Christ offered the Better Sacrifice by the eternal Spirit. Accepted by the Father, the Blood was offered once for all. This Message from the Blood is of mercy that is eternal and forgiveness that is forever. Hebrews 10; Hebrews 9:10-14; 1 John 5:7-8

Speaker(s): Thomas Schaller
Sermon 13059
Date: 2026-1-11
Time: Sun 11:00 am

P. Schaller –

Okay. You may be seated. Turn in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews. We have been studying the book of
Hebrews. Good morning everyone and praise the Lord for the day that the Lord has given us.
We’re going to look at chapter 9 and chapter 10 but we need to look at a verse in Hebrews
12:24.
Many of you who are Bible students, you know this text, but not all of us maybe. So, let’s make
a note of it, Hebrews 12:24. (Prayer). You know, sometimes I get troubled in my life. I get troubled
in my heart, my mind. I might get confused. I might feel guilty or ashamed. What really is
needed is for me to be loved. God is love. When God loves you, he helps you a lot. When you
know how much God is loving you. But we are challenged by that because sometimes we don’t
believe it or we need to hear it again. Like when I got married 49 plus years ago, I said to my
wife I love you but she never gets tired of hearing it. Praise God. Like she does want to hear it
again.

And as a believer, you would like to know does God love you and also how much and what is it
actually and how healing it is. How encouraging it is. So, we’re going to speak about that today
and make it very simple, but in our Bible study I want you to notice vs. 24 of Hebrews 12.
Vs. 24. You’re going to hear about blood today. And that blood that speaks better things than
that of Abel. So, that’s the verse I want you to notice. So, go to Genesis 4 and we see the Cain and
Abel story and make a couple references to this text.
Chapter 4, Cain kills his brother. The blood goes on the ground and the Lord said to Cain, vs. 9.
So, he murdered and he also lied. Did he know where his brother was? Okay. So, I don’t know.
Am I my brother’s keeper? Vs. 10. Now, the blood is crying from the ground, so let’s think about
this.
A man is murdered. His blood is on the ground and it’s speaking. What is it saying? What do you
think that blood is saying? Vengeance. Vengeance. Revenging. It’s saying where is justice? it’s
saying why did this happen to me? It’s saying why did Cain do this to me? The blood is speaking.
Conscience is speaking. There’s a message in the world today. Where is justice? How much
blood is speaking from the earth that is spilled by tyrants and bad government and murder and
so on. Sin does that to us. We’re looking for an answer. Where is the answer for our sin? Who
could cleanse my conscience? How does that work? This is Hebrews 9 and 10. We’re going to take
our time and look at this.

Right now turn to the underlining principle of 1 John 5:7. Now, if you’ve been here the last
couple Sundays, we’ve been going through – actually two months in the book of Hebrews, and
we are studying about the high priest that we have, Christ, the order of Melchizedek. God and
we use the stage as a reference for the depth of man’s depravity, his trouble, his sin, his failure, his bad habits, his discouragement, his pride, his lostness and then over here we have the high
priest Jesus who is in heaven at the right hand of the Father and there are three in heaven that
are bearing witness and we’ll explain that. Three in heaven. We’ll read 1 John 5:7.

Vs. 7. Now, what does that mean, bear witness? They are in agreement. The Father, the Word.
Christ is called the Word in John 1:1 and the Holy Spirit. These three are one. What are they
bearing witness to? Reality. Truth. And you. Okay. You. You and I are on the earth. We are over
here on the earth and we are not perfect.

We have failed and we have struggles and different things but in heaven we have Christ bearing
witness with the Father and the Holy Spirit that is saying those are my people. Those people on
the earth, those are my people. They are my people. I bought them, 1 Corinthians 6:20. I paid the price
of my blood. I atoned for their sin. I sent my Spirit into their hearts. I gave them my Word. Like
Jesus said these things in John 17. I wash them with my Word. I have bought them. I pay a price
for them.

We could say to Jesus, I didn’t have a good week. Actually, I say to Jesus but I didn’t have a
good week. Actually, I haven’t had a good month. Actually, I haven’t had a good year. Actually, I
haven’t had a good life. What do you have for me? What do you have for me? Did you save me?
And the Lord says, yes, I did. I saved you by my grace. I put my Spirit in you and I speak to you
my words. And my blood cleanses your conscience. For my blood speaks. It doesn’t speak from
the ground. It speaks from heaven.

This Son of God, the Word of God that is in heaven is saying to the Father. I paid for them with
my blood. Not the blood of an animal but my blood. The blood of God. God doesn’t have
blood? Yes, he does. He is Christ. And he shed his blood for us. And that blood is sprinkled on
our conscience.

Go to the next verse and we see three on earth, 1 John 5:8. There are three that bear witness
on earth. Let’s slow down. There are three in heaven that are bearing witness, that is the
Father, and the Word and the Spirit. But we are on the earth. We are here at 6025 Moravia
Park Drive sitting in these chairs but there are three on earth. What are they? The Spirit. He
dwells in you. You are born again and the Spirit dwells in you.
The next one, the water. Now, that’s, that’s Ephesians 5:26. When we have water in the Bible, there
are different – it’s a metaphor for two different things. Sometimes it means Spirit. Out of your
belly will flow rivers of living water. And sometimes it is the Bible, the Word of God. If we could
quickly – I just want to show that to you. Ephesians 5:26. Put that up for me, please. Ephesians 5:26. The
word “her,” the pronoun, refers to the Church, us. What does he do with us? He sanctifies and
cleanses us with the washing of water by the Word.

So, the Bible when it is preached, it’s a washing. It has authority to cleanse. When the Bible is in
your meditation early morning, when you are meditating or praying, reading your devotional,
reading your Bible, that water, that Word of God is cleansing us. When you’re in a trial which
you know, I have been in trials. You have been in trials. But if I read the Word and I meditate on
it, it has a cleansing effect. It’s John 15:3.

But I am on the earth doing this. You are on the earth. We are here together on the earth and
there are three that are bearing witness to us that are reassuring us of the reality that is in
heaven. The reality that is in heaven is like this. That is my child. I am for him. I am not against
him. I empower him. I comfort him. I sent the Comforter. I speak to his heart. I penetrate
through the layers into his heart and he is embracing truth in the inner man. Jesus said you will
know the truth and it will set you free and you will know it. You will have freedom deeply.

This is in heaven. The counsel is this reality and the blood is speaking from heaven, not from the
ground. Because when Jesus went there, he went there with his own blood. And that blood is
not saying revenge. Like Jesus died on the cross and his blood on the ground would be saying I
want revenge. I want justice. I am an innocent man. I am the Son of God. I want God to judge
the world. Judge the people killing me. Judge the people speaking against me. Judge them, God.
That’s Abel’s blood.

But this speaks better things than Abel. This is this one. No revenge. Mercy. I pour out my
grace. I forgive them. My blood is saying you are redeemed. You are justified. I am for you. I
save you. I bring you to heaven. I won’t know you after your sin. I remember your sin no more. I
can’t even think of your sin. I covered your sin with my blood.
I have an interesting word. I think we have the slide. I’m not sure. It’s an Eskimo word for
forgiveness. I wonder if you have that. I asked that to be put on a slide. Okay. There it is. Okay.
The story behind that word is that when the Moravians in the 18th century went to the Eskimos
to preach to them, the Eskimo language didn’t have a word for forgiveness. So, the missionaries
had to make up a word for forgiveness. And it’s a linkage of different words that go together,
and the transliteration of that word is “Not-being-able-to-think-about-it-anymore.” [The word is
ISSUMAGUOUJUNGNAINERMIK.] That’s forgiveness. I can’t think about it anymore. I can’t
remember it. I forgave.

Maybe an Eskimo killed a seal. Another Eskimo took it and he forgave him. He can’t think about
it anymore. It’s not deeply – he has no root of bitterness. He forgave. It’s over. I don’t
remember it anymore.
How about God? I came and you killed me but I forgive you and in one sense I don’t hold it
against you. I am forgiving you. I don’t think about it like that anymore. It’s you are forgiven.
You are redeemed and you are forgiven. On the earth – this is the key – on the earth there are

three that bear witness. This is God speaking to you. I can’t remember your sin. I don’t think
about it. It’s over. I have accepted you and I love you. I put your name in my book. I gave you
the Spirit.
Put up 1 John 5:8, please. Then we’ll go to Hebrews 9. I think you got it there. Vs. 8. So, the blood.
That’s what we are going to look at from Hebrews 9. So, turn there with me, please. We are
covering this in big sections of text. We’ll start from vs. 13. There’s a lot to cover here. I was
reading it many times yesterday. Well, through the years but then yesterday I really enjoyed it a
lot. Vs. 13.

Now, this is from Leviticus 16. A bull was so the priest, if you could follow this with me. This was like
a model. It’s a pattern of the heavenly things. It’s on the earth as like a stage for learning. It’s a
theater but I don’t want to offend anybody and suggest that this theater presentation on the
earth didn’t have spiritual value and wasn’t important. It was important but it didn’t really have
the power to bring a man to heaven. It could only bring a man from the common life with the
sacrifice of the bull for the priest. The clothes, the incense, and the protocols to go into the holy
of holies where the presence of God was.

But when he went into that tent, into that holy of holy place, the tabernacle, it wasn’t heaven
itself but God was there. Jesus went into heaven itself. That’s important. When I am suggesting
the blood of the animals had no real value, I want you to bear with me and understand that I
respect the procedures and the protocols that this was from God as a teaching and as a pattern
as of the reality but it was not the reality. It was a shadow of the reality if you can understand
that. Like a little toy car is a picture for a little boy who plays with the car and gets in the car.
You know a little pedal car. It’s a facsimile of it. It’s a pattern but it’s not the reality.

So, the blood of an animal is also very inferior for a few reasons. One of them is the animal
doesn’t voluntarily sacrifice himself. The animal is not cognizant of that. He’s not saying now I
will sacrifice myself for the sins of Israel or the priest. No, that animal is very limited. And to the
person offering the animal, it may cost him $10 or $50 or $100, whatever it is. But it’s not
costing him his life. It’s only a cost but the animal doesn’t really make the sacrifice because he’s
not moral. He’s not rational. He doesn’t understand what is going on.

So, in that way, animal blood is a picture but not the reality. How could the blood of an animal
bring me to heaven? How could the blood of an animal that some man is sacrificing by the
payment but the payment is actually not very high. It’s not his life. It’s not spontaneous in love.
It’s not being aware of a penalty.

How much greater is Christ’s blood because Christ came and God gave him a body and God
gave him a body that had blood in it, so that Christ being in our world would identify as a priest
and then when he sacrificed himself, he willingly, cognitively, morally decided to obey his Father. He went to the cross and he paid a price that would take away our sin in reality. We would be washed in this life from our sin and the guilt of our sin and the penalty of the sin. We
would be free in our conscience to serve the living God. That’s in vs. 14, Hebrews 9:14.

Now, this is – let me draw this picture. He’s the cross and here’s Christ on the cross. How did he
offer himself to God? It says he offered himself by the eternal Spirit, by the Holy Spirit. So, how
did he stay on the cross? Did the nails hold him on the cross or did the Holy Spirit hold him on
the cross? When he offered himself, was that the Holy Spirit that led him in obedience? And
when he is there on the cross to offer up his blood, was that God the Father that put him there?
Was it God the Son that laid down his life and was it the Holy Spirit that kept him or put him
there? It was all three. This blood is powerful.

Look at vs. 14. Purge your conscience. Purging is cleaning. Purging things with fire. Cleaning
them with abrasive detergents. Purging. Scrubbing. Cleaning my conscience. I told this morning
that I was soul winning in Budapest years ago and I was on the walking street…and I met this
tourist who was from the Netherlands and he confided in me. We didn’t know each other at all.
He said I just got out of prison. He said I killed a man. And I said tell me about it.
He said I was in a bar room and then after out on the street, this man came at me with a knife.
And we wrestled and I got the knife and I killed him. And I went to prison for seven years and
now I’m out and I’m a tourist here in Budapest but I see his blood on my hands every day.
What does that mean? He’s tormented. I told him about Moses who did that and David did that
and also Paul and that’s one third of the Bible is written by those three men that murdered.
And that blood is crying out for revenge. The blood on your hands is like Abel’s blood. I didn’t
say all of this. I’m saying it now to you. I don’t remember all that I said, but I’m just saying in
principle the conscience is plagued by what you did.

But there’s other blood that is in heaven and that speaks and that is you are free. I forgive you.
You are forgiven. When you come to Christ, you are forgiven. It really does. Your sins are gone.
You are forgiven. God can’t remember it anymore. He chooses not to remember. But doesn’t
God know all things? Yes, he does but he chooses because he is God. I gave my Son because
you have no sin. And because you have no sin, you go to heaven.

But wait a minute. I have sinned. I sinned yesterday. Or I sinned. I’m a sinner. And God says, I
know, but I paid for all of it. I paid for all your sin, but you have to confess it, and you’ll walk in
the light. And the three will bear witness to you, the Holy Spirit, the Word of God and the blood
of Christ. You are free.

So, I was in a prison in Jessup, Maryland as a preacher once and there was a congregation in the
prison of lifers. These are men that are in there for life and they were shining. They were free.

They were loving. They were communicating. We had fellowship. What crimes they committed,
I don’t know and I didn’t care. We were in fellowship because there’s three in heaven that
agree. And there’s three on earth that agree. And that’s where you are living.

You and I are living in a fellowship where we are not condemned. We don’t live in
condemnation. It’s not there in God. Neither do I condemn you. There’s no condemnation in
Christ Jesus in Romans 8:1.
So, we said this morning that in the ocean, the ocean is, all the oceans on the earth, go in the
ocean and try to find fire. Is there any fire in the ocean? Dive deeply. Can you find any fire?
There isn’t any. There’s no fire in the ocean. There isn’t any.

And in Christ, there is no unforgiveness. There is no condemnation. There is no judgment on the
believer. You cannot find it in God. But without Christ, I’m lost. I have sin. I die in my sins.
Without Christ, I’m lost. And that’s why we are giving the Gospel out to share and pray and
hope that people will come to Christ and discover him and know him and that the power of God
would be there for them in their new life. And it is.

So, now go to Hebrews chapter 10 and we’ll read from vs. 1. I don’t know about you but I do
like the law. I do like it. I don’t like it when it condemns me, you know. I don’t use it to condemn
me, but I use it to enjoy the reality of God’s reality. The reality of the law, the reality of truth.
We enjoy it. We delight in his law. We delight in truth. We delight in Christ. Christ can – law
came by Moses and that was from God. But we couldn’t find joy in the law until Christ came
and Christ is grace and truth and he comes into our life. And now we enjoy truth and we enjoy
not the letter of the law but we enjoy Christ who is actually the whole meaning of it which is
love.

Why don’t you commit adultery? Because I would not want to destroy a family. Why? Why?
Why don’t you have love or passion? No. That’s sin. I would not want to destroy a family or
destroy my family or destroy my life.
Well, can’t you enjoy yourself? I enjoy myself very much living with God who is the way, the
truth, and the life. Well, how did you find this new life? Because he gave his Son and in heaven
he’s at the right hand of the Father and he sent into our lives these three that are bearing
witness to us and we are enjoying our new life. We have found Jesus Christ and spiritual revival
and fellowship. We have found truth in the inner man. We have a new heart, a heart to love
God and to love truth and to walk with God. It’s better.

But if you are trapped, if you are trapped in a sin, you’re trapped in bad habits; if you’re
trapped in a dishonest business mentality of taking advantage of people or being a deceitful
person or whatever, I want to say to you, that’s why Jesus came.

He came for you and me, that we would change, that we would repent. We would take it
seriously. We find truth in the inner man and say, I’m making this decision. I’m cutting this off. I
have nothing to do with that. That’s a bad habit. That’s a way of life. I’m embracing truth.
And the revival in your life happens by these three bearing witness to you. The Spirit, the Word,
and the blood. And you don’t even know what happened to you. What is happening? It’s Jesus
is becoming real to you. Jesus is real to you. Walk with him and trust him. Yeah, but if I get out
of this I will be – but you can.

There was a brother here years ago, we called him Hang-Up-the-Phone Eric. If you remember
him. And I called him forward and we shared it at a rap and I told him the story that he was a
drug dealer and he had a phone and people were after him. But he repented and he came to
Christ and he enjoyed it for months. He enjoyed it.

Then he said that people are calling me. I said you have to hang up the phone. Hang-Up-the-
Phone Eric. His name was Eric. You got to get tough. You got to knock it off. You got to cut off
those relationships. You have to hang up the phone, Eric. How many remember that? Just raise
your hand. Okay. Well, many of you. Yeah. Well, he did his best I guess but it didn’t go well and
he was shot and killed on the street. He couldn’t do it.

I don’t know all the story but I was told by a friend who comes here sometimes. We hate that. I
don’t know more about it and that’s fine. But I want to say that your life has great value. Christ
paid the price and he brings it home to you in this world so that my life would change. That
Jesus would be real for me and that’s why we have a Bible college so that I can get together
with my sisters and brothers and learn the Word because it bears witness.

And then that’s why we assemble here often and that’s why we have our telephone prayer
times and that’s why we’re online with the devotionals, lunch raps, and mornings. And that’s
why we go out on an outreach. We go out in an relax way and prayerfully sit in a park bench
and say, Lord, bring somebody here to sit on the bench and I could talk to them.

Or I could be out on the street and sharing my faith with people. And they many times you find
what we call a divine appointment. Somebody who needs a word who says God is not against
you. He loves you. He is for you and you need him. Come to him by faith and trust him.
That’s why we pray that God will raise pastors and preachers and be the way that we are in the
world of mercy and grace and faith. That they would be set out to different places in Maryland.
Right here near by and then also to the uttermost parts of the world which we’ve been doing
for 50 or 60 years and we’ve seen God save people.

Christ come into our heart. These three bear witness to somebody in Russia. We have seen it.
Turkmenistan, we have seen it. In India, we have seen it. In Philippines, in Korea, we have seen
it. In Africa, every country and so on. Okay. Amazing.

Chapter 10, it says there that these sacrifices could not take away sin, vs. 2. They were just a
reminder, vs. 3. That’s Yom Kippur. Vs. 4-5. This is Christ speaking. Vs. 6-7. That’s the Bible. Vs.
7-10. Once for all. It’s done. No more sacrifice. Once for all time. Once for all people. Once for
all your life. No more sacrifice. No more sacrifice. These three are not saying to you to sacrifice
to get saved or to sacrifice to serve to get saved. No, the Spirit doesn’t say that. The Bible
doesn’t say that. The blood does not say that.

They say you are saved. You are secure. You are cleansed. Walk in the light. Now, when I sin, I
must confess my sin. If I don’t, I deceive myself. And by the way, that’s called antinomianism
and that’s sinful and that’s not the way to life. I’ve run into Christians like that. They will live in
adultery and they will excuse it. They don’t say it’s a sin. It is. It’s a wicked sin. And you confess
your sin and walk in the light. Come on. Man up. Get with reality. Get the MRI. Get God’s CAT
scan. Let him search your heart. Psalms 139.

If I am proud, God, show me and lead me in life, in reality. I want truth in my heart. That’s why
filling your mind with these words cleanses you and gives you wisdom. That’s why learning the
Bible has so much value. You will learn it and 50 years later, if you live that long, a Bible verse
will come back to you and it will guide you. It will lead you. It will speak to you, Proverbs 6:23.
When you get up in the morning, it will speak to you. When you walk, walk along the way. It’s a
light unto your path and a lamp unto your feet. It is awesome. That’s why Bible school, it is
awesome. I’m an advocate of Bible school. Bible school, learning the Bible is like awesome. It’s
for your life. There’s no book like this. There’s no authority like this. There’s no answer for your
life.

Some of you might be thinking, will I ever get married? I don’t know the answer, but I know
God’s Word isn’t worried about it. He’s not worried about it. He’s not worried about your life in
those ways that we are worried. We are troubled by things. We are worried by things. We are
struggling in life many times. But the best answer is the nature of God and the truth of God in
your heart and mind. Okay? I’m just saying it to encourage you. Not to judge you but to
encourage you.

Let’s finish this up. It’s so good. Where did we drop off? Vs. 12-14. It’s done. It’s finished. He’s
perfected. We are perfect in him. In his mind, we are perfected in our practice. We’re not
perfect. We have our life. But in his mind, it’s all done. It’s finished, past, present and future. All
our sin paid for.

But to walk in the light means I must confess when I sin and walk in the light with the reality
that is in heaven on our behalf. vs. 15. This is the closing part. Thanks for your – we’re in the
Spirit right now. This is coming from the Holy Spirit to us right from the Bible. Listen to it.
Vs. 16-18. You never have to make an offering for sin. I read a story about a man in Latin
America who was a sinner, Catholic in his theology. He got a backpack filled with weight and he
walked in the Andes Mountains for six months to pay, to make a payment for his sin.

Martin Luther as a monk walked up the staircase in Rome on broken glass to pay for his sin as a
monk. When he got to the top he said, There’s nothing here. I have no peace. I haven’t paid.
You cannot pay for your sin. It is too costly. And an animal cannot do it. Your backpack cannot
do it. The broken glass cannot do it. Only the Son of God and his blood that speaks from heaven
says, I don’t remember your sin anymore. You are free.

And the Holy Spirit says that and the Bible says it and the blood says it. You are free. You are a
child of God. You are on your way to heaven one day. You are saved by grace. You are
redeemed by his blood. Not the blood of bulls and goats, but the holy Son of God who paid our
price. He took away our sin by his blood that speaks from heaven.

Now, look at what the result is. This is important. Look at vs. 18-19. We have boldness. This is a
new and living way. Have you ever been in the airport on those moving, like what’s that called?
The escalator goes up, but this one is horizontal and just doing a ride. It’s a living way, a new
and living way.

Why is life so easy? Why is this happening to me? Why do I have this peace and joy? Why is it?
Because Christ is a new and living way. I have something going on in my heart. I didn’t have it
before. And you cannot find it in your heart by nature. It’s not there. You might as well try to
find life on the moon. You might as well find fire in the ocean. You might want to find – I don’t
know whatever else. I.T. in an old barn. You cannot find it. You cannot find Christ in your heart
unless you believe in him and trust him and then he’s born in you and you have him now.

So, listen. Vs. 20-21. Hallelujah! Vs. 22. I am not my sin. My sin is washed away. I am free now.
And then he says, and our bodies washed with pure water. Vs. 23. Listen. Don’t leave God. If
you leave this church, may God bless you and lead you where to go but god to a place where
you learn about the finished work, where you learn about who you are because of God’s mind
and God’s heart and be built up by your sisters and brothers and grow in the grace of God and
walk with God.

Look at vs. 24-25. Never leave the assembling of yourself with other believers wherever you go.
You move to California, you find a place. You go to New York or Michigan or wherever, Florida
or New Orleans or wherever you go. In whatever country you go, wherever you live, you find brothers and sisters. We need each other to assemble and gather and walk in who we are. Not
guilty, not legalism, not an emptiness, but a fullness that comes from him. Amen. Would you
pray with me?

So, turn to your neighbor and pronounce – put up the Eskimo word again. Turn to your
neighbor and pronounce that word to the neighbor. Okay. Would you pronounce that word! I
can see some of you are really trying to do it. No, I can’t pronounce it. (Invitation and prayer).

 

Please enjoy these sermon notes from the messages preached at Greater Grace Church in Baltimore. These notes are provided to aid in your study and understanding of the Word. Note that these notes do not represent complete, word-for-word transcriptions. Also, they may contain omissions as well as some errors in spelling and structure, etc., as we attempt to provide them as soon as possible. Our hope is that these notes serve as a way to help you search and connect with messages on related subjects and passages. Thank you for your interest in the ministry of Greater Grace.