Rabbi Schneider - The Consequence
We are in this season of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is the holiest day of the year on God's sacred calendar. We read about it first in the Torah where the Lord commanded the high priest to go into the Holy of Holies, which was the back room when the Israelites were traveling it was in the Tabernacle and when they got to the Promised Land and converted the tabernacle into a permanent structure called the temple, the Holy of Holies was the backroom in the temple as well. Only the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies and only once a year, on this day, the Day of Atonement. Inside this room was the Ark of the Covenant and inside the Ark of the Covenant were the Ten Commandments. On top of the Ark of the Covenant, the High Priest when he came in once a year would pour the blood of the bull and the goat on top of that Ark. It's called in the New Testament the mercy seat and when the Lord saw the blood each year on behalf of the children of Israel during the days of the Hebrew Scriptures, He would forgive the sins of His people, Israel.
Well 2,000 years ago, Yeshua HaMashiach came, the Hebrew Messiah and the Savior of the world and Yeshua fulfilled all the requirements of Yom Kippur but in a more outstanding way. Because before Yeshua came, the high priest had to go into the Holy of Holies once a year bringing the blood. But when Yeshua came 2,000 years ago and became the sacrifice Himself, God, who is clothed in humanity, leading a perfect life and then dying on the cross for the sins of mankind and then His blood being shed, that became the permanent, everlasting means through which God provided forgiveness and atonement for His people.
You see the blood of Jesus, the blood of Yeshua, is perfect blood with everlasting Power. The Bible says that when we receive Jesus and truly give our lives to Him that our past sins are forgiven, our present sins are forgiven, our future sins are forgiven and because Yeshua is the perfect sacrifice, it's no longer necessary to sacrifice bulls and goats and to shed their blood because they were shadows of what Yeshua would do once and for all. This teaches us how the ugliness, the sickness, the power of sin, it shows us how incredibly difficult it was for the Lord to solve the problem of the sin of mankind. That sin's consequences are so severe that the only way God could alleviate from the curse of it was to come Himself, clothed in humanity, and Himself taking our sin in His own body on the tree, it was the only way that you, beloved one, and I could be saved. It should cause us to recognize the consequence of sin, the seriousness of sin.
Today in the church we don't hear much about sin. Oftentimes the gospel that is being preached today is not a Gospel of turning to Jesus and repenting from sin to follow Him, it's rather the gospel of a God who becomes a magic genie. That we just rub Him the right way and He gives us the American dream. Beloved, that's a different gospel. It's not the Gospel of the Apostles. I want to state today, boldly and clearly, that Yeshua HaMashiach has come once and for all for men to be saved and the way to be saved is to turn to Him and to repent, to run from our sin. Jesus said "he that loses his life for my sake shall find it".
Jesus loves us today but beloved only you can give your heart to Him. Will you do that today? And if you've already done that, let's continue to give our heart and our lives to Him more and more and more. As we are entering in now to this new season, I pray for you what I pray for myself, that my heart, strength, soul, and mind will be totally focused on loving God with all my power and strength and I speak the same over you that have a big yes and amen in your heart to what I just said. Yom Kippur speaks to us about the consequence of sin, the seriousness of what it brings, and the depth of the love of God that came to save us from sin's consequences. Beloved, Jesus is worthy of our lives and He's worthy of your love and affection.