You know what keeps a lot of people away from heaven and away from Jesus and away from salvation?

The demonic blindness of Satan whispering, you're too dirty. You're

too dirty to go in that church. You're too dirty to go in that church. You're too dirty to go into that relationship with Jesus.

You're too dirty to think you could ever go to heaven and people buy it.

How can God welcome sinners like you and me into his presence?

In this episode of Light and Truth,

John Piper turns to Hebrew 923 to 26

to reveal what Christ accomplished

to make our welcome possible.

The sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on February 2nd, 1997. For 1400 years, give or take a century, starting with the Exodus and Mount Sinai,

it was God's will that his people Israel foreshadow and anticipate the death of his

son Jesus Christ through the shedding of the blood of animals, by which ceremonially there was

cleansing for the tabernacle and the utensils and the relics and the people's

bodily form and in anticipation of the event the sins themselves.

That was the will of God that these outward touchable

things like the Tabernacle could be ceremonially cleansed by the blood of animals.

But he says in verse 23 here,

that the heavenly things of which these are copies and shadowings.

These heavenly things can never be cleansed

by that kind of sacrifice, but rather says you see there better sacrifices are going

to be required if something is to happen at the spiritual level or at the

heavenly level.

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