Sermon Tone Analysis

If you have your Bibles I would invite you to open them to Hebrews chapter 9, we're starting a new chapter this week and I'm gonna be looking starting in verse 1 all the way through verse 14.

We have been taking relatively large chunks of Hebrews these last few weeks and the reason for this is that there is a larger overall context that we're trying to convey.

If we look at these verses one or two at a time we run the risk of missing the bigger theological picture that God is conveying through he author of this book.

So please follow along with me as we read Hebrews 9:1-14

Our message this morning is the 3rd in our series Better Things and is entitled Inside the Tabernacle

Let’s Pray

Regulations

Temple worship was no way arbitrary.

There is great detail in the description that God gave so that worship would be conducted in a way that pictured the heavenly reality.

Verses one through five steps you through each piece of furniture in the tabernacle and ultimately the temple, being the more permanent version of the tabernacle.

Sections of the Tabernacle

The tabernacle was broke into two sections.

The first section was called the holy place, or sanctuary and beyond that the holy of holies, or as we read it in our Bible this morning, the Holiest of all.

Now I realize this is covering some ground that we've already covered but I wanted to be fresh in your mind as we move forward through this chapter of Hebrews.

Furniture

Starting with the sanctuary first you have the lamp stands.

Notice of Bible translated here as a candle sticks but really what we're looking at is a lampstand with six lamp holders.

Regardless of any greater theological implication this was the source of light inside of this enclosed tent.

Also in the first holy place was the table of showbread with it’s 12 cakes of bread sitting upon it.

And finally the alter of incense.

I think we're understanding this passage isn't clear but the altar of incense stood before you got to the veil to the holy of hollies.

It was a piece of furniture that pertained to the holy of holies but it wasn't inside of it.

What happens on the day of atonement once of year the priest would go to the altar of incense and he would take a call from the altar and bring it before the ark which resided on the other side of the curtain.

Which brings us to the holy of holies itself wherein sat only the Ark of the Covenant.

The arc is one of these objects it tends to capture the imagination, we know some things about it that it was made of wood and then overlaid with gold and on top of it were to Golden cherubim with their wings arcing forward towards each other on either side.

Between the chair of them was a place called the Mercy Seat.

Yearly Sacrifice

Once a year, on the day of atonement, the blood of the sacrifice would be brought into the holy of holies and sprinkled on this place of the Ark, a place where the expectation was that God would visit man and except the offering provided, demonstrating His mercy.

A Picture

All of this pictured a heavenly reality.

And you and I looking back have to appreciate that there is no need for any of this any longer.

I heard John MacArthur comment on this and he made a point that I thought was excellent, He said:

It’s like you having a long-lost person that you love with all your heart and you sit there and you look at the picture, and oh the picture means so much.

You know when they’re not around and all of a sudden they show up and they come in and say, “Hello,” and you just keep looking at the picture.

And they sit down and two weeks later you’re looking at the picture, and they’re saying, “But hello?”

And you’re looking.

That doesn’t make any sense.

God doesn’t Eat

And we certainly can’t think that the sacrifice is something that God needs from mankind.

So many pagan religions, have this idea, that the sacrifices that they make are some sort of transference to their gods to meet their needs.

In Psalm 50:12-15 God says

All of this was done for the benefit of mankind, for our understanding and for our benefit.

But, to the glory of God.

Access to God was impeded

The priests are constantly in and out of this first section of the tabernacle for the various sacrificial and ritualistic activities that were to be performed.

But not so much that second area: the holy of hollies.

Look with me again it verses 7 and 8

There was no access to God for the congregation as a whole, and there wasn't even direct access to God by the under priests.

Only by the end of the high priest.

This continues the picture that there was no access to God for mankind while this first tent still stood while there was a veil before the area where God could be accessed.

First section symbolized this.

That there was a need for a mediator, which is why it is so signficant what we read in the gospel of Matthew

Matthew 27:51 (KJV 1900)

51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; .....

After the sacrifice of Christ there was no more need of another mediator and there was no more need of a veil to separate the holy of holies from the faithful under the new covenant.

The veil ripping was the picture being updated to match the current reality.

Sacrifices were inadequate

I think we would be remiss to discount the value of the sacrifices being made entirely.

We know and all of scripture seems to testify that they were not adequate for the salvation that was desperately needed by mankind.

But they did still have great value.

Dealt with Outside Only

v13 tells us their purpose

It like everything else in that happened in the temple, it pertained to the flesh.

And what it was, was an indication of the need for a cleansing that would be the future reality when the offering of Christ would be made in the true, spiritual temple in heaven.

Religion Alone

Pompey

There are 15 books that are sometimes included along with the 66 books we call our Bible.

Those books are called the apocrypha.

They are historically significant writings but are are not recognized as being inspired, meaning that these books are not the perfect communication of God to man.

Two of those books detail the events that happened during the Maccabean revolt.

First and second Maccabees.

For seven years the Jewish people had fought for their independence, this was around 70 years before Christ birth.

And they won.

For almost 10 years the Jewish people had autonomy.

But, in the year 63 BC the Roman general Pompey the Great set out to recapture Jerusalem and sieged the city for 4 months.

When Pompey succeeded he forced his way not only into the temple but all they way into the holy of holies.

The historian Tacitus wrote that Pompey “as victor claimed the right to enter the temple”

But Pompey was shocked at what he found beyond the veil.

Absolutely nothing.

This is a shock to Pompeii because as a pagan he was used to seeing some sort of idol that would reside inside the temple.

That is what he was expecting.

If you and I would expect Pompey to find the Jewish temple lacking in graven images, but he also didn’t find the Ark of the Covenant there either.

See, the Ark had been missing over 500 years, since the Babylonian exile.

Beautiful Facade

When they had returned to their land, and temple worship was restored, there was no mercy seat to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice upon.

When the high priest Caiaphas entered to sprinkle the blood on the day of atonement, he sprinkled the blood on the ground, in an empty room.

He sprinkled it upon the empty foundation, between the posts where the Ark was supposed to be.

The temple was beautiful.

The smoke rose up daily from the sacrifices, and the things of the Jewish religion continued on.

But the mercy seat wasn’t there.

Temples are supposed to be places where people believed their god’s dwelt, and for so long this was the place where God met man, but now, it was just a facade.

Reformation

Whited Walls

I find the state of the temple remarkably similar to words spoken of Jesus towards the religious leaders of the time.

In Matthew 23:27 we read

White Washing

If a Jewish person came into contact with dead body they would be considered ceremonial unclean, and if this happened before passover then they wouldn’t be able to participate.

As a safeguard, before passover, the Jewish people would paint all of the tombs white so that they would be easily distinguished from an ordinary rock.

The graves would be beautiful to look at, but the reality is that it was just a thin coat of paint veiling the reality of death and rot contained within.

That is what Jesus and Paul alike said of the Sadducees and Pharisees.