himmler was the man in charge of these men and in the beginning he was faced with a difficult dilemma of taking young decent German men and turning them into raw killers.
-Lutzer wrote:
Both Hitler and Himmler believed that each of the SS troops had to perform some deed that violated their conscience and sense of decency. Only when they did what others found to be reprehensible would they break away from their old values. The conscience had to be deadened through these acts of barbarism; that would serve the dual purpose of cutting the recruit off from his past ties, his family and friends, and of bonding him to his new peers and his leader. The break would be so complete that he could never go back. An act of torture or murder would unite him with blood brothers who had crossed the line, felt the same numbness, and sworn themselves to uphold the same cause.
The Nazis proved that ordinary people, if controlled with rigid discipline and the power of mass psychology, can be induced to carry out the most brutal and destructive crime the human mind can devise. The troops could say with Hermann Goering, “I have no conscience! Adolf Hitler is my conscience!”
-We can see from this how the conscience works and how important it is in our relationship with God.
• Guard your conscience!
• Strengthen your conscience!
• Protect your conscience!
• Cultivate your conscience!
-Don’t let your conscience get in the condition that Paul mentioned in 1st Timothy 4:2 when he said it could be seared with a hot iron so it no longer responded.
-Yet the great dilemma comes when our conscience is sharp and we live in a dirty world. I hunger for God and for holiness but I am surrounded by co-workers, students, and sometimes even family members that have little understanding for God and His holy ways.
-So their actions and their words make us feel so unholy and unrighteous that we feel less than a child of God.
IV. THE TEXT IN HEBREWS 9
-But there is always an answer to our deepest and darkest dilemmas in the Word of God. The writer of Hebrews comes along and tells us that the ashes of the red heifer worked in the sanctification of the flesh in the Old Testament but the work of Calvary in the New Testament could cleanse our consciences.
Hebrews 9:13-14 KJV For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: [14] How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
-The blood of Jesus does far more—it purges the conscience of dead works so we are able to serve a living God.
-If you have been filled with the Spirit, you are a child of God and you have been set aside!
2 Corinthians 6:16-18 KJV And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [17] Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, [18] And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
A. Israel and the New Testament Church
-Get the picture of Israel and the way it was set up. The tribes were all situated in a way that the Tabernacle was right in the middle. They determined to let the center of their world be their worship to God.
-Admittedly they did not always live up to the standards that God set forth for them, there was still that determination of an order that was set up for them in the middle.
-Look a little deeper into the book of Leviticus and over and over you will find that there were laws established to keep them from defiling themselves.
• Leviticus 11:44—Don’t defile yourselves with creeping things.
• Leviticus 15:31—Don’t defile the Tabernacle.
• Leviticus 18:21—Don’t defile yourself sexually.
• Leviticus 18:21—Don’t defile yourself with an animal.
• Leviticus 18:24—Don’t defile yourself with the nations you came out of (Egypt).
• Leviticus 18:28—Don’t defile the land.
• Leviticus 18:30—Don’t defile yourself with abominations.
• Leviticus 20:3—Don’t defile the sanctuary or the name of God.
-In fact this is the requirement for anyone who is going to live close to God. . . whether you were an Israelite that every time the tent door opened it was in the direction of the Tabernacle or you are a 21st century saint. We cannot be defiled from the things that are in the world.
-We come to the New Testament and there are a number of commands not to defile yourselves.
• Matthew 15:18-20—Don’t let your heart defile you. (Mark 7:15-23)
• 1 Corinthians 3:17—Don’t defile the Temple of God (the human body and mind).
• 1 Timothy 1:10—Don’t defile yourself sexually. Don’t defile yourself with false words or with false doctrine.
• Jude 8—Don’t defile the flesh by resisting God-given authority.
-God is a consuming fire! This was said to His people (Deuteronomy 4:24; 9:3; Hebrews 12:29), not to a bunch of sinners but rather to people who loved God with great devotion.
-That God was a consuming fire was not for just a matter of judgment; it was for a matter of purifying. The closer that we get to God the more that we will feel the fire of the Spirit as it cleanses and separates and revives the souls that have been deadened by sin and corruption.
-Yet this text in Hebrews 9 brings us to an Old Testament type from Numbers 19.
-See how intricately the Old Testament works in tandem with the New Testament? It is imperative to get a handle of both of the Testaments so we can see how to be saved from this untoward generation.
B. Numbers 19—Dealing with Ceremonial Defilements
-God mentioned to Moses in Leviticus to offer five major sacrifices but when He gets to Numbers, he only mentions one and has to do with a very unique situation.
-Much of the chapter in Numbers 19 deals with the instructions for sacrificing a red heifer. It had to do with the common defilements that come to men in their every day existence of life specifically when they came in contact with a dead body.
-Death is a symbol of sin and it is also understood as the fruit of sin. When you consider the fact that the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness and there were multiple people dying every day, they lived in constant contact of having to take care of those who had passed on.
-Also in Numbers 19 there is a stipulation that notes the times that men died in battle. They had to offer the ashes of the red heifer in those situations also.
-Just as Israel had to contend with death in the wilderness, we have to deal with our own conscience as it is being assaulted every day by dead things.
• Passing through the hallways of a high school our students are exposed to every foul-mouth and spirit known to man.
• Working on jobs with people who are uncouth and uncaring toward God and the Church.
• Hostile and demanding bosses who demand more and more every single day.
• In concert with people who are committing immoral acts with no shame whatsoever.
• There are associations with the boasting and proud sinners who seem to revel in their behavior.
• Our minds are assaulted by a thousand and one commercial efforts of marketers trying to create great discontentment in our souls for material things.
• You feel the judgmental prejudices of the world because of your understanding and commitment to holiness and separation.
• You often feel as if you are on the outside looking in because of the isolation that takes place between the world and the church.
• There are overtly sensual and suggestive lifestyles of the immoral to contend with.
• Some even have to live in environments that sin and debauchery is exalted.
-Then you have to contend with the spiritual weaknesses that everyone who is a child of God has to deal with:
Hebrews 12:1-3 KJV Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, [2] Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. [3] For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
-It is hard to squeeze any worship out of such a condition in the soul. Worship is no longer spontaneous and joyful, if the devil can keep you on the ropes with your imperfections, he will do it.
-Look no further than the Word of God and you will find some of God’s greatest men who struggled with deep-seated challenges that almost consumed them.
• Abraham’s deception.
• Moses’ anger.
• Elijah’s discouragement.
• Jeremiah’s despondency.
• Peter’s impulsiveness.
-They all struggled in their walk with the Lord but they kept pressing onward. When I want to do good, evil is present with me. I try to do well but I am finding it is easier to be lazy than to be spiritually productive. That is the whole story of Romans 7.
-One way or another defilement, touching the dead things, will come to us despite our best efforts and desires.
• Our temper.
• Our laziness.
• Our lying.
• Our exaggerations.
• Our pride.
• Our fits and starts toward good.
• Our lack of commitment.
• Our hidden hope that someone will fall to make us look better.
• Our anger.
• Our jealousy.
• Our envy.
• Our low-life thinking.
• Our compromise with the world.
-Now turn back a bit and look to the sacrifice of the red heifer and really look at it. Ask yourself the question, “In what state were these people who are offering this sacrifice?” It was for people who had already experienced the sacrifice of Atonement on the Day of Atonement. Their sin had been pushed back and now they had come in contact with something that was dead.
-If God had a remedy for the children of Israel in the wilderness, certainly He has a solution for the New Testament church. If you are even in the least sense spiritual, the deadness of this world often troubles and deadens your sense of worship.
-But it is a good thing that we have to endure such things as this. The reason being is because before long you will realize that you have no ability whatsoever to save yourself from this untoward generation. Any salvation that comes to us with be blood-bought, Calvary-approved, and God-ordained. It won’t be because you performed well enough to get God to like you and think that He needs you on His team so victories can be won.
-It is hard to come into a house of worship after having fought with a nasty world all week long. But if you will let the priest begin to minister the rites of this sacrifice, your conscience can be cleansed. The defilement may be frequent but the cleansing is always available.
-The red heifer was not slain for an individual as much as it was slain for the whole congregation. None of us are immune from the defilements of the world, we may not partake in them but the actions of the mixed multitude pull us down! Yet the sacrifice of the red heifer was to be slain before the sin was ever committed.
-Not a single bit of this gives us the license to sin. In fact if you lean in the direction, you will have a huge problem explaining away the numerous times that God commands us to stay away from presumptuous sin.
V. CONCLUSION—JESUS IS OUR RED HEIFER
-The book of Hebrews helps us to have the understanding that Jesus is our red heifer. It was His sacrifice at Calvary that has the ability to cleanse our conscience.
-Imagine Him walking up the hill toward Golgotha.
• The screaming crowd pressed to both sides of the road.
• Imagine him dragging the cross.
• Consider the pain that he had to endure.
• Blood in his eyes from the crown of thorns.
• His eyes are probably beginning to swell shut from the beating at the hands of the soldiers.
• A back lacerated by a whip.
• Hands and feet soon pierced by nails.
• Agony, shame, and embarrassment like few have ever had to endure.
-All for the sake of saving a Bride!
Philip Harrelson
January 7, 2012
