THE FINAL SACRIFICE FOR THE SINS OF THE WORLD

TEXT: HEBREW 10 VERSES 12

“But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of  God.”

The Bible has much to say about sacrifice and how a Holy God looks at it. The first mention of this word is found in the book of Genesis chapter 4 verses 4-5, here Cain and Able offer sacrifices to the Lord and the scriptures seem to tell us that the Lord accepted Abel’s offering of an animal sacrifice but rejected Cain’s offering of the fruit of the ground. Here we have the philosophy of the world in approaching the Lord and that is to bring our own works or what we have labored for. The worlds approach to be accepted by the Living God has never changed and you find this in many of the worlds religions that teach performance is what counts and depending on ones God’s works, but all this is rejected by the word of God. No one will ever be in heaven because of his good works or performances. Many find it very hard to accept what the Bible teaches and that no one will ever be able to brag before the Living God that they had a part in their salvation, but that salvation is a free gift of God and it is pure unmerited favor from a merciful God. The Bible tells us that when the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt He spoke to Moses about building the Tabernacles in the wilderness and setting up the sacrificial system where the Lord would meet with the congregation of Israel and they would offer up the prescribed sacrifice for the sins they committed against the Lord. A priesthood was set up and had to be from the tribe of Levi and the high priest had to be from the father of Aaron and once a year he would go into the holy of holys and appear before the Lord and offer up a sin offering and sprinkle blood upon the mercy seat, and the sins of Israel would be covered for another year. The great theme of the Bible is that God is Holy and could not be approached by sinful man, but needed a priesthood to represent Him and be the mediator before a Holy God. In the book of Hebrew 10 verses 4 we have these words; “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.” The great question is why the Lord commanded Israel to offer up hundreds of thousands of animal sacrifices when all these sacrifices could not forgive sin. The answer is all that took place was a shadow of the coming of Messiah who would be the God man and be the perfect sacrifice for the sins of Israel and the whole world. No animal could pay for your sins or mine. Only the blood of another human being could pay for our sins, but all men are sinners except the Savior of the world who alone could say to even his enemies: which one among you convicts me of sin? In the gospel of John we have these words: The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” The message of scripture is do you want to pay for your own sins or will you believe the Bible which tells us that all of our sins were laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ and he was punished for your sins and mine.  I leave you with these words from the book of Romans: “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Romans 10 verse 13