Sanctuary 4 - Sanctuary Closed 

Study given by W. D. Frazee - July 19, 1969

"So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation" Hebrews 9:28.

Christ came the first time, and was offered that He might bear the sins of many. He died on the cross. He died as a sin bearer. That precious blood shed on Calvary has been ministered by Him in the holy place and the most holy place in the heavenly sanctuary.

Through all these experiences Christ has been and is now bearing the sins of many. Our confessed sins are transferred from us to Him. They are transferred to the heavenly sanctuary.

That is why you and I can go about our work from day to day happy and thankful in the righteousness of Christ's own life which covers us. He bears our sins that we may bear His righteousness. Isn't that a wonderful transfer?

Our text says Jesus shall appear the second time without sin. This does not mean when He comes the second time He won't be a sinner. Of course He won't. He never has been a sinner. But He has been a sin bearer. As He was offered upon the cross that He might bear the sins of many, so there is coming a time when that work of sin bearing stops.

When He comes the second time He will come without any burden of sin upon Him. He does not come forth as a priest, but as a

King. He has laid down the censor and taken up the scepter. He has laid aside His priestly garments and clothed Himself with kingly robes. He comes to judge the living and the dead, and to welcome His people who stand before Him without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. He comes to welcome His church that has gone through the laundry and appeared in blood-washed robes white, clean, and perfected. It is a wonderful prospect. Shall we share it?

There is something I want you to notice that is implicit in the text we have just read. Before Jesus comes the second time the sanctuary is going to close. This work of salvation is going to come to an end before Jesus appears in the clouds of heaven. We call that moment the close of probation. Is there going to be any difference after that event? Oh, yes. This is the end of the day of salvation. It ushers in the great and terrible day of the Lord.

Today men sin and can find forgiveness. There will be no forgiveness after the sanctuary closes. That frightens some people. I can see how it could. But I would like to study that fact as being one of the greatest thoughts of cheer and encourage- ment that I know of anywhere in the Bible. The fact that God is going to close the sanctuary indicates triumph. He is not going to close the sanctuary because He has not been able to make it go. He is going to close the sanctuary because it has run out of business.

How could that be? It is very simple. The work of the sanctuary is to get sins in so they can be gotten out. But if no more sins come in, and all the ones that are there are cleansed and put upon the scapegoat, what further business is there for the sanctuary?

In order for this to be so all the sins of God's people must be confessed and carried into the sanctuary so they can be blotted out, and God's people, by His grace and the operation of His Spirit, must reach the place where they do not continue in breaking the law of God. They must reach the place where heaven can say:

"Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus" Revelation 14:12.

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What is sin? The transgression of the law (1 John 3:4). If sin is the transgression of the law then people who are keeping it are not breaking it. If they are not breaking it they are not sinning.

Someone says, Do you believe people will ever reach that place in this world?

Well, if they don't the sanctuary will have to stay open until they do, unless you have found some easier way to take care of the sin problem. This is the only way heaven knows. All these years heaven has been taking care of the sin problem by having people bring an offering, transfer their sin to the substitute, slay the sacrifice, and let the priest sprinkle the blood in the sanctuary. It was done in type before the cross. It has been done in anti-type since the cross. And that is the only way we can have our sins forgiven.

How long must that sanctuary stay open? As long as the need continues. When can it close? When every sin has been confessed and transferred, and when the stream of sin ceases to invade the sanctuary.

I will illustrate it. It is Friday afternoon. Mother is getting everything ready for the coming Sabbath. She is mopping the kitchen. In comes Bobby with muddy feet and runs across the kitchen floor. What must mother do? She must do some more mopping. And about the time she has taken care of that in comes Mary. She has muddy feet too, and runs across the kitchen floor.

When can mother finish mopping the floor? She can never finish as long as people keep tracking mud in. And this is the picture in the heavenly sanctuary. Jesus was ready to finish the work of investigative judgment and blot out sins in the final atonement a long time ago. He went into the most holy place a hundred twenty-five years ago to do that work. How long is He going to stay there. Well, that depends on you and me.

I am so thankful that He has been willing to stay there patiently waiting until we get done with our sinning, because if He ever stopped His work of intercession and atonement before we were done it would be too late.

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This is not to frighten us. The fact that He has waited so long is evidence He is going to wait until He gets a church that will fully reflect His image and fully keep His holy law.

As long as the need continues that loving heart will continue to plead for us, to intercede for us. But His heart is set on a work which has as its culmination a clean sanctuary and a clean people.

We will read from the tenth chapter of Hebrews showing how that the ancient service could never bring them to that point, and how the new covenant can and will do that very thing.

"For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins" Hebrews 10:1,2.

If the ancient sanctuary had really accomplished the work of cleansing the worshipers, what would have happened to those sacrifices? They would have ceased. There would have been no further need for them.

"But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins" verses 3,4.

The trouble with the ancient service is that it depended upon the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. There is not enough power in the blood of an animal to break the hold of sin in the human life. When I look into the eyes of a lamb or a bullock that is dying for me I may be sorry. But the history of four thousand years proves that it was not enough to break the hold of sin in the human life. What must happen? I must come to Calvary and see the real cost of sin. Not the blood of a goat or bullock, but the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I must see that sin is so terrible that it breaks the heart of Jesus. That is the only thing that is going to break sin loose in my life.

Can that do it? We sing there is power in the blood. Is that simply the power to get our sins canceled so we can go right on? What is power anyway? Oh, it is the strength to keep the

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holy law.

"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" Romans 8:3,4.

Thank God it can be done.

We have read in Hebrews that it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

"Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared Me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me,) to do Thy will, O God" Hebrews 10:5- 7.

A thousand years before His birth in Bethlehem Jesus speaks prophetically in Psalm 40. Paul is quoting it here. Jesus said, Father, I know what You want is not offerings and sacrifices. I know that what You want is the doing of Your will.

Samuel said:

"Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams" 1 Samuel 15:22.

Sad to say many people got the idea that the sanctuary service was a way you could pay off your sins. We have the same fundamental error continued in the Roman Catholic teaching and system of worship for the past fifteen hundred years. But I wonder if Protestants have learned the lesson. I wonder if the members of the remnant church have grasped the fact that what God wants is not a continuation of the sanctuary service. He wants it to close.

Think of the Father from the gates of Eden on down. Every time He sees a lamb sacrificed, what does He see? The cross erected on Calvary. He sees His own darling Son nailed to that tree. He sees the blood flowing every time a lamb is killed. Do you think He got any pleasure out of that? No. He only got pain.

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And since the cross, as we bring our sins to Jesus, the wounds of Calvary must continue to flow.

"If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame" Hebrews 6:6.

So what God is longing for is not for this sacrificial system to keep on going and going. Oh, no. He wants it to close. Yet He loves you and me so much that He does not want it to close until we get our sins in, and get an experience where we won't need this anymore.

How did Jesus show this? He said, Dear Lord, I have come to do Your will. I know this is what You want. I know You don't want all these offerings of peace. What You want is the doing of Your will.

"I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart" Psalm 40:8.

In order to do the will of God Jesus had to have this law in His heart. He was the true ark in which the law was enshrined. In the tablets of His heart and mind this law was fully written. That is why He pleased the Father.

If you and I would have this law written in our minds and hearts wouldn't we love it the way Jesus did? Wouldn't we do it the way He did? That is exactly the promise of the new covenant.

"Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin" Hebrews 10:15-18.

When the law of God is written in the mind and heart then sins and iniquities can be remembered no more. They will be blotted out, and there need be no more offering for sin. When the law of God is the rule of our life there will be no more sin for which Jesus needs to keep standing and ministering His sacrificial

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blood. This is the vital thing.

But the only way that can be done is for the law to be written in the mind and heart. We sin either because we don't know better, or because we know better and don't love God enough to do better. If the law of God is in the mind we will know what God requires. If the law of God is written in our hearts we will love God's law enough to do it.

I don't suppose any of us know everything that is involved in living according to this law. But do any of you know more about what God requires in His law than you did ten years ago? It is true that all through eternity we are going to study this law and discern new beauty in it. But before probation closes we are going to find out those things in our lives that are transgressions of this law in order that they might be put away. That is why we have the third angel's message. That is why we are teaching people the Sabbath, health reform, dress reform, educational reform, tithe paying, the ordinance of humility, and all the rest.

Jesus said to go teach all things which He has commanded us. And we are going to learn enough truth before probation closes so we will not ignorantly be breaking the law of God?

If during the last ten years you have discovered certain things in your life that you didn't know were wrong, would more study of the law of God through the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy reveal more things to you? Would it be a good thing to spend time every day looking into the law to find out everything God requires? If we mean business, we will do it.

The devil knows and is competing for time. He is an inventor (Great Controversy, page 488). Two of his greatest inventions are the radio and TV. I know they are being used to bring the message, and thank God for every soul who hears the third angel's message over the radio and TV. But only heaven knows how many are going out the back door through listening to and looking at all the rest.

If the members of the remnant church would be looking to heaven, what wonderful things could be written in our minds and hearts. There is a broadcast every day. Are you taking time to study the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy so you know what the

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law says about everything in your life?

The new covenant promise says God will write His law in our minds. How is He going to do it? While we are asleep? Does He run us through one of these copy machines where we go in blank and come out with the law in our minds? Oh, no. He uses what we see and listen to.

Let's give Him more time. During the Day of Atonement no work today, no eating today. Everybody come to the sanctuary. If that means anything to you and me no work will interfere. Our job isnottomakealiving. Itistomakealife. Itistogetthis law written in our minds and hearts.

When Jesus came to this world He spent more time healing than preaching. But He spent more time in the carpenter shop than He did healing and preaching. Why? It was to get this law written in His mind and heart.

There are lines of work that will help us do that. But there is a great mass of business operations where men learn to be sharp and keen and cunning in cutting the other fellow. If I were in a business like that I would get out. My soul is worth too much, bought by the precious blood of Christ.

I am not talking just about dishonesty. I am talking about this competitive, mad rush to make money that is filling the minds of people today. God help us to get away from the rat race and come to the sanctuary.

This doesn't mean we will just sit and meditate all day long. There is plenty of good, hard work to be done. But if you mean business, God has lines of work for you to be in where your very work will help to put the law of God in your mind and heart.

When Moses was forty years of age he decided he wanted to work for God. God said, Very well. You have learned some things down in Egypt, but there is a lot you have learned you are going to have to forget if you are going to help lead Israel. He took Moses out to herd sheep. He kept Moses at it for forty years. And Moses forgot a lot of things and learned a lot of things.

That is what must happen to us today. We need to forget a Sanctuary 4 - page 8

large share of what we have learned in the school of the world and the ways of living in this world. We need to learn a new way of life altogether that has to do with seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. We will find it in the law of God magnified in the Bible. We will find it in those thousands of pages in the Spirit of Prophecy counsels. Let's be down on our knees finding out heaven's way of life. And as fast as we see where God wants us to make a change, let's make it. Let's do what God says, whatever the cost.

The new covenant promise is not only to write this law in our minds, but in our heart. To have it in our minds is to know it. To have it in our heart is to love it.

Let me illustrate it. Suppose I would say to Mary, Why don't you kill your two little boys?

Suppose she would say to me, Brother Frazee, don't you know there is a law in Colorado against that? If I would do that they would put me in prison. I would probably have to spend all my life there. So I am pretty careful. Now at times those boys just wear me out. I have to pray so hard to keep from strangling them.

Is this it? Is there a law in Colorado against murder? Is that why the children are safe?

Suppose when I ask Mary why she doesn't kill her two little boys she says, Brother Frazee, don't you know there is a law in the ark in the temple in heaven that says not to kill? If I were to murder one of my children I would go to hell and burn. I try so hard to keep from doing it. Sometimes it takes all the willpower I have. But when I think of those burning flames of hell I haven't done it. I hope I succeed.

Is that the answer? It is true there is a law in heaven that says we are not to kill. But is that enough?

Oh, no. Thank God, the same hand that wrote that law on the stone and put it in the ark has written it in a mother's heart.

Don't think it comes automatically. Every now and again you hear where some father or mother has killed their child. It is terrible. There is no natural affection. But it illustrates what

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I am talking about. There has got to something done in these minds and hearts of ours if we will be kept from breaking the law of God.

What does a mother have in her heart? Love. That will handle the problem. Do you know any other way to handle it? It would take quite a group of policemen to protect her children if there were not love there. But if love is there, you can dismiss the policemen. You don't need judges or jails. And I say it reverently, you don't need the sanctuary service of sacrifice anymore when that is done on every commandment. This is the answer. But it takes the blood of Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit to do it.

Don't you wish the law of God were written like that in your heart? It can be done. When we are down on our knees every day asking God to write His law in our minds so we will know His will, let's we ask Him to write it in our hearts so we will love His will.

This is why God asks us to come to the sanctuary. He asks us to see not only a law that tells us what to do, but a great High Priest standing there pleading for us, presenting His blood as the sacrifice for sin. When we see that love, it awakens and grows in our hearts.

How did you get what love you have? You got it by getting acquainted with what Jesus has done for you. Don't you think if we knew Him better we would love Him more? Don't you think if we would spend more time with Him we would know Him better? Let's give Him the time.

The real blessing of our study will be realized in the days to come. There is nothing can happen to us now that will settle this thing forever. Now we can choose to turn all our sin in, but we need a further work of education, and a deeper work of repentance. Let's let God do everything for us He will do now. But wouldn't you like to make a covenant with God that you will give Him time every day to write this law in your heart?

This is the key. Come to the sanctuary. Kneel down and make that covenant with God.

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Continue by clicking on the study below

Study 1 The Holy Spirit & The Sanctuary  - The Sacrifice

Study 2 The Holy Spirit & The Sanctuary  - The Priest

Study 3 The Holy Spirit & The Sanctuary  - Day of Atonement  

Study 4 The Holy Spirit & The Sanctuary  - Sanctuary Closed

Study 5 The Holy Spirit & The Sanctuary  - Sprinkled Blood

Study 6 The Holy Spirit & The Sanctuary  - House of God