(A ROTOR-ROOTER MESSAGE FOR YOUR SPIRIT)
This message from the tenth chapter of Hebrews is an expository message. It used to be the only way I ever preached. As I went along, I began to emphasize principles of the Kingdom more, because these are the ways that people grow. But growth is promoted very much also by the expository type message. An expository message seems to wander through a scope of truth that seems to hit everyone. You cannot sit five minutes through an expository sermon that is anointed of the Lord and not find something related to you. Usually it reaches right into the area in which you live.
But he (speaking of our Lord), having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. Hebrews 10:12, 13.
The sacrifice of Jesus Christ for you and me was all-inclusive. “One sacrifice, for all time.” The book of Hebrews concentrates on teaching new Christians. Coming at the time when every Jew in the world mourned the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jewish believers were to know that the old sanctuary had passed away. There was a better sanctuary. The old covenants were replaced by the better covenants, by better promises, and now by a better sacrifice. In fact, the word “better” becomes a key word for the book of Hebrews; “The new is better, better than the old.” And the Hebrew Christians were to rejoice in the fact that God had brought such enduring promises to them.
In those days before the fall of Jerusalem, while the sacrifices were still being made, the Jews knew what it was to bring an offering for sin. Those offerings could keep a man broke, because when anyone committed a sin, he brought a sacrifice to the Lord. If he committed another sin the next day, he had to bring another sacrifice. You could lose a lot of money that way!
The sacrifice for sins (because the sacrifice really didn’t take it away) was looking forward in anticipation of what Christ was to do. When Christ came, He made one sacrifice for all time, for all sin. This beautiful picture in Hebrews conveys the completeness of what He had done. Then He sat down at the right hand of the Father, with that fantastic quality of anticipation that the Lord has, “Henceforth waiting, until His enemies be made the footstool of His feet” (Verse 13).
We have to understand what this anticipation, this waiting means. The Lord has that within Him that never is discouraged. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, Isaiah prophesied, until He has set judgments in the earth (Isaiah 42:4). We are to reach in as Jesus did when He faced the cross. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2. That is beautiful. Now we anticipate even as He did.
If you have anticipation, you can go through a great deal right now. Communists have succeeded in bringing forth prodigious sacrifices from a nation by saying, “It will be better for our children.” The anticipation—“It isn’t so good now, but it’s going to be better for my children”—motivates them to go through all kinds of privations, thinking things will be better. We face this. We anticipate great things from the Lord, but the Scripture says that hope deferred makes the heart grow sick (Proverbs 13:12). When we don’t get what we were hoping for right away, we begin to get sick at heart. It is a deep discouragement to us. We have to look to what Jesus was. Revelation 1:9 speaks about the saints who are partakers of the patience of Jesus, which endures. That patience looks for promises, looks for fulfillment, looks for something to come, and refuses to give up on it. You may have had severe reversals, but there is still such a thing as anticipating and not wavering.
I have an anticipator, and I told the Lord, “I want to take a look at it.” And the Lord helped me, with the x-ray vision of the Holy Spirit, look at my anticipator. What an anticipator! It was so damaged and dented and bent, it was hardly functioning. So I said, “Lord, You’re going to have to rebuild my anticipator.” You may need the Lord to rebuild your anticipator, too, because you are not expecting as much as you should from the Lord. I think the Lord wants to teach us to be just like Jesus Christ, henceforth expecting, anticipating, until His enemies be made the footstool of His feet.
“But Lord Jesus, You’ve been sitting there for two thousand years—and look at all the devil-possessed people; look at all the problems in the earth. Zion has certainly fallen into disrepute. What do we do now? Where do we go from here?” Keep on anticipating! If Jesus isn’t discouraged yet, what right have you to be discouraged? He is the one in whom it all rests, by one sacrifice for sin for all time. And now He is just sitting and anticipating what all is going to take place.
The next verse is all revealing. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Hebrews 10:14. By one offering He has done this! You say, “I’m perfected?” Yes, that is what He is anticipating—your perfection. You say, “Well, I wasn’t really expecting to get that holy.” The average person doesn’t anticipate it will be that good a job; he will be thankful if he can just squeeze into the Kingdom, even on a back row. But the Lord has an anticipation of perfection for you. He is bringing many sons to glory (Hebrews 2:10), bringing the manifestation of the sons, whom He foreknew and also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. These are the ones whom He glorified (Romans 8:29, 30).
“He glorified me?” Yes, He has. It is the provision for you, and you should anticipate the fulfillment of that too, reaching into it in the name of the Lord.
This is so priceless to us, because I know what happens to people. They stop anticipating, and they start to withdraw. The minute your expectation is low, you start drawing back. And yet this chapter ends, “If any man shrinks back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him.” (Verse 38). God takes no pleasure in anyone like that. Put your hand to the plow and look back, and you are not fit for the Kingdom of God (Luke 9:62).
The Kingdom is coming, and we will have to be partakers spiritually of the same anticipation that the Lord has. Have you found yourself drawing back lately? You say, “I don’t know whether I’m drawing back or not.” Find out! If the vision is a little dim, if you find in your heart criticism comes up a little easier, if that fervent love for the Lord is less, you are withdrawing, and that withdrawal is deadly. I don’t know why, but you cannot make progress in this walk unless you are pressing in every day of your life. You don’t dare lay it aside awhile. You won’t make progress.
Withdrawal places you in a dangerous position. You say, “But I’m going through things.” You will not go through them any better by withdrawing. The night when they took Jesus to the judgment hall, Peter followed afar off (Mark 14:54). That is a poor place to be. When you trail along away back there, before morning you will find yourself warming your hands at the devil’s fire; denying Him, cursing, and saying, “I never knew Him.”
The problems, the betrayals of Christ come in your life because you follow afar off, because of some withdrawal in your spirit. You drew back just a little and it was too much. Lukewarmness gets you into trouble. The Lord says He will spew you out when you are neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm (Revelation 3:16). There is only one degree to work.
Automoblie mechanics say that smog devices make the motors burn hotter. Every time I stop my car, I feel like running, it smells so hot. But I have it checked and they say, “Yes, this is the way it is supposed to be. It is designed to run hot in order to burn up the fumes.” You can’t perform, you can’t function adequately, unless you keep a fervent spirit. See that you love one another with a pure heart, fervently (I Peter 1:22b). That indicates the heat: red-hot love for the brethren. It burns out the impurities. When a person is up on a spiritual level, his smog devices are working!
You say, “I think mine is all clogged up now.” Well, this is a rotor-rooter message, to get down into the channels and get them functioning again, to get you moving out in what God has for your spirit.
One sacrifice… Jesus is sitting there, but He isn’t leaning back, He is sitting on the edge of the chair! Because it is with anticipation and with a sense of a finality of what He has done. How all inclusive the sacrifice of Jesus was! Every provision was made by it. But He isn’t content to just provide it; He is also ever living to make intercession for us, that we might be saved to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:25). It is beautiful to see what the Lord has provided and what He is doing for us.
Now we read on. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws upon their heart, and upon their mind I will write them,” He then says, “And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin. Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith. Hebrews 10:15–22a.
Jesus has made Himself the new and living way. In the temple, the area between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies was shielded by a curtain or a large veil. At the moment of crucifixion, the gospels record that the veil was rent from the top to the bottom. So Hebrews is showing us that through the veil (that is, through His flesh which was rent), God opened up a way of access. Now we have confidence to enter in.
Let us draw near with a sincere heart. Verse 22. We can come to God; the inaccessability because of man’s sin was eliminated when Christ died. Through the blood of Jesus Christ we have access. What is this new and living way? There is no formula, there is no doctrine, there is no experience. It is a person. Jesus is the new and living way, through the veil, through His flesh, through Himself, and we draw near because we have such a great high priest over the house of God.
This walk must never degenerate into a little catechism in which we have set about to establish doctrine. Nothing is more deadly than to dehydrate the Word until the essence is taken out of it. Beautiful bread can be made with white flour because all the germ has been taken out; nothing is left but the plain white flour. Bakeries love to use it because they can control how it turns out; every loaf looks alike. If the flour is alive, they don’t know what it is going to do, for one batch of wheat will have certain ingredients and another will have something else. It just isn’t commercial.
Religious circles want to control what they feed the people. They want to make it commercial, so they make doctrines of truths and take Jesus out of them. They preach salvation, they preach about a resurrection day, but they don’t identify that He is that. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6). He says, “I am the door of the sheep” (John 10:7b).
A principle that we should understand in this walk is that experiences can come and go. Churches can preach experiences and not have a walk with God, not even know what a walk with God is, not even know the Lord. It is not doctrines, it is not experiences, it is not rituals; Jesus Himself is the Living Door. We can not divorce in our thinking for a single minute the experience from a relationship to the Lord Himself. He is our salvation. We talk about people receiving salvation—they receive Jesus. We talk about the resurrection of the dead as though it were a certain event and experience, but Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25).
We don’t really need to understand doctrines as much as we need to know the Lord. As we walk with Him, we have it all. Oh for the simplicity of the gospel of the Kingdom to return to us. We do not need to preach the complexity of doctrines but we need to preach Jesus as Lord over our lives, as the absolute, perfect provision for us. And you are complete in Him who is the Head (Colossians 2:10). There remains nothing more that we need except Jesus Himself. Oh yes, we need apostles and prophets—that is just another way of saying we need Jesus. He descended and He ascended, then He gave gifts (Ephesians 4:8–10)—and these gifts are fragments of the Lord. Isn’t Jesus the great apostle, the great high priest of our profession (Hebrews 3:1)? Isn’t He the prophet like unto Moses that the Lord shall raise up (Acts 3:22)? Isn’t He the first and the last and everything (Revelation 1:8)?
The gifts of the Spirit are simply the manifold fragments of Christ Himself. The Christ in me salutes the Christ in you. The Christ in me is preaching an apostolic message to Christ the bond servant in you. I am visiting you as you are in prison, that the Christ in you might be freed. It sounds technical, but it becomes something very simple. Am I ministering to your flesh? God forbid. I have only one thing to say about your flesh: Crucify it. Let’s not try to help it, let’s not give it a shot to revive it. Let’s crucify it. We are bringing forth the Christ nature, what Christ is becoming in you. When you see the power of Jesus Christ by a perfect provision to fill your life, to develop it, to bring forth sonship in you, you’ve seen what He is going to do for you!
Jesus is the new and living way, which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh. Hebrews 10:20. We go to God through Jesus Christ. There isn’t any lie as great as the saying, “It doesn’t make any difference what we believe; we all wind up in the same place.” But they won’t wind up where they think! The way is through Jesus.
Pray to walk closer to the Lord. The more we concentrate on Jesus Christ as Lord, seek to relate to Him and for His life to flow into us, the quicker we will come into all the experiences and into the realization of all the doctrine. So we must stay away from this walk being reduced to doctrines or the preaching of experiences. We must preach Jesus Christ, exalt Him and lift Him up until the believers have a meeting with Christ. Then they will have all these other things.
Since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith. Hebrews 10:21, 22a. Draw near. If you have withdrawn, you must overcome that. It is so deadly, and it is so easy to withdraw. You can be pressing in as a result of real revelation and find yourself drawing back just a little—“Well, the battles are a little easier if I draw back,” you think. No, they’re not. They just seem to be easier because you are more defeated.
Having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our body washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:22b. No, it isn’t talking about a shower bath! It is referring to the sprinkling of blood and water in the Old Testament rites of purification (Numbers 19:17–19). That is exactly what we need now as we get ready for great things, like Israel at the River Jordan. “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you” (Joshua 3:5). You’re cleansing your hands. It’s like Isaiah’s prophecy, “Purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the Lord” (Isaiah 52:11). Prepare yourself for the rain that will come, the double portion. Get ready for what is coming. Prepare to be used of the Lord.
God has been speaking to me so much about purification. A diet to purify the body of poisons and wastes would be good to try. Some might not think it is important, but I think it is. We ought to treat our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit and get them cleaned out once in a while. It would be good for the church to practice a purification diet together sometime.
David prayed, Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Psalms 51:7. Hyssop was used for purification. In fact, the Israelites dipped hyssop in the blood and put it over the doorposts at the Passover (Exodus 12:22). Hyssop was an instrument of cleansing. They would make little brooms out of it and sweep out the leaven. Hyssop makes a good tea, also. It is a blood purifier, one of the best. That’s what the Lord wants to do—clean us on the outside and clean us on the inside. He wants to clean up the whole man—spirit, soul, and body.
I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it. I Thessalonians 5:23, 24.
The Lord wants to work a deep, purifying, cleansing work in our lives. He is getting us ready for something. You say, “Well, I’m tired of the old. I’m tired of the things that were.” Then get out the rotor-rooter and clean out the channel so the blessing of the Lord can flow. That is what the Word will do. Now ye are clean (now you are rotor-rooterized) through the word which I have spoken unto you. John 15:3. “Purged” is the word. Every branch He purges (and that purging goes beyond trimming off a few leaves. It is drastic!) that you can bear much fruit (John 15:2). The Lord is so concerned about our entering in fully to be a people He can use, a people He can bless.
I think one reason why we don’t know about purification is that most of us are not really anticipating enough from the Lord. We are not really expecting the Lord to use us.
“Well, I’ll just be happy if I can walk in victory.” Go a step further. You will be happy if you are used of God in His will. So, there can be no withdrawal in your spirit. You are a member of His Body, a citizen of the Kingdom, a soldier in the army that He has prophesied. You are an instrument in the mighty hand of the Lord to thresh mountains. Be clean, ye who bear the vessels of the Lord (Isaiah 52:11). Be a holy people, because the righteousness of the Lord will make you holy. “Where do I start?” You start with dealing with the withdrawal in your own spirit. You start by recognizing that you lag just a step behind. Every once in awhile you volunteer, but you are like the boy in the army who stepped forward as a volunteer to go on a deadly mission. Someone said later, “My, you’re a brave soul.” He said, “No, I’m not. Someone (he used a few adjectives) pushed me!” Is that the way we volunteer for the Lord? Or can we enter into the discipleship that’s not reluctant, but eager?
God forgive us for getting discouraged because of things that are really secondary in our lives instead of primary. We withdraw from the Lord because we have faced problems, circumstances, difficulties in our relationships, difficulties in what we’re doing. Things don’t move, so we take it out on the Lord. We cool off and draw back. Difficulties have a way of doing it, abounding iniquity has a way of doing it, and our love begins to wax cold (Matthew 24:12). God forbid that this happen.
Wouldn’t you say that one of the most deadly things you have to fight is the withdrawal in your spirit? After God meets you, the enemy comes battling you; and in spite of yourself, you find yourself pulling back, withdrawing just a little bit too much. Then you’re in trouble.
May the Lord bless the word to your hearts. This message will do a great deal for you if you let it, if you anticipate that God will use it, if you believe it. Take a step of faith and say, “Lord, get rid of this thing that causes me to withdraw. Help me to get with it, more than ever before.” Human nature, being what it is, cools off under the pressure of this walk. You can’t walk as a human being! You have to walk as a son of God, because the opposition and the circumstances are of a level that only a son of God can meet. If you live on the human level, you will be defeated, because you can’t survive by living on the human level. You will have to live on the spiritual level as a son of God. God will help you.
Prayer: Lord, help us. Help us in our hearts not to withdraw. Help us to see what You are bringing forth, what You want of us. Lord, maybe in the night the battle was fierce, but this morning is another day. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Psalm 30:5. Lord, we need to enter in with greater faith and anticipation than ever before. So much difficulty results from our lack of anticipation. If we don’t have the full assurance of hope, the battles and problems defeat us.
Father, put that hope burning in our hearts again, that divine anticipation like Jesus has, real expectation that doesn’t waver. Let us anticipate, day by day, the victories of the Lord. O God, take that withdrawing spirit from us. The very root of it has to go that we would draw back under any kind pressure. Let us press on, into the joy of the Lord, into the things that are ours. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we’re not going to walk in anything short of all that He has purposed to bring forth in us.
Do you feel like the Lord did clean out the drains? You need this once in awhile. Remember the Word. Renew a right spirit within me. Psalms 51:10. A right spirit is an aggressive thing that reaches into God and says, “Lord, I’m going to walk without withdrawal. No more rebellion or yielding to the old flesh; I’m going to walk with the Lord!”