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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

Hebrews 10: The Incarnation and God’s Greatest Gift

You know, every year I will read maybe messages that have been given in yesteryear.

And 1 of the presidents here at Weimar, The longest serving president has been Dr.

Nedley, but the second longest serving president was Herbert Douglas, who the library is named after.

And I was reading his Christmas messages that I have downloaded, and also all the stuff that he wrote about Christmas.

And this was his favorite time of year, and he wrote quite a bit about Christmas and about this time of year.

1 of the stories he had in 1 of his sermons was this.

The auction began with a painting that was not on the museum's list.

The auctioneer asked for an opening bid, but the room was silent.

From the back of the room, someone shouted, who cares about that painting?

They didn't realize that this man was very close to his son.

And his son and he had been the ones that were collecting all the famous paintings by Monet and Picasso and all the other paintings.

And they didn't realize that the man was so close to his son and yet the son had been drafted and gone into the military and unfortunately had been killed in battle.

And when he came back, of course the father was heartbroken, but then 1 of his fellow soldiers had arrived with a huge package that he had given his dad, and inside the package was this painting of the sun.

And he had put that sun up above the mantle, displacing many of the other most famous paintings for his son, and the more he heard about what his son had done for different people, the more precious the painting had become.

And after he died, now this auction was going on, and so the first painting he wanted to auction off, according to the will, was a picture of his son.

Let's get on with the real pieces, others then heartily agreed.

No, The auctioneer said, We must sell this 1 first.

Will you take 10 dollars for the painting said the neighbor?

It's all I have but I knew the boy and I liked him.

The auctioneer said, going once, going twice, Gone, the gavel fell.

Cheers filled the room as they shouted, let's start the real bidding for the real paintings.

The auctioneer announced that the auction was over.

We didn't come here to buy the old man's son.

There are millions of dollars of art here.

The auctioneer replied quite simply, it's very simple.

According to the will, whoever takes the sun gets all the other paintings.

And that is really the message of Christmas, isn't it?

That's exactly how God celebrates Christmas.

We're surrounded in our lives by toys and joys of this world.

The older we get, the more costly our toys.

But in the end, it's not the 1 who has the most toys who wins.

The music of heaven is singing out when the bells are ringing.

And that's the message for today, in case you miss it with what I say from here on out.

So there's a passage in the Bible that actually paints that same picture and is found in Hebrews chapter 10.

So turn with your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 10 and let's just invite God's Spirit to be with us again as we open His Word.

Father in heaven, as we study this chapter, May we truly be gripped with the love that you manifested by becoming a baby coming into this world.

And may we want the Son, and may you add to us all things as a result of that choice.

Hebrews chapter 10 is an interesting chapter because right in the middle of it is the story of the incarnation.

But it starts out with a picture of how God tried to get people aware of the coming incarnation throughout the whole chapter.

It has the entire Old Testament covered in the chapter.

It has the major message of the New Testament, that being the incarnation of Christ.

It has what you and I should be doing, and it has how to get ready for the second coming, all in 1 chapter.

For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, was not the very image of the things.

Can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year make those who approach perfect.

For then would they have not ceased to have been offered, for the worshippers once purified would have had no more consciousness of sins.

But in those sacrifices, there's a reminder of sins every year, for it's not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.

The Old Testament sacrificial system, though it pointed to Christ, though every sacrifice there was teaching that by grace are you saved through faith, it was not yet Christ.

It was meant to turn people away from sin.

They would have their own land, their own sacrifice, and even in the most important festive times when they were in Jerusalem, they would pick up that land 4 days before the sacrifice.

It would stay with them in their home so they would get close to it so that once it was killed for the sacrifice, they would have some sense of the heinousness of the sin they had committed.

It was meant to show that there was a debt or ransom that needed to be paid.

It was meant to provide a way to cleanse the community from the infectious nature of sin symbolically because without the setting of blood there is no forgiveness or remission of sins, Hebrews 9.22, and it was meant to ensure that God could maintain His presence with His people.

Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.

But it was not possible that these symbols, which taught the gospel, could in fact take away sins.

They were, like the text had said, verse 1, a shadow of good things to come.

Therefore, when he came, picture number 2, Therefore when he came into the world, he said, Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me.

That's the incarnation, That's the body that's prepared in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin.

Then I said, Behold, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me.

All the prophecies pointing towards Jesus, some 350 prophecies, in the volume of the book it is written, Behold I Come, to do your will, O God.

So all of those prophecies in the Old Testament, all those sacrifices and whatnot, were just symbolically pointing to the good 1 or the good news that was to come, that being Jesus.

It said, well, a body will prepare for me.

A perfect body, you would prepare for me.

The incarnation, a virgin would conceive and bear a son.

Douglas' favorite themes, the incarnation of Christ.

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Hebrews 10: The Incarnation and God’s Greatest Gift

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