Hebrews 7:24But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. 25 Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
So, we see here that Jesus can save us to the uttermost. That means he can bring us to perfection. He can save us to the uttermost.
Even in the most basic of our experiences of salvation, I’m aware that we’ve not appropriated the smallest part of what God really has provided for us.
We dwell upon the other problems we may have, instead of appropriating His provision for perfection. Perfect is coming into the full stature of Christ, being fully mature. Which is our primary destiny. This should be our main focus in life, letting Him search our heart every day, to see where we have come short. Where we have missed it and not keep doing it again. We must see what aspect of the divine nature has not been written on our heart and focus on that, until it becomes part of our subconscious and we do it naturally, it becomes our nature.
Well, somebody is sick. We keep dwelling upon the idea that they ought to be healed, and that’s right. We deal with the great blessings of deliverance, that God can bring to our hearts, and that’s right.
But you know, when you come right down to this one thing, He shall save His people from their sins. This should be our focus, to be transformed.
He shall save His people from their sins. Digging deep into our life that there remains nothing, absolutely nothing that is untouched, that is not saved to the uttermost.
“Those who come”, I like that phrase. Do you come boldly to the throne of grace, everyday? To receive mercy and grace to meet your needs.
And as we draw near unto God through Jesus Christ, it’s His intent, it’s His purpose to save us to the uttermost.
Now, the problem of sin among God’s people has always existed. It’s significant that we experience the Day of Atonement that occurred on the tenth day of the seventh month of the Jews. The Day of Atonement came six months after the Passover.
The Passover needs to be remembered in the church in its spiritual significance. That’s what the Lord’s Supper means. It was at the Passover commemoration when the Lord Jesus said, This is a New Covenant in my blood. This is my body, which is given for you. These things He said. changing the Passover from a ritual observing history to something that is a present experience in God.
This should be just as real as those people of Israel who put the blood upon the doorpost down in Egypt, and the angel of judgment passed over them that night.
So, God passes over our hearts, and judgment is averted. It was heaped upon that Passover Lamb. Christ, our Passover, is crucified for us, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 5. It becomes a living experience. Today, the Jews keep all of the feasts and rituals and observances, but they keep them somehow with a historical and a social meaning.
We keep the Passover because it’s a personal experience with us. The Passover is our salvation. The Feast of Pentecost is our indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But we have not experienced the feast of Tabernacles in its fullness.
HE IS ABLE TO SAVE US TO THE UTTERMOST
When we come into a walk with God, one of the most significant things and prolonged things is what we call the wilderness experience, the work of the cross being done in you.
When you read again these amazing stories, you realize God is making those old stories living realities in our lives.
The work of the cross is God saving us to the uttermost, taking things out of our life. And then we come to the Feast of Tabernacles, the great intensity of His presence with us. It is coming forth in this hour, an abiding, hovering presence at the very time of the beginning of the parousia, that God would be meeting his people individually in such a real living experience.
So, we’re not just concerned about history this morning. We’re concerned about an experience with God. He is able to save them to the uttermost, and that’s what he’s doing.
He’s reaching down deep into our life and he’s taking out things. Haven’t you found in your walk with the Lord that something, somehow was not touched in your experience of salvation. The things that had been so deeply rooted that for years you almost despaired that the thing would ever be removed. You can still see those remaining traces. Those tendencies, those desires. And maybe the discipline was there and the grace of God was there not to give an opening to those things, or maybe you did, but always with a lamentation in your heart that there was an inconsistency, that the people that were saved were not saved to the uttermost, that they were saved and yet there was something yet to be done within their life.
Praise God, the day is coming upon the people of the Lord an absolute, holy, divine perfection. Do not be afraid of that term. Be perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect. He’s able to save you to the uttermost.
He said that we were going to be one in Him. We would be made perfect in one. Made perfect in one. Is it coming? Did He give the Apostle, the Prophet, the Evangelist, the pastor, and the teacher? What did He give them for? Till we be no more children, but we come into perfection. Into that perfection that God’s ordained for us.
This is the day of victory. This is a day of more than just overcoming Satan in battles. This is the day of finding the deep overcoming of everything in your nature, your heart, everything in your life that is displeasing to God. God’s bringing us to a glorious day.
These are things that have been appropriated in a measure, but we always saw them falling short. But today, if our sights are high when we come to the altar and we don’t waver, we partake a little more of that cleansing blood. We partake a little bit more of that tremendous sacrifice of atonement for us. And we say in our heart, Lord, this is the day, this is the hour in which you are taking away the sin of your people. You’re taking away the transgression from them.
I know that ministers are not preaching this way. This is going to be a doctrine that almost seems to make unbelievers out of you on the surface. But before God is through, you’re going to know that He is going to make true believers out of you instead of hypocrites. There cannot be hypocrisy in our thinking. That we say, Grace, grace, and we know that there’s things in our life that the grace of God has not touched.
We cannot look at things in our nature, in our very being, and say, Praise God, we’re the sons of God, and not have some answer for why that exists or if it can be taken away, and it’s going to be taken away.
God is going to remove the transgression from His people. There are fountains that are opened up for cleansing, and if you’ve partaken of Christ as your Passover lamb, and it has meant salvation to you, then believe in your heart that you’re going to partake of the Lord Jesus Christ in this marvelous atonement that is going to remove from the camp of God the transgression and the iniquity, just like they confessed their sins over the head of that goat. And then one faithful priest led him out into the wilderness, into some abyss, over some cliff, where he could never find his way back again. But over that animal, sin was confessed. Every sin of all the people, and it was removed from out of the camp.
SAVED TO THE UTTERMOST
Hebrews 7:24 But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. 25 Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
It is a continual cry of the heart of the Son of God, the interceding heart of our Savior before the presence of the Father to bring us into this place saved to the uttermost.
Is this revolutionary in your thinking, to use these same scriptures that we quote so superficially, but to actually apply them and say it’s going to be done?
Is there one person reading this message that believes that you have been saved to the uttermost? Is there one person that doesn’t draw nigh to God still looking and hoping for the Lord to uproot and remove the last traces of those things that dishonors and displeases God and discredits the new creation He’s bringing forth?
Aren’t you hungering and thirsting for the Lord to bring to full perfection all that He hath begun, the deep thing that’s burning within your heart and in your mind?
I’ll tell you frankly, you can pray and repent from now on to doomsday, and I’ve seen people do it. And it helps somewhat. But the thing that I believe will do it is that God is raising up the ministries and the functioning of the body of Christ. And as the body is made one, it’s made perfect in one. God’s doing a deep thing, it is what He’s bringing forth now.
If this had been attained before in fullness, we would have known it. The very teachings of John Wesley. Entire sanctification, root and branch, and they were striving for it. They believed for it. They tried to come to sinless perfection. They saw it in the Word but somehow it was a thing almost born out of season, born out of the timing of God. It became a reality only in a small measure, and there was still so much disillusionment when the people that yearned and strove and prayed and cried for years found it was not really completely done. Great things had been done, but not enough.
And now the day has come. God says He’s going to meet His people, and it’s going to be done. And this time, not with the strivings and the discipline of a legalistic holiness message, but by the pure message of grace, being ministered to us in the name of the Lord. The Lord removing the transgression from His people, bringing it forth, that He might present to Himself that bride, a glorious bride without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, the bride is going to be holy and without blemish before the Lord. And it’s coming, it’s coming, it’s begun, the work is being done in your life.
By opening your heart to believe in this Word will shake loose those things that have bugged you, those things that have come to harass you. How would you like to see them gone forever. Then we must believe in hope, that confident expectation of the Lord.
It is not how much a person by their own fleshly striving tries to perfect themselves but God who can.
I pray God, your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord. Faithful is He that called you, who also will do it.
He’s going to do it. And if God desires to see you presented that way unto Himself, and your heart is approaching unto God, drawing nigh to God through Jesus, the promise is He’ll save you to the uttermost. There’s a great truth here.
Let it trouble us just enough that we come with faith and with a new heart, we partake of the blood of Jesus Christ. And we expect and anticipate it shall be done. We are going to start hearing the kind of message that will help accomplish this.
Can you say in your heart, Deeper, Lord, deeper, let your Spirit move. Uncover all that seems to be the sin that no one knows but Him. And let me find today the grace of God.
What is constantly disturbing us in the Word of God is that there is a very realistic picture of this kind of person. But at this present moment we are living in an incomplete state of redemption.
We know that our spirit is alive to God, but we know also that there dwells in our bodies a mortal condition because of the presence of sin, if not the act, at least the nature.
And Paul had said, “I see a law in my members warring against the law of my mind”. He knew, as he had said earlier, the good which I would do, I do not. The evil which I would not, that I practice. But if what I would not, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I then find the law that to me would do good. Evil is present. I delight in the law of God in the inward man, but I see a different law in my members.
The Lord intends to completely deliver people from the power of inbred sin, from the very nature that has deceived us and defeated us in the flesh.
And if you’ve gone along saying, Oh, there are things in my nature that I wish God would take out of my nature, rest assured that I believe God will do that.
There’s something that God is doing right now in the lives of his people that shows that while this has been an incomplete experience in the past, it is going to become a very positive experience. I could give you an illustration if you’d like to hear it. Would you like to hear it? Do you know that back in the days past, if you’ve ever read the stories of revivals, they had the time in which they called people Shakers, do you remember that? And then they had the Quakers. And back in John Wesley’s day, they had those that would shake violently under conviction. When they would make fun of the word that was being preached, they’d start shaking. Various phenomena have happened. Now, during these past centuries, going back at least two centuries now, I can point to incidents in history in which individuals received the Holy Spirit. John Wesley, in his diary, writes about the Irvingites. They were named after Irving, who was the leading apostle. They believed in the restoration of the church. They started an apostolic church in England, which actually believed in the restoration of apostles and prophets and the whole thing, just like we have now. It disappeared from the scene within a generation, and no one understands just why. Maybe because they would not make room for further prophets and apostles after the first ones came. People have a way of doing that.
And perhaps the reason they failed was in their dogmatic way that they became persecutors of further revelation more than any of their other fellows. And so, it suddenly died with them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we ourselves could be an exception to that, that we would adhere to the Word of God, but we could be open enough to become new wineskins so that we could constantly open our heart to more light and to what God is doing and to the expanding of an experience.
I don’t doubt what many of us have moved on into experiences today that are above and beyond that, and I don’t think we ourselves have experienced the full nature of the restoration of personal experiences along the scene. Consequently, when we read in the Word of God about these experiences of holiness and perfection, Remember, the experience has not been fully set or fully restored. And we can look for the experience to be sharper and deeper and more inclusive in meeting the needs of the people in the days to come. We may be living in what is a general tide of apostasy from the church, but if you’ll notice that this little This little tide that’s moving with us and with many people like this great convention that met in Brazil. 5,000 ministers and delegates that are involved in the great seeking of the restoration of the church. This is taking place all over the world. And there is a whole remnant, a whole section of Christianity that will not only return to the miracles and the signs and the wonders, but they’ll return to a purity of personal experience and walk with God that the world has not seen. since the days of the early church. I could use an amen if you believe it. I really have that confidence in my heart that that’s what’s taking place. And to me, when Paul writes, Oh wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death, I thank God through Jesus Christ, my Lord. He’s voicing the despair that every Christian has felt, waiting for that time in which God was going to meet him in such a way that not only does he have a heart that wants to serve God, a mind that’s set on God, but everything within his mortal body is going to respond to it and he’ll walk with God with all of his heart. And I believe that day is upon us and the experience is being manifested now as a process. And it’s going to become a living reality to most of the people that are in this congregation right here. Because you want to walk with God. Now don’t confuse this with some obnoxious form of holiness. You know, the people look so bitter and so sour and so sanctimonious. Because what God is doing is winsome and is filled with joy and is filled with peace. And it’s going to be without a great deal of the legalistic self-discipline, but it’s going to come forth with a manifestation of grace. I’ve never found that this legalism and this self-discipline really accomplishes too much anyway. It has an appearance of holiness that is always, always false. And sooner or later, the whole thing breaks down because you suppress it on one area and it pops out on another. I’ll say something, sounds a little bit sacrilegious, but I hope that you’ll understand the spirit in which I say it. I’ve watched the people, and I see them struggling to be so holy, and I see them so restrained, and the grace of God wasn’t flowing, blessing wasn’t flowing. And I think, you know, these people need to go in a real good bender, or they need to get out and really enjoy themselves in the world just once and come back with a good sense of guilt. instead of having this sanctimonious pride and Phariseeism. So at least they’d feel like sinners once, and they’d come down and repent, and maybe they’d get somewhere with the Lord. I never did pass out special dispensations. to send them out to do it. I never had that much courage. But I always had a feeling if this soul would just stumble and fall flat on his face, he’d become a wonderful minister or a wonderful deacon or a good elder in the house of the Lord. But they always looked like they swallowed a yardstick, you know, so stiff and unbending. And here they are with that in their hearts that was not open to the winsome quality, the joyfulness that ought to be in the house of God among the people of the Lord. Have you ever seen some minister that was trying so hard and really the fear of man was upon him until he was afraid to do anything, for fear is going to offend somebody, and you knew he lived in a perpetual state of misery and ulcers because of it. Hallelujah. Well, thank God for this walk. I’ve never fitted into the scene of churches because basically I’m not a religious man. And you have to be religious to conform to that sort of thing. But I am a spiritual man, and I want to seek and walk with God. And there’s a great deal of difference between being spiritual and being religious. A spiritual person is one who is open to walk with God, but a religious person is always concerned about almost the subjective attitudes of religious observance rather than really walking with God. And so this is the way it moves along. Now, we are facing, we’re facing this great time of atonement. And I would like to read to you just briefly, if I may do so, both the Old Testament reference to it and the New Testament explanation of it, that suddenly it might hit your heart for the first time to realize that God is opening up the way whereby you can come into the presence of the Lord and find the deep things of the old nature removed. Find God dealing with them and preparing your heart for that communion that’s going to be with the Lord. Now, here we turn back to Leviticus 23. I think that’s the chapter. Verse 26, The Lord spake with Moses, saying, ‘On the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement.’ It shall be a holy convocation to you, and you shall afflict your souls. You shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. He shall do no manner of work in the same day, for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God. For whatsoever soul it shall be that shall not be afflicted in that day, same day, he shall be cut off from his people. And whatsoever so it be that doeth any manner of work that same day, that soul will I destroy from among his people. Ye shall do no manner of work. It is a statue forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. It shall be unto you a Sabbath of solemn rest. Ye shall afflict your souls in the ninth day of the month at even from even unto even shall you keep your Sabbath. This was a time that the Lord was going to remove the iniquity from among His people. Two requirements that were so basic that you would be excluded from Israel if you did not observe them. One, if you did any manner of work, or you did not afflict your soul. In other words, it was to be a time of deep repentance, but it was not to be a time of a great deal of activity. This is giving us a picture that in this day, it’s not your efforts, it’s not your zealous works that’s going to accomplish this. But God has another plan and purpose whereby he’s going to bring you into the atoning work. into that perfecting work where God deals deep within your heart and your life let’s see how it’s going to come to pass and see if there’s a way that we could understand it a little bit better turn to the book of Hebrews chapter 9 and we’ll read start with verse 24 please Hebrews 9 24 and speaking about the day of atonement here and it’s very interesting for For Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, like a pattern to the true, but into heaven itself, not to appear before the face of God for us, nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entered into the holy place year by year with blood not his own. Else must he have often suffered since the foundation of the world. But now, once at the end of the ages, Hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself? And in as much as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that this cometh judgment, so Christ also having been offered to bear the sins of many shall appear a second time apart from sin to them that wait for him unto salvation. Let’s stop and see what’s been said. In the Old Testament, back in, if you want to read the full story of atonement, And we’ll probably be able to take care of that this week. In the book of Leviticus chapter 16, you’ll read the whole story of what was required. And there you get a picture. The high priest had to take the goats or the lambs and a bullock. The bullock he offered for himself, for his own sins first. And in fact, Hebrews 10 brings that out before we get into it very far. Then they took these two sacrifices, and one of them was killed, and the blood carefully preserved. The other, they confessed their sins over it, and it was led out into the wilderness. This is called scapegoat, or Azazel in Revised Version, which means substituted. In other words, it’s a substitute that was chosen. They confessed their sins of it, laid it out into the wilderness, and lost it over some precipice or someplace. A twofold thing. The blood then was taken of the goat that had been killed, and it was taken into the Holy of Holies. And before the Ark of the Covenant, where the cherubim of molten gold had their wings crossed, was a little mercy seat. There the blood was sprinkled, and God showed mercy to the children of Israel once a year then atonement was made all their sins had been confessed but it was a twofold thing it not only meant somebody atoning for it but somebody actually removing the sin away it’s not enough to have the sin forgiven but the sin must be removed he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness Two things have to take place. The forgiveness of sins is wonderful, but the removal of sin and the nature of sin is very, very important. A twofold work had to be accomplished, and it was pictured there in this glorious thing of atonement. Now I said, Christ appeared in the heavens on our behalf. This was the Holy of Holies. Before the throne of the Father God Himself, Jesus Christ appeared, but not with the blood of an animal. but with his own precious blood. And he does not do this from year to year, but once for all, he did this. And it went on to say in chapter 10, the law having a shadow of the good things to come. You like that? A shadow of the good things to come. It was a picture of it. Not the very image of the things. Can never with the same, now notice, not the very image of the things. It was a shadow. You don’t get always an exact picture out of a shadow, but you get a general form of it. Can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect them that draw nigh. Else would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more consciousness of sin. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year. Every year there’s a Day of Atonement. Because you see, there was always a consciousness of sin that was there. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Now go down with me a little way. In verse 11, Every priest indeed, standing day by day, ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, the witch can never take away sins. But he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins Oh, I’ve got to emphasize. Listen to this carefully. He, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, henceforth expecting until his enemies be made the footstool of his feet. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, those that are set apart for God. By one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. By one offering He’s done that. Theoretically, Jesus’ provision for us was for our perfection. And by that one offering, He not only helped us to escape hell, but He forever perfected, arranged for our perfection. Do you like that idea? The inclusiveness, the vastness of what he really provided for you? And the Holy Spirit also beareth witness to us, for after he hath said, This is the covenant I will make of them. After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws on their heart, and upon their mind also will I write them. Then saith he, And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. In other words, once that’s gone, you don’t have to make any more offering of sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus. Do you get it? Boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus by the way which He dedicated for us, a new and a living way through the veil, that is to say, through His flesh, coming through what He did for us in His own flesh. And having a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with true hearts in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, having our body washed with pure water, and let us hold fast the confession of our hope that it waver not. For he is faithful at promise. And let us consider one another to provoke to love and good works, not forsaking the assembling assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day drawing near. So he gives you right there the key, as you see the day drawing near, that there’s a certain day in the history of the church and the great scope of it in which this is going to become such a real living reality and experience. Those that have died in Christ up to this hour died in hope. They didn’t receive the full promise of it. But praise God in the first resurrection, they will come into it. But there are some that will be alive and will come into this experience without tasting of death, that will walk with God in sinless perfection. that are going to walk with God in the end time. And the main thing is not that you be absorbed with yourself, but the main thing is that you find a new and a living way into the very throne room of God to commune and fellowship with the Almighty. A walk with God that has not been known in the history of the church is going to be opened up to the people of God if they will believe God for it. What a tremendous thing this Day of Atonement should be to our hearts. Because it was a shadow of things to come, but it went on to say, not the very image of the things. We see there vaguely, dimly, something that strikes a note of hope to our heart as we see that goat being led off in the wilderness with the sins of a whole nation resting upon it. We see something there in the blood of this goat that was sprinkled over the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. We see something there, the high priest and everyone else excluded, but it was just a form. Now Jesus entered in and He opened up a new way for us through His flesh, through the veil, that is to say His flesh. You realize that when Jesus was crucified on the cross that that veil of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom? It meant that God had opened up a way through the death of His Son, whereby we can come into the presence of the Heavenly Father, into the very throne womb. We are invited. This opens up to me what I think is one of the most tremendous scriptures in the whole of the New Testament. Listen to this. Listen to this. Listen to it. 14, Having then a high priest who has passed through the heavens, who passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help us in the time of our need. That opened it up beautifully. It shows us we can come. Our Day of Atonement, our heavenly high priest, has opened up a way for us. We can be cleansed. We can move in. One more now. Verse 25 of Hebrews 7, Therefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such a high priest became us, holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners, made higher than the heavens, who needeth not daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. For this he did once for all, what he offered up himself, once for all. Do you accept this message this morning, that God has something beyond what you’ve experienced yet? Do you believe that there’s a depth of cleansing, of purging, that God did, by one sacrifice, perfect them that are sanctified? Do you think God included that in your life? And I’ll ask you one more question. Do you think that that could be attained to, at least in a measure now? Do you believe that it’s an experience to be set before the Church, before the ages of eternity roll on? Do you think you’re going to have to die that death itself is the process of sanctification? Or is it a way by faith through the blood of Jesus Christ to enter in? If we can have it, let’s reach it. I believe we can have it. In fact, I believe that it’s not so much right now for us to look for this to be a personal experience that happens with a suddenness. I think that we should look upon it as a process. that’s becoming a personal experience to each one of us. You know what I mean by process? How many believe that the work of the cross is that process has been going on, especially in your lives the last few years? Just the last few years really been taking place. Things that have been separating you, bringing you into it. And because of that, we rejoice together and say, Lord, what you’ve begun, you’ll complete. Don’t be impatient. Keep pressing in with all your heart. God will see that it’s a blessing to you.