Hebrews 10

Verses 1, 2. That is the place we are brought into. There is no more conscience of sins, not sin. I can come into God's presence without a single thing being laid to my charge. It is not whether you continue on, but whether you have ever been on this ground. Many hesitate at making such a statement; but I believe they hesitate because they have never realized the fact of what the work of Christ has done for the believer. You may have a bad conscience, but I cannot admit that you have a bad one until you have a purged one. You may be merely legal. What do you judge your "bad" by? Is it by the law or by Christ? Many a man would have a bad conscience, but the question is, what does he judge it by? Many a one shelters himself under " I am a failing person." Do not tell me of failure or of what you are, until you have got into His presence without a single thing displeasing to Him. " But I may go back?" Well, we will answer that afterward; settle it first that you have got in this once; that you have, like Jonathan, got title to a place at the king's table. Psa. 32, which speaks of no imputation of sin with God, is the Psalm where there is the deepest distress, because the soul will not confess. The great principle of divine grace is, that where I am most detected, there I am best protected. The Lord says, I will protect you; and " if the Son make you free, ye are free indeed."
Verse 3. This is exactly what is done in Christendom; there is reference made to sins every day, because they do not know a Savior in the holiest. There is a premium for the soul on getting higher; if you were to go up, you would see yourself perfectly clear in the sight of God; you would see not only the sins, but the sin gone. I never yet heard a man talking of his sins when he was out of them. If a man say to me that he is so worldly, I am ready to answer, so you are. Your confessing failure shows that you have a conscience, but do you drop the thing that you fail in? When you first got into the holiest you dropped everything; why not now? You have something in your right hand that you will not give up. If a man be really confessing in private, he will not want to confess in public. I am not speaking of confession for the assembly, but of a man's own private confessions. I repudiate this flesh of mine in God's presence as a wretched, vile thing; there can be no good conscience if I do not. But many souls are harping on their sins instead of abandoning them; saying, " I am so weak," and refusing all the time to abandon their weakness. There is never an excuse for weakness: I take pleasure in weakness, for His strength is made perfect in weakness. But in nine cases out of ten it is not weakness at all but perverseness. If a man be really repentant he is praising the Savior; he has got on to the other side.
Verses 4-9. " The first," that is the offerings. Verse 10. This is the great point: it is "the offering of the body of Jesus Christ." He comes forth and takes a body; and, when He offers that body, all is removed that barred me from the presence of God. God has separated us now to the same standing as Christ. Christ has come down from God and measured my distance, and placed me in the measure of His nearness. Verses 11-13. This is actually the period we are in. Verse 14. The professing church in the present day knows nothing whatever of this; it has dropped into ritualism. Verses 15-18. Supposing a person say, I have failed now; what will become of me? I answer: Still, you cannot get out of the place; you cannot get out of belonging to Christ's house, out of being one of the family. Wesleyans say you can fall away. They make the new creation less than the old; whereas the new is infinitely, incomparably, beyond the old. Besides which they try to change the old into the new. Verses 19-23. Verse 19 ought not to be divided from 20; it is all one sentence; it is not two ways; it is only one. The door is wide open; I look in; I have a right to go in, and, if you once enter, you ought never to go out again; the veil is taken away, and you have boldness, and the more you realize, the more you have boldness. It is the fullest efficacy of the faith. It does not mean what we commonly call " full assurance." It -is the full weight of faith. It is not that you are assured of the faith, but it is what the faith gives you-what you derive from the faith. And it is not that you are to have your hearts sprinkled, but that they are. We draw near with a true heart: I have not taken this standing without the full verity of it in my soul. I am perfectly suited to the place, and have title to be in it. There is not a speck upon me, not a thing to offend against God; the body is fit for the Lord. You cannot lose your standing, the footing you have got; further on it comes to not giving up your birthright; God chose to quicken your soul; take care you do not give it up. It has not to be done when you come in; all was set right before. It is a difficult thing to explain practically; the blood is on the mercy seat for every believer, but each one has to have it upon himself also. It is only by the Holy Ghost I can come in. There is only the flesh and the spirit here, so there is not a word about the oil. You are brought in as priests before God; the blood is not only on the mercy seat, but it is on you. The blood is for the weakest believer, but besides that, at the consecration of the priest, it was sprinkled on him. The flesh is over; I am left entirely to the things of the Spirit; entirely in the power of the oil. We are fellows of the Holy Ghost.
Verses 24, 25. How- long ago is it since they saw the day approaching? 1800 years ago. We know He is due; that is the thing; we are sure He is coming. We do not judge of the day by events; we know that it is due. When the Revelation was given there was nothing to hinder. It is now just as we say of a train, "it is due." So if the Lord were due some time ago, how much more now? The world takes up the question in a contrary way to the professing church, but both arrive at the same conclusion: the professing church says: " My Lord delayeth his coming;" the world, " Where is the promise" of it? " Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together," is that we are not to drop out of Christianity; not to fall back to Jewish standing.
Verses 26-31. These people with all their talk were never converted at all. They had been sanctified by the blood of the covenant, by the position they had taken as professing Christians. They had taken this place and never answered to it. Baptism has to do with the old man; the Lord's supper, with the new. God has got a house on earth in the midst of all the confusion; and the moment you take your place in that house, you take the position of present administrative forgiveness. And I believe God deals with all who take that place. He treats professing Christians very much as if they were all true believers; he deals with them on the ground that they themselves take. There is no question as to their being in the-house of God. Every churchman has an idea that there is something in being within the walls; they take off their hats when they go in; they think everything of the house. On the other hand the dissenters look for membership; they know nothing about the house, and are pitched out somewhere without one, whilst ritualism makes everything of it.
Giving up in that day would have been going back to be a Jew; in the 'present day, it would be apostacy from Christ. The Holy Ghost was acting in the place they were in, and they refused that place. Scripture does not say there is no hope for such persons, but in the place they have got to there is none.
The church is looked at in two aspects: the house and the body. While the wise woman keeps the house everything is in beautiful order; but you can easily see, if she be indolent and negligent, to what a state things will come. It is not that she ceases to be the wife, the bride, but that she is not caring for the house. If she had been always true to her place, there would have been no disorder. When Christ comes he takes away the bride, and leaves the house here. Satan has collected it together, so it is called " the synagogue of Satan," and then it becomes the great whore. The pope is not the man of sin: he exalts himself in all that is called God, not "above all," as we read in Thessalonians.
Verses 32-37. There they really suffered for their Christianity. The time was getting long, and the test of patience is whether you can endure. So here we come to another word: we have boldness to go up, but we have patience to go along the road. It is very interesting the way the coming of the Lord is brought in here. It is the rest that is for us in chapter iv., whilst we work; here the coming of the Lord is the thing that is for patience.
Verses 38, 39. We get a very important principle here. Every person's progress is in accordance with what it costs him. I find a man who has to walk ten miles to a meeting is ten times as fresh as the man who lives next door. If it cost you anything it brings out the virtue of Christ which enables you to do it. It is a great fact that any person is a leader now, not so much through what he knows as through what he suffers.