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Once again, we have an amazing opportunity to look into the Word of the living God that he has revealed to us. So I would encourage you to take your Bibles and turn to Hebrews chapter 13. We continue to examine this wonderful epistle verse by verse. And this morning, I would like to have us look closely at verses 10 through 12, and I have entitled my discourse to you this morning, "We Have an Altar."

Before I read the text let me give you the context once again. Last week, as you will recall, we studied verse nine, where the author reminds us that the gospel is the sole means by which God's grace is made known and experienced to his people adherence to any kind of ceremonial religious code - like Old Testament diet restrictions - is of no value, and we must bear in mind that the Jews believed that partaking of ceremonial meals was a means by which the heart would be strengthened by God's grace, that something supernatural occurred in that context. And therefore, we read in verse nine, the warning, "Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods through which those who were so occupied were not benefited." So in other words, grace isn't dispensed through ceremonial meals from an altar of sacrifice; but real grace is dispensed from the sacrifice of Christ. That's the point. So the principle that we glean here is that soul satisfying joy and measurable spiritual fruit and growth is absolutely impossible apart from an understanding and embracing and enjoying of God's grace. And this requires, as you've heard me say many times, a preoccupation with the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and constant communion with Him, because he alone is the source of our strength. He alone is the wellspring of our joy. He alone is the creator of spiritual fruit. Jesus said, as you will recall in John 15:15, "'I am the vine, and you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit. For apart from Me, you can do nothing.'" I trust this is the passion and the dedication of your heart.

But then the author moves to another exhortation concerning the importance of spiritual separation from Judaism, a religious system that was no longer valid. In fact, to remain in that system and to continue to adhere to its standards and its practices would be an insult to the finished work of Christ, and that's the theme of Hebrews. The Old Covenant has been replaced by the New. And now what's fascinating is, in order for him to make his point, the inspired author uses some fascinating imagery that the Jewish people would understand very clearly. Now, granted, it's pretty foreign to us, but hopefully it will be clear to you before this hour is over. In fact, I find myself utterly lost in the wonder of what God reveals to us in this passage of Scripture. So let's examine this intriguing text together. And in order to do so, we're going to have to go back into ancient Judaism - in fact, much of traditional Judaism even today - and somehow understand God's law as it relates to the sacrifices and the priestly duties. So he says in verse 10,

"We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat.

"For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp.

"Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gate."

Now I want to exposit this text for you under two headings that I hope will be both edifying and encouraging. Actually, think of it this way: we're going to look at three things, we're going to look at the Christian's altar, we're going to look at the Christian's sacrifice, and finally, the Christian's priest. Now some of you are here today with very little understanding of the gospel. I know that I've seen that before. You know very little of the unsearchable riches of Christ. Some of you may have been in church for years, but you know very little of these things. And sadly, when you know little, you will love little. And when you love little, you will worship little. And when you worship little, you will struggle greatly in life. So listen very carefully, my friends. If you will hear these great truths, and if you will embrace them with all of your heart, you will enter into, shall we say, a parallel universe that will help you transcend all of the difficulties of life as you not only know Christ, but you experience his presence, his soul-exhilarating power in your life; and what a foretaste of eternal joy this can be.

And by the way, this is what the Spirit of God has to say regarding the previous verse in verse nine, this is what it means to have the heart "strengthened by grace." What we are about to do here is a way for that to happen. So let's look, first of all, at the Christian's altar. Notice what he says, "We have an altar." Well, now that's interesting, isn't it? We're believers. They were believers. I don't see any altar up here. We didn't do any sacrificing this morning, did we? So what is he referring to here? What is the Christian's altar? In fact, we know that the author has been emphasizing the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice for sin. He has demonstrated how the repetitious sacrifices were no longer necessary. Remember in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse four, he says, "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." So what does he mean? We have an altar now. I have been in a number of churches where at the end of the surface service, people are invited to, quote, "come to the altar." Maybe you've been in those churches before. In fact, I have been viciously criticized as a pastor, on numerous occasions, for not having an altar call at the end of the service, for not inviting people to come forward for salvation or rededication or some other personal decision. And I've even had on several occasions, folks who were gloriously born again in the midst of a service or at home. One guy not too long ago in his pickup truck. I've had those people come to me and say, "You know, Pastor, do I need to come forward sometime?" Because so many people today think that coming forward to an imaginary altar is somehow part of salvation. So it can be confusing, and certainly, I regularly invite people to come to Christ, but it's true, I do not invite them to come to some imaginary altar at the front of the worship service; and I don't do that for a number of reasons.

Let me give you a little history here, because this is a good time to kind of clarify what's going on with this before we look at the text more closely. The altar call was a peculiar practice that first arose among the Methodist camp meetings in Kentucky in the early 1800s, and as you study what happened you'll see that emotionalism and varying kinds of physical phenomena that accompanied it became a prominent feature. Theologian and historian Ian Murray writes quote "Overbalanced on an experienced-centered Christianity and too ready to exalt zeal above knowledge, the Methodist tendency was to treat such things as loud emotion, shouting, sobbing, leaping, falling and swooning as though they were, quote 'the true criteria of heartfelt religion.'" And out of this came the practice of an invitation to the altar. And many times, this was a metaphorical description of the communion table that would be at the front of a church. In fact, at the camp meetings, they would often cordon off a large section, and they would call that the altar, where mourners would be summoned to come and to repent and for others to come and find comfort and rededicate their lives and these types of things. And as you look at the history some Presbyterians, and many of the Baptists, jumped on board with this, and they even added what was called a "mourners’ bench" at the front of an auditorium, or wherever they met. And the large numbers of people that would quote, "go forward" to the altar were then held up as proof positive that genuine saving faith had occurred. It's as though word spread about this phenomenon, and people would wait for the end of the service. It's kind of like standing up for the Hallelujah chorus. It's time for everybody to get excited and go forward. One circuit rider during that time named Stephen Beggs described one of the scenes. He said, quote, "The invitation was no sooner extended than the mourners came pouring forward. The enclosure was so much crowded that its inmates had not the liberty of lateral motion but were literally hobbling in mass. 500 persons pressed forward. Exhortation and singing were renewed, and it was proposed that visiting preachers also on the platform should go down and pass among the people for the purpose of conversing with them and inducing more to come forward." End quote.

Now, by the 1830s, a heretic by the name of Charles Finney arose and he picked up on a variety of the manipulative practices that would summon people to come forward and to make a decision for Christ. He also believed in what he called "an anxious seat," or its equivalent. He believed that that was vital for evangelism, and he said that altar calls should be used quote "to make regeneration so easy that men may not be discouraged from attempting to do it." If you know anything about theology, especially the doctrine of regeneration, you know that that statement is completely distorted. And of course, all of this is rooted in the theological fallacies of Arminianism, and among other errors. They believe that fallen man is not spiritually dead. He's only sick spiritually. And therefore, man is able to cooperate with God in salvation and that prevenient grace, or in other words, preparatory grace, can come along and it can be resisted. But for them, regeneration is not the sole work of the Spirit of God, but rather it's a combined effort with the sinner to raise a person from spiritual death to spiritual life, and most of evangelicalism today is blinded by this heresy. Most people believe that God's will to save is ultimately subject to man's will to believe; so God is held hostage, so to speak, by man's will. And therefore man, not God, is sovereign over salvation. They believe that man can therefore induce salvation. So preachers must do everything they can to get a person to exercise their free will and, quote, "make a decision for Christ," "come forward," "come to the altar" and so forth. Moreover, out of this misunderstanding of the gospel of sovereign grace came revivals, and many churches still practice that today.

By the way, as a footnote, the genuine revivals of the Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening that occurred between the early 18th and and late 19th centuries really disprove that a revival can be raised up by men on a certain date; that you're going to plan to have a revival August 13 through the whatever. Rather history proves that true revivals were brought down by God in his timing and in his place when the true gospel of sovereign grace was preached. Folks, man can no more call down divine power and produce a revival than he can call down lightning from heaven. Salvation, and all that accompanied it is solely an act of sovereign grace from beginning to end. The power is in the gospel preached, not the preacher who preaches it. And God doesn't need altar calls, and he doesn't need revivals to save his elect. He needs men and he needs women who will unleash his saving and transforming power by preaching the truth of the gospel and all of its purity in all of its power, and God will do the rest. He has promised to build the church, and I'm thankful he hasn't left it up to me or to you, or we'd be in big trouble. Jesus said, "No one can come to Me.." unless something happens. And what's that, "...unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day."

So what is this altar that we have "from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat"? Well, dear friends, I believe the answer is quite obvious when we understand it in the context of the statement. So let me take you to the historical context here. Remember now, these new Jewish believers were tempted, because of persecution, to fall back into Judaism, to return once again and be restored to their families and friends; and worse yet, the pagans accuse Christians of being cannibals because they drank the blood and ate the flesh; and also, of even being incestuous, because everybody were brothers and sisters. So they had all of this stuff going on for them. And to make it even worse, now, these new Christians had no priests. They had no temple, no feasts, no sacrifice and no altar. I mean, what kind of religion would that be, right? That's how they thought. Even the pagans have these things. So in answer to this question and this criticism, the author of Hebrews says in verse 10, "We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat."

By the way, as we're going to see, this is, once again, a blatant, direct refutation of Judaism that this audience needed to hear. So let me explain this. The "we" in the text refers to the Jewish believers who were in fellowship with the inspired author, as well as all true believers throughout redemptive history. So the "we" refers to believers, and the "altar" refers to the sacrifice of Christ and the perpetual blessings that he offers as our Great High Priest. "Those who serve the tabernacle," is a reference to the Jewish priests, and by extension, all who subscribe to Old Covenant Judaism. And when he says, "they have no right to eat," he's referring to them not having the right to eat of the altar of Christ, because, as we will learn, a sin offering was forbidden to be eaten by the priests. But also, it was a sin offering that they rejected, along with the high priest who offered it, namely Jesus Christ. So dear Christian, please hear this, we have an altar, but you will not see it in our church, nor will we pretend to have one at the front of our auditorium. Our altar is a place outside of Jerusalem called Mount Calvary - Golgotha - the place of the skull. The site of Jesus' crucifixion, and the place where Jesus bore our sins in his body as the perfect and the final sacrifice for sin, rendering all altars and sacrifices pertaining to a sin offering obsolete.

Pease understand, with Judaism, altars and sacrifices were always used as a doorway into the presence of God. The same was true with the pagan altars and sacrifices, but when Christ died as a substitute for sinners - when he satisfied the just wrath of a holy God, when he cleansed us by the blood of Jesus, when he imputed His righteousness to us - what happened in the temple? The veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. A massive six-inch veil - six inches thick - with magnificent embroidery. In fact, it took 200 men to remove it periodically for cleaning. What a dramatic illustration of how we, as believers, now have access into the presence of God through the altar, that is through Christ, and his saving grace, his atoning work on the cross.

Now, remember, in the Old Testament, God was utterly unapproachable. No one could enter into his presence. So a veil separated the sinful people from God in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle, and later on in the temple. But now, the veil has been rend, the final atonement has been made. Therefore, according to Hebrews two and verse 17, the "merciful and faithful high priest" became the "propitiation," that is the satisfaction or the appeasement, of "the sins of the people" satisfying the wrath of God. Hebrews 4:16, "Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 10, verse 19, we have "confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is His flesh." So folks, the theme of this epistle is basically this: Christ offered himself once for all. His sacrifice never needs to be repeated. On the cross, what did he say? "'It is finished!'"

Let's look closely at these astounding realities. We now understand the Christian's altar. Let's look at the Christian sacrifice. Again, verse 10, "We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp." Now, folks, the Jewish people, would have understood this imagery and the analogy perfectly, though it's quite foreign to us. And be aware also that what he's saying here, especially in verse 10 and following, speaks of New Covenant realities that are an explicit contrast to the Old Covenant system that he refuted in verse nine; a system that's now obsolete. And as we will see, the practical application of these truths for us today are literally thrilling. I hope I can somehow communicate that to you. In fact, they are the very key to what is said in verse nine, that it is "good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which are of no benefit." What we are doing here is of great benefit when you understand it and embrace it and live it. So let's examine this fascinating imagery.

The key to this is understanding that the description that the writer is using is a reference to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It was a yearly sacrifice that was very different from all of the others that took place throughout the year. And the reason it was different? Well, there were a number of reasons, but one of the main reasons, in the context of what we're studying here, is that it was okay for the priest to eat the meat of all of the other sacrifices. That was kind of like an extra benefit for them, to feed them; but not the meat that was offered on the altar during Yom Kippur on the Day of Atonement.

Let me give you some background here. The background of the high priest in the Old Testament, a bit of a summary of Yom Kippur that that we read in Leviticus 16 and 17. Let me tell you how it began and what happened during that time. The day would seem to begin as usual, with the offering of a morning sacrifice, and that would be the burnt offering of a one-year-old lamb. The high priest would then move methodically through the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement, as prescribed in Leviticus 16 and 17. And here's what would happen, and it began first with Aaron, the high priest. Aaron was required to remove his priestly garments. He had to wash in a special way. Then he had to put on the special garments that God required for the sacrifices that would allow him to enter into his presence in the Holy of Holies. He would then secure the necessary sacrificial animals. He had to secure a bull for his own sin offering, he had to secure two male goats for the people's sin offering, and then two rams - one for Aaron's and then the other for the people's - burnt offering, and next he would slaughter the bull for his own sin offering.

And I might add parenthetically here that that these sacrifices were deliberately gruesome. They were bloody, bloody, bloody ordeals. There was blood everywhere. And God had a reason for that. He wanted to remind the people of the hideous nature of sin and remind them that the wages of sin is death and remind them that there is no forgiveness of sins apart from the shedding of blood. And of course, all of this pointed to the ultimate sacrifice in Christ.

Well, then, before entering the holy of holies with the blood of the bull, Aaron had to create what was called "a cloud of incense" in the Holy of Holies, covering the mercy seat to veil or to literally dim the Shekinah glory of God that hovered between the cherubim over the mercy seat, so that he could enter in and his life would be spared. To enter the holy of holies, he had to pass through three areas in the tabernacle and likewise later in the temple.

By the way, as a footnote, if you go back to Hebrews four and verse 14, you will see that this is all symbolic of Jesus, our great high priest, who passed through the three heavens after making his final sacrifice: his perfect sacrifice of himself. He passed through the atmospheric heaven. He passed through the stellar heaven and then into the very presence of God.

So the priest would take the blood, it would go through the door and enter into the outer court, and then through another door into the Holy Place, and finally, he would disappear behind the veil into the Holy of Holies, and once there, he had to make his sacrifice very quickly. There was no place to sit down, no time for delay. And once inside, he would take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it on the mercy seat seven times. That was the place of propitiation. In fact, in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Mercy Seat is translated from the Greek word "hilasterion," which comes from "helosmos," which means propitiation. So the mercy seat was literally the place of propitiation. There, dear friends, the justice of God was temporarily appeased because all sin must be punished. Their atonement was made for sins. And keep in mind that atonement means to provide a moral or a legal payment for a fault or an injury, and it always involved two things, satisfaction and substitution. There had to be satisfaction of the offended holiness of God accomplished only by an acceptable substitute for the guilty party.

Well, at that time, after all of this, now the there were lots that were cast for the two goats to determine which one would be slaughtered and which one would be the scapegoat and driven away and loosed into the wilderness. Now, here's where it gets very interesting. The goat for slaughter, which was the goat for the people's sin offering, was then sacrificed, and its blood was taken into the Holy of Holies and applied to the mercy seat where the bull's blood had been applied. Cleansing, by the way, was then made for the holy place, seemingly by sprinkling the blood of both the bull and the goat. And the entire ceremony of atonement in the holy place was done alone. Nobody else was there to help or to watch. And then next, outside the tent, Aaron was to make atonement for the altar of burnt offering, using the blood of both the bull and the goat. Then the second goat - the one that by lot, had been kept alive - that second goat had the sins of the nation symbolically placed upon its head, and then it was driven outside the camp into a desolate place in the wilderness, a place from which it would never return. Jewish tradition has it that that goat would be led to a high cliff and then pushed over the cliff backwards over the precipice to prevent him from ever returning to the camp.

Folks, you must understand these two goats represented two incredibly important theological concepts. They represented both propitiation and expiation. Propitiate means to appease the righteous wrath of a holy God; the curse that he has against us as sinners. Remember in First John 4:10 we read that God so loved us that "He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." But to expiate means to remove the guilt of sin. It's one thing to satisfy the wrath of God against sin. It's another thing to remove the guilt of sin. So the goat that was slaughtered symbolized propitiation; an innocent substitute was sacrificed, was slaughtered to appease the wrath of God, again, pointing to Christ. And the one sent into the wilderness symbolized expiation - the permanent removal of the guilt of our sins. O, child of God, don't miss this. This is so profound, Jesus was the only possible substitute. In his sacrifice there was both pardon and cleansing. He offered himself in our place to both propitiate - to appease the wrath of God against us - as well as to expiate - to remove the guilt of our sin. What a glorious reality that is; that God alone covers, or he erases, or, as the scripture says, he "blots out our sin from His sight through the blood of Christ." Remember in Isaiah chapter six; remember when Isaiah came before God and saw him in all of his glory, and God, through his angels, came and touched him with the burning coals. He said in verse seven, "Behold, your iniquity is taken away." Second Corinthians 5:19, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting our trespasses against us." They've been taken away.

Now back to what happened at Yom Kippur. When the earlier sacrifices of the bull and the goat were completed the fat of the sin offering would then be burned on the altar, and the remains of the bull and of the goat would be taken outside the camp and burned completely. You see, the priests could have no part in the sins of the people. The priests were not allowed to eat of the meat of the sin offering on the Day of Atonement. The sin offering had to be offered up completely. Leviticus six, and verse 30, here's the law that God gave, "'But no sin offering of which any of the blood is brought into the tent of meeting to make atonement in the holy place shall be eaten; it shall be burned with fire.'" So instead of eating of the remains of the animals, they were taken outside the camp, and they were burned completely. Leviticus, 16 verse 27, and eight,

"'But the bull of the sin offering and the goat of the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall be taken outside the camp, and they shall burn their hides, their flesh and their refuse in the fire.

"'Then the one who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water, then afterward he shall come back into the camp.'"

Folks, this shows you how much God hates sin, does it not? Don't you see that here? Here we see that sin is so defiling, it is so reprehensible, that it must not only be punished, but it must be removed from the very presence of God and from the camp of his people. There's no place for it in his church. Sin was so detestable to God that the sin offering could not even be burned upon the great altar and had to be utterly removed from his holy presence and burned completely outside the camp. That's why, one day all that God has created will be uncreated and there will be a new creation.

Well, folks, all this happened year after year on the Day of Atonement. And obviously the Day of Atonement foreshadowed, and anticipated a greater, permanent cleansing of God's people and of his dwelling place that would ultimately be accomplished by a better priest who would offer a better sacrifice, namely Christ, who offered himself. Oh dear friends, the symbolism is astounding, isn't it? Absolutely astounding. What a picture of the sinfulness of sin. What a picture of how God's justice and His mercy came together at the cross. What a picture of the person and the work of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I might also add, what a demonstration of the sovereignty and the providence of Almighty God to arrange for his Son to be sacrificed outside the camp. Why? To prove to the people that he was the sin offering; that the Day of Atonement pointed to all of those years. O child of God, if these marvelous truths do not move your heart, there is something wrong with your faith.

Now, with this background, of which the Jews were very familiar, let's read once again what the author says; verse 10, "We have an altar." Don't let anybody tell you we don't have an altar. We have an altar. It's the sacrifice of Christ and the perpetual blessings that he offers as our Great High Priest. He is the one who is continuously available to us. The one who is the same, yesterday, today and forever. We have an altar, but it's an altar "from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat." They have no right to eat of the altar of Christ, not physically and literally, but in terms of participating in the saving grace emanating from that which is represented in the sacrifice. He was the perfect, the final sin offering. And they deny all of that. They deny his sacrifice; they deny his priesthood. So you can't eat of this altar if you deny those things. Instead, they preferred the types and the shadows that were fulfilled in Christ rather than preferring Christ himself, don't you see? I remember a couple of years ago flying to Israel, and in the providence of God, a young man came and sat next to me. We got to talking. He was a Harvard grad, very successful entrepreneur, and he was telling me that he was going to Jerusalem, as he does, typically, for at least six weeks every year, to get in touch with his Jewish roots; to understand more of his Jewish roots. And as we got to talking, obviously he saw a book that I was reading, and I forget which one it was, but it was one, clearly that was a theology book. And so he asked about me, and I told him I was a pastor, and he was really intrigued with that. And and he said, "You know, I guess Judaism and Christianity are pretty much the same thing in many ways, because we worship the same God." And I thought, O thank you, Lord, what an opportunity I have to give this dear man, the gospel. I asked him if he knew anything about the gospel. He said, "Well, I've heard the word, but I don't know anything about it."

By the way. I find that interesting. Do you realize that Harvard was founded in 1636 by about 17,000 English Puritans that moved here, and it was founded to train clergymen in the magnificent truths of the Word of God, so that they could go out and preach the Gospel to what they called "the church in the wilderness." And now it has to be one of the most God hating, Bible-mocking institutions in the world. Folks, this is what happens when you denounce the authority of the Word of God, and you lose your preoccupation with the person and the work of Christ. You will get carried away by varied and strange teachings that have no benefit, and it will destroy people.

So here's a young man, a Harvard grad, that didn't know anything about the gospel. By the way, as I recall, John Harvard was a Cambridge graduate and a godly man - a pastor - and he gave, I think, half of his estate there in Cambridge, Massachusetts for Harvard to be founded. So just a little history there to see what happened.

So anyway, he was fascinated with Christianity, and for a number of hours, I had the opportunity to give the gospel to him, and fundamentally to help him see - and I hope you hear this, and I say this with love - Christianity and Judaism are mutually exclusive. They are utterly incompatible. I continue to pray for that man. I hope someday I will see him in glory. I don't know.

Yes, we have an altar, it's the sacrifice of Christ. But now remember, this was utter blasphemy to the Jewish people to say that their Messiah was crucified on a Roman cross. I mean, they knew, according to Deuteronomy 21:23 that any man who hangs on a tree is accursed by God. Are you telling us that our Messiah hung on that tree. Jesus of Nazareth, are you kidding me? Worse yet, dear friends, he hung on a tree outside the camp. It's bad enough to hang on the tree, but to be outside the camp. You see to the Jews to be executed outside the camp was the greatest disgrace imaginable. That was where Sabbath breakers and blasphemers were executed according to the law - Leviticus 24, Numbers 15 - you read about that. Yet this was the place that the Father chose to sacrifice his beloved Son; outside of Jerusalem, outside the gate, outside the camp; a place that would demonstrate that the greatest act of mercy and grace and love that the world has ever known took place outside the camp. That's where sin was satisfied and removed.

I would imagine these glorious truths had a profound effect on those Jewish people as they were taught them as they read them. The Holy Spirit is reminding them again and again and again that you cannot enter into the presence of a holy God apart from the sacrifice of Christ. Jesus offered up his own blood as a sin offering, making him both the sacrifice and the high priest. Remember Hebrews, chapter nine and verse 11, "But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle..." He went on to say, "...through His own blood, He entered the Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption."

Well, finally, now that we know what the Christian's altar is, and we know more of this Christian sacrifice. What about the Christian's priests? He says in verse 11, "For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore, Jesus also..." - there's the key, there's where he's going - "Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood suffered outside the gate." By the way, this is a reference to ceremonial or positional sanctification; being set apart from sin, being set aside unto God, being delivered from the penalty of sin. This isn't a reference to progressive or moral sanctification. Remember in Hebrews 10, and verse 10, we read, "We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all."

So again, what's amazing about all of this is Jesus was both the sacrifice and the great high priest that made the sacrifice. The sin offering was his very blood. And Jesus died outside the camp so that his people - not just the Jews of that day, but all who embrace the New Covenant, who believe in Christ - so that his people can be purified and cleansed and made acceptable to a holy God, so we can worship and serve him, so we can one day stand in the presence of his glory, blameless with great joy.

Now let me expand on this idea of outside the camp in the few minutes that we have left. As we look at the Old Testament, we see that the tribes of Israel camped symmetrically around the tabernacle, so that they could all face the tabernacle. And of course, within the tabernacle was the Holy of Holies. And above the mercy seat - the hilasterion - between the cherubim hovered the Shekinah glory of the living God. And they could see, through all of that, a glow. And off in the distance, outside the symmetry of the camp, were a lot of little tents - little huts, pathetic little places - and folks, that's where all of the diseased people lived, especially the lepers, who were unclean. If you were to go to Jerusalem, outside the gate of Jerusalem in those days, the poorest of the poor lived there, the outcasts, the harlots and the lepers. I've seen lepers before. It's a hideous sight. They typically cover their face because their lips are disfigured and white. And dear friends coming from the white and covered disfigured lips of those who lived in perpetual despair, those who were shunned by their own family members, you would hear a sorrowful lament over and over again if you got near them. "Unclean, unclean, unclean." People with no hope, people with no joy, no fellowship, no faith, no Christ. "Don't come near me, lest you contract this hideous disease and become like me." Oh, dear friends, what a picture of sinners, right? What a picture of you and me, for whom Christ died - outside the camp - with us and for us. I cannot comprehend the suffering and the shame that the Savior endured for me. I cannot comprehend the fact that the pre-existent, self-existent, uncreated Creator of the universe, the Word made flesh, would bear the wrath and the curse of a holy God, for a man as unclean and defiled as me. How could the Father make his Son, who knew no sin, to become sin on my behalf, that I might become the righteousness of God in him; unfathomable. And yet, when I think on these things, my heart is strengthened by his grace, don't you see? How could the Creator, sustainer, Redeemer and consummator of all things, love me enough to not only ransom me, but pardon me and cleanse me with his very blood. Folks, this is the good news of the gospel. Nothing compares to it. O, the only thing we can say is what Paul said in his great doxology at the end of Romans 11, "O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways."

My friend, if you're here today and You've never placed your faith in Christ, here's the invitation, okay? Here it is. Please hear me. You simply must come to the altar of Christ; the one who was willing to be named among the number of those outside the camp. If you see yourself there outside the camp with those people - as I see myself, and as you should see yourself - I would plead with you to remember this: look to the cross. Look to Jesus who died and was buried and resurrected and then ascended back into glory. Look to the one who bore the sins of all who would place their faith in him outside the gate. Look to the one who alone could satisfy the wrath of God and cleanse us.

Dear believer, perhaps you're here today, and you sometimes feel like you're still outside the camp, right? Don't we feel like that at times, and we live with people that are outside the camp, and in many ways we are; we’ve been redeemed from it, but you get the idea. Boy, sin is defiling, isn't it? Doesn't it make you miserable? Makes you feel dirty; makes you feel sad guilty; brings misery to your marriage and your family, to your friends, to your workplace. Well, perhaps some awareness of maybe some leprous spot, so to speak, has surfaced. Perhaps you've been spending your time around too many of the people outside the camp, and you're beginning to think like them, dress like them, talk like them, act like them. Your conscience is on fire with guilt. You feel a sense of bitterness and rage and unforgiveness and all that other stuff that goes with sin. And perhaps your fellowship with God isn't what it needs to be, and you know it. Perhaps you've lost your appetite for the Word of God. You have real no real desire to pray, to commune with him. Your faith has grown weak; your love has grown cold. Your conscience is accusing you. Folks, if you're not there today, you will be sometime, probably next month. We all go in and out of that. But may I give you the good news, and here it is we have an altar. Amen? We have an altar. There's always a place for you at the Lord's table. Be preoccupied with the person and the work of Christ who suffered for you outside the gate. Because of that, as the text says, He has sanctified you through his own blood and suffered for you outside the gate.

As we close this morning, my mind and heart go to, as it often does, to a hymn that we used to sing when I was a little boy. Maybe you remember it, if you do, just join me in singing it,

What can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.

No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Father, thank you that we have an altar. Lord Jesus, thank you for sacrificing yourself on our behalf outside the gate, and I pray that the glorious realities that emerge from these truths, from this text, will forever change each and every one of us, and especially for those that might be within the sound of my voice that know nothing of the Savior, maybe they're religious, but they really don't know and love you, O Spirit of God, by your power, I pray that you will breathe life into that spiritual corpse and cause them to be born again. We thank you. We give you praise in Jesus' name, Amen.