GYC West 2014: I Am The Conflict Continues

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GYC West

Winston Green

A Priest Upon His Throne

I actually specifically requested that song for this message, and because it perfectly portrays a priest on his throne.

That's what we're gonna look at this evening.

And I want you to do some things for me this morning, or this evening, rather, as I, well, actually, it could be morning.

Once the sun is down, it's morning, isn't it?

I wanna ask you to pray for me as this is a very important message and I don't want to mess it up.

And so let's bow our heads for a word of prayer before we begin.

Our Father which art in heaven, King, Priest, on His throne, Lord, we come to You and ask for your presence here because you ask us to ask you.

Father, I pray that you would use me this evening as feeble and as unworthy as I feel.

But Lord, through your blood and through what you're doing in heaven, you make me worthy.

Father, convict hearts and do what you do best.

So this evening's message is a priest on his throne.

And I have a little subtitle there called Continuing in the Covenant.

If you have been here for the last couple morning manas, you'll know that I've been covering the book of Hebrews.

And the book of Hebrews is a very pivotal book that has guided our people in our denomination.

And we'll find here that since the beginning, this doctrine of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary performing the investigative judgment was a doctrine that laid the foundation for our church.

In 1844, there was a great disappointment that tried the early Advent believers.

The early Advent movement here in North America was anticipating the second coming of Jesus Christ and the purification of the earth.

And it was based off the prophecy of Daniel 8.14.

Unto 2, 300 days, then the sanctuary will be cleansed.

But they didn't know what that was all about.

And they were so disappointed, actually the majority of them left, where there was a small group that really got serious about reinvestigating the investigative judgment.

They started studying the sanctuary and a whole system of truth unlocked before them.

You can read in Great Controversy, chapter 23 and 24, Ellen White talks about what that means.

What was unlocked before their eyes was a complete system of atonement.

Atonement from the beginning and atonement from the end to the end.

Here's a quote from Great Controversy, page 247.

It says, The subject of the sanctuary and the investigative judgment should be clearly understood by the people of God.

All need a knowledge for themselves of the position and work of our great high priest.

Otherwise, it would be impossible for them to exercise the faith which is essential at this time or to occupy the position which God designs them to fill.

Because this end time truth will help God's end time people have end time faith.

And so every single person has to have a clear understanding of what Christ is doing for them in the heavenly sanctuary.

And so what I would like to do for you this evening by God's grace is point out the beauty and the duty of Christ's heavenly ministry.

Once we see the beauty of what he's doing, we'll know what our duty is for these last days.

Before I do that, I wanna get into Hebrews.

It's interesting how Paul lays out this sermon letter.

He begins by introducing Jesus as 1 who was raised in the right hand of God, and as 1 who is high priest.

He talks about his inauguration essentially.

And then as he moves forward through the book of Hebrews, he identifies, he goes on to say that Christ can identify with us.

And therefore we can have faith in him as high priest.

Hebrews 4.14, maintain confidence in him as high priest.

And so in critical junctures in the book of Hebrews, Paul is trying to lift up Christ as high priest and get the, at that time, the apostolic believers or the first century church to see that he actually was working on their behalf.

I believe that they actually had a little better knowledge of the investigative judgment, because after all, these were Jews, right?

No 1 like a Jew would have understood the sanctuary at that time as well as they did.

And so moving from Hebrews 5 to 7, we'll see that what Paul does is he proves that he is a legitimate high priest after the Melchizedek oath.

There's a lot of parenthetical statements and you gotta sift through it in order to find what the main point of the message is.

But nonetheless, he has to do that because the Jewish Christians at the time wanted to reestablish the ceremonial laws.

It eclipses the priestly ministry of Jesus.

Therefore, they couldn't have the necessary faith that they needed at that time in order to continue through the conflict, the conflicts that were in the church.

It says in Hebrews 5, 11, 12, speaking to his audience, about this time we have much to say, and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God." So this wasn't new news.

In fact it's interesting because later on in the same chapter, He'll identify these Christians or these Jewish Christians as to be those who are active in the faith.

These aren't people just coming into the faith, these are seasoned Christians.

And he says you need to go back to the basic principles.

You need someone to teach you again because you have forgotten basically the ABCs.

Their experience did not correspond with what they knew because what they knew was not exercised in their experience.

They didn't put into motion that faith they should have had in Christ as their high priest.

He finally comes to Hebrews chapter 8 and verse 1 and 2, excuse me.

And he summarizes everything that he's been saying up until this point.

That's where we're going to begin this evening.

These are very famous chapters in Hebrews because it just gets right to the main point.

And hopefully I can do that for you this evening as well.

It says, now the point in what we are saying is this.

We have such a high priest, 1 who is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, and not man.

Skipping down to verse 6, but as it is Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more what?

Excellent than the old as the as the covenant he mediates is better since it is enacted on better promises.

And so he's saying that what Christ is doing up there is better than what they were doing back there in the earthly sanctuary.

And it says that he's a mediator of a better covenant.

And allow me to take you to the Old Testament, and as best as I can, have you enter into the Jewish mindset I want you to find what a covenant is.

A covenant is actually a very, very powerful concept.

And as, like most Hebrew words, there's a lot of meanings.

But primarily what a covenant is, is a contract between 2 people.

This contract is characterized by a will and an inheritance.

So you have the higher party, who's making an agreement with the lower party, and the higher party is the 1 who makes the terms for the contract, you're following me?

If the lower party breaks the contract, then the higher party has to pay for it.

And that's pretty much what God had did for us.

But it's not just a legal thing, it's a personal thing.

A covenant is being in a very intimate relationship with God Himself.

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A Priest Upon His Throne

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