Do Not Be Led Away Part 2

Hebrews 13:9-14

This morning we are going to continue in these verses we began last week. These are perhaps some of the most complicated verses in the book of Hebrews, one’s which you can’t really understand unless you’ve understood the rest of the book. That’s why I thought it would be best to wait until we could spend the whole morning here.

Now you need to understand that difficult does not mean bad, in fact here is some of the most precious truth in the bible.

Just briefly I want to remind you of last week, we looked at verse 9. Verse 9 told us that we cannot allow ourselves to be led away from Christ by strange and various teachings, but rather we are to run to him, we are to go to him to be filled and established. He used the terminology of food, food laws. Christians are not filled are not strengthened are not spiritually established by anything other than the grace that is offered to us in Christ. All of our lives is a going to Christ, to be firmly rooted and established.

This morning continues the same thing, but he digs deeper into your position in Christ.

Do you ever feel that you’re in Christ, but maybe a strong breeze could take you away? One day without good sleep you wake up cranky, make some bad choices, and my the end of the day Christ has throw you out because you aren’t good enough anymore?

If there is anything that I could rid us of it is this thinking that Christ does not and cannot hold us securely. There is a reason he uses the word “grace” to explain what establishes us. There is infinite grace in Christ.

So let’s look at verse 10. What does he mean by this? We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat? What altar is he talking about and what does it mean to serve the tent!

This requires some knowledge of the Old Testament sacrificial system and Priestly system.

Under the Mosaic Law, the Levites-the priests-did not have land, and they did not have a means of raising money outside of the tabernacle or temple. God designed it this way. You didn’t have bivocational priests. They relied on their work in the tabernacle (tent) for food. God designed it to that the people would bring their sacrifices, and a portion of it would go to feed the priest and his family.

So Dan Shumaker wouldn’t hand me a check each month, instead I’d walk home with a part of a cow or a lamb.

So notice what it is that the author is doing. You have to understand that food and tabernacle and priesthood and worship were all tied together in the Old Testament. Hebrews has told us this already when he said “When there is a change in the priesthood there is a change in the law as well” (7:12).

So this false teaching that observing these food laws didn’t make sense. Food is connected to the tabernacle. Well, he’s already argued that the true tent is in heaven, not on earth. And the food was always connected to the sacrifice. Well he’s also told us that the full final sacrifice took place on the cross and was offered in the true tabernacle in heaven. There is no more sacrifice.

He’s told us that the priesthood has changed since Jesus a better priest after a better order has come, so even the laws about the priesthood has changed.

Maybe that’s a lot to understand. The reality is that false teaching often picks and chooses what it likes to suit it’s own ends. That’s the point the author is making. Food laws, what are you talking about?

But notice he says we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. Well, what or who is he talking about? Jesus. The sacrifice and the altar are connected. We don’t observe food laws, because our once for all sacrifice has been given on the heavenly altar. If you are still serving in some earthly tabernacle that has run it’s course, you have no right to feast on the grace of Christ… because you are now relying on dead system.

By the way, he’s telling us that we eat from the better altar. In the New Covenant we are all priests. If you are a believer, you are a priest. And you partake of the blessings of God from the altar, from Christ.

Now that’s plenty to think about, but he takes this picture even further in verses 11 and 12. He takes us to Leviticus 16:22-28.

On the day of atonement, the priest made sacrifice for the whole nation. and this was pictured with two animals, the scapegoat and the offering. You’ve heard of the scapegoat? Well here is where it comes from.

The priest places his hand on the head of the scapegoat and takes him outside the camp and sends him off into the wilderness.

Now the other animal is killed, his blood is sprinkled on the people to symbolize their cleansing, and then the whole animal is brought outside the camp and burned in its entirety.

What is being pictured? Well the scapegoat pictures sin being removed from the presence of God, he can’t be near it… and the offering represents God dealing with sin, propitiation, the burning penalty of his wrath.

Now the reason he brings this up is to put the understanding of food and the sacrificial system to rest in the minds of the Hebrew church. Every sacrifice pointed to Jesus, we receive grace when we go to him and feast on his grace.

But even the Day of Atonement sacrifice from which the priesthood did not eat, was fulfilled by Jesus. Did you know there was even a purpose to the location of Calvary? Of course there way, God is the author of history!

Calvary was outside of the city. You don’t execute criminals in the middle of town, you take them outside of the city to demonstrate that these people are cursed.

You know the Roman soldiers and the Pharisees who took Jesus out to Calvary had no idea they were performing the Day of Atonement sacrifice on the Lamb of God. They understood they were killing the Messiah but they didn’t understand the symbolism of where they were taking him.

They took our Lord outside the camp so he could suffer outside the camp as the cursed one hanging on a tree in order to sanctify his people by his blood.

Believer you have had the cleansing blood of the lamb sprinkled on you. He suffered and died outside the gate on your behalf, removing your sins, being fully consumed by the wrath of God on your behalf, becoming the propitiation for our sins.

This phrase “outside the camp” always refers to the place someone or something that is unclean goes. The one’s who have sinned against the Lord go outside the camp. The picture is separation from God and his people.

What did Jesus say when he was on the cross? Psalm 22:1 “1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus fully experienced the curse, the separation, the abandonment of being outside the camp.

The Christian life is not about going through a set of rituals to make yourself feel a certain way, it is about knowing who Jesus is and what he has done for you.

So he encourages us with these words. Maybe they don’t fit your definition of encouragement, but I think that’s what they are.

You can believe there is something better than Jesus and spend your life searching for it. You can try the new fad, read the new book, jump from church to church looking for whatever it is you are looking for. You be led away by false teaching that promises life to you, or you can go to Jesus.

And where is Jesus? Where did he suffer? Outside the camp. We’re called to pick up our crosses and follow him, bear his reproach. We aren’t called to be loved and adored by the world. We’re called to follow him.

What is the great promise in this? This world is passing away. The things of this world are passing away. There is nothing in this world that will establish, sustain, satisfy you. But we don’t look for those things here, rather our eyes are set on the author and founder of our faith who for the joys set before him endured the cross, scorned its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God. We seek that city that is to come.