ALSO PART OF THE ATONEMENT SERIES OF TALKS BY TONY:
Jesus is the final sacrifice, our covering, our Kippur, our covering from death.
To sum up: sin causes a separation from God which is death, brings death. To restore the relationship God requires repentance and faith in the appointed sacrifice.
The sacrifice involves the death of the one sacrificed. The one sacrificed is innocent of sin, taking the place of the guilty.
So, this principle goes from the Old Testament sacrifices to the New Testament sacrifice of Jesus. In both cases, the one who is sacrificed is innocent, dies, and pays the price of the one who is guilty.
It says in Leviticus 17.11: “the life of the flesh is in the blood; it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.” It makes atonement because the blood means it’s the one who’s shedding the blood has died in the place of the other.
And, in Hebrews 9.22 we read, “without the shedding of blood there is no remission.”
Jesus is our final sacrifice, our Kippur, our covering over sin and death, restoring our relationship with God in His holiness.
One last thing we must do is personally repent and receive Jesus as Saviour. Believe the Good News, believe that Jesus died for us.
Without this there’s no benefit from the cross. It has to be an act of faith on our part that we personally put our trust in Jesus and believe Him and receive Him as our Saviour.
Our prayer is that Jewish people around the world may make this step of faith as well.
In many ways, Yom Kippur has a prophetic significance as well because, in the last days, we’re told that there’s going to be a time of great trouble over Israel. It’s called ‘the time of Jacob’s trouble’.
Jesus referred to the time of the Great Tribulation which ends with in Zechariah chapter 12 where it says that “they should look upon me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as for an only son.”
‘Looking at one who’s been pierced’ and looking at Jesus who has died as a sacrifice for our sins and mourning for Him and accepting Him as the Son of God, the Redeemer, the Saviour who has come.
Following that, it says that Jesus will come at the time of the last battle, stand on the Mount of Olives, and set up the Messianic Kingdom in which He will reign on the earth during the thousand-year period of restitution after the time of great tribulation.
Therefore, there is a forward-looking view to Yom Kippur of the Jewish people coming to faith in Yeshua the Messiah before Jesus returns.
In the meantime, we do pray that God may open the eyes of the Jewish people to the truth that Jesus is the One who is our sacrifice.
No matter how much they pray and fast on the coming Wednesday evening and Thursday, that will not actually bring them what they want. What they’re asking for is reconciliation with God and forgiveness of sin. There’ll be a day (yom) but there will be no atonement (kippur).
Atonement now comes through Yeshua / Jesus the Messiah.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem and pray for Jewish people that they may understand that Yeshua is the Messiah and pray for ourselves also that we may understand the importance of what it means to understand atonement and to understand that Jesus is the one who brings it to us, and only Jesus, there’s no other way.
He said:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the father except by me.”
John 14.6
He’s the only one who could pay the price of sin. There wasn’t another good enough to pay the price of sin. He alone could unlock the door of heaven and let us in.
So, believe on the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved. Share that Good News that Jesus is the Messiah who has come, who is the atoning sacrifice who has replaced the Old Testament sacrifices with His own precious blood to redeem us.
And give thanks to God for Jesus and give thanks to Jesus for doing that for you: suffering the agony of the cross that He might bear your sin and my sin and the sin of the whole world to redeem us out of His great love for us.
Because
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, Jesus the Messiah, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 3.16
God bless you may the Lord help us all to believe.
Let’s just have a word of prayer before we close. Lord we do thank you for the amazing sacrifice that you made for us when you died on the cross. Thank you that you bore our sins, that it’s all of you it’s none of us, that we can’t redeem ourselves but only you can redeem us. And we thank you for the blood that you shed for us in order to save our souls. And we do pray for Israel and for the Jewish people as we come up to Yom Kippur. We pray Lord that you would open their eyes to the fact that they have a day but they don’t have atonement, because they need the shedding of the blood of the Messiah in order to cover their sins and we all need that blood. So, we pray Lord that you’d open the eyes of your people to the truth of Yeshua, to the Messiah and help us all to believe in you and to be confident that we have atonement through the blood that you shed for us. We ask this in the name of Jesus our Messiah and Lord, amen.