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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

A Body Hast Thou Prepared

I've been on the road this week traveling and since last week and meeting with people in their homes and there's nothing like meeting people face to face in their homes.

It's different than meeting them on Zoom, to be actually in their room and to talk to people.

And things happen that would not otherwise happen if you didn't go to visit someone in their house or talk face to face.

And this of course is what this time of year is about, that God came down and entered into humanity.

And So I was thinking of this phrase, a body you have prepared for me.

So let's pray together and we'll think about that a little bit.

Father in heaven, Lord, thank you this evening that you could have Skyped us, Zoomed us, all these different things, but you decided to come down.

Open with me and your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews, if you don't realize it, is a fabulous book.

It starts out with a picture of God who came down and revealed Himself, chapter 1.

In various times He spoke to us in different ways, but now He revealed Himself through Christ who is the express image, carbon copy, the same character, actually He uses the Greek word character, as the father.

And he's totally God, chapter 1 claims, and he's totally man, chapter 2 claims.

He has the divine nature, He has the human nature, and He comes down and reveals Himself.

And in Hebrews chapter 10, I probably will talk about this chapter again tomorrow, it's a fabulous chapter that actually gives the entire timeline of the Great Controversy from the time of the Old Testament until the consummation, that is, until the Second Coming.

And I'm going to show you that prophetic timeline tomorrow in it because it's stunning actually, but I want to just look at a piece of it tonight in verse 5 through 10.

After explaining that he had revealed himself through the Old Testament system of sacrifices and sacrifice of the bodies of animals, he then says this to say, therefore, when he came into the world, he said, sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me." A body you have prepared for me.

And burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, you had no pleasure.

Then I said, behold, I have come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do your will, O God, previously saying, sacrifice and offering and burnt offering and offering for sin you did not desire, nor had pleasure in them, which were offered according to the law.

Then he said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God.

He takes away the first that he may establish the second.

By that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." What an amazing, fascinating passage.

How many times did it mention the word body in that reading?

How many times did it mention the word body in our scripture reading?

My wife is raising her hand, and how many times did you say?

But a body you have prepared right there in the first verse we read, and then at the end, by that will we have been sanctified or made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ.

So you have a body that is related to his birth, and you have a body that's related to his death, and in between those 2 mentions of the word body, you have his life, his birth, his life, his death, all right there in the text.

Now this is a quotation from actually Psalm 40, and go back with me to Psalm 40, and let's look at it briefly together.

Psalm 40, a Davidic Psalm, and David, that's what Jesus was named by God the Father at the time of His baptism.

This is my David in whom I am well pleased.

This is my David, this is my beloved in whom I'm well pleased.

And this Davidic Psalm was speaking of Christ and so it's being quoted in the New Testament in Hebrews chapter 10 and being applied to Christ, but it has a little nuance, a little difference that I want to point out to you.

Sacrifice and offering, verse 6, �You did not desire my ears, you have pierced� in some translations.

I have a sermon called �God�s Jewelry�.

I talk about this text, the pierced ears.

I talk about the idea that God wants us to be decked in, not necessarily decked out.

And He desires a meek and quiet spirit, but that's not what I'm talking about tonight.

But I'm just pointing out that this idea here that's mentioned in the New Testament, it says, sacrifice an offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared.

Here in the Old Testament where it's quoting from, it says, my ears you have pierced or you have opened.

Or maybe it's that part of the body we call the ears.

Well this is a fascinating passage because that idea of piercing ears or opening ears actually is describing what Jesus did with his body.

He came in a human body with his ears wide open to his father He actually listened to his father more than anyone else Whenever he spoke he would say and the Gospel of John verily verily which means amen amen I'm actually directly quoting my father If anyone listened to God the Father more than Jesus, I don't know who it was.

It was Jesus who always was listening to his father.

Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me, or my ears you have pierced, and burnt offerings and sacrifices since you had no pleasure.

But I said, behold, I have come in the volume of the book, that would be in Psalms, it is written to me, to do your will, O God.

And this whole idea that Christ came in the flesh to obey in the flesh on your behalf because all of you, along with myself, have been disobedient.

You would have no hope without that according to the scriptures.

You know, we live in an age where people are preparing their bodies for different things.

And we live in an age where people say, I don't like the body I have.

In fact, I don't like it how it is, so I'm going to pierce it all over.

Recently I was on a trip with my wife, also my ex-fiance, and we were all together, the same person, and we were on this trip.

And as we were in 1 of the cities, we saw this lady who had piercings all over her body that were actually to the level of grotesqueness.

And she was charging money because she looked so terrible.

And then I've seen places where people have tattoos all over.

I've seen someone with tattoos everywhere on their body.

The Bible actually talks about not tattooing your body.

It actually talks about simply being, you know, clad.

It talks about how God had them actually plunder the Egyptians with all of their wealth, but then take it away and say, take it off and give it to me for the sanctuary.

How do we get to this point in culture where the body is treated in this way?

Well, I've been reading a book, or read a book a couple years ago actually, when we were doing a series here called Truth Matters, and I read a book that came to my mind, so I pulled it out this afternoon and looked at it again where it talked about the idea of the change that we have in our minds concerning the body.

It says, you know, this change concerning Things made of matter, which the body is made of matter, came about really in a primary with Darwin.

Although bodies or matter seems to have been designed, That didn't really happen.

It really came about as a result of blind, undirected forces.

The body may seem, or things in the material world may seem to be products of intention.

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A Body Hast Thou Prepared

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