INSIDE THE VEIL
Heb. 10:19
Morning Meditation 10/29/2015
Verse 19 says, “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.”
Augustine said of God, “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” It is amazing that God would want fellowship with us but He does. He has made a way into the Holiest but I’m afraid only few ever enter there. I am not talking about salvation but fellowship. Salvation is the beginning point. Fellowship is the provision that salvation makes. Now that we are saved we can enter the “holiest” with “boldness” by the “blood of Jesus?” This is where the touch of God is experienced. This is what we might call personal revival. Because the man who enters the holiest will have the scent of God upon him. He will have the glow of God upon his face. Men who experience God’s presence are those about whom books are written. They are those whom we are constantly asking, “What is the secret? Tell us so we can experience the same.” And we make the mistake of trying to copy them to attain what they attained. Let me make one thing clear. They did not attain their experience of God by copying someone’s example. They just went boldly into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. You cannot go there and be the same. You cannot go there and explain the experience without putting leaven in it. When one tries to explain his experience of God, he will always misinterpret much of his experience. He will say, “This is WHY it happened,” and what he says is his interpretation of the experience. He will say, “This is HOW it happened,” and what he says will be his interpretation of the experience. Many times, and I think I can truthfully say, most of the time, our interpretation of our experiences are based on opinion where the flesh, our human rationalism, gets involved.
Let me illustrate, and some of you who read these lines will be able to say amen. Someone stands up in church a gives testimony of salvation. They tell the circumstances under which they were saved. They explain that they were horrible sinners. They tell us when the load of sin came off and the Lord came in there was such ecstatic praise that they could not contain themselves. (What about the young child who simply trusts the Lord and has never taken a drink, used dope, or committed adultery?). I am very glad they enjoyed the experience. But Satan uses their interpretation of their experience of salvation to cause doubts in many sensitive and uninformed souls. Many who hear the testimony say, “I must not be saved because that never happened to me.” And down the isle they come or into the pastor’s office they come for the confession, “I guess I have never been saved.” The pastor goes over the plan of salvation with them and they say, “I have done that. But I have never had the kind of experience that ‘so and so’ has had.” When we interpret our experiences many times we leave wrong impressions and lead people down impossible paths. All people are saved by faith in Christ or they are not saved at all. What happens to you emotionally is a by product. It may be a glorious experience, but don’t leave the impression that you did more than trust Jesus to be saved or that the emotional side of your salvation is a necessary evidence that you are really saved.
When one enters the holiest, he does it this way: “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.” Jesus made the way and it is entered by faith in the shed blood of Jesus. The veil has been rent from top to bottom. From God’s side of the holiest the way is always open. But from our side it is a different question.
Why don’t the saints enter the holiest? Tozer says, “God wills that we should push on into His presence and live our whole life there.” Then he adds, “This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held; it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day.” When you look at the average saint today, you do not get the idea that they have been into the very presence of God. Can we keep such a thing a secret? Moses couldn’t. When God revealed His glory to him, he had to put a veil over his face. And to keep this little meditation on Scriptural grounds Paul says, “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18). The man who has been changed as this verse describes will at least have the “scent” of the incense upon him. There will be something about him that will create a hunger in another’s heart for the experience. It will raise questions like, “What happened? Explain your experience? I long for the presence of God and if you tell me how maybe I can do it.” And I do believe that God puts in all of us a longing for Himself. David said, “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him” (Psa. 34:8).. Taste, taste, taste not look, look, look, or, reason, reason, reason.” To taste is to enjoy, to take in, to experience. It is not theology we are talking about, it is experience. You can’t get God in you and on you without at least having a slight inclination to have a running fit!!!
Who dwells within that veil? It is none other than God Himself. “One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. It is one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God; begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God; begotten, not made; being of one substance with the Father.” And it is “the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified.” Yet this holy Trinity is one God, for “we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one: the glory equal and the majesty co-eternal.” This is what the ancient creeds say.
With the veil removed by the crucifixion of Jesus (Heb. 10:20) there is nothing on God’s side to keep us from entering. But there is a veil that is keeping us out. Tozer says that veil is “woven of the fine threads of the self-life and the hyphenated sins of the human spirit... They are not something we do, they are something we are, and therein lies both their subtlety and their power.”
I quote Tozer again: “To be specific, the self-sins are self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them.” Then he adds, “Self can live unrebuked at the very altar. It can watch the bleeding Victim die and not be in the least affected by what it sees.” And again, “Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. We may as well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do it deadly work within us. We must bring out self-sins to the cross for judgment.”
