He Always Lives to Make Intercession

Good morning. Today we'll be in Hebrews chapter 7, and we'll be looking at verses 23 through 25. And I want to start by asking you, do you ever feel separated or far from God? Do you ever feel like your Father is inaccessible to you? Our text this morning teaches us that God our Father is not far off from us. That we have access to God through Christ's work as our great High Priest. This morning, I hope that we would take away two things, that we would be encouraged that Jesus Christ is our great high priest, and second, that we would have confidence to draw near to God through Jesus. Because Jesus always lives to make intercession for us, for our sins, for our weaknesses, and for our prayers. And these things ought to be a sweet comfort to us.

So again, our text this morning is Hebrews chapter 7, verses 23 through 25. If you would please stand for the reading of God's word. This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. The former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing. But Jesus, on the other hand, because he continues forever, holds his priesthood permanently. Therefore, he is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So verse 23 opens up with the former priests. So who are the former priests? They're the priests who served God's people in the Old Testament. They're the Levites, the Levitical priesthood.

The Levites were instrumental in the life of the Jews and their relationship to God. Our understanding of Christ's priesthood relies on some kind of knowledge, some kind of understanding of the Levitical priesthood and the ceremonial law. The Levites were chosen by God to handle the ceremonial aspects of the law. So the sacrifices, the keeping of the temple and the tabernacle. When they were in the wilderness, the moving of the tabernacle, packing it up, putting it back together, they were set apart as God's priests to oversee all these things, all the ceremonies, all the rituals that we find throughout the book of Leviticus. And again, part of that work was taking part in sacrifices and offerings or doing things like burning incense in the temple. You remember Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist in Luke chapter 1. When the angel comes to him, what's he doing?

He's in the temple burning incense. He's doing his priestly work. It's what the Levites were supposed to do. It's what the priests were charged with doing. They also served as judges and teachers of the law of God. And in addition to this, there was one man who was selected to serve as the high priest. And so we know the first high priest is Aaron, the brother of Moses, right? So the high priest was responsible for the various offerings that we read about in Leviticus. He had the most important job for the people. One day a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would make a sacrifice for himself and for all the sins of the people of Israel. On that day, he'd go into the Holy of Holies and intercede on behalf of the people in the presence of God. And this is significant because the Holy of Holies...

The way that we should think about it, it was the very throne room of God. It was where God allowed his presence to dwell in the temple. And so the high priest would enter into the presence of the most high God, and if the priest failed to perform the sacrifices correctly, or if he was a worthless man, and he entered God's throne room, then he would die. God's glory and God's wrath at sin would kill him. And so the high priests couldn't just enter the throne room of God whenever they wanted to. God gave them one day. Only on the day of atonement may you enter, and this is what you must do, to enter and not die. Only the priests were allowed into the temple to do things like burning incense, but only the high priests could go into the Holy of Holies, could go behind the veil into the presence of God on behalf of the people. Can you imagine how terrifying that job would be?

I don't think I would envy that job. If you made a mistake in the presence of God, if you didn't do the sacrifice right, if you were a sinner, if you didn't do your sacrifice for your sins right, if you were a worthless man and you went into the presence of God, you would die. That's terrifying. The Bible says that the Israelites were terrified to go anywhere near Mount Sinai. God was on the mountain. He wasn't even... down with him. He was on the mountain, and they were like, yeah, you can go, Moses. You can go talk to him. We don't want to have nothing to do with that. So how much more would the high priest be terrified to go into the presence of God, into the holy of holies? Thinking about this made me think about what Pastor Dave preached on last week in the book of Job. You remember Job is upset about his tribulation, what he's going through, and the whole time as he's talking with his friends, he wants this audience with God.

He wants to be in the presence of God. He wants to tell God what's what. And do you remember his response when he finally does get his audience with God? We have a couple instances where he talks, but he doesn't say much. He actually says, I'm just going to cover my mouth now. I'm not even going to bother talking anymore because I know that I was wrong. We all get the sense that Job realizes that he's made a big mistake by asking for an audience with God. Because he's terrified in the presence of the Almighty. And so standing in the presence of God is a terrifying thought. All of you is exposed to him. He sees everything. All of your sins. All the evil things that you've done. All of your life exposed before him. Because he sees it all. And can you imagine being in his presence? We see other examples of how God's holiness is terrifying throughout Scripture. He turns his back towards Moses on the mountain.

makes him face his back, because if Moses sees his face, he'll die. This is how glorious our God is. When Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire to the Lord, which God had not commanded, fire erupted from the presence of the Lord and killed them. And Hebrew 12 tells us that the presence of God on Mount Sinai was so terrifying that Moses said, I am full of fear and trembling. And Moses was the one God had chosen to lead the people out of Egypt. and to talk to and to give the law of God. And so it's a terrifying thing to be in God's presence. But that was the work of the high priest. That was his job, was to go into God's presence on behalf of the people and make a sacrifice for himself and for them, to come before God and plead the cause of the people in his presence. The high priest made intercession for the sins and the weaknesses of the people.

And on the Day of Atonement, when the high priest went into the Holy of Holies to make the sacrifice for the sins of the people, he was required, as he sacrificed the goat, he was required to name the sins of the people. He needed to have knowledge of the people and their sins so that he could adequately confess their sins. It was the high priest's job to know the sins of Israel and plead their case before God through the blood of the sacrifice. And so as I mentioned, the high priesthood was established with Aaron. God set Aaron up as, you will be my high priest. And then Aaron died. And his son, Eleazar, took over. And what happened to him? He died. And his son, Phineas, took over and he died. And so on and so on. So what do all the high priests have in common? They all died. They're all gone.

The author of Hebrews makes that point here in our text. The former priests existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing. They could not continue their work. They were prevented by death. So the men that God established to mediate between Him and the people, the men God chose to intercede on behalf of the people through the means of the sacrifices and the ceremonies, they died. Because they're just mortal men whose lives come to an end, whose work as high priest comes to an end. Now, why would that be a big deal? Well, what if you were put in some situation where you had to move? Or maybe by some wild circumstance, Pastor Dave or Pastor Eric weren't our pastors anymore. Wouldn't you feel a bit concerned about the next man or the men that would be your shepherds? There would be some kind of, I don't know these people. I knew who Pastor Dave and Pastor Eric were. They were faithful, godly. But I don't know about these other men.

Pastor Dave and Pastor Eric are known quantities to us, so the idea of a new pastor would probably set anyone on edge. So what's the point? Imagine how the Israelites felt when a high priest died and a new priest took over. We know his father, but do we know him? Who is he? Is he going to be worthless? Is he going to do his job? Will he die while he does his job? And then you read about Eli's sons, Hophni and Phinehas, and they were worthless men. 1 Samuel tells us they didn't know the Lord. That's how bad it was. They didn't know the Lord. They would go in when the people made their offerings, they would go in while the meat was boiling, and they would take a fork and they would eat their sacrifice as it was still boiling, which was an offense. It was profane.

They abused their position and they profaned the offerings that the people brought to God. And God told Eli that he would judge his sons. And they died for their sins against God. They were shameful. And then what? And then Eli dies. And then Samuel takes over. And so you can imagine that the people would be fearful whenever a high priest died. Because the high priest pleads with God on behalf of the people. He pleads for the forgiveness of their sins. When you have a good high priest, everything's great. But when you're not sure, when you have a bad high priest, everything's not so great. If he's worthless, if God doesn't accept him, then what of the rest of Israel? Who is going to plead the rest of Israel's cause before God? And so who the high priest is matters. Whether he was good or evil, faithful or lazy, it mattered because he was the one tasked with interceding for the people. And then they all died.

And when they died, their ministry, their intercession, their priesthood came to an end. And so what we see from this is that the Levitical priesthood was temporary. It was never meant to last forever. It could not accomplish everything that we needed. Instead, the Levitical priesthood was meant as a shadow and a type of what we have in Christ. Look at verses 18 and 19 here in Hebrews chapter 7. For on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness. for the law made nothing perfect. And on the other hand, there is a bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God. And so the Levitical priesthood was weak. Their sacrifices were weak because they didn't accomplish the removal of sins. Hebrews 10.4 tells us that the blood of bulls and goats does not take away our sins. And so the ceremonial law wasn't meant to take away sin or to make atonement for the people.

But rather, the high priest, his role as intercessor, and the sacrifices and the ceremonial law were meant to point us to Christ and his priesthood. Now, we've talked quite a bit about the Levitical priesthood, and I want to change gears and spend time talking about Melchizedek's priesthood. And the reason that's important is because that's essentially, Hebrews chapter 7 talks about Melchizedek over and over and over. And so it's important when we come to this because there's a change. Because Jesus' priesthood is not according to the Levitical priesthood. Jesus does not inherit his priesthood from the Levites. The author of Hebrews compares Jesus' priesthood to the Levitical priesthood, but he wants to make clear that it's not a continuation of the Levitical priesthood. Jesus' priesthood is of a different kind. It's according to the order of Melchizedek. Look at verse 17, chapter 7. For it is attested of him, you are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

And so what do we know about Melchizedek? Well, Melchizedek's only mentioned by name ten times throughout all of Scripture. Eight of those ten are in Hebrews, and five of those eight are in chapter 7. The other two times we find Melchizedek are both in the Old Testament, which is where the author of Hebrews pulls all of his information from. So let's read. We don't know all that much about Melchizedek, so let's read verses 1 through 3 of chapter 7. For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham apportioned a tenth part of all the spoils, was first of all, by the translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, which is king of peace, without father, without mother, without genealogy.

Having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually. And so what we read about Melchizedek is that he's a godly man. That he's a priest of the Most High God. That Abraham actually gives him honor and gives him a tenth of what he has. But the most important part, the point that the author of Hebrews is making in drawing Christ's priesthood and comparing it to Melchizedek's priesthood, is that Melchizedek doesn't have a record of beginning or end. He has no record of genealogy. He has no record of parents. He has no record of death. And so the argument is that we don't have any record of his priesthood ending. And this is why the author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 110, verse 4. You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. There's no official record of Melchizedek's end, and so the psalmist connects this prophetically to Jesus' priesthood and says it will never end. Jesus' priesthood will never end.

He says that Jesus' priesthood is established forever. It's also important to pay attention to the fact that Melchizedek's priesthood actually precedes the Levitical priesthood. It comes before. And so therefore, we see that Jesus is a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. His priesthood is better than the Levitical priesthood. It comes before the Levitical priesthood, and it lasts forever, unlike the Levitical priesthood. Jesus isn't continuing the Levitical priesthood, which is filled with death and the ending of countless administrations of it. Jesus holds his priesthood forever. Look at verse 24. But Jesus, on the other hand, because he continues forever, holds his priesthood permanently. Our Lord's priesthood never ends. We're not like the Israelites who have to worry about our high priest failing to intercede for us, who have to worry that our high priest isn't there on our behalf, who have to worry whether our high priest is worthless or not. We have a high priest who is according to the order of Melchizedek.

A priest of the Most High God. And he's a priest forever. His priesthood is better because the text tells us it's made with an oath. And it's the guarantee of a better covenant. Verses 20 through 22. And inasmuch as it was not without an oath, for they indeed became priests without an oath, but he, Jesus, with an oath, through the one who said to him, the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever. So much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee. of a better covenant. The Levitical priesthood was set up as a duty. It was work. It was assigned to Aaron. It was assigned to the Levites. But not with an oath. Jesus was set up as our great high priest with an oath, with a promise that he will never forego his work, that he will never abandon it, that it will never end. The Lord has sworn, he has made an oath, Jesus is a priest forever.

God never made an oath with Aaron or the Levitical priesthood, but He made an oath with our great high priest. And Jesus is the guarantee of a better covenant for us. His priesthood, His intercessory work on our behalf has been formed with an oath. It's binding. And He cannot give it up, and He will not give it up. His priesthood is promised and established by the Word of God. And we don't need to be afraid that Jesus ever grows weary or tired from hearing our prayers. From coming to him and asking him to intercede for us. For coming to him and asking for his help. Our Lord doesn't get tired of hearing our prayers and interceding for us. Let's look at verse 24 again. But Jesus, on the other hand, because he continues forever, holds his priesthood permanently. And so Jesus does not die and his priesthood does not end like the Levitical priesthood ended. He doesn't step down or give it up. He doesn't stop doing the work of the great high priest.

Our Lord is our priest and will be forever. He is our great high priest and we need no one else. In fact, no one can accomplish what our Lord has. No one can do what our great high priest has done. No one else can make intercession for us the way our Lord Jesus does. And we cannot lose sight of the fact that Jesus is our great high priest who sits at the right hand of the Father. This means that Jesus is always in the throne room of God. And so the Levitical priests, they have to fear going into the throne room. They have to fear death. They have to fear going into the presence of God. But our high priest, Jesus, He's not afraid. He sits on the throne with His Father. Jesus is always in the throne room of God, both as our King and as our priest. He sits at God's right hand, continuously making intercession for us with the Father.

And this should be an encouragement to us. That our God came down from His throne. He took on flesh so that He's able now to sympathize with our weaknesses. And now, after His death, burial, and resurrection, He ascended to heaven and He sits at the throne room to intercede for us on our behalf with God the Father. And that was the way it was meant to be from the beginning. This was God's plan. That from the beginning, God had planned that Jesus our God and Savior would be the one to sit as our mediator between us and the Father. And if you've put your faith in Jesus and in His work on the cross, if you've looked to Him for salvation, then you also have a great high priest who is continuously interceding for you. And that should provoke us to rejoice and to worship. We know from Scripture that the Father loves His Son, and we know that He loves us who are united to His Son. He loves His children who have put their faith in Christ.

Because of Christ, we have access to our Father. 1 John 2 tells us that we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ. And Jesus Himself told us that no one can come to the Father except through Him. Those who don't know Christ, who don't know God as Father, they should be terrified of God. They should be terrified of their sins. They should be terrified of approaching the throne room of God. But not us. Not God's children. Not those who have a great high priest who gives us access to the throne room of God. Instead, we ought to come boldly unto the throne of grace. Because we know that we will receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. And this applies to everything. Asking for God's help or deliverance, the confession of our sins and asking God to forgive us. Your great high priest has made a perfect sacrifice before God for your sins.

And he sits with God to intercede for you forever. You have a perfect and everlasting priest who serves as your advocate before God. When you approach the throne room, you do so covered in the blood of the great high priest who intercedes for you forever. In reconciling us to God, Jesus has also paved the way for our adoption. We are adopted as sons of God the Father. We are God's children. And that means that we receive all the rights and privileges as children. of the Most High. So what are those rights and privileges? What do we have as children? Well, think about it. Think about how you are with your children. What are the rights and privileges that your children have to come to you? I'm a young father. My son has started crawling. And when I come home and he sees me for the first time that day, I cannot express the amount of joy that I feel. When he sees me, And he smiles the biggest smile I've ever seen, and he crawls to me as fast as he can. I don't know how to explain the kind of joy that that gives me. I don't know how to explain the kind of love I have for my son. And I'm not indifferent when he comes racing to me. I don't kind of look at him like, oh, well, I guess you're going to take a while to get to me. I don't stand off to the side or go do whatever. I look at him, and he could be 20 feet away, however far. And I'll get down on my knees, and I put my hands out.

And I tell him, come to me. Come to me. I want to pick you up. I want to hug you. I want to love you. A few years ago, my dad and I, we were talking on the phone. And it was a hard conversation. And in the conversation, he said, Timothy, I just want you to ask me for help. I just want you to come to me and ask me for advice. And I didn't understand his desire for that. I didn't understand why he wanted me to ask him for help. We lived 12 hours away from one another. I was 22 or 23 or whatever. And my dad told me, I just want to know that I can help you. I want you to ask me for help and for advice. I want you to come to me. Fathers want their children to come to them. Fathers want their children to ask for help. Fathers want their children to confess their sins. This is what our Heavenly Father expects of us.

He expects us to come to Him. He wants us to come to Him. Do you remember what Jesus said about fatherhood in Matthew chapter 7? He's talking about asking, seeking, and knocking. And He tells them, which one of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? And if he asks for a fish, will you give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give your sons good gifts, how much more your Father in Heaven? And this is what we gain with Jesus as our High Priest. We become children of God. And He is our Father. And He sees us as His children. He doesn't see you as deplorables. He doesn't see you as nuisances. He doesn't despise you and your weakness. He loves you. He wants to comfort you. He wants you to come to Him. He wants to help. He wants to heal. Bring your burdens. Bring your sins. Bring your pain.

Bring them to God. He wants to help. When we come to the throne of God, we should take encouragement and hope in the work of Christ because He's given us access to the Father. This should assure us and encourage us not to be far off and not to avoid drawing near to God when we need Him. And we always need Him. Jesus has provided a perfect sacrifice that is pleasing to God and it does take away our sins. Not like the blood of bulls and goats. Jesus' sacrifice is perfect, and it satisfies our Father. Only the perfect sacrifice of Jesus takes away our sins. All the ceremonial sacrifices were a type and shadow of Christ's perfect sacrifice. There is no substitute to Christ's work. Christ's priestly work is perfect. He intercedes for us perfectly, and His sacrifice that He provides is perfect.

Throughout Hebrews, the author is repeatedly reminding us that Christ is better than the ceremonial law and the Levitical priests. And the reason he does that is because he's talking to Jewish Christians. That's the original audience. They're Jewish Christians who are tempted to return to the ceremonial law, to find hope and assurance in those things. And the reason for this reminder... I just said that. it's just because they're tempted to return to their rituals and their ceremonies. Why would they want to return to that? Why would they want to return to their rituals and their ceremonies? Why would they want to go back to sacrifices? They wanted something physical, something tangible to give them hope and assurance. And we're always faced with that temptation to cling to tangible experiences, to put our hope and assurance in them.

Whether we cling to our baptisms or we cling to the sinner's prayer that we said during the altar call, whether that was at a church or at a tent meeting or at VBS, or we cling to our family, we cling to, well, we just always grew up this way. I've just always been a Christian. This is how we've always done it. This is how we've always lived. Whether we cling to our own sense of piety or our own good works, well, I did this and... That must mean that I'm a Christian. That must mean that God's happy with me because I did this good thing over here. Or if we cling to our emotional experiences, our emotional spiritual experiences that we've had, we cling to those to give us hope and faith and assurance. We don't need those things. We don't need to find our hope and assurance in those things. Christ has provided all that we need. He's the basis of assurance and hope. He's the one that makes us right with God.

He's the one who intercedes for us, and through him alone we enjoy the privilege of drawing near to God. And so we cannot cling to anything else. We cannot return to what's familiar and make that the basis for our hope. We're tempted often to look inwardly. We think, I can do this on my own. I can fix myself. I can get rid of my sin. I can make myself presentable to God, or I can overcome this trouble I've run into. I can handle it on my own. I don't need help. We think we have to do it by our own power and our own strength, and the truth is that we can't. The truth is that we need Jesus. We need to be able to go to our Father. We need to be able to ask Him for help and to ask Him for forgiveness. We can't get rid of our sin and fix ourselves up by ourselves. Only the blood of Jesus accomplishes that. Some of us, when we look inward, instead of thinking that I can just do this on my own,

We feel the burden of our sins and we just beat ourselves up about it. We refuse to draw near to God because we think we don't deserve to. You don't deserve to, but the reason you can draw near to God is because Jesus has paved the way for you to draw near to God. What we're saying when we do that, when we refuse to draw near, is we're nullifying God's word when he's established a priest forever to intercede for us. We're saying we don't need that. We don't need a high priest. I'll take care of it. I'll fix it. When we punish ourselves, we're essentially paying penance. And these are sinful. This is our sin. We avoid drawing near to God in these ways. We reveal our lack of faith that we have a great high priest who intercedes for us. The fact is that none of these things, our works, our piety, our experiences, fixing ourselves, punishing ourselves, none of these things make us fit to come to the throne room of God.

These things don't give lasting hope and assurance. These things don't give us favor with God. Only Jesus does. His intercession on our behalf before the Father is what grants us favor with God and open access to the throne room. Look at verse 25. Therefore, he is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. All the ceremonial law is meant to do is to point us to Christ, not draw us back to it. His priesthood is better because it's complete. His priesthood is better because it's forever. He is able to save forever. Jesus is our great high priest. He forever intercedes on our behalf. And since he's a priest forever, he saves forever and completely those who draw near. And then we get to the end of verse 25. Since he always lives to make intercession for them.

Our Lord Jesus always lives to make intercession for us. He is your high priest. And so I want to say, don't be afraid to draw near to God. Don't cling inward. Don't cling to former things. Don't cling to experiences. Cling to Christ and draw near to God. There are a few reasons that we don't draw near to God. One of them is fear. We're afraid that God's angry with us or indifferent towards us. or that we might anger him. And it's just not true. If you're saved by the blood of Christ, if you've put your faith and hope in Christ, you're a child of God. He's your father. And he does discipline his children, but he doesn't hate his children. He loves them. Another reason that we don't draw near is because we're proud. We think we can handle it all on our own. We don't depend on our father to help us or provide for us. We're too proud to admit, or we're too proud to admit our fault.

We're too proud to confess that we've sinned. And the third reason, and the most prevalent for us, is that we just don't have faith. We just don't believe. We don't believe that prayer works. We don't believe God's word when he says, draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. I started reading a book on prayer by Paul Miller. And in his book, he starts by telling a story about his family. They're on a camping trip, and his oldest daughter loses her contact in the gravel, and it's in the middle of October, and so there's leaves, and she can't find it. She's frantic. And Paul Miller goes up to her, and he's, what's going on? What's happening? And she tells him, she explains, I can't find my contact. I don't know where it's at. And he says, okay, they kind of look for it for a minute, and he stops. They're all frantic, and he says, okay, let's pray that the Lord will help us find it.

And she bursts into tears. She says, why? It doesn't work. And this is often why we don't draw near to God. Because we don't believe it actually works. We're tempted to believe the same thing. What good will it do? What will it accomplish? Have you ever wondered when you're praying, where do my prayers go? Where are they going? I'm talking, I'm saying things, but who hears them? Where are they going? Does God hear me? Does he forgive my sins? Does he... Hear my pleading? And the answer is yes. Because your God hears you and He knows that you are but dust. And He's given you a great high priest. You have a great high priest who always lives to make intercession for you. The Spirit within you, if you're a Christian, the Spirit within you actually cries out to God with groanings that are incomprehensible. God our Father hears us. We should take heart and be encouraged that God hears our prayers.

And we know that because we can see it throughout Scripture. There are countless examples throughout Scripture and in our own lives of God answering His people. And so when you're tempted to doubt that prayer works, when you're tempted to say, there's no point in drawing near to God, remember what God's Word says. Remember Hannah who prayed for a child and God heard her. Remember the many times the Lord heard David's prayers and protected him, sustained him, delivered him, forgave him of his sins. And remember the times that God has been faithful to you when you have cried out to Him. God calls us to draw near to Him through Jesus Christ. We need to always remind ourselves that our Father does hear us and He does call us to Himself. Because Jesus has paved the way for us to have access to Him. Because we have an intercessor in Heaven and He sympathizes with us in our weaknesses. He cares for us. He loves us. And our Father in Heaven delights to hear us.

He delights for us to draw near to him. So don't be afraid, and don't be proud, and don't give yourself to unbelief. Draw near to God. Jesus is your advocate. Jesus is your mediator. Jesus is your great high priest, and he always lives to make intercession for us. Seek him. Confess your sins. Ask for forgiveness. Ask for help. Ask him to comfort you when things are hard. Our Father will not turn us away when we draw near to Him. Psalm 73 tells us that the nearness of God is our good. So draw near. You can do it because you have a great high priest who God is pleased with. The song, Come Boldly to the Throne of Grace, is such a helpful encouragement. The first and second verse say, Come boldly to the throne of grace, ye wretched sinners come, and lay your load at Jesus' feet and plead what He has done. How can I come?

Some soul may say, I'm lame and cannot walk. My guilt and sin have stopped my mouth. I sigh, but dare not talk. And then the last verse says, poor bankrupt souls who feel and know the hell of sin within, come boldly to the throne of grace. The Lord will take you in. Our Lord Jesus saves forever those who draw near to God through him. He holds his priesthood permanently. It never ends. It's held by an oath. He is the guarantee of a better covenant. So trust His work. Trust His work as your great High Priest. Trust His perfect sacrifice once for all given for the forgiveness of your sins. Trust His intercession to the Father for us. And remember that your Father will not turn away those who draw near to Him. So draw near to Him. Let's pray.