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Sermon Manuscripts
Superficial Religion: The Superficiality and Symbolism of the Old Covenant
Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary. 2 For there was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread; which is called the sanctuary. 3 And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all; 4 Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; 5 And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly. 6 Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. 7 But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people: 8 The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing: 9 Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; 10 Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.We are a generation that has specialized in the superficial. We are experts at saying many things but not really saying anything. This culture despises the specific in order to cherish the superficial. We get our news in sound bites because we won’t take the time to read beyond the headlines. Don’t bother, or should I say, confuse us with the facts. The superficial is the sense of reality without the substance. Therefore, we have become masters of disguise. Let someone ask us how we are doing and we answer, “Fine,” when the truth is we were never worse. Appear congenial and ask someone else how they are doing and they really tell you. Oh my! We get uncomfortable when they begin to unload on us and tell us their problems. We don’t want our compartmentalized worlds inconvenienced. We are only interested in surface relationships. Anything else is too expensive for our comfort zones. We just don’t want to get involved. This is one of the reasons why this generation wants nothing to do with Christ. I am convinced of this. Christ gets intimate! He gets way too intimate for the superficiality of our times. Jesus goes beyond the surface to the root. John the Baptist spoke of Him and said that Jesus was like an axe being laid to the roots. While we are talking about the leaves and worrying about branches, He’s inspecting the roots. He is well aware of our surface smiles and quick clichés. He knows all about us, and what He usually finds just underneath the surface is not pleasing. A little make-up, ma'am, won’t conceal the truth from Him. A new suit or a promotion at the job, sir, won’t cover the pain from Him. Our Lord targets the heart and that bothers us. We like being superficial; intimacy is a quagmire. No wonder marriages are ending almost as quickly as they begin. One out of two marriages will not survive because neither husband nor wife knows anything about intimacy. Fathers spend as little as seven minutes a day talking to their children. Superficiality is the name of our game, and it will not work in spiritual matters. Many of those who consider themselves to be religious are simply fooling around on the surface and the external, while God is majoring on the heart. Their effort on spiritual matters is minimal and is as minimal as they believe required. Many preachers, deacons, Sunday School teachers and members are what the apostle Paul, with prophetic insight, has stated, “Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.” In other words, on the surface appearing righteous; on the surface appearing heaven bound; on the surface appearing like God, but in reality they are rejecting the very power that would save them. Paul called his people, Israel, rejecters of God who built their own righteousness. This is a fitting epitaph for many Americans’ religion. Most Americans fulfill the requirement of a Sunday morning church service. Many tip God in the offering and sing a song or two with just enough emotion to appear sincere without appearing fanatical. All so shallow, so superficial, without any heart whatsoever, “Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.” I am often resisted and have the argument thrown in my face, “How can you say these things and pass such a judgment? The Bible tells us we are to do good things and that morality and being better than sinners is what God expects.” Ah, dear friend, such is true, but it is not the heart of religion, it is the external manifestation of it. The same Bible that tells me good deeds and moral behavior befitting Christ’s name are expected of me also tells me that one can do these things on the surface and be devoid of the Spirit of God. It tells me that religion can be superficial only and not from the heart. This is what our text teaches us. Why all this endless discussion of tabernacles and first covenant and new covenant? Why all this about priests and sacrifices and sanctuaries? (At least is seems to have no end, but I assure you it does. The writer of Hebrews will move on to other things.) It is all very necessary in order to teach the audience that external religion, no matter how exquisite and beautiful, can not make you right with God. You need something else, and, in this case, you need someone else. The text will show us that even the rules of a religion, which God instituted in the Old Testament, would not save a single sinner. How then do you think your religion, whether it is the religion of a church, denomination or the devices of your own heart, will save you? It will be my task today to convince you that a religion that is superficial is not a religion sufficient to save. I come, dear moralist, to plead with your heart, that your heart is not in your religion, and that Christ would claim your heart today as His prize. I come to prove that good behavior and morality par excellence, without Christ, will ruin rather than redeem you. It will damn you and not spare you. It will be the millstone tied around your neck that will submerge you into hell’s deep inferno. That’s what I’ve come to tell you. For my brothers and sisters who are resting in Christ and Him alone for eternal salvation, it will be my joy to remind us of Christ’s sufficiency on our behalf. It will also be my joy to see you return to fully trusting in Christ’s sufficiency if you have begun to somewhat depend on yourself. Now, there are three things I gather from this text. First: A RELIGION OF WORKS WAS INSTITUTED BY GODFriends, the Old Covenant was a religion of works. That undoubtedly sounds strange but it was a religion of works, and it came from God. He sanctioned it; He instituted it; He invented it. While we talk disparagingly of trying to be good, moral, and decent, in order to merit favor with God, we must remember that God commands good works. We are to be a people of morality. We are to be a people who live ethically and morally according to the precepts of morality found in Scripture. Ours is not a situational morality. There is no movable standard of morality. Ours is to be a morality established by Him who is moral, who is the epitome of morality, Christ Himself. So, please understand that the Old Covenant was a religion of works, and God instituted it. It was of a divine order. Our text tells us in Hebrews chapter nine, verse one:
The word “ordinances” can mean rules or regulations. The first covenant had ordinances or regulations of divine service and a worldly sanctuary. In other words, the author is saying that this Old Covenant was a religion that dealt with the divine, and its rules regulated the divine worship of God. All that our text is telling us is that the Old Covenant was God’s means of establishing how worship was to be conducted under that dispensation. It was rules regulating the worship of God, but all of these rules dealt with external forms of worship and not the heart, as we will clearly see this morning. We are dealing with a divine covenant, therefore it is holy. It’s so holy that God blessed it with His very own presence. You must remember that when Moses built the tabernacle and dedicated all the vessels and furnishings of the tabernacle, he dedicated it all with blood. When Moses did so, the Spirit of God came upon the tabernacle in the form of a pillar of cloud. The Lord rested in the “Holy of Holy” place. God made His presence to abide among the people of Israel. Thus we say this first covenant is a very holy covenant. It may be a religion of works, but it is sanctioned by the holy presence of God. Hebrews chapter nine and verse three again illustrates the holiness of Old Covenant.
It was the “Holiest of all” because that’s where God’s Spirit dwelt as He hovered over the mercy seat, the lid of the Ark of the Covenant. God associated Himself with it. You must not look minimally upon this covenant. This was a very important covenant. God’s presence was with it, and it regulated how He should be worshipped. If it was violated, the severest penalties were exacted from the person violating this covenant. For example, the Holiest of all could be entered only one time a year. Only the high priest could enter in, and not without blood. And I’ve told you this before, but let me again for the sake of someone who may not know; he could not go into the Holiest of all where God’s presence was just because he had blood. He had to make certain preparations. There were rules regulating how he was to enter and present the blood of atonement. One of the regulations was the high priest had to tie a rope onto his leg, and a bell on the other leg. If he failed do what he was supposed to do according to the regulations of this “religion of works” established in this Old Covenant, God would kill him. While he performed his intercession before the Mercy Seat he had to jangle the bell, letting the people outside know that he was still alive. Should the bell ever cease ringing, they knew what had happened---death. The external worship of God had to be conducted according to the precepts of the Law. Oh! Friends, this is very, very important. Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, decided that they would offer a strange fire to God, which means they did not worship the Lord as prescribed in the law. The Bible says God killed them immediately. It may have been a religion of works, and it may not have saved one single sinner, but it was holy, and it was not to be taken lightly. I want to ask this question, and I shall repeat it throughout this message: “If the holy covenant of God could not save a single sinner, including Moses, how then, do you think a religion of works will save you?” The second thing I want you to see from our text concerning a religion of works is that: A RELIGION OF WORKS IS INSUFFICIENT TO RECONCILE US TO GODA religion of works, even the one that God instituted in the Old Testament, is not able to bring us back to God in right standing. It’s insufficient, first of all, because it affects only the outward appearance. Everything about the worship of God in the Old Testament had to deal with the outer man, and not with the inner man. Look at verse ten of the ninth chapter of Hebrews.
The writer is saying that the Old Covenant was concerned only with the external; the way you physically entered into the presence of God, and how you worshipped Him. It doesn’t say one thing about the internal man. The law of God symbolized sin in many different ways. One way to illustrate sin in the Old Testament was by a man touching an unclean thing, in this case, such as Numbers chapter nineteen and verse thirteen, a dead body. To touch a dead carcass would pollute a man. The “unclean” person would have to be cleansed physically through rules and regulations of washings, and by blood, in order to go back to the tabernacle and to be able to participate in worship.
God set up this Old Testament system to teach us how powerfully deadly sin is. The illustration is clear. Man is polluted by sin and he needs to be cleansed before he can acceptably go into the presence of God and worship. Hear the lesson! It doesn’t take a whole lot of sin to separate you from God; it takes only the touching of the unclean thing, and you are immediately separated, without hope of ever getting back into a right relationship with God. And so, the Old Covenant only dealt with the external rules of how to be ceremonially clean, externally clean. The sacrifice could only make the worshipper outwardly clean. Defilement by sin really doesn’t come from touching something dirty. Jesus told us defilement by sin really comes from the heart. In Matthew chapter fifteen, Jesus is explaining to the disciples what he had said earlier to the Pharisees. It’s not what enters a man that defiles him, but what comes out of a man. And they didn’t understand, and so they asked him, “Declare unto us this parable.” Jesus answered,
While the Old Covenant could deal with making your hands clean, it could not give you a clean heart. Therefore, a religion of works, which is doing good and being moral in your conduct, may make you on the outward appear clean, it cannot make you internally clean. It will no doubt make you socially acceptable and will impact your life for the good, but it cannot deal with that which is really the root of your real problem---a sinful heart. The very basic nature of what you and I are is rebels against God. This first covenant with all its laws on morality could not change that one condemning fact. The author of Hebrews makes it extremely and explicitly clear in the very next chapter.
Oh! The hundreds of thousands of calves, goats, and sheep that were killed could not remove sin. You think about it. All those animal sacrifices and the best they could do was cover the sin. They could not remove sin. When you sinned, you were to take an animal and you were to carry it to the priest. You just could not go into the presence of God and ask for forgiveness, you had to have someone do it for you, a mediator called the priest. But the priest didn’t kill the animal. You laid your hands on the head of the animal, symbolizing the transfer of guilt, and you took the knife with your own hand and slit its throat. What a bloody thing! As you held on to the wounded animal, its life began to seep out of its wound, and finally it crumpled to the ground dead. It was because you had done the evil thing, and sinned against God, that this innocent animal lay at your feet dead. But the giving of its life and blood could not take away your sin. All it could do was expiate, which means to cover it. To cover it so that you could go back into the tabernacle and worship God, but it didn’t remove the sin from you! Not the blood of the calf, not the blood of a goat, not the blood of a lamb, but the blood of “The Lamb of God” only can take away my sin! Many people when they come under the hearing of the Gospel also come under attack by the master deceiver. Satan comes and deceives them into thinking that all that is necessary to be right with God is to perform good deeds or live up to some moral code. If they will only be better than the next person, then God will accept them; if they become religious by attending church, or make changes that are morally and sociably acceptable. Today people line church pews thinking this is the means by which to deal with their sin. But friends, such self-reformation may change your social acceptance, and it may even get you a promotion at work, but it won’t make you right with God. As we have stated, religious works can only deal with outward appearance. All your good works do is make you look better to others, but not to God. Not even the blood and the religious works of the Old Covenant could do it. Religious works, even those established by God are insufficient for eternal life and forgiveness. A second reason religious works are insufficient to reconcile you and me to God is because such works cannot cleanse the conscience. Let’s look at verse nine of our text:
The priest that made intercession and asked God’s forgiveness for the guilty, even he, by animal sacrifice couldn’t be made to have a clear conscience. Good works never ever cleanse the conscience! There was no internal work of God to clear the conscience in the Old Covenant law. And there is no way that your good works, your performance, your changing, or your making better promises to change will ever clear the conscience. Oh, the sting of a guilty conscience! Its sting is worse than a scorpion. Its bite is much more poisonous than a snake. Its pain is ceaseless. There are only two ways to rid the pain of a guilty conscience. The first is to kill it completely where you no longer have a conscience. The second way is for God to heal it. People are addicted to many and various things because of the pain of a guilty conscience. I am absolutely persuaded that some people are on narcotics and prescribed medications because of a guilty conscience. They have physical ailments, but they are only symptomatic of a deeper problem, a problem that is not physical but spiritual. We are medicating the guilt of a generation by the prescribing of drugs. I am not saying every time somebody is sick it is because they have a guilty conscience. But there are a lot of people who would fill that bill. And if it is not prescribed medication, then it is illegal narcotics or alcohol. Others turn to illicit sex. Or perhaps the greatest narcotic of this generation to try to ease the guilty conscience, the narcotic of entertainment. We are a people addicted to fleshly entertainment. No wonder a man will sit down after a hard day’s work and won’t have but seven minutes of conversation with his children, but spend hours in front of the television. It’s a means of escape; it’s a means to ease the conscience from the guilt that now afflicts it. If not entertainment, then wealth or power. We fill our lives up with things, things to try to ease the conscience, to bring peace where there has been no peace, to still guilt’s beating heart . I have read several Edgar Allan Poe stories. I’m not necessarily sure I would recommend his writing to you. But one story of his I think is a very poignant illustration of my thoughts today concerning the pain of a guilty conscience. It is the short story “Tell Tale Heart”. Edgar Allan Poe creates a character who is annoyed by an old man who is renting an apartment in the same building in which he lived. The old man had a bad eye that could not see. A grotesque film covered the eye, and he was strictly hideous to look at. Each time this man saw this old man with this eye, he got the cold chills. It bothered him so that he would stay up at night worrying about this old man’s “evil eye.” The hideous eye so tormented the man until he finally concluded the only way to get rid of the eye was to get rid of the man. One dark night he carried out his evil plot and killed the man. He mutilated the body cutting it into pieces, pulling up planks of the flooring to bury the old man’s body. A scream had been emitted by the old man when he was being killed by the main character of Poe’s story. Someone had heard the scream and called the police. When the police arrived at the building where the two men lived, the murderer told the police that the old man was gone. Nevertheless, the police wanted to inspect the old man’s room. The guilty man took them up to the room where there was no sign of a struggle, no sign of a crime committed that night. The two policemen continued to talk to the old man’s neighbor, and while they were talking to him, they had no clue that there before them sat the murderer. But while the man talked with the police, he began to hear a slight faint noise. It sounded at first like the ticking of a watch, but it got louder and louder. Finally it became discernable to the man. It was not the ticking of a watch; it was the beating of a heart. He wondered why the police wouldn’t leave, why did they keep talking to him. Maybe they too heard the same heart that he was hearing as it got louder and louder. He began to pace the floor. Louder, louder, louder! Until he finally could not stand it no more, and he cried, "Villains!" he shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! – tear up the planks! Here, here! - It is the beating of his hideous heart!" What was the sound that he heard? The guilt of a pained conscience. Every time his own heart beat, it reminded him of the heart he had stilled with his own hands. It wouldn’t let him alone. Such are some of you today. Your conscience won’t let you alone, and so you’ve decided “Religion, religion.” “I will change my ways.” I’m here to tell you by the authority of God’s Word, that God instituted a system that lasted fifteen hundred years, called the Old Covenant law, to prove to you and me that good works cannot cleanse your conscience! It’s not the answer. Thirdly, a religion of works is insufficient to reconcile us to God because it’s not the prescribed way to God. It’s not the way God has chosen for sinners to come to Him. Read the eighth verse of our text. In this eighth verse the writer explains why God instituted the Old Covenant.
Why didn’t Jesus just come on the scene fifteen hundred years earlier instead of Moses? Why not just bring Jesus and deliver the people of Israel? Why do it this way? It was important to do it this way to show us that the way to God is not through a religion of works. The way to God is through a person, and the person is not you, it’s not a preacher, it’s not a priest. It’s Christ Jesus the Lord! The Holy Spirit has used this fifteen hundred year dispensation of law to show us that the way of God is not through the law. The writer under the inspiration of God says, “It was not manifest,” meaning it was not revealed. The way to God was not shown through good works, and keeping rules and regulations. It was through another way. In Hebrews chapter nine and verse seven, we are told the high priest made atonement for Israel once a year. He must have blood in order to make this atonement.
Yet even with this strict compliance to God’s law by the high priest using the blood of a goat, the sins could not be removed only covered. Certainly the activities of this Day of Atonement was a picture of what Christ as our High Priest would do to remove our sins, but those activities of men could not really atone. It was as if God was saying “Although this is the way which I have prescribed, it really is not the way to Me. This will never bring you into My presence. The works of the Law do not save; only My Son saves.” The lie of this generation has been the attempt to mix the old with the new, and come up with a hybrid; a little grace and a little law; a little of God and a little of you. Friends, let me make this perfectly clear. It is all of God and nothing of you! A man is not saved because he is ingenious and strong enough to do something to impress God. It is only by the merciful, sacrificial death of Christ. Why will you refuse the only way of hope offered to you? Why is it that you reject the precious sacrifice of Christ in order to establish your own righteousness? You have begun to set yourself up as a judge over God. The day that a man or a woman tells themselves that, “If I just change,” “If I just live up to this system of religion,” “If I pray this prayer and ask Jesus to come into my heart, and do my very best,” he or she has set themselves up to be wiser than God. You are saying that your righteousness is better than the righteousness which God has provided for us. You are actually saying that you are holier than Jesus. Shall you judge Him who will one day judge you? Please, dear friend, be careful. It’s blasphemy! What is the answer then? A RELIGION OF WORKS MUST BE ABANDONED FOR A RELIGION OF GRACEWe must abandon a religion of works in order to accept and embrace a religion of grace. The purpose of the first tabernacle and covenant was a parable for the Jews on the true way to salvation. Again, verse nine: Which was a figure for the time then present...The word “figure” is the same Greek word for parable. You do know what a parable is? It’s a story that illustrates a truth. The Old Covenant, with its Ten Commandments, was a parable, a symbol, illustrating the salvation that is in Christ Jesus the Lord. Every time they had to lay their hands on and take the knife and slit the throat of one of those animals, they were pointing to a picture of the Lamb of God, Jesus, who would be slain for us. The way to God was not manifested through the Old Covenant law, but it is through Jesus Christ and grace. Now, that raises a question. What about Noah? What about Abraham? What about David? What about all the saints of the Old Testament? Now, the word “manifest” is a key word. It means that the way in general was not open to all. It was not made known to all through the law. But that does not mean that the saints in the Old Testament were not regenerated and saved by grace through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t mean they weren’t saved. They were as saved as you and I are today, but the way of God was not clearly manifested in the Old Covenant system of worship. It was imparted to them by the illuminating instruction of the Holy Spirit, so that Abraham is the father of faith because he’s saved by faith, not by the works of his own hands. Their insight into the grace of God is evident in Psalm fifty-one. When David prayed his prayer of repentance after his heinous crime of killing Uriah and committing adultery, he knew that the covenant of the Old Testament could not forgive him. He said,
Man, he said a lot right there. Here is an Old Testament man living in an Old Testament dispensation, and yet he understood that animal sacrifices were symbols of something better to come. He knew that there was no forgiveness in that bull, or goat, or lamb. He knew forgiveness was in a God who took mercy upon a sinner, when that sinner is broken, in humility, and in repentance. That’s the same way to God today, and repentance and humility are in Christ Jesus. Look to Christ! God never asked anybody to give up anything without providing something far better, and those who despise His offering are always the losers. Pride is strong, and never harder to overcome than in connection with morality, good behavior, and religion. Therefore, the Holy Spirit argues persuasively throughout these nine chapters of Hebrews that the only way to hope, the only way to peace, the only way to love is through Christ, and Christ alone. A man by the name of Edward Mote wrote a hymn we sing often and love dearly. Its stanzas go this way, My hope is built on nothing less
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