During the last presidential election (2016), we heard a lot about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the two primary candidates. We heard less about Gary Johnson, Jill Stein and other third-party candidates. However, the most interesting candidate, which I doubt any of us heard about, was Zoltan Istyan. He ran as a candidate for the Transhumanist Party, whose purpose is to, “become god-like and overcome death.” Zoltan campaigned by driving around the country in a camper, shaped like a coffin. He called it the “Immortality Bus” from which he promoted the use of science and technology to overcome death in our lifetime. (Ethan Richardson, “The Ash Wednesday Immortality Bus,” Mockingbird blog, 3-1-17; www.PreachingToday.com)
Wouldn’t that be nice, but I’m afraid that no matter how hard people try to beat death, the death rate among human beings still remains at 100%.
Science and technology are not the answer, but there is a way to become God-like in character and overcome death. There is a way to overcome sin and its devastating effects. There is a way to be set free from our depravity. If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Hebrews 9, Hebrews 9, where we find out how.
Hebrews 9:15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. (ESV)
The death of Christ redeems the believer. His shed blood on the cross sets the believer free. So, if you want to overcome sin and its devastating effects…
DEPEND ON THE BLOOD OF CHRIST, WHICH IS ESSENTIAL FOR YOUR REDEMPTION.
Rely on the cross of Christ, which is absolutely necessary to set you free. Trust in the death of Christ, which is crucial for your deliverance from sin. You see…
Christ HAD to die to activate the provisions of the New Covenant. The Old Covenant, the Law, declared that “the soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4,20). The New Covenant provided forgiveness and freedom from sin, but a death had to occur to put it into effect. The blood of Christ was essential to RATIFY the New Covenant.
Hebrews 9:16-17 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. (ESV)
When a person makes out his last will and testament, that will is not executed until a death has occurred. In fact, that will is useless until AFTER the person dies.
It’s like the guy who willed his body to science. He chose Harvard Medical School, because, as he put it, “My parents wanted me to go there and this is the only way I could get in” (Time magazine).
He had to die in order for his will to be accomplished. In the same way, Christ had to die in order for God’s will to be accomplished. Christ had to die in order for the provisions of God’s New Covenant to be realized.
We looked at that covenant before (in Hebrews 8). There we saw that when God wrote out His will, He wanted believers to have not only the forgiveness of sin, but also an internal righteousness AND an intimate relationship with Him forever.
God wants His people to be holy, because THEY want to be holy. God wants believers to be holy, because they have an internal desire and a drive within to be holy, not because of an external code imposed on them from the outside.
It reminds me of the old story of a pastor in Oklahoma, who took a Native American to a pastor’s conference. They went to the train station together and caught a train to the city where the conference was held. The site of the conference was a big, beautiful mansion, where the pastors were discussing the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, or the difference between Law and Grace.
Throughout the conference, the pastor’s guest did not say a word. Then at the very end, he made this observation: “It seems to me that the train station demonstrated law and this house grace. At the train station there was a sign, ‘DO NOT SPIT’, and yet the men there did. Here, there is no sign, yet no one spits.”
No one spit, because no one WANTED to spit. They didn’t need a sign telling them NOT to spit. In the same way, God wants our behavior to be inherent on the inside, so that there is no need for a law on the outside. God wants us to desire righteousness from within, so He doesn’t have to force us to keep the rules from without. God wants us to have an internal righteousness.
More than that, God wants us to have an intimate relationship with Him, as well. He wants us to know Him personally. He wants to be our “Daddy,” not just some deity in outer space.
When our kids were little, I had the privilege of playing Santa Clause for the Library’s pre-school Christmas party in Ellsworth. It was a lot of fun, especially to see the expressions of the children’s faces as I came into the room.
They were excited to see Santa Clause, but many were also afraid. They weren’t sure about sitting on the lap of a big, old, fat man, dressed in red.
However, one little boy was never afraid. He loved to sit on the lap of that big, old, fat man. That’s because he had seen his daddy put on that red suit earlier. Timothy, my youngest boy, knew that the big, old, fat man, dressed in red, was his daddy, and he had nothing to fear.
In the same way, those who put their trust in Christ have nothing to fear. That’s because they know God as their Heavenly Daddy. They are intimately acquainted with Him, and that’s what God wants!
It is God’s will that you have an internal righteousness and an intimate relationship with Him. But in order for that to happen, Christ had to die. Jesus had to shed His blood to put God’s will into effect.
That’s kind of like the way it was with the Old Covenant, the Mosaic Law. Blood had to be shed to activate it.
Hebrews 9:18-20 Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” (ESV)
The Old Covenant was activated with the blood of calves and goats (Exodus 24). God had just thundered forth His law from the mountain. Moses received it and came down from the mountain to tell the people of Israel what God had said. The people responded, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do!” So Moses wrote God’s words in a book. Then he gathered the people, sacrificed some calves and goats, and threw the blood on the people.
The Old Covenant, like the New, was put into effect by the shedding of blood. Animal blood was shed to activate the Old. Jesus shed His own blood to activate the New. The blood of Christ was essential to ratify the new covenant.
And it was essential to release you from guilt. Christ’s blood was crucial for your forgiveness.
Hebrews 9:21-22 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. (ESV)
Moses sprinkled everything with blood to purify it, because blood is absolutely necessary for forgiveness. There is no RELEASE from sin without it. That’s what the word “forgiveness” means in the Hebrew, and it was used in some contexts to describe a criminal’s release from prison. But in order for that criminal to be released, someone had to pay for his crime.
On the cross, Jesus paid for your crimes and mine. He did it, so God could truly and justly release us from the penalty of those crimes no matter how bad they were.
Joshua Butler, in his book The Pursuing God, gives the example of a neighbor crashing his car through your fence. When you discover the shambles, you forgive him: “Don't worry about the fence! All is forgiven.” But forgiving your neighbor doesn't do away with the bill or dissolve the damage; it means you eat the cost.
Now consider a more complex example. During the U.S. housing crisis 10 years ago, shoddy banking practices, fat-cat executives, and corporate corruption threw a sledgehammer into the global economy. However, the government deemed certain banks “too big to fail”, so it forgave their debt, covering the most expensive bailout in human history. Even though the banking industry had caused massive damage, the debt was forgiven, but that debt didn’t go away. Bank of America alone owed people $17 billion. Do you know what happened to that debt? Someone else covered it – in this case, you did, the American people. You see, someone always eats the cost.
Well, at the Cross, Jesus was eating the cost of your sin (and mine). Instead of you and me paying for our own sins, a debt we could never pay, Jesus paid for those sins. He personally covered the cost. (Joshua Ryan Butler, The Pursuing God, Thomas Nelson, 2016, page 100; www.PreachingToday.com)
It was absolutely necessary for your forgiveness and mine. The blood of Christ was essential to ratify the new covenant. The blood of Christ was essential to release you from guilt.
And the blood of Christ was essential to get heaven ready for you. Christ’s blood was crucial to prepare God’s home for you.
Hebrews 9:23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. (ESV)
Animal blood was necessary to purify the Old Testament Tabernacle, which was only a copy of heaven. Heaven, on the other hand, requires better blood, the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s only Son.
Hebrews 9:24 For Christ has entered, not into 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. (ESV)
When Jesus died on the cross, He entered heaven on our behalf, to get it ready for sinners like you and me. He used His own blood to purify heaven itself!
It’s not that He needed to cleanse heaven for its own sake. It was already a perfect, holy place. No! Jesus needed to cleanse heaven for our sake. You see, if sinful people like you and me were to inhabit heaven, Jesus had to do something to keep it from being defiled. The blood of animals was not good enough. Only Jesus’ own blood was sufficient to get heaven ready for us.
Officer Peter O’Hanlon was patrolling the streets at night in northern England several years ago when he heard a quivering sob. He turned in the direction of the sound and saw a little boy sitting on a doorstep in the shadows. With tears rolling down his cheeks, the toddler whimpered, “I’m lost. Take me home.”
Officer O’Hanlon named street after street, trying to help the boy remember where he lived. When that failed, the officer repeated the names of shops and hotels in the area, but that didn’t help either. Then he remembered that there was a well-known church in the center of the city. It had a large white cross that towered over everything else in the city. Officer O’Hanlon pointed to the cross and said, “Do you live anywhere near that?”
The boy’s face lit up. “Yes,” he said. “Take me to the cross. I can find my way home from there!” (Bible Illustrator)
The way of the cross leads home, and it’s the only way home. You cannot get into heaven any other way. You must rely on Christ, who died for your sins and rose again. If you want to overcome sin and its devastating effects, depend on the blood of Christ, which is ESSENTIAL for your redemption. More than that…
DEPEND ON THE BLOOD OF CHRIST, WHICH IS EFFECTIVE FOR YOUR REDEMPTION, as well.
Rely on the cross of Christ, which is able to set you free. Trust in the death of Christ, which is can deliver you from all sin.
Hebrews 9:25-26 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (ESV)
The blood of Christ is a permanent solution to your sin problem. It put away your sin once and for all!
Under the Old Testament religious system, the priests had to offer sacrifices ever year for the sins of the people. The system couldn’t cover sin permanently, and that’s the way it is with all religious systems. You have to keep coming back to the priest. You have to keep coming back to the system to experience its benefits.
Not so when you enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ. He takes care of all your sin (past, present, and future) once and for all!
Matt Chandler talks about a time when he spoke at a conference near his hometown.
When he was done preaching, he decided to hop in his car, drive twenty minutes to the town in which he grew up, and look at the houses that he remembered from back then. As he drove into town, he passed a field where he once got into a fistfight with a kid named Sean. It was not a fair fight, and Matt did some shady, dark things in that fight. He completely humiliated Sean in front of a large crowd of people… Then Matt drove past his first house, and he thought of all the wicked things he had done in that house. He passed a friend's house where once, at a party, he did some of what he calls “the most shameful, horrific things that I have ever done.”
Afterward, on the drive back to the conference, Matt was overwhelmed with the guilt and shame of the wickedness that he had done in that city prior to knowing Jesus Christ… He says, “I could hear the whispers in my heart: ‘You call yourself a man of God? Are you going to stand in front of these guys and tell them to be men of God? After all you've done?’”
Then in the middle of all that guilt and shame, Matt remembered what the Bible said about the old Matt Chandler. He is dead. The Matt Chandler who did those things, the Matt Chandler who sinned in those ways, was nailed to the cross with Jesus Christ, and all of his sins – past, present, and future – were paid for in full on the cross of Jesus Christ. (Matt Chandler, The Explicit Gospel, Crossway, 2012, pp. 211-213; www.Preaching Today.com)
You see, when Jesus died on the cross, He put away sin “once and for all.” As a result, He no longer remembers your sin. Therefore, you no longer need to feel shame for the things you have done, because the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son washed it all away!
If you want to overcome sin and its devastating effects in your life, don’t depend on religious ritual; depend on the blood of Christ. Unlike any religious system, His blood is a permanent solution to your sin problem.
More than that, the blood of Christ is a powerful solution to your sin problem, as well. It saves completely all who put their trust in Him!
Hebrews 9:27-28 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 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. (ESV)
Every person dies once. That’s it! There is no reincarnation, no second chance after death. You die once and after that comes judgment. The same is true for Jesus Christ. He too died once! Then He took His own shed blood into heaven to pay for our sins, and soon He is returning to deliver us out of this sin-cursed world!
You have to understand these verses in the context of the Old Testament religious system. In that system, the High Priest would go into the holiest place of the temple ever year with blood from an animal sacrifice. It was a fearful time for the priest, who could lose his life if he did anything wrong. But not only that, it was also a fearful time for the people. They anxiously awaited the priest’s return to see if God had accepted their sacrifice. If the priest did NOT return, they knew God was angry with them. If the priest DID return, they knew God had accepted their sacrifice, and they were alright for another year.
In a similar way, Jesus, our High Priest, has gone into the holiest place of heaven itself with His own blood. Now, we eagerly wait for His return (not anxiously, but eagerly), because we know that God has accepted the sacrifice of His own Son on our behalf. We also know that our sins are covered not just for another year, but for all eternity!
So if you want to overcome sin and its devastating effects in your life, depend on the blood of Christ, which is essential and effective for your redemption. His blood permanently and powerfully put away your sin once and for all!
Steve Brown tells the story about a little boy who killed his grandmother's pet duck. He accidentally hit the duck with a rock from his sling-shot. The boy didn't think anybody saw the foul (sorry!) deed, so he buried the duck in the backyard and didn't tell a soul.
Later, the boy discovered that his sister had seen it all. And she now had the leverage of his secret and used it. Whenever it was the sister's turn to wash the dishes, take out the garbage, or wash the car, she would whisper in his ear, “Remember the duck.” And then the little boy would do whatever his sister should have done.
However, there is always a limit to that sort of thing. Finally, the boy had had it. He went to his grandmother and, with great fear, confessed what he had done. To his surprise, she hugged him and thanked him. She said, “I was standing at the kitchen sink and saw the whole thing. I forgave you then. I was just wondering when you were going to get tired of your sister's blackmail and come to me.” (Steve Brown, Three Free Sins, Howard Books, 2012, p. 110; www.PreachingToday.com)
Are you tired of the blackmail of your regrets? Then come to Jesus. Confess your sin to Him, and trust Him to set you free from the bondage of those regrets. He already knows what you did, and He has already paid for it on the cross.
In the words of Philip Bliss, a 19th Century songwriter:
Free from the law—oh, happy condition!
Jesus hath bled, and there is remission;
Cursed by the law and bruised by the fall,
Christ hath redeemed us once for all.
Once for all—oh, sinner, receive it;
Once for all—oh, doubter, believe it;
Cling to the cross, the burden will fall,
Christ hath redeemed us once for all.
There on the cross your burden upbearing,
Thorns on His brow your Savior is wearing;
Never again your sin need appall,
You have been pardoned once for all.
Now we are free—there’s no condemnation;
Jesus provides a perfect salvation:
“Come unto Me,” oh, hear His sweet call,
Come, and He saves us once for all.
Children of God—oh, glorious calling,
Surely His grace will keep us from falling;
Passing from death to life at His call,
Blessed salvation once for all. (Philip Bliss, 1838-1876)
