March 3rd, 2015, Kichijouji Bible Study
Gotthold Beck
Hebrews
4:14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone to heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us live our lives consistent with our confession of faith.
415 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. Instead, we have one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet he never sinned.
416 So let us keep on coming boldly to the throne of grace, so that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
[International Standard Version]
What is it that is absolutely necessary for the world today? I believe that it is peace. Without peace, there can be no security. What can bring the peace and security to us? Needless to say, it is our Lord Jesus himself. The author of the Hebrews wrote;
Hebrews
4:14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone to heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us live our lives consistent with our confession of faith.
We have a great high priest, Jesus the Son of God. There can be no other true joy, no other real hope. In this verse, an expression, 'a great high priest' is used. What is the mission of the great high priest?
The first mission is to play the role of mediator between the Lord God and humans. This mission was accomplished by the death of Jesus. That is to say, our debts were paid, our sins were forgiven and we were liberated from the control of the devil. Another important mission of the great high priest was to pray the prayer of intercession.
This mission, needless to say, is continued until today for us by Jesus. With his great love, Jesus remembers and intercedes for each one of us. Jesus cares about us, even when we are left in darkness and suffer in our trials.
Jesus provides us with the strength which exceeds all human powers. This exactly is where peace and true security come from. All those who have encountered Jesus confess with joy:
Even when I was drowned in the pleasure of sins and rejected Jesus, he never stopped caring about me.
The fact that Jesus came to this world to save sinners gave me great courage. When I suffered from a guilty conscience, worries, suspicions, distress and discouragement, when I was standing at the crossroad of my life between further degeneration and the salvation by Jesus, the Lord made me understand how he loved me and it made me surrender myself in front of his eyes.
Once, I was lost, astray and did not know what to do. Even when I was so miserable, Jesus cared about me. When I came to Jesus just the way I was, when I gave up all efforts to change myself and instead allowed myself to be totally broken, I could finally understand the love of Jesus from my own experience. All those who come to know Jesus will testify this way.
Since I received the eternal life from Jesus 70 years ago, I too have realized from my own experience that Jesus has always cared about me, even till today. To know Jesus, to have Jesus is to have peace and security. What a wonderful truth it is that, even while we are tempted by the devil and are under his attack, Jesus still cares about us and is winning the victory over the devil.
1 Corinthians
10:13 No temptation has overtaken you that is unusual for human beings. But God is faithful, and he will not allow you to be tempted beyond your strength. Instead, along with the temptation he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to endure it.
This is the fact we have all experienced repeatedly, isn't it? Jesus cared about us since before we loved the Lord. Jesus has been with us since long before we came to the Lord. Jesus is also calling toward us today.
All of you who are weary and loaded with burdens, come to me now and I will give you rest. This exactly is the peace and security I just mentioned which are absolutely necessary for us. Whether we receive peace and security or not depends on the attitude we take to the blood of Jesus.
The entire Bible is telling us that the blood the Lord Jesus shed is indispensable for our salvation and liberation. We can see the real life example of this fact in the Exodus, chapter 12. The Lord commanded the people of Israel to take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of their houses so that he would pass over and protect them.
Exodus
12:1 The Lord told Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
12:2 “This month will mark the beginning of months for you. It will be the first month of the year for you.
12:3 Tell the entire congregation of Israel, ‘On the tenth of this month they’re each to take a lamb for themselves, according to their ancestors’ households, one lamb for each household.
12:4 If a household is too small for a lamb, then it and its closest neighbor are to obtain one based on the number of individuals―dividing the lamb based on what each person can eat.
12:5 Your lamb is to be a year old male without blemish. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
12:6 It is to remain under your care until the fourteenth day of this month, and then the entire assembly of the congregation of Israel is to slaughter it at twilight.
12:7 They’re to take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat the lamb.
12:12 I’ll pass through the land of Egypt that night and strike every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both people and animals. I’ll execute judgments on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord.
12:13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are. I’ll see the blood and pass over you. There will be no plague to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
12:21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and told them, “Choose sheep for your families, and slaughter the Passover lamb.
12:22 Take a bundle of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and apply some of the blood in the basin to the lintel and the two doorposts. None of you is to go out of the doorway of his house until morning,
12:23 because the Lord will pass through to strike down the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the doorway, and won’t allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down.
12:28 The Israelis did this. Moses and Aaron did just what the Lord had commanded.
12:29 And so at midnight the Lord struck down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.
12:30 Pharaoh got up during the night, he, all his officials, and all the Egyptians, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead in it.
When the Lord saw the blood of lamb, he did not harm the people of Israel in the house. This was because the blood meant salvation and redemption. The Lord used the shed blood as a means to protect his own people. People had no choice but to put the blood on their house. It must have been so uncomfortable for them to see a smear of blood. However, it was the only way to survive.
Because of that blood, the people of Israel were protected and secure. How is the victory over sins, victory over the devil accomplished? The answer can be found in the Book of Revelation.
Revelation
12:11 Our brothers conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to their lives even in the face of death.
The secret of the victory lies in the blood of Jesus. The devil hates the blood of Jesus more than anything. The devil cannot even touch the worst kind of sinners when they are protected by the blood of Jesus. I guess it is for this reason that the devil tries to prevent us from talking about the blood Jesus shed at all costs.
The devil whispers to some people, “It does not make any sense. You had better remain silent.” He provokes others by telling them, “It does not look aesthetic. You should not say anything about it.” He even tells some people, “Do not say anything about it because it is too sacred to discuss.”
When people give in to such temptations of the devil, they become victimized by him. However, it is not acceptable for us to keep silent about the blood of Jesus. We all need to understand that it is nothing but the blood of Jesus that gives us strength to defeat the devil.
The devil resides outside of us and the sins are within us. And sins within us are connected with the devil outside. All people have sins since the day they are born. That is to say, we are born with the nature of sinners.
This sin refers to the intention to disobey the Lord God. And this sin makes us take a superficial attitude like “I am capable of this” or “I desire that.” The root of sins is indeed hidden in an attitude like this. In other words, it resides in our self-determination and self-governance.
Nobody can liberate themselves from the sins in their own hearts. It is wrong even to attempt to do so. It is a sin in the eyes of the Lord. Because when you do not rely on the Lord God, you are separated from the Lord.
Worldly religions and philosophy encourage you to liberate yourself from the sins within your heart through your own efforts. This makes you depend more on self-determination and self-governance. Thus, you will be bound by your sins more and more, which will tie you up hand and foot. Nobody can liberate themselves through their own strength.
Only Jesus has won the victory over sin. He is also the victor over the sin that resides within us. I wish Jesus would pull sins out of our hearts and throw them away just like we take weeds out of our gardens, but in fact, it is not possible.
Sins stay within us as long as our flesh exists. It is not until we die and flesh perishes that we will be completely liberated from our sins. Decayed teeth can be removed and broken limbs can be amputated from human bodies.
However, if the central nerve is damaged, it is impossible to remove it from the body as it means the loss of life. Our sins are hidden in every part of our body just like nerves. Just like our blood that circulates all around the body, our body is saturated with sin. Because of this, sins can be removed by nothing but death, but Jesus does not want to let us die. In fact, the Lord desires to use us as his witnesses.
How does Jesus solve the problem of sins within us? This must be the question many people are concerned about. However, Jesus has already solved this problem.
2 Corinthians
5:21 God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that God’s righteousness would be produced in us.
I guess it is very hard to comprehend these words while we are alive. It is written that the Father God made his Son, the Lord Jesus to be sin. He treated Jesus as sin itself instead of treating him as his only begotten son.
Although Jesus only did the will of God, he was punished as if he was the one who most viciously rebelled against the Lord God. The Lord God sentenced him to death for our sins. It was indeed sentenced to his Son, Jesus. When the body of Jesus was torn, the power of sin was destroyed.
The blood Jesus shed provides the proof that the power of sin within our flesh was destroyed. This is the fact that has the most definitive meaning in our life. The sin inside us has lost its power by the sacrifice of Jesus. That is to say, the blood Jesus shed has accomplished the perfect victory against sins within us.
Those who accept Jesus will participate in the victory of Jesus against sins. This exactly is the wonderful gospel that liberates us from sin. The blood of Jesus covers all sins within us.
Most of the roads are paved with asphalt. There must have been some weeds on the ground which are now beneath the pavement. Once the road is covered by thick asphalt, there is no chance for weeds to grow out. However, when the asphalt has deteriorated and some crack opens up, weeds may come emerge from there.
Jesus has resolved the problem of our sins just the same way. That is to say, the blood of Jesus covered up our sins entirely. The power of sin was dissolved by this and it lost all chance to come outside.
However, even after the blood of Jesus has covered up all our sins, if we refuse to confess some sins and hide them, if we do not devote everything to Jesus and if we do not surrender ourselves entirely to him, our sin will come back to life from the crack. The protection by the blood of Jesus proves the perfect victory over the sins within us.
Romans
6:14 For sin will not have mastery over you, because you are not under Law but under grace.
Being under grace refers to being protected under the blood of Jesus. The perfect victory of the blood of Jesus over sin is nothing but the joyous gospel for us sinners.
1 Peter
1:18 For you know that it was not with perishable things like silver or gold that you have been ransomed from the worthless way of life handed down to you by your ancestors,
1:19 but with the precious blood of the Messiah, like that of a lamb without blemish or defect.
Jesus said, “If I set you free, you will be free indeed.” The Bible proclaims the liberation from the devil, liberation from the bondage of sins. Some people may believe that they are already free and bound by nothing, But is it really true? Unless they know Jesus from their own experience, they are all slaves of their sin and will never be free from it. Nobody but Jesus liberates us from the bondage of all kinds of sins and redeems us.
Acts
26:18 You will help them understand and turn them from darkness to light and from Satan’s control to God, so that their sins will be forgiven and they will receive a share among those who are sanctified by faith in me.
Therefore, we are controlled by Jesus; otherwise, we have to be controlled by the devil.
1 Kings
18:21 where Elijah approached all the people and asked them, “How long will you keep hesitating between both sides? If the Lord is God, go after him. If Baal, go after him.” But the people didn’t say a word.
Depending on who we are controlled by, we head toward eternal destruction or eternal life. Please surrender everything to Jesus, who has won a sweeping victory over sin and the devil. We have to cut off the power of the devil and come to Jesus. Finally, I would like to discuss what we need to do in order for these things I mentioned today to be realized.
First of all, we have to admit that we are sinners in front of the Lord God, confess our sins, repent and be removed from sins. Jesus said, “I did not come to call righteous people, but sinners.”
Luke
15:4 “Suppose one of you has 100 sheep and loses one of them. He leaves the 99 in the wilderness and looks for the one that is lost until he finds it, doesn’t he?
15:5 When he finds it, he puts it on his shoulders and rejoices.
15:6 Then he goes home, calls his friends and neighbors together, and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I’ve found my lost sheep!’
15:21 Then his son told him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and you. I don’t deserve to be called your son anymore.’
I suppose that all sincere people will eventually be compelled to confess this way. Paul wrote to his beloved disciple, Timothy;
1 Timothy
1:15 This is a trustworthy saying that deserves complete acceptance: To this world Messiah came, sinful people to reclaim. I am the worst of them.
The grace of the Lord is also recorded in the Old Testament.
Isaiah
55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous person his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, So he’ll have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he’ll pardon abundantly.
This is nothing but the gospel. How can we be actually liberated from the power of the devil? As I just mentioned, in order for it to be accomplished, we, first have to admit we are miserable and worthless in front of the Lord God, confess our sins, repent and be removed from all sins.
Secondly, it is accomplished by accepting Jesus as our guarantee, our savior and our Lord. It is written in the famous chapter 53 of Isaiah,
Isaiah
53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned, each of us, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Peter stated the same;
1 Peter
2:24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the tree, so that we might die to those sins and live righteously. “By his wounds you have been healed.”
It is written, “To all who received him, those believing in his name, he gave authority to become God’s children.” How can it happen that we be removed from the power of the devil? As I just mentioned, it will be possible, firstly, by admitting how miserable and worthless we are in front of the Lord God, confessing our sins, repenting and being determined to stay away from all sins. Secondly, it is done by accepting Jesus as the guarantee, the savior and the Lord.
Finally, it can be accomplished by obediently believing in what the Lord God tells us through his words in the Bible. Let us look at some promises of Jesus;
John
6:37 I’ll never turn away the one who comes to me,”
5:24 Truly, I tell all of you emphatically, whoever hears what I say and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged, but has passed from death to life.
Romans
8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in union with the Messiah Jesus.
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