Holy Spirit & the Sanctuary 4

Blotting Out Of Sin & Final Work

Study given by W. D. Frazee - February 16, 1968

My heart is glad tonight, dear ones, as I think of the wonderful themes presented in this text and I rejoice that we have come to the hour when we may share them with you. This is the fourth, as you remember, of our series on the Holy Spirit and the sanctuary, and this is really the focus. I mean that what we are going to study tonight, all that we have studied before, has been to prepare us for this. All the rest focuses on this, tonight. This is the focal point.

“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you” Acts 3:19-21.

Let us analyze this text. First, note that Peter speaks of three future events - the blotting out of sins, the refreshing from the presence of the Lord, and the coming of Jesus Christ in the clouds of heaven. May I read the text again and notice those three events clearly spoken of:

All three of these things were future when Peter was speaking. There is something that he urged his hearers to do, and the Scriptures urges us the same tonight. Repent and be converted so that these wonderful things may happen.

Let us take the last one first. Jesus can never come until He has in this world a group of people who have fully repented and have been fully converted. He is waiting for that. The times of refreshing can never come until God has a people who have obtained the victory over every besetment, over pride, selfishness, love of the world, and over every wrong word and action. That is another way of saying they have repented and been converted. And the blotting out of sins cannot take place until there is in the experience of God’s people a sorrow for sin so deep that they are through with it, a conversion so lasting that affliction will not rise up the second time.

So this evening, we want to study these three great events: the times of refreshing, the blotting out of sins, and the coming of Jesus.

Note now that this refreshing comes from the sanctuary. Peter words it from the presence of the Lord. But where is our Lord? Ah, Paul tells us in Hebrews 8:

“Of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man” Hebrews 8:1, 2.

This is the sum, the chief point of Paul’s teaching in the book of Hebrews that Christ, our great High Priest is in the heavenly sanctuary ministering there for us. So this refreshing that comes from the presence of the Lord comes from our Lord in the sanctuary.

You remember we have studied in our previous lessons that when Jesus ascended, after His death and resurrection here in this world, He began His work in the holy place of the heavenly sanctuary. And from that holy place He showered down upon His people here in this world, the Pentecostal blessing. The Spirit of God was poured out in mighty power. All the wonderful experiences we have been studying about in our Sabbath school lesson recorded in the book of Acts, were the result of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit from the holy place of the heavenly sanctuary.

But I want to ask you something, friends. If the blessing from the holy place was so abundant, what will the blessing from the most holy place be? And if mighty power signaled the beginning of Christ’s work, what glorious revelations there must be in connection with the close of His work. It took mighty power to begin it. It will take mightier power to finish it.

A finished work is what God is aiming at. Are you with Him in that aim? A completed job, not something half done, not bread half baked - a finished work. He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness. Not merely a short work, but a finished work. That is the goal of the gospel, my friends.

Now, let us keep in our minds always, that as we look at this miniature model of what Moses made at Mount Sinai, we are beholding a shadowy outline of the great temple in heaven where Jesus ministers. That is what Paul makes plain in the book of Hebrews, specifically in Hebrews 8:1-5.

So, since we can’t look at heaven - there is no telescope that can bring those heavenly, holy places within our view - we look at the copy. And beholding the copy we learn something about the reality. That is why we have this model here. That is why we study it from time to time. It is not that we are so interested in what Moses did three thousand years and more ago. That may be interesting as a matter of history. But the whole thing becomes vital and living and up to date, when we see that this was a copy of what Jesus would do in the true sanctuary, as Paul calls it, in heaven.

So what we are really studying is what is going on in heaven. Jesus is there as our High Priest, engaged in the great work of getting rid of sin. Would you like to get rid of sin? Ah, friends, the troubles of this world can be solved only in this way. The wars, the riots, the sickness, the crime - none of these things can be removed permanently from this world, until Jesus makes an end of sins in the heavenly sanctuary.

The answer does not lie over in Vietnam, nor in Washington, nor in New York, nor here at Wildwood. The answer lies in the heavenly sanctuary. When we realize that as it is, we shall be sending our prayers there daily with the deepest earnestness. This is what heaven is waiting for. A longing church sharing the longing of our great High Priest will open the way for heaven to pour out its richest, its choicest, its best gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit in the latter rain. This is the refreshing spoken of here.

You remember in one of our earlier studies, we showed how that on the day of Pentecost Peter referred to Joel’s prophecy in the second chapter in his wonderful book, in connection with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Turn please, to Joel 2, and let’s look at it, for it has a bearing on our study tonight:

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit” Joel 2:28, 29.

Then in the thirty-second verse he says:

“And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call” Joel 2:32.

Have you and I heard anything about that remnant? Oh, yes. We were studying it last Friday night. Revelation 12:17:

“And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” Revelation 12:17.

And Joel, looking forward to the last days, as Peter specifically applies the prophecy in Acts 2, speaks not only of these signs in the sun and the moon that the thirty-first verse mentions, but he speaks of the deliverance through the remnant and the outpouring of the wonderful Spirit of God.

In the twenty-third verse of this same chapter he uses the symbol or figure of rain. You know how a dry earth seems to cry for the refreshing rain, and oh, how reviving a good shower is at the right time. If this were August we could appreciate the symbol a little better than, perhaps, we can tonight. But you can all remember the droughts that sometimes come in summer, and how thankful we are for the reviving, refreshing showers.

Now with that, notice the twenty-first to the twenty-third verses:

“Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the LORD will do great things. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength. Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain” Joel 2:21-23,

How?

“Moderately” Joel 2:23. (That is from the holy place.)

“And he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten” Joel 2:23-25.

What a wonderful work of restoration, a fitting up for the coming of Jesus, is represented here. My point is: It is all represented under the symbol of a refreshing, reviving rain. It came at the beginning of the work of the Christian church as Jesus began His work in the holy place. It has continued in various degrees, various measures, down through the history of the church. But as we approach the close of Christ’s work in the most holy place, the Spirit of God is poured out without measure in this wonderful outpouring that both Peter and Joel speak of. Other prophets have spoken of it. Zachariah says:

“Ask ye of the LORD rain in the time of the latter rain; so the LORD shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain” Zechariah 10:1.

Now, tonight, friends, let us think of what the purpose of that refreshing is. In the East where these prophecies were given, the early, or former rain, fell at the sowing time in order to cause the seed to germinate. The latter rain fell shortly before the harvest, to ripen up the crop and fit it for the sickle. And so the early rain begins the work in the human heart, and in the work of the Christian church. But the latter rain completes that work and fixes the character of God in the hearts of His children for time and for eternity.

Now, what does all this have to do with the blotting out of sin? Peter connects them in our text. Look at it there in Acts 3:19:

“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out” Acts 3:19.

When?

“When the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; And he shall send Jesus Christ” Acts 3:19, 20.

Before Jesus comes there must be an experience that the people of God enter into, in which this mighty outpouring of the Spirit is theirs, and their sins are blotted out for time and for eternity. This is intimately linked with the work of the sanctuary. You will see that, as you note our often- quoted text here on the chart, Daniel 8:14. Will you repeat it with me?

“Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed” Daniel 8:14.

Where is the sanctuary? In heaven. And the cleansing is a cleansing from sin. How could sin be in heaven to be cleansed? We studied that in the sanctuary, the type makes it clear, when men confess their sins they are placed upon the lamb, the bullock, the goat here in the court, and the sacrifice is slain. Sin must be transferred in order to be forgiven. Sin must be taken from your heart and mine in order to be gotten rid of.

But when that sin was placed upon the animal, who represented Jesus, then what must happen to that sacrifice? It must die. It must be slain. Who slew it? The sinner, the one who had broken the law. When the blood had been shed, the priest took that blood and ministered it in the sanctuary. As that blood was placed upon the horns of the golden altar, it represented the transfer of sin from the sinner through the sacrifice to the sanctuary. That is the way sin got in.

Now, how would it get out? On the day of Atonement, which came in the fall, this work of the cleansing of the sanctuary took place. Leviticus 16 tells the story. The blood of the animal that was sacrificed that day was taken by the high priest through the inner veil and into the most holy place. That blood was sprinkled in the most holy on the mercy seat, beneath which was the law of God which had been transgressed - for sin is the transgression of the law.

When the blood was sprinkled there on the mercy seat, it represented a complete and final atonement for sin. It represented that sin was being blotted out. And as the result of that, the high priest could then take, in figure, those sins which had been placed in the sanctuary through the year, and bring them out, fully forgiven, fully atoned for, and place them upon the scapegoat, which was led off into the wilderness, never more to enter the camp of Israel. Thus sin was banished from Israel.

Now of course, they went through it over and over again. Every year they went through it. But Paul tells us in Hebrews 9:22-28 that what the high priest did back then once a year, Jesus is going to do once for all. Down here in the end of time He appears, and once for all He dies upon the cross. Once for all He enters the holy place. Once for all He enters the most holy place. Once for all He sprinkles the blood upon the mercy seat, to blot out the sins of His people.

But friends, let us face this very important fact: When He sprinkles the blood on the mercy seat once for all, and blots out the sins of His people, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins. The sanctuary will be closed. Jesus will cease His work as priest and mediator, and will begin His reign as king. Shortly thereafter He will come. But in that interval between the closing of His work as priest and His coming in the clouds of heaven, you and I, dear friends, are to have the wonderful privilege of living here in this world, day by day, as a demonstration, not merely of His saving, but His keeping power.

Oh, I want you to think about it for a moment. For six thousand years it has been necessary in order for the righteous to be accepted, that Jesus, as our mediator, should stand between us and the broken law. But through the plan of salvation, through His death upon the cross, through His ministry in the holy place and then in the most holy, He accomplishes the work of salvation, so that those who let Him finish the work in their hearts can live here in this world without breaking God’s law, without breaking His heart.

If you were the devil what would you try to do about that, anyway? Wouldn’t you try to prevent it? Wouldn’t you try to stop it? Ah, yes. But the more the enemy seeks to prevent it, the more the power of God is marshaled and poured out upon this world, to enable those who love the Master to reach that experience. And so it is written in our text tonight. Will you look at it, again, there in Acts 3:19? This time I want you to repeat it with me. Do you have it? All together:

“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. And he shall send Jesus Christ” Acts 3:19, 20.

Do you want Jesus to come? Repent and be converted. Do you want to see times of refreshing? Repent and be converted. Do you want your sins blotted out? Repent and be converted.

Let’s see how those are linked together. That word “repent” means to be sorry for sin, doesn’t it? How sorry? Sorrier than Judas was. He was sorry for the consequences. Sorrier than Pharaoh was. He was sorry for the frogs and the lice and all the other plagues. But every time as soon as the consequences were removed what did he do? He went right back to his rebellion. Repentance includes sorrow for sin and a turning away from it.

And this is wrapped up in the second expression, be converted. That word that is translated there “be converted” literally means turned around, clear around. It is as if a man is walking along the road here and he is told to change his course, not by taking a side road, not by changing his direction a degree or ten degrees, but to turn clear around and go exactly in the opposite direction. That is what that word means there.

That is what God wants you and me to do, my friends. If we have been walking with the world, He wants us to turn around. If we have been walking with sin, He wants us to turn around. If we have had our face away from God, He wants us to turn toward God, clear around. Let’s see, expressed in degrees, that would be one hundred and eighty degrees.

How far have you turned? Well, if you have turned even ten or twenty degrees, thank the Lord for that. But listen. The latter rain can never come on ten or twenty or thirty degrees. It is coming only on a hundred and eighty degrees. Clear around, my friends. Repent ye therefore and turn around, clear around. Oh, friends, if we will turn our faces from the world to the sanctuary we shall behold our great High Priest in His closing work, and we shall begin to enter into His longing to get this thing over with.

Think of what is going on in this world, tonight. I only need to refer to it. You are well aware of the awful troubles, the awful slaughter in Vietnam, the terrible riots of last year. And those who think they know, tell us that next summer is going to be far worse than last summer with these riots, that no city in America will be safe and secure - crime everywhere on the rise. Twenty-five million people in America either have had or will soon have heart attacks of some kind. One problem after the other.

What is the answer? Jesus is the answer. But friends, is the only answer He has to keep the sanctuary open and have people keep coming with their sins? Keep sprinkling the blood of forgiveness? Is that the only answer? Oh, no. Repent ye therefore, and be converted that your sins may not merely be covered, but blotted out, erased, canceled, eradicated, done away with.

Would you like to have sin taken away forever? Come now, be honest. Would you? That book of fiction that you know you should not read - maybe you have it right out there on the table where anybody can see it, maybe you have it under the pillow, or under the bed somewhere - if you were going to give it up to God, how long would you want it taken away for? Jesus will never take it away forever until you are through with it forever.

That package of cigarettes that has made you a slave. If you give it up for God, how long do you want to give it up for? Is that a fair question? Oh, yes. Because I will tell you, friends, when Jesus blots out our sin, they are blotted out. And it is once for all, Paul speaks of it there in Hebrews 9 and 10.

Your problem may not be cigarettes. It may not be fiction. It may be an angry temper. Would you like to get rid of your angry temper? Really get rid of it? Or if you were real honest would you say? “Now, Lord, I am sorry that I lost my temper, but I am not sure but that I want it in reserve in case that neighbor does something mean to me again. I would like to tell him what I think of him, and I would hate to be fixed so I couldn’t.”

I have often thought about that little animal that we sometimes meet out in the woods, black and white, you know. And I have wondered if the animal could listen and understand, think and reason, if you should bring it the good news that it could be taken to surgery and an operation performed so that it would never stink again, do you think it would accept it? What about it? Would you, if you were the skunk?

There is the whole problem in a nutshell, my dear friends. There is the whole problem. The skunk would say, “Yes, but what is going to happen to me if I loose this stink bag?” The skunk has a way of getting his way, because he has it. And really, he doesn’t have to use it very often. Those who are acquainted with him, just get out of his way, man and beast.

Ah, my friends, do you want to get rid of that stink bag? Do you want to get rid of the angry temper, or the sulking disposition, the murmuring or the complaining, or any of the other ways that you have of getting people to do what you want them to do? Do you really want it blotted out? That has the idea of something pretty permanent, doesn’t it, friends? Would you really want to get rid of all those bad disposition traits and never have them again? When we want to get rid of them as much as Jesus wants to take them from us, it will be done shortly, my friends.

And the answer is in seeing what it costs Jesus every time we sin. The death He died upon the cross was to show us that sin is so terrible that it breaks His heart. To transgress even one of these commandments is to break His heart. And when we see that and keep looking at that from day to day, it will do the surgery on our hearts that will cure us of sinning.

“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of the refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; And he shall send Jesus” Acts 3:19, 20.

Jesus can’t come until these sins are blotted out. He is held right there, tied, we might say, to this work of dealing with sin in the sanctuary. People wonder why He does not come and put an end to the war and all the rest. He is held there. He is on duty. It is because of His mediatorial work there that our lives are spared. But ah, when the last sin is sent in that ever will be sent in, when the records of heaven are purged from the sins of those whose hearts have turned to God, then Jesus can come and take us up there and we will be perfectly safe, no stink bags in heaven. Let’s get rid of them. What do you say, friends?

But listen, right here in this world, there is a heavenly experience just ahead for those who will go all the way with Jesus. The times of refreshing will come before Jesus comes. When He began the work He went to heaven and poured forth from the holy place that wonderful early rain of Pentecostal blessing. Before He comes the second time, in the closing hours of this work in the most holy place, He will pour upon His people, all who are willing to be done with sin, the mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the latter rain.

Then, friends, we shall have Pentecost repeated on a wider, grander scale. All that we read about in the book of Acts will be re-enacted down here today. For all this heaven is waiting. For this Jesus is holding up His wounded hands in the sanctuary, tonight.

How much time are you giving Him to do this work in your heart? Five minutes a day? Well, He appreciates it, friends. If you are spending five minutes a day, he appreciates it. But He could do more with ten minutes, couldn’t He? Oh, yes.

I don’t know how much time you ought to be spending specifically on these points with Him. But I am sure that if we long for the work to be finished in our hearts, we will be studying all the while how to spend less time with the world, and more time with Him - less time with TV, and more time with the heavenly sanctuary; less time standing at the mirror dolling ourselves up, trying to make ourselves attractive to please sinners, more time looking into the perfect mirror of the law of God to get our lives attractive to heaven and our Saviour; less time copying the fashions of this world in dress, in music, in reading, in education, in amusements, more time in learning the language of heaven, enjoying the music of heaven, entering into the diet program of heaven, into the amusements of heaven.

Amusements of heaven? Oh, yes. We are going to have a good time in heaven every day, and we can have some of those same scenes of joy here, if we will learn heaven’s way and turn from the world.

What does our text say? Read it with me again, please, Acts 3:19:

“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; And he shall send Jesus Christ” Acts 3:19, 20.

Listen. Do you see, is it clear in that text to you as you look at it, there are three things which are still future, but there are two things that need to be now. What are the three things that are future? The blotting out of sins, the times of refreshing, the coming of Jesus. What are the experiences that are to be now? Repent and be converted. Oh, let’s enter into the experience today, so we can have these wonderful experiences tomorrow. What do you say, friends?

Jesus is coming, and He is coming soon. That is good news. There is no other way out of this wicked world, no other cure for its troubles. Before He comes He is going to cleanse the sanctuary. He said He would. He will do it. He is going to blot out the sins. In connection with it, He is going to pour upon His remnant church the fullness of the Spirit’s power. The times of refreshing are just ahead. But in order to share those wonderful blessings we must do what? Repent and be converted. Seek for those blessings, my friends, for it is written:

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened” Matthew 7:7, 8.

Oh, I wonder if there is somebody here tonight that wants to seek repentance, seek to be converted. Maybe you never have been real sorry for sins. Maybe if you ever shed any tears about it, it was because you thought somebody was going to make you stop. Nobody is going to make you stop, friends. If ever there was a time when people couldn’t be made to stop sinning, that time is now. The dams are all broken, the levees are all gone, the gates are wide open. You can do most anything, and get away with it. No, those who break with sin today will be people who are seeking, earnestly.

“Repent ye therefore and be converted” Acts 3:19.

Is there somebody here tonight that wants to seek that experience? Seek for it. You realize that you need a deeper sorrow, you realize that you need a more thorough conversion, will you seek for it? If there is somebody here tonight that would like to seek for that experience, I invite you to come up here right now and kneel right here. I would like to seek God for you and with you. I know God will hear our prayers, friends. Somebody here that needs that blessing, just come. We are going to seek God. Just kneel right here. Just press up close.

As you kneel here, dear ones, let’s forget all about this audience. Let’s forget about the speaker. Let’s just think about Jesus. We are coming to Him just like those people of Israel came with their lambs. I would like to have us think of it very simply and very vividly here tonight. You are coming with your lamb to the sanctuary. Who is the Lamb? Jesus. You are going to put your sins on Him.

We are asking Jesus, tonight, to give us repentance. That means sorrow for sin. The way to get sorry is to see the Lamb die, my friends. There is no other way. I can tell you truly, there is no way that you can suffer enough to be truly sorry for sin. Because if you were to suffer what sin really means, it would kill you. So Jesus suffered for you. He took the pain, but He wants you to watch while He suffers so that you can get the cure. So that you can get the results.

And so, as we tonight seek for this deeper repentance, let’s ask Jesus to help us feel something of the pain that He suffered upon the cross. And let’s, by faith, watch as He sprinkles the blood in the sanctuary above to cover our sins. And then by faith let us look forward to His sprinkling the blood to blot out those sins forever.

May I invite all who would like in the congregation to kneel with us at this time as we seek the Lord together.

By faith we have come to the sanctuary, tonight, and we are bringing our Lamb, Thy dear Son. As Thou didst provide for Abraham and Isaac that ram caught in the thicket, who was offered up in Isaacs’s place, so we see the dear Son of God offered in our place upon the cross. And we thank Thee that He was willing to be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities.

Tonight we are seeking for a clearer sense of the cost of sin. Oh, we pray that tonight, as we see what sin does to Jesus, that we shall realize what it will do to us, if we keep on with it. As it crushed Him, so it will literally crush us, if we linger. But oh, tonight, our greatest longing is that we shall have a sense of Thy sorrow and pain which shall deepen in our hearts a love for Thee that we would rather die than break Thy heart over again.

Oh, Lord, must we go from this chapel and do again the things we have done so often? Oh, I pray that the spell shall be broken. I pray that the appeal of pride and vanity and worldly pleasure shall be spoiled. I pray that the angry tempers shall be cut out of our hearts. Cut out these stink bags, Lord. And if people walk on us and tread on us because we have no defense, we leave that with Thee. We pray for loving hearts, for loving homes.

Oh, my Father, where as husbands, fathers, we have been unlike Jesus, forgive us. Take from our hearts all the critical, fault-finding, domineering, selfish traits that have made Thee sorry and brought sorrow to our companions and to our children. Take these things away, we pray.

And Father, as children, some of us have been disobedient to our parents and our teachers. Oh, we pray that You will make us real sorry. Help us not to break their hearts or break Thy heart any longer. Spoil it all for us. May we never again find any pleasure in doing things underhanded or in open rebellion. May this whole thing seem to us what it is, so mean, so wicked, that we will have nothing to do with it no matter who around us tries to get us to join in it.

O, Lord, give us tonight a love for Thy law, Thy holy law. Fill our hearts with the joy of the Lord. We believe Thou art doing the blessed work in our hearts as we kneel here.

And tonight, Lord, with joy, we praise Thee for this gift. We know Thy Holy Spirit is here convicting of sin and of righteousness, pointing out our failures and pointing out the wonderful cure in Jesus, in His precious blood. And so tonight, here on our knees we are claiming the promised blessing. We believe Thou doest take our sins and cover them in the sanctuary. We believe Thou doest sprinkle the precious blood upon our hearts and give us love for Thee and hatred for sin. We thank Thee for these precious gifts.

Now may the fullness of the Spirit come upon us. May He enter in, never to depart. May He take full control of these hearts and lives and thus may we bring joy to Thy heart, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

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Holy Spirit & the Sanctuary 4