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Book of Hebrews Today, right now in one video. But this is just the beginning of the Hebrew series, the new series on this YouTube channel. My name is Mike Winger. My goal is to help you learn to think biblically about everything. Everything. And so part of that is, of course, just doing Bible Studies. We're going to go verse by verse, slowly and methodically, through the Book of Hebrews. But first, we're going to plow through it real fast in an effort to really understand it. Get the large picture of the book, and I think it's going to change your life. Like, I really. I say this, uh, you know, you're online, so you hear stuff like this all the time. Um. Um. The book of Hebrews has really radically impacted my life. It changed the way I view the Bible as a whole. When I read the Book of Hebrews, I understood the entirety of scripture so much better. I believe it'll have that impact on you, the way that you see Jesus and so much more. The practicality in your life of dealing with hardships and, uh, difficulties, understanding, uh, what faith is and all sorts of other things. So the whole book today, we're going to move pretty fast, then go real slow. When I go slow. Okay, I got to give you the little bit of a preview before we launch into Hebrews one in just a moment. It.

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When I go slow, I will deal with doctrinal detours. Um, I will also deal with apologetic insights. For instance, uh, how that's like defending the christian faith, how Hebrews eleven gives us a bold statement about the nature of the universe, which was only recently scientifically confirmed and settled within the last hundred years. That's some pretty interesting data right there about sort of scientific foreknowledge, you might call it, or whatever, whatever you want to call it. And, uh, we'll talk about that, those sorts of things. I'm also going to be doing, uh, as we go through Hebrews, maybe we get either four or six when we get to one of those chapters. As we do it slowly and methodically, I'll do a little project on can you lose your salvation? A topic that has been hotly requested by me for many years and which I have not done a video on. Um, well, I will set aside time and I'll share whatever insights I can do. Real deep study, really consider all the other angles and share with you for you to consider and make up your own mind. And then I will do, uh, let's see. I think when we hit chapter two, I'll do a study project on cessationism, uh, continuationism, and get more deep on it than I ever have before. And I, uh, don't know if I'll make either side happy. I've done some preliminary work. I don't know if I'll make either side happy when I make that video, but I think I'll hopefully give an accurate understanding of the text of scripture, God willing. So today, yeah. So you get the idea, right? We're gonna. As we go through, we'll stop and go, hey, let's unpack this issue. Let's. Wait. Jehovah's witnesses really relate to this section. Let's talk about that. Wait. The hebrew roots movement really relates to this section. Let's talk about that. We'll do those things. But the main thrust, the main focus is just getting our basic understanding of what God is telling us, why the Holy Spirit inspired the book of Hebrews to begin with. And it's amazing. It's beautiful. It's awesome. So please open your bibles to Hebrews chapter one. We're going to start digging in right now. Let me get my online bible open to that passage. Okay, so Hebrews chapter one, I think verses one and two, here are the key to the entire book. I think they're like the summary of the book.

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And, um, Hebrews, as we head into it, let me say this.

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The book of Hebrews is like, um, a skeleton key for unlocking our understanding of the entirety of the Old Testament. I'm not exaggerating when I say this. You might struggle when you look at how did Jesus fulfill prophecy? And when it talks about Christ fulfilling things, sometimes it'll say Jesus fulfilled something in Matthew's gospel or somewhere. And I, uh, look at that verse in the Old Testament, and I go, what do you mean he fulfilled it? This doesn't even look like a prophecy to me.

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This is what the book of Hebrews is going to do. It's going to open your eyes and go, whoa. There's a literary type, prophetic inner weaving throughout the text of scripture that the book of Hebrews opens up to us.

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It's like those Batman decoder things from back before I was even a kid, actually, from back when my parents were kids. And they would get the little decoder wheel or something, and they put it down on something they found in, I don't know, cracker Jack box or something, and then it would give them the secret message. Hebrews is the decoder wheel for the Old Testament. It's amazing stuff. And the passage in Hebrews one here on your screen is like the passage unlocking the book of Hebrews itself or explaining it's the key to Hebrews, whereas Hebrews is the key to the Old Testament. So I'm going to use this countere which is sort of on your screen. Um, as we bounce back and forth, it will be more. Maybe I should adjust the camera slightly so you can see it a little bit more.

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We're in Hebrews one. I'll just go ahead and track what chapter we're in for today's video using that. So Hebrews is the key to the Bible, and the first two Verses of Hebrews are the key to Hebrews. Let's read them. Long ago at ah, many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. Here we have Jesus as the creator, yet also as the son. So he's the creator through whom he created. Jesus is there with God. This is the Trinitarian Understanding of the creation of the universe. Then you have him as God's son, which speaks of him being God's messenger, through whom God has spoken to us. But this is also contrasted with the way God used to speak in the Old Testament. What you've just got there is like what's going to happen over and over again throughout the book of Hebrews continually, over and over and over again. Now, a lot of people, when they hit Hebrews one and verses one and two, they immediately think of a doctrine called cessationism. Cessationism is the doctrine that these sign gifts, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, um, using things like miraculous type outward miraculous gifts like ah, tongues or healings. A person who has the gift of healing, that's a controversial concept. I'll come back to it in a future video. Um, probably in Hebrews chapter two, or prophecy. Um, uh, having prophecy in your church, someone says, I have a word from the Lord that this cessationist view is to say, hey, that stuff was only meant to happen during the foundation that was laid in the early church when the gospel was going out to confirm the gospel. And then once the gospel's out there, and especially the scripture is out there written, um, you don't need that stuff anymore. So those gifts have ceased. Hence the name cessationist ceased. Then there's a continuationist who's like the polar opposite, suggesting that those gifts go on and um, to different degrees, people expect them in the churches and all that.

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I think this is the distraction for today. I'm not gonna be talking about this topic today. Today we're gonna focus on what the scripture is dealing with. It's not talking about that. I will talk about that in Hebrews two. We'll break out a little session on that one topic. But for now, please set aside your concern about continuation cessation. I don't care what camp you're in. Let's focus on the thrust of the book of Hebrews and not our detours. Not yet, at least. So it, uh. Long agos, long ago, long ago, at many times, in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. That's talking about old Testament stuff. That's talking about all that Old Testament stuff. But in these last days, he's spoken to us by his son. This is a contrast, right? It's a lesser thing when God speaks to you through someone else, to your father through the. Through the prophets. It's a bigger thing when God sends his son to you. That's a bigger deal. And that's actually the emphasis here in Hebrews one. Now, there were prophets going on during the day of Jesus, Anna. Uh, right. You got Philip's daughters who prophesied, you have Agabus, you got things like that. It's a, let's just say it's not about the continuation, verse cessation thing. It's about the escalation of God speaking through his son.

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That's a big deal. So people think this is just a nice statement about Jesus. Hebrews one, verses one and two. It's so much more than that summary of the book. Right. God has spoken to us through Jesus. There's a continuity with the way that God used to speak versus how he is speaking now. Right. God spoke, and now he's speaking. It's still God speaking. So there's a continuity that's there. Then there's. And these are important words. There's an escalation. There's an escalation. We're going to see this throughout the book of Hebrews. Continuity, escalation. So there's a continuity. There's an escalation because these are now the last days that God is speaking. So this is like God's sort of final message to the world, his fullest message to the world. And the one who he speaks it through is escalated because it's not just God speaking to you through a prophet, but God speaking to you through his son, who is who. Who's appointed the heir of all things. And through whom he created the world. This is huge stuff.

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Jesus is an ultimatum that God places upon the world. He's not just an offer of salvation, he's also an ultimatum. That's what Hebrews is going to be reinforcing continually. It's the consummation of God's message. That's why it's in the last days now. You think of last days, it's like, okay, so there can only be like maybe one generation before Jesus returns. Um, that's a whole, again for a survey. We're just going to cover this quickly. The, the emphasis here is the finality of the message of the gospel. This is it. There's, there's no further progressive revelation beyond Jesus. It leads up to Jesus and this is where it lands. This is the ultimate message of God. So we're near a final judgment in that sense. Um, um, it's the consummation of God's message and often missed concept. And Jesus talks about it. Let me share with you some other scripture in Matthew 1113.

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Yep, today will be a longer video because I'm covering 13 chapters, an entire book. But, uh, I think you guys are mostly down with that. And the people who aren't have already clicked off anyway. So what am I worried about?

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You don't want my channel if you want to, if you want a quick video. Um, so Jesus says here, for all the prophets in the law prophesied until John.

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And you can read more about this stuff. It's pretty amazing, the stuff Jesus says here. But do you get this concept that Jesus is saying? There was this progression that led up to John who delivered us. Jesus who points us to Jesus, the one who's greater than me, whose sandal I'm not worthy to untie.

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John shows up as like the culmination of the law and prophets. Jesus shows up as the contrast, as the one who fulfills and the one who is also greater than all that came before.

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That's kind of implied in Jesus words here. Hebrews is not bringing something new, but it's highlighting something that you might have missed when you're reading the gospels. Then in verse 14, um, it shows that John was, he's like, if you're willing to accept he's Elijah, who is to come. Well, Elijah's job was to prepare the way of the coming of the Lord, the coming of Yahweh. And this, of course, fits with Hebrews one, which gives us Jesus, who is not only God's messenger, but who is God himself, the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. Jesus, who holds up the universe by the word of his power. It's just, Jesus is a big deal.

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Uh, words do not do justice to the glory of Christ.

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He's God with us. So he's not just another prophet. Right. And that's the contrast already in Hebrews, one is, there's prophets, and then there's the sun. Now they're all. They're equally true, right? What the prophets say is true. What the son says is True. That's not where the contrast is. The weight of the message is where the contrast is. Uh, the sun, when the sun shows up, it's a bigger deal because, hey, that's my son. You could think when we. I think we'll cover this later in my notes. Jesus, when he tells the parable of the, of the, the vineyard owner who goes on a journey, and he keeps sending messengers to the people who he leased his vineyard to. And finally, he's like, I'll send them my son. They'll respect my son. And when they mistreat the son, it's like, that's it.

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That's what we're getting at here. That's an escalation of God's message. There's a lot of escalation in the book of Hebrews. We got to keep our eyes on that. So Jesus himself, he is, um, he's the one through whom, uh, God created the world. But this implies something that he is not a part of the creation itself.

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The deity of Christ is taught in Hebrews really strongly. Next week, we'll get into the Rest of Hebrews one, or at least most of Hebrews one. And I'll tackle Jehovah's Witness teaching that deals with Hebrews. Uh, because Hebrews one, it's almost as though God wrote it specifically to refute Jehovah's Witness theology and those who would teach the same kind of arianism that they teach. And, um, it's amazing stuff.

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So let's, let's do an overview of Hebrews in light of this, that there's a, there's a comparison between old and old, Old Testament versus the work in the New Testament centered around Jesus. There's a continuity between them such that God spoke through them, and God speaks through Jesus. There's continuity, and we'll see continuity in other ways, too. It's pretty cool. There's also escalation. They were prophets. He's the son of. There's escalation. They were human messengers. He was God with us. And then there's an escalation to the consequences, both in the fact that their messages were not always about eternal life. Generally, most of the time they weren't Jesus. His message is, yes, it's about eternal life and eternal consequence of death, eternal hell. These are the two extremes. Everything's escalated in Jesus. Okay, um. Um, let's do an overview of Hebrews now in light of all this. I'm going to start again by reading verses one through four.

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And prepare yourself for the wonder of the book of Hebrews. I can't wait to get into all this in detail. We're just going to look at the tip of the iceberg today. But it is an amazing, amazing iceberg to be looking at so long ago at, uh, many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He's the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. We'll get into what, what all this means next week or next time, I should say. I'm not necessarily going to do a video every week. I'll do them as they're prepared. I'll always try to keep them on Mondays so you guys know when to look. But it probably, it won't be every Monday. We'll see how, how frequently I can handle that.

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And he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

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He's the sustainer of the universe after making purification for sins. Now we get into Jesus work, not just that God speaks through him, but what is it that God's doing through him after making purification for sins, he sat down. And you'll find that phrase is key as we talk about Jesus and the high priests and their comparison at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited, is more excellent than theirs.

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There is so much in these first four verses. There is so much right here.

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I encourage you guys to keep this in the back of your mind. And as you go through the rest of Hebrews, come back to this and be like, whoa. This was the summary statement. He's talking about. Jesus as messenger, Jesus as great as an angel, Jesus as the one who God sent, but who was also God with us. Jesus as the one who what ah, made purification for sins. Who then what? Sat down, meaning he was done and his job was complete. He fully accomplished salvation, what the law could never do. He also sat where? At the right hand of the majesty on high right. He became superior to the angels even as the name he inherited, because he was always superior to them. Before his incarnation. The name he inherited is more excellent than theirs as well. From start, he was greater than them, and to finish, he was greater. But for a season. There's this swoop thing in Hebrews of Jesus comes down, does his work, is exalted.

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Yeah, that's there, too. Great stuff. So Hebrews is brilliantly written. I think this is like the summary of the book. Um, but there's so much more. It's one long argument for how important it is that God spoke first in the old testament and now through Jesus. That's kind of the book of Hebrews.

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The theme of Hebrews, I would give in three words, continuity, escalation, and fulfillment. Um, these are the three words that I would highlight. You don't have to, doesn't mean everybody else has to. As a rule, they help me to understand the text. As I'm m going through, I can kind of continually see these themes popping out. So continuity has to do with taking something in the Old Testament and then comparing it to the ministry of Jesus or the person of Jesus and showing that they're similar. So angels, um, are messengers. Jesus was a messenger, prophet spoke. Jesus spoke from God. Um, the high priest offered sacrifices. Jesus offered sacrifices. You see the continuity. Moses was a deliverer for God's people. Jesus was a deliverer for God's people. This will be in Hebrews as well. Melchizedek is this guy in the Old Testament, this mysterious priest. Jesus shows up with like, he's like Melchizedek that we see this continually over and over. We even see continuity between some of the saints and in your life, your struggles, your trials that you go through in Hebrews eleven.

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And continuity is a major theme. So Hebrews will continually bring out a similarity between Jesus and an old Testament thing, person, reality. The temple itself, um, the sacrifices, the priesthood, the Levites, Abraham, all this stuff. There's all these similarities, escalation. The second of our three words that I would use to summarize, uh, Hebrews is to say that Jesus isn't just similar to, say, a high priest or Moses or Melchizedek or the levitical priests or, um, um, the workings of the tabernacle that go on there, or any of those things or angels or prophets. He's better. He's better. So he's always greater in quality than them. So there's, he's similar but greater Hebrews, one already did this when it said, ah. Uh, God spoke to the fathers through the prophets, but now he speaks through his son. Escalation. Similar. M but greater. Jesus is greater. And he'll be greater in, uh, two ways, typically. One in that what Jesus brings you compared to the old covenant thing that we see about in the Old Testament is always greater than whatever the old covenant was bringing you. They were, you know, the old covenant, going to bring them into, uh, the rest of a promised land. Jesus will bring you into the eternal rest of God's presence and of his eternal kingdom. The old covenant, they're going to bring you sort of this like temporal forgiveness of sins type of thing through sacrifice that's continual, that never finishes. Jesus gives one sacrifice and fully accomplishes your eternal salvation. There's always a sense in which Jesus brings you something better than that old covenant thing was going to bring you. And so that old covenant thing was meant to be a picture. Meant, uh, to be, uh, something to teach you something. And then Jesus shows up and he does it. He fully accomplishes it.

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It really reminds me. Forgive the karate kid analogy. Sorry, I got a cough drop in my mouth. That's just for your sake. Um, so turned into laugh. Laughing is the worst. The, um, um, the karate kid analogy, Mister Miyagi in the karate kid movies, for those of you who know, okay, I don't know about the new ones, eh, ah, maybe I'm just old. I'm just a bitter old man. But, uh, the new one, okay, so the original karate kid movie, which I haven't seen since so many years, maybe it's not as good as I think it is. But, uh, Mister Miyagi teaches, you know, he teaches Daniel to paint the fence. He's like, you have to paint this special way later on, you know, he shows him that this painting the fence is teaching him how to block punches. Which I don't think really works in real life, but it's great in movies, you know, he's teaching him how to like, wax a car, wax on and wax off. And he's learning how to block kicks or punches or something.

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Um, the Old Testament, the priesthood, the Levites, the prophets, the covenant of Moses itself. All is Mister Miyagi teaching the people of Israel, wax on, wax off, paint the fence. And then later, Jesus shows up and he's like, mister Miyagi showing up saying, okay, now I'm gonna start attacking you, Daniel's son. And you're gonna find out that you have, this whole time you have been learning something so much greater than you thought that's Jesus showing up. So that's the escalation, right? There's escalation. So it's greater in quality.

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It brings us something, um, then greater in consequence, another way in which it's greater. The impact of the law of Moses was for Israel. They were to be a light to the world. That never really happened directly. Jesus fulfilled that for them, really. Um, but when Jesus shows up, he brings a new covenant that is meant for all people, not just for Israel. He brings us into an eternal, eternal kingdom, a new heaven, a new earth, not just a promised land on a corrupt earth. You see, it keeps being greater in consequences. Also, under mosaic law, you violate this law, you can actually be given the death penalty. That's the most extreme thing under the law of Moses. But Jesus, he's going to offer you heaven or hell, eternal judgment, which is far worse than just a physical death thing and far greater than just a physical life thing or a temporary life. I mean, our eternal life, it will be physical as well.

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It's also greater, not just in quality, not just in consequence, but also combining these, we see there's an unveiling. Um, so, uh, in my Miyagi analogy, Mister Miyagi, it's a big unveiling. The moment of the film where he starts attacking Danielson, which you guys, if you haven't seen it, I'm not telling you to go watch it. But the point is, this is when Danielson, who's been frustrated Miyagi's making me sweep and paint fences and wax cars. I came here to train to be prepared for the bullies that I'm facing, and he didn't realize he was being trained that whole time. There's a scent in which Jesus shows up in the New Testament, and he pulls off the veil for those who will watch, for those who will be enlightened by the spirit in it, even they, they're like Danielson, who suddenly realizes, you know, I know kung fu, to, uh, mix my, mix my references a bit.

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It wasn't kung fu, but you get the point.

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So this is like a movie you have to watch twice. The Bible's like that. The Bible's like a movie you have to watch twice. The first time you watch it, you don't really know what's going on. You're intrigued. The mystery keeps you going. You can tell there's something deeper behind the scenes, but you haven't figured out what it is. At the end of the film, you go, whoa. That's what it was. And you want to go rewatch the movie because, you know, there's all these fun, cool little moments.

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That's what the Book of Hebrews does for us. The Book of Hebrews is like the guide for re watching the Old Testament and reconsidering all that God did through Moses and all that, so that you might have the second viewing of the Bible through the book of Hebrews. So there's continuity, there's escalation, and then there's fulfillment. Fulfillment is the third thing I do want to talk about a good bit as we go through Hebrews. Um, the Book of Hebrews shows us that the Bible is. The Old Testament is not. Just occasionally there's a prophecy about Jesus that the New Testament fulfills. Rather, it shows that the entire swath of the Old Testament is prophetic about Jesus in a way that is more nuanced and more interesting than simply, um, the way psalm 22 outlines exactly the details of the crucifixion or Isaiah 53 beautifully gives us the theology and such a, such a vivid description of Jesus that when you read it in isolation, people think it was written after Christ came and not before.

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But it's more than that. We're going to see that the people and the events and, um, the whole story of scripture is just soaking in the message of Jesus Christ.

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Um, it's watching the movie twice. You go, whoa. The director and the writer and the actors, they all knew and intended to hide all these Easter eggs throughout. Easter eggs. Nice analogy there. Easter eggs. Um, throughout the text of scripture, there is hidden, there is in plain sight tons of prophetic that aren't direct. This will happen. But rather, let me draw you a picture of this guy called the high priest. Jesus is going to be a lot like him. Um, let me show you the day of atonement. Jesus is going to be the one that fulfills that. Let me show you Moses and Israel, and Jesus is going to be the one who comes in and escalates and fulfills that. So there's going to be a lot of, like, fulfillment stuff going on as we go through the book of Hebrews, such that, um, the old covenant points to him and then leaves you at his feet. And ultimately, the Old Testament testifies of Christ. Jesus says, you know, you say, you know, you believe the scriptures, but if you did, you'd believe in me, because they testify of me, right? This is not, this is not my invention, man. This, this is in God's word. Um, it's amazing stuff. I think a lot of christians isolate their understanding of prophecy to the direct prophecy and fulfillment. And they don't realize that God is, he does that, but he's also drawing pictures with lives, pictures with concepts like the temple itself is a prophetic picture of Jesus Christ. We're going to get into all that stuff as we go. And if you're a skeptic watching, uh, I encourage you to have an open mind and to critically think. Because if I was to come up with one parallel in the Old Testament, Jesus is a lot like Moses because of this and this. That might not be that impressive to you, but what if I could show you that it just keeps happening incessantly throughout the Bible and that it's, it's so consistent that you either have to think the New Testament authors were like, brilliant, I, and they just somehow coincidentally wove Jesus into, wove Jesus's story so that it looked like all of theirs, um, or that God was actually behind this. Um. All right, so let's move forward. Okay. Hebrews, chapter one. It starts with boom. Who Jesus is as compared to prior messengers. It's going to get us in verse two. Um, I'll put it on your screen as I just survey through. Now, that was kind of a good intro. Now we're going to plow through. Um, in verse two we get christology. Jesus is the appointed heir. He's unlike the angels in that he is the way of creation. Angels who witnessed creation were not the ones, were not the way of creation. We get this in the book of Job 37, verse, uh, 38, verse seven. It says, the morning stars. The angels sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. The angels were witnessing the creation of the world. They weren't participating in the creation of the world. Jesus is the one by whom everything exists. And this is consistent with Colossians, which says the same thing. Um, we'll go there in just a second. Verse three talks about how he's the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. I'll get a bit more into this next time around. But he is God with us ultimately. You cannot say this stuff about angels and humans. M just messengers. I'm not the radiance of God's glory, right? I'm not God's glory radiating out into humanity. I'm not the exact imprint of God's nature. This is language that does not apply to other beings. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. There's a cool parallel here with this in Colossians one, verse 17. I'll show with you a neglected doctrine. Uh, this is the doctrine that, um, God not only creates the universe, but holds it, he sustains it in existence. Why do things keep existing from one moment to the next? Why doesn't it just stop?

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Colossians 117. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

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Jesus is the one who holds it all together.

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So then you get to, um, the swoop section we looked at earlier, um, verses three and four. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. He came down lower. Uh, God then came with us, um, having become so much superior to the angels, to angels, as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. So before the incarnations, he's greater. After it, he is greater. But for a season, he brought himself lower, taking on the form of a servant.

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Then we have, um, angels. Angels are not brought up arbitrarily. For which of the angels did God ever say? And then it goes on. I won't go through this until later, but the summary is this, um, angels are messengers, and that's how Hebrews one is discussing them. And Jesus is the ultimate messenger. So angels are messengers. Jesus is the ultimate messenger. In other words, you better listen to Jesus. That leads us to Hebrews two in a second, which gets a little scary.

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So he's a more weighty messenger than them. He is God the son. And we have that parable I mentioned of, uh, the vineyard, the vineyard owner who goes on a journey and leases the vineyard out. That's in Luke chapter 20, where he's like, hey, they'll, surely, they'll listen to my son. And that's what Hebrews is getting at here is, this is the son. You better listen to him. He is not only greater than the angels, he is worshipped by the angels.

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He's worshiped by the angels. In verses seven through nine, there is a contrast. Um, the angels are like winds. They're ministers, they're servants. But the son, oh, he has a throne in heaven. His throne is forever. And he's called God in verse nine. So Jesus's deity is on full display in the book of Hebrews chapter one. We'll go into this in more detail as we move through. Now, when we get to Hebrews chapter two.

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There we go. We'll use that counter. Hebrews chapter two. We have the first scary, uh, warning, scary moment in the book of Hebrews, and it should be, I'm not going to try and take that away. Um, there are things that are, it's right to be afraid of Jesus himself. Said so to fear goddess, um, him who could, after you're dead, cast you into hell.

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If God is the scary hypothetical goes like this. If God punishes those who rejected the Old Testament message, remember, we're contrasting and showing escalation. So the Old Testament message, they would die in the wilderness or outside the promised land, or die under the law if they rebelled against what it said, um, then how much greater will the consequences be if you reject the son? Because that wasn't even the son in that previous message. So Hebrews two says this, verses one through four. Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received just retribution, hey, if you got, if you suffered under the lesser message, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at, ah, the first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard. While God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of healing of the Holy spirit distributed according to his will. Come back to this later when we talk about cessationism and continuationism in the future. For now it's saying, hey, the salvation Jesus offers is greater than any sort of help that people got under the old covenant, and so are the consequences. It's all escalated. It's all escalated. The focus is on eternal life, not just physical death, eternal life, eternal damnation, not just a physical thing, which is more of the focus of the mosaic law.

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Then we get to Hebrews two, verses five through eight, where we see angels aren't your judges, angels aren't your judges, but the Son is. The son actually is going to be your judge. It's escalated. He's not just a messenger, he's more than that. Then in, um, um.

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Hold on, let me see here. Hebrews two, verses nine, all the way through pretty much the rest of the chapter, verse 18, we see the incarnation. Jesus comes as a human and the nature of the incarnation. So this isn't just saying Jesus was incarnate like a robot who doesn't understand the significance of the things we're saying, but rather to understand the meaning of it. Right? Jesus comes as a human and there's a reason for it. He's going to be our representative, to represent all of us, just like Adam represents us in the garden. So Jesus represents us. Now he's our new Adam, the second Adam, the last Adam. Both of those terms are in scripture. Um, he's also a sacrifice. He's going to be a sacrifice for us, and he's going to be our priest. And all these pictures, all these ideas are just sort of, they've been barely mentioned in hebrews one, they're mentioned again in hebrews two, and they're going to be unpacked in a lot of detail as we go on through the book of Hebrews further. So let me see. I'll just read you, read to you some of this, if I can find some verses. Um, he was, for a little while, the swoop idea made lower than the angels. Jesus crowned with glory and honor, that swooped back up. Why? Because of the suffering of death that he might, what? Taste death for everyone. He stands in our place.

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So it's fitting that he, for whom and by whom are all things we're talking about. He's God with us. Second person of the Trinity, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. We'll talk about how did jesus get perfect through suffering? What does that mean? Um, but there's some stuff I want to point out to you.

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So since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil. And we get ransom ideas of atonement and stuff here, or at least some would think. Um. Um. Doesn't look like ransom. Looks more like destruction to me. But, but we get that concept that, that we'll talk about here. And Jesus, he takes on your flesh and blood, that he might, for the sake of your flesh and blood, suffer for you, that you could be saved to deliver. All those who fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. And then it goes on. Jesus becomes a merciful and faithful high priest, and we'll talk about that in detail. He makes propitiation for the sins of the people. This is not a, this is a technical term. It means a lot because of the Old Testament. It means a whole lot. And we're going to make sure we understand the gospel in relation to this because a lot of people, they don't like this part of the gospel. They don't want to, they don't want to think that Jesus made propitiation for us. But we'll, we'll get into that.

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Um, okay. So then we get to chapter three. In chapter three, we get Jesus compared to Moses. There's the Jesus Moses comparison. Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in heavenly calling, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession. Two big words there. Who is faithful to him, who appointed him? Just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house. So we have comparison. There's continuity. Jesus and Moses, but there's also escalation. But Jesus was greater than Moses. Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, as much more glory as the builder of the house has more honor than the house itself.

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So Moses is like a builder or a servant. Jesus is the son, is like the one who, um. Or he's part of the house, rather. And Jesus is like the builder or the Son.

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These, um, ideas trade on continuity and escalation.

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Similar but better and such. We have the fulfillment of Jesus fulfilling the. Not only specific prophecies in scripture, like, God will bring you a prophet unto, like Moses, there'll be a prophet like Moses, specific prophecies, but fulfilling the idea of Moses, fulfilling the. So think about the book of judges real quick. A little detour. In the book of judges, you constantly have this pattern. Israel sins against God. God punishes them. They get brought into bondage. He sends them a deliverer. Judges. These are the deliverers, the saviors in the book. And then they deliver them. But it's always, like, incomplete. It's always, like, not enough. And then those people, uh, end up failing most of the time later on down the road, such that you see there's a message, Israel needs a deliverer, but they need a better deliverer than this. Uh, and they just continue to fail. They need to be changed, transformed. And then Jesus shows up, and he's the deliverer who fully delivers us from our true sin and changes and transforms us, that we might become the people who don't just do what's right in their own eyes. Jesus fulfills the need that the book of judges screams about over and over again. He fulfills the very need. Is that prophetic? Well, yes, because God intended it all along. Is it a direct prophecy? No, but I would call it a fulfillment. The Book of Hebrews does this a lot here. It does it with the concept of Moses.

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Then we get in verse six.

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Christ is faithful over God's house as a son, and we are his house. Put that on your screen.

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We're his house.

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We are his house.

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Not the tabernacle, the temple. The house of God in Jerusalem. It's you. Because between the temple and the church, there is a continuity. It's both a dwelling place for God, where there's a holy of holies, where the Holy Spirit actually dwells, where, um, sacrifices are made for God. Like we're serving God. We bring ourselves, as Romans says, a living sacrifice for God. There's continuity between the physical temple in Jerusalem and then the body of Christ, the church, the temple, but there's also escalation. There's escalation. We're, in a sense, greater because it's not just a building made with hands, but it is lives renewed and reborn by the power of the Holy Spirit, that there's an escalation that's there. It is certainly greater to have the Holy Spirit in you than to have the Holy Spirit in a building that you're not allowed to go into. It's escalation. Things are better. Plus, it's a fulfillment because scripture has declared that God would. He would make his dwelling with his people and all this. So the tabernacle. The tabernacle in the, uh, Old Testament, it pictured a place for God to dwell with his people, but it was kept separate from the people. Jesus all along was going to be fulfilling this and escalating it such that you would become the tabernacle and there would no longer be the separation between man and God.

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Now, it's hard for some people who are jewish, modern, uh, Jews to hear this because it feels as though it's an insult to the tabernacle. But it's not. No, it's not insulting just to point out that, say, the tabernacle or the temple, once it became, you know, a solid structure, was meant to keep people away from God's presence. Even while it was meant to bring God's presence near his people, there was still a distance. That was part of the message of the tabernacle. This isn't something we're saying to insult. Um, rather, it's showing you, like the book of judges, there's a need for something greater than this. There's a need for something else. Right. This is not enough to fulfill the true needs of mankind.

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There needs to be this but something else as well. Then in verses seven of chapter three, uh, seven through. All the way through the. Through four, chapter four, verse 13, we have another warning. It's a long warning. It just goes on and on. And the basic warning is, and we'll get into detail when we get there, but don't be unbelieving. The analogy is given of the. Of the generation that came out of Egypt. They travel out of Egypt with Moses, and you'd think we saw the ten plagues. We know the power of God. We're only going to worship the God of Israel. We learned our lesson, and then as soon as they get out, they build a golden calf and they start to worship it. Then when they get out into the wilderness, after the, after the commandments are given and stuff, and God's, the tabernacle is there and the, the parting of the Red Sea and all this other stuff, they still haven't really absorbed what God has done. And they're sinning against God, they're not believing God, they're complaining against God. They don't like their circumstances. I mean, their sandals don't run out. God provides them manna. Uh, but they still aren't really believing. And so what happens? 40 years, they die in the wilderness, they don't enter the promised land.

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That analogy is used in the New Testament here to describe something that could happen to you and me.

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That's how it's used.

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Um, I don't make anybody paranoid, but I'm not going to take the teeth away from scripture by suggesting that the, that we should sort of placate our, our fears by ignoring the warnings that we see in the book of Hebrews here. Hebrews three, seven through 413. Serious warning, um, um, don't die in the wilderness. And, and why did they die in the wilderness? It says in Hebrews here, because of a lack of faith. So you as a Christian must have real, serious, genuine faith, not just a christian culture, but real faith between you and goddess. That's what you absolutely need. Um, um.

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So the rest of the. Moses. Excuse me? The rest. The rest of Moses is a thing in the book of Hebrews here, where, um, um.

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So the Old Testament has, they use the word rest a few different ways, obviously, just normal, someone sleeping, they're resting. It also uses it to talk about the Sabbath day, the 7th day. That's the day they rest, Saturday. Then it also uses it to talk about the promised land. This is a third usage where you go into the promised land and you enter into Israel, as the Jews, you enter into Israel, and now you've entered into God's rest.

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This is God's, like, happy place for his people. You've entered into his rest. And so it uses this concept of arrest now to say that Jesus prophetically provides us with the ultimate rest that not even Moses could give us, because there's escalation. So continuity, there's an old testament rest, there's. Then there's the rest Jesus gives, plus escalation. That rest was about like a promised land, but there's a greater rest, an escalated rest for God's people in salvation and in the ultimate promised land of eternal life. And heaven meeting earth and us living in perfected bodies forever, that's the rest. And so they're, they failed to enter their rest, their physical promised land in the Old Testament, through unbelief, they started with what looked like deliverance.

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But while they witnessed an amazing deliverance through the plagues and all that, they did not internalize it with genuine faith towards God. And so they ended up dying outside the land. And so Hebrews warns its readers, hey, you've seen the amazing deliverance of Jesus, don't you? Don't you be like them and just go, yeah, wow, that was pretty amazing. And then you just don't internalize it and have genuine trust and faith in Christ. That's the warning.

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So there's this enigmatic future rest that is seen as not only in, like, it's not just hijacking the old Testament, rather, it's prophetically seen in the Old Testament. This is kind of cool. We'll talk about this more when we get there. But Hebrews four three, um, uh, we who have believed enter that rest. As he has said, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

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Hmm. M there's this psalm 90 511 reference, and you would think, why is psalm 95 coming way after they've entered the promised land? The rest, they've already entered the rest. But psalm 95 tells the people, you're not going to enter my rest. And Hebrews plays this out to say, look, guys, you knew the promised land was God's rest, but there was obviously another rest because prophetically, psalm 95 later talked about a future rest and the danger of not entering it. Hebrews is like, that's the rest of Jesus. This is a prophetic echo of Christ in the Old Testament, speaking of the future possibility of entering rest through Jesus. We'll talk more about that when we get there. But Hebrews sees all kinds of layers of prophecy relating to the Old Testament and Jesus. Um, there's so much more there than people realize.

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Here's what happens with prophecy. Most christians, I think, have this understanding. There's a lot of prophecy about Jesus in the Bible. Then they, um, have maybe these track or something else, a tractor or a blog post or a video where they have, look, here's 200 prophecies Jesus fulfilled. Then one day they go and they look up individually look up these prophecies and they go, well, some of these aren't really exactly prophecies, not the kind I expect them to be. Some are, some are like direct, you know, Daniel nine talks about the Messiah and even gives a timeline has to happen before the destruction of the temple. Okay, well, that happened in 70 AD, so that narrows things down. We have psalm 22, we have Isaiah 53, we have others.

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But some stuff.

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I look up the prophecies and I don't know how is that a direct prophecy about Jesus? That Hosea passage looks like it's just talking about Israel. My son, I called you out of Egypt. Uh, that was about Israel. How is that about the Messiah? And then they start getting worried. Oh, there's only like this smattering of prophecies about Jesus in the Bible, and most of it's not really about him. Then those who study more deeply and look at, uh, and there are some who stop there, they become convinced that the New Testament writers are abusing the Old Testament and hijacking it out of context. And this breaks my heart, because these people are only half enlightened, so they have a half truth. They understand that much of the New Testament prophecies that are discussed about the old are not these plain, what I call prediction fulfillment. One to one prophecies, this will happen in the future.

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But there are oftentimes, um, typology and prophetic stuff that is not like that. It's more like Jephthah is this amazing picture of Christ in all these details, specifically, and so are so many other deliverers in the Old Testament that it's more than a coincidence. It's that kind of prophecy. Hebrews restores you from this place of, I guess there's only a smattering of prophecies about you to starting to realize, no, like Jesus says in the volume of the book, it has been written of me. Like how slow in heart to believe all that the prophets have written, that this is something that is throughout the text of the Old Testament. Hebrews is going to help us understand that, because it's going to talk about these things in detail. So this stuff with Moses, the stuff with the rest, um, tying it to things that are like, prophetic, hey, there is a future prophecy. And that's what verse five tells us in Hebrews four. Oh, I apologize. I didn't click the button. Uh uh. And again, this passage, he said, they shall not enter my rest, since, therefore, here's the logic.

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There we go. It remains for some to enter it. And those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience. Again, today, he points a certain day, saying, today, um, um. We'll get into this in more detail. How Paul's parsing and doing his bible study of the Old Testament here. I say, Paul, forgive me. I'm not saying Paul wrote Hebrews, just a slip of the tongue.

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Don't ask me who wrote Hebrews. Jo Mama wrote Hebrews. I don't know. Um, so this, uh, is where the author of Hebrews is doing a Bible study on why he sees the concept of a future rest as not just an analogy for what Jesus gives, but a prophecy about what Jesus does.

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Gotcha. It escalates it from being just an analogy to an actual prophecy. Yes. Uh, we'll get into that in greater detail as we go, but that's just the preview. I will try to substantiate it all as we dig deep on this stuff.

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Then we have, um.

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Uh, yeah, the warning, um, the rest, make sure I just lost myself in my notes, is all.

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Um, I guess I'll look at Hebrews 312 real quick to show you how this rest thing is summarized. Take care, brothers. Lest there be any of you, in any of you, an evil and unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. That's the main point. Uh, Hebrews has these warnings a number of times.

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Be aware, your part is faith. But guess what? You better have faith. You have to have persistent faith. You have to have continual faith, ongoing faith. Hebrews talks about this, um, unlike the Israelites, who sort of believed during the Passover, but faltered in the wilderness. We need to see that your faith is genuine and that it lasts. That's the warning of Hebrews.

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And when you get this, you stop laboring. That theme is going to be picked up later on. You stop laboring like as if you're working for your salvation. You stop laboring. The point, um, there, in Hebrews, is going to be picked up in relation to priests and about how your salvation is fully accomplished in Jesus. So the forgiveness of your sins is secured by God's grace, and you can come confidently and boldly in faith to Christ.

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The issue is whether you really have faith, not whether or not he'll receive you. If you do, he will. You just need to have real faith. So then we get to, um, chapter four, verse 14, and that's where it starts. Talking about the high priest. This is all the way through 510. Jesus as our great high priest. Uh, amazing stuff. Can't wait to talk about it. And there's comparisons between Jesus and Aaron, and he is. There's continuity. Jesus is like Aaron, and there's escalation how Jesus is unlike Aaron, he's greater than Aaron. So let me give you some of the summary of this here in verses one and two, Jesus of, uh, sorry, up to chapter five now. Boom. Now we're in chapter five. Um, so, um, like Aaron, Jesus is chosen among men. Jesus had to have humanity. This is speaking of his incarnation. And this way he could deal with our sins. He also makes an offering for sin, just like Aaron, he makes an offering for sin. This is Jesus substitutionary atonement. This is a doctrine that Jesus fulfills, that is in the law itself. That is right. Even the, even the sacrifices of the Old Testament, the specific things they do to deal with sin, there's continuity with Jesus.

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He does something like that, but there's escalation. What he does is actually greater. Here we go. Hebrews five, one and two.

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Um, he knows our weaknesses, and he has compassion. Jesus has, God has lived the human life, and there is this compassion that Christ has upon us, understanding our weaknesses. We learn this, um, through our lives. It's just an amazing thing to talk about God feeling your weaknesses.

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That's just an amazing thing. Amazing thing.

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Um, he's called by God, not self appointed. Jesus didn't just show up on the scene. There is a calling by God for him. And this is, um. Um. Let's see, verses five and six. Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said, you are my son. Today I have begotten you.

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Then in verse six, he also says in another place, quoting the Old Testament, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, this amazing Old Testament psalm that is a, that is used in the New Testament to say prophetically, Jesus. Washington predicted and then fulfilled this melchizedekian role. We'll talk about that in detail when we get there. But there is this Old Testament prophecy, New Testament fulfillment, and there's continuity between Aaron and Jesus. They're similar, but Jesus is greater. Let's talk about that.

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Um, unlike Aaron, how is Jesus greater? Other high priests are sinners. Jesus is not. Verse three.

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Right. Um, the Aaron has to offer sacrifices for his own sins, just as he does for those of the people. But Jesus doesn't have to offer sacrifices for his own sins. That's how he's different. Melchizedek versus Aaron is also a contrast to show the difference between Jesus and Aaron. Okay, this is kind of a lot to get into. We'll dig more into it in chapter seven. But Melchizedek is this amazing Easter egg in the Old Testament that once you start to see him for who he is, you go whoa. It's a whoa moment where you realize the twist, the unveiling, the big plot reveal of Jesus has been in the works from the book of Genesis on from the first prophetic statement about Christ that he would crush the serpent's head, the seed of the woman, um, to Abraham offering Isaac, and that being a picture of the father offering the Son to even a guy like Melchizedek, this random dude you probably forgot about when you read Genesis and then a prophecy about him years later in the Book of Psalms. We'll talk more about that later. But it shows the difference between Aaron and Melchizedek, and the Levites in Melchizedek shows the difference between Jesus and them. But it uses a figure from the historical Old Testament that predated them, showing God's hand in this. It's pretty amazing stuff. All right. In chapter four, verse 16, um, I'm bouncing around a little bit because these are sections, but it says that we can draw near. This is one of the main points of all this discussion about what Jesus has done for us.

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Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace that we may find, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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Yes, there are warnings in the Book of Hebrews. Put it on your screen.

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But there is great comfort in the Book of Hebrews. It is not the warnings. See, some people read the warnings. They don't see it in the context of the Book of Hebrews, and they don't realize that your faith is meant to be stirred up. As you read the Book of Hebrews, you were meant to be given confidence in Jesus. Some people, they don't understand the warnings, and they just feel the scariness of it, and so they walk away with less faith.

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That's a scary thing to me, to see people go through. We're not going to let you go through that. We're going to talk about it as it really is in the text.

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Read properly. The Book of Hebrews should bring you, those who have faith in Jesus should have confidence to draw near to the throne of grace that you might receive what mercy and grace and find grace to help in time of need. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful stuff. You need this stuff. How do I draw near? I draw near through Jesus, not through my own goodness, but through his intercession in Hebrews 414. That's why he's my great high priest. He is my high priest. I can hold fast my confession because Jesus is the one who stands between me and goddess, making the way for me to come to God. I come in the name of Jesus Christ.

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I don't know in the entirety of the Old Testament or new, of any high priest or priest being described as a great one.

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We have a great high priest, Jesus. See, he's our high priest, but he is, there's a great desert, an escalation, continuity, concept of a priest, right, escalation. He is our great high priest. He's the ultimate one.

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So continuity, escalation and fulfillment. And then in chapter five, verse nine, we have more escalation, and being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.

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Why do I highlight five nine? Um, because the salvation that was offered through Moses and stuff like, hey, we're saved us from the egyptian army, right? Save us from the attacking enemy, save us from this. We're going to die of starvation. Hey, we're going to die of dehydration in the wilderness. Make water come from the rock, make manna appear on the ground.

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These salvation moments are not eternal, but Jesus provides us with eternal life. He doesn't just see, he multiplies the bread for the people, and then they come asking for more bread. And he goes, no, no, no. That was just a sign to point you. I'm the bread. You trust in me, you get life eternal. He talks to the woman at the well about living water, and she goes, yeah, give me some water so I don't have to come to this well anymore. And he goes, nah, you don't get it. Super paraphrased, you just don't get it, lady. I will give you living water, which is eternal life, if you trusted me. Um, it's escalation. The salvation we get in Christ is so much greater than the stuff we read about there in the Old Testament, but it's consistent with it. There's continuity, but there's also escalation, as there is indeed fulfillment. Then in, uh, chapter five, verse eleven, all the way through chapter six, verse twelve, we have a warning about spiritual sluggards.

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Let me read to you how it starts about this. We have much to explain and much to say, and it is hard to explain. Why is it hard for him to teach them? M, since you have become dull of hearing by this time, you ought to be teachers. You need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.

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You need milk, not solid food.

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This warning about spiritual sluggishness, I think is so relevant today.

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I don't think that all the New Testament people, it's not like they were going to seminaries and they were doing all this stuff and those things are fine. Assuming your seminary is teaching good stuff, that's great. Um, and some of them do, some of them don't.

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But I do think that they were just consumed, generally speaking, with learning about Jesus, learning about the word of God. They were doing a lot of Bible studies, they were doing a lot of discussion of scripture. And, um, we often show up on our churches on Sunday for a spiritual recharge and not to go deep in our knowledge of Christ, in our knowledge of God's word. And I think that as a teacher, I get this phrase here. It's hard to explain. There's times where I'm thinking, I want to teach them this, but I feel like the audience just isn't ready for it because they don't have like the grounding, the necessary foundational groundwork for going deep on these issues. So very often pastors, as they teach on Sundays, will skip completely over really important stuff because they don't think their congregations can handle it.

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But the author of Hebrews doesn't just say, eh, uh, spiritual sluggers, I guess I won't tell it to you. He's going to give them a warning about their spiritual sluggishness, challenge them to fix the problem, and he's going to go on teaching about the stuff that he says is hard to explain. He's just going to do it anyways. I think that's good encouragement to, um, leaders and pastors. You feel frustrated, just keep preaching the word. Take your people deeper. Even if they choose not to follow you there, you continue to provide the opportunity for them to, uh, make that trip.

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Okay, so where are we at now, Melchizedek and Aaron? Um, we're going to come back to that in chapter seven. This section here is about the warning of spiritual sluggishness. Okay, so the writer just interrupts himself like it's a giant, like, periphrastic remark. Is that a word? I think that's a word.

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It's perhaps the crama. It's like, it's a, if you didn't have parentheses, they didn't have footnotes. This is like a detour within the text where he's like, hey, I'm worried about you guys. You all are spiritual sluggards. I use sluggards there because he's suggesting that, um, there's like a type of lackadaisical attitude they have toward dealing with discerning, um, good and evil in their lives. They have moral compromise that's going on, and that's leading them to spiritual blindness as to being aware of or being capable of understanding theological truths, that your sin, your sin can keep you from understanding theological truths. This is a sad reality, but, um, it is indeed the case. We are whole beings, right? Everything I do affects all that I am.

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So. But he's confident that, um, these people are still potentially saved. Put it that way. It's kind of intense. So here's the scary passage, um, verses four through eight.

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I'll just read it to you. It says here it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away. It is impossible. To do what?

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To restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the son of God to their own harm and upholding him to contempt.

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There is a group of people for which you can't restore them to repentance.

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Why? Because they are like recrucifying Jesus and holding him up to contempt.

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Then he gives an analogy for the land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

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This is a very scary thing. Uh, can you lose your salvation? This is probably where ill stop my hebrew study and ill do like a larger little project. I dont know how long itll take. If it took me weeks or months to prepare it, I really dont know. Im not in it yet. Can, um, you lose your salvation? I'll offer hopefully my conclusion, but my conclusion on this is not as interesting as the process by which we examine all the pros and cons of the different scriptures. And many of you already feel you have your answer on this, and you're welcome to keep your answer on this. Um, but I don't. And so I've held off answering this question until I could do this project. So we get to Hebrews six. I will tackle this because it's probably one of the most difficult passages related to this issue.

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If you do lose your salvation, though, it brings up a question.

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Does that mean it's lost forever, since it's impossible to restore them again to repentance? Or is there some other way of understanding that if you do lose your salvation, is it lost forever? Most Armenians who believe you can lose your salvation would not think it's generally lost forever and maybe would say this is some super rare event. What is the deal here? Well, I'm going to go deep on it. I don't have answers for you yet. Um, yeah, I'll get into it when we get there. Hebrews 6912, though, is very hopeful, even though it just laid out the scariest section of the book, in my opinion. It says here that we speak in this way. Yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation.

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We think you guys have evidence of true salvation that we're seeing in you, not, not this condemnation I just spoke of. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name, serving the saints as you still do. And he goes on, he's like, hey, so don't be sluggish. Okay? Right. Get deeper in God. Continue to grow in Christ, in your spiritual disciplines, in your rejection of sin, in your discernment of right and wrong, and in your knowledge of the doctrines and teachings of Jesus Christ and all that relates to him, including all that amazing, amazing old Testament stuff.

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So then in verses 13 through 20, oh, I did it. I did it again. I'm really not keeping up with this. In chapter six, verses 13 through 20, um, he transitions back to Melchizedek. He's given like, hey, spiritual sluggishness. Hey, you better watch out if this is you, if you're a spiritual slugger, that is not good. That's a dangerous sign. Um, and then says, yeah, but I'm confident of better things concerning you, so let's move on and get back to that Melchizedek stuff that I thought you couldn't handle. Here it comes. Anyways, drinking from the fire hydrant, chapter six, verse 13, he says, for when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, surely I will bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.

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For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes, an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise, the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. This hold fast, I mean, that's got to be one of the themes in the book of Hebrews is hold fast, have strong faith, have incredible confidence in Christ, and fear if you are outside of him. It's extreme. It is absolutely extreme. But reality is extremely so. Then, um, he's making this transition. He's moving back over to Melchizedek, and then at the end of chapter six is where he lands there. Um, so we have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. Right? The Hebrews isn't meant to leave you in fear. If you are one who has true faith in Christ, it should leave you confident, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. So much stuff there. But Melchizedek is back on deck. We're talking about Melchizedek again. And here, chapter seven, um, I'll skip this. There's temple terminology here. We'll talk about how Jesus is like the temple, how Jesus fulfills the temple, and we'll talk about all that stuff. But in chapter seven, this is all about Melchizedek. I love this passage. I love this stuff. Again. When you understand how Melchizedek pictures Jesus, you start to realize it's not just him.

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It's Moses and David and Solomon. Right? It is Jephthah. It is Isaiah we're talking about. It's Ezekiel as the son of man. We see throughout scripture. It's Jonah and the whale. There's, or whatever the animal was, the great fish. In HebRew, it doesn't specify.

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Um, the fact is that Jesus is pictured throughout the scriptures. And if you understand how HEbRewS treats the Old Testament, you can treat it the same way. You can learn to see what God always intended for you to see. Like watching that movie. Go back to my movie analogy. If you watch the movie, you have to watch it twice to understand it. Right? You can think of a film like that. Now, imagine watching it with director's CoMmENtary, and they're going, oh, yes. Well, we had this thing on the table here because it was meant to foreshadow this other thing over there.

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HebRews is the director, commentaries, director's commentary of the Old Testament. That's the book of Hebrews. You're going to understand it so much better. Okay, so Hebrews chapter seven, all about Melchizedek. Only in two short passages of the Old Testament does Melchizedek show up in Genesis 14 and in psalm 110, four verses, four verses.

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And one of them is prophetic. And so we see Jesus fulfilling that, but we have just such a tiny, tiny section of scripture that deals with Melchizedek, but he shows up in a significant moment of Abraham's life. Abraham gives him a tithe. Melchizedek presents him with, uh, bread and wine. And then in psalm 110, there's this prophecy about a future priest in the order of Melchizedek, meaning not the order of Aaron, some priest outside the law of the Old Testament. Somehow this other priest, and that's Jesus, he has continuity with Jesus. Remember, there's continuity and there's escalation and there's fulfillment. We see all three of these with Melchizedek. I'll give you the summary because we'll go verse by verse later on. Um, melchizedek. His name is Melchizedek, which means king of righteousness. Jesus is the king of righteousness. He's the righteous king, the only righteous one. But he's also the kingdom. He's also the king of peace, or the king of Salem. King of Salem. So he's the king of Salem, which is like old Jerusalem, and he is the king of peace, which is what it means. Salem. Right. Shalom. And then you've got Jesus, who's the king of righteousness, but he's also the king of peace, and he's also the rightful king of Jerusalem. There's no genealogy for Melchizedek in the Old Testament, and so Melchizedek with no genealogy pictures Jesus, who has no beginning and no end.

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Genesis has genealogies for all kinds of people. Uh, Melchizedek doesn't have one. Some people suggest that this means Melchizedek is literally eternal, and he is literally Jesus who shows up on earth. I will talk about that when we get there, and I'll offer my reasons for what I believe on that issue. Um, yeah, when we get there, we'll talk about it. So Jesus is like Melchizedek, but he's, in a sense, greater, because Jesus doesn't just offer bread and wine. He offers his flesh and blood.

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There's more. Um, Jesus in Hebrews seven is seen as greater than Abraham.

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Why? Because Abraham tithed to Melchizedek, and Jesus is likened to Melchizedek, and the one who tithes gives to the one who is greater than him, the principle that he speaks about in Hebrews. So Jesus is greater than Abraham, and that's not just something that was said in the book of Hebrews. So in John 858, we get this.

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Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am that's pretty consistent with that whole idea of Jesus being greater than Abraham and perhaps even connecting to the concept of Melchizedek. The basic, uh, ideas that are there. In John 853, they ask, are you greater than our father Abraham, who died and the prophets died? Who do you make yourself out to be?

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Indeed, right. He is greater than Abraham, and when he dies, he will rise again, proving it. So Abraham ties to Melchizedek, showing that Melchizedek is greater, Jesus is greater than Abraham. An escalation to the comparison with Jesus and Abraham.

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In Matthew twelve, Jesus does this three times. Actually, it's a theme, Jesus. So Hebrews is not doing something new, it's just doing it in more detail. In Matthew twelve, Jesus shows that he's greater than the temple and he's greater than Jonah and he's greater than Solomon. These are all like the book of Hebrews, things that are like Jesus. Jesus has continuity with them, but he has escalation. He's greater than them, and he fulfills the concepts that they embody. The temple, Solomon and Jonah.

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Uh, we'll talk about all that in detail. Right. Jonah was three days, three nights in the heart of the ocean animal, and then Jesus, three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Um, that these things, he's greater than Jonah, but there's a similarity, a continuity that's there. He's also seen as being a king and a priest. So Melchizedek is the king of Salem, but he's also a priest. Now, you didn't have king priests in the Bible. The priests couldn't be kings. The kings couldn't be priests. That's not how they functioned. Um, you had one who was royal but who was not a king, and that was Ezekiel. Ezekiel pictures Jesus in some neat ways, too. But Hebrews, uh, 711 through 28 is going to talk about this in even more detail. Um, but the kings had a davidic line. They came from the line of David. The priests had the levitical line. They came from the line of Levi. Right. And David is Judah. Different tribe. And the two were not, um, were not supposed to be coexistent. You were supposed to have a separate role for king and priest. Melchizedek picturing Jesus is a king and a priestley. And so we have something pretty interesting. Some would think Jesus can't be king and priest because Aaron couldn't be and David couldn't be. Yeah, well, Jesus is greater than Aaron and David, and he fulfills both of their roles. And Melchizedek pictures how he'll do it in Genesis, before those guys even existed. And psalm 110 prophesies it'll happen, showing that it's not a New Testament afterthought. It's an Old Testament prediction, is what it is. Neat stuff.

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So Hebrews 711 through 28, then go on to give us how Jesus priestly role. His priestly role is better than the levitical one. And his salvation did what the law could not do. So it's similar, but it's better. Again, continuity and escalation. Um, this is a major issue in the early church.

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Let me just put it on your screen so you can look at at least a few verses. I hope you have your bibles open. You're maybe even pausing and kind of reading through things as I move as quick as I can because I have a lot I want to cover, as always. Um, so Hebrews seven here, it's talking about Jesus has a priestly role. It's similar to, but better than the levitical one. And the salvation he brings is something the law could not do. There are sins that were never covered in the law.

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If you commit murder, you can't get absolution through the law of Moses. You simply can't. This is why when, uh, David kills, um, Uriah the Hittite, the husband of Bathsheba, he writes psalm 51, and he's like, there's nothing. There's no sacrifice. I would give it. If there was a sacrifice I could give, I would give it. I just. I just appeal to your mercy. I cannot find absolution for my sin in the law. Jesus is the one who can provide absolution even for murder. So Jesus provides something escalated. This is a major issue in the early church, though, that's being discussed in Hebrews seven.

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Not unhitching the Old Testament. Not the Andy Stanley stuff, which weird stuff that he's been saying for the past few years. Not that, um, that's not what the New Testament did. That's not what the early church did. But making sure, as the book of Hebrews tries to get us to see the Old Testament in the right relationship, it has to Jesus. Not unhitching it. No, no. Seeing it as in relationship, integrated in relationship with Jesus. We don't stand under the law. We stand in Jesus who fulfilled the law. But the law must remain as a testimony to Christ because it is continually affirming the reality and the truth of who Jesus is. And importantly, I might be saying stuff too quick for people. I apologize if I am.

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The law gives us the framework and the concepts for understanding who Jesus is.

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It gives us the concepts to understand who Jesus is. Right. It gives us the letters that form the word Jesus. It gives us the foundation for knowing what Jesus was all about. If you strip the law away from the concept of Jesus, if you unhitch from the Old Testament in that sense, you lose the concept of salvation through Christ that Hebrews is rejoicing over as though you're ashamed of it.

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So we'll talk about this in detail. But we're meaning like propitiation and sacrifices, levitical priesthood, mechizedekian priesthood, all this kind of stuff. You'll get it all as we go through the book of Hebrews.

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Um, it's too much to try to summarize here. Uh, but here are some quick points in Hebrews. Chapter seven.

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The levitical priesthood was never enough to deal with sin fully. We get this in verses eleven through 17.

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Psalm 110 proves this in verse four. This is the argument he's making. Um, and psalm 110 proves it. Right? Why? Because psalm 110 prophesies that someone's going to have to show up a priest like Melchizedek, not a Levite, not aaronic.

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This is the Old Testament, not the new. This is something where the Bible is pointing to Jesus and the need for Jesus and that the levitical priesthood is not enough. It's good, it's from God. It's wonderful. But it's not even meant to fully accomplish your salvation. Jesus is. It's also pointed out that the Old Testament prophecies, um, have, uh, the Old Testament prophesies the need for a priest who lives forever. You are a priest forever. There has to be an eternal priest.

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Hmm hm. All the aaronic priests suffer and die. They die. At some point, uh, there needs to be an eternal priest, and Jesus fulfills that. His resurrection fulfills the need for that.

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Point number two, on Melchizedek and all this levitical law stuff, the law was insufficient to truly purify people. There's a lot of proofs I'll give later on when we go through it verse by verse. But the law had insufficiencies there. It was meant to. It was supposed to. This isn't a problem with the law. This is, uh, a deliberate thing. The main point here is that Jesus does what the law couldn't do in forgiving your sins eternally and forgiving all sins, not just some. This was by God's initial design.

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Why do I say that? This isn't Jesus hijacking the Old Testament. No. Even Melchizedek 400 years before the law, his interactions with Abraham, it prophesies this needful thing that will happen later on that Jesus then fulfills. And psalm 110 again affirms that. Okay, more details we'll give there, but that's the basic idea. Do you get the idea that to the early church, integrating their understanding of Jesus in the Old Testament was really important? Like really important? It's throughout the gospels. The Old Testament is constantly referenced. The Book of Revelation has more allusions to the Old Testament than any other place in the Bible. It's constant throughout it. The Book of Hebrews, one of my favorite books, just is obsessed with the Old Testament. Um, and you should be too, but you have to see it in light of Christ's fulfillment, not where you're going to go and try to become like, I'm going to become, like, jewish and become an obedience to all these things. No, the book of acts deals with this. The Book of Paul's letters deal with this. The Book of Hebrews will deal with this. That's not the point. You need to find Jesus there. You don't need to find yourself under the law. That's the difference.

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So how is Jesus better? It goes on in Hebrews seven. Um, he's better than the levitical priests because he secures a better covenant than them. We'll talk more about the covenant as we go through the new covenant versus the old.

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This makes jesus a guarantor of a better covenant. It's a different covenant. It's a better covenant. It's not just any random covenant.

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There we go. Um, then Jesus is better than the levitical priests because they die. He ever lives to intercede, but they would die. Um, uh, he's holy. He doesn't offer for his own sins like they do. He just offers for our sins. And three, they continually sacrifice. They always are continuing to sacrifice and never end. Tomorrow another sacrifice, the next day another sacrifice, every year another Passover sacrifice. Jesus does one sacrifice for all. And their continual, never ceasing work is to imply, according to Hebrews, that their job is never fully accomplished because they can never truly deal with the sin of mankind. Whereas Jesus offers one sacrifice and that's it, because he truly did an offering that dealt with the sin of mankind, total and full salvation. You add nothing to what jesus did. He lives to intercede for you. He's holy. He offered one sacrifice for all mankind.

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Um, nothing else can add to him. Nothing else is needed to add to what jesus did. And I think this confronts roman catholic doctrine. I'll get to it when we get there later on. In Hebrews seven, then Hebrews eight goes even deeper, even deeper into the theology stuff. Um, let's look at Hebrews eight, verses one and two.

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If you need to, might take a coffee break.

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I can't. I can take a sip. Hebrews eight, verses one and two. On your screen, it says here, now, the point in what we are saying is this. We have such a high priest. You have to study Hebrews till this phrase, we have such a high priest, like, makes you smile like that. That's what you have to, till you have deep gratitude, appreciation, and, uh, a depth of understanding of what it means to say, we have such a high priest. He is one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord has set up, not man. All of these things are showing continuity, escalation and fulfillment with the old testament. Jesus, he's our high priest, but he's better. He's similar, but better. Um, he fulfills what was needed there. He's seated because his job is done, whereas the other priests would stand and never sit, because they were never done. He's at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven. Because indeed, indeed he is God who has done these things. Um, for us, God who took on human form, not just a high priest. He is a minister in the holy places. In the holy places. And we'll get into the theology of the temple and stuff like that. The true tent that the Lord has set up, not man.

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Yeah, we'll talk about that too.

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So this means that according to Hebrews, even the temple itself was a precursor to something greater, something that would be. Would have continuity with it, would have escalation and fulfillment in relation to it. And Jesus is the one that sets that up. Neat stuff that's there. Each phrase is packed with meaning. We'll get into it all in detail as we go verse by verse through the book of Hebrews. Um, so the apostles depend on the idea that you could find Jesus in the Old Testament. Did you know this? They actually evangelized Jews this way when they went to, uh, communities. Paul, Apollos and others would go into the synagogues, and they would have debates with jewish teachers there about how Jesus is in the Old Testament. And the Old Testament points to and teaches of Jesus Christ. Many Jews were converted as a result. Hebrews is giving us kind of a glimpse into some of that, some of those debates and some of those discussions. I think, um, chapter eight through ten goes on to compare Jesus and the law. Jesus and the law. So let me survey through that real quick. So now we're moving, moving kind of quick compared to my normal phase. When, uh, I say that quick is relative, obviously, I'm moving slow by anybody else's standards.

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Chapters eight through ten compares Jesus and the law. So not just, not just the sacrifices, but the law as a whole, all of its stuff. So there's two covenants it talks about. There's the old covenant through Moses, and there's a new covenant Jesus brings. Some might think this new covenant is something invented by the New Testament authors. Invented by Jesus. It's actually prophesied in Jeremiah. It's prophesied in the Old Testament. I'll read that to you, uh, when we get there. But we just need to know. There's an old covenant and a new covenant. That's Old Testament reality. We're just saying Jesus brought it. That new covenant the Old Testament talked about, Jesus brought it. There's two temples that are contrasted. So we have two covenants, old and new. Two temples. There's the earthly one and there's a heavenly one. There's, um, continuity, escalation and fulfillment. Then this flows naturally from the discussion of these two kinds of priests, the levitical priest and I, and the melchizedekian priest. Continuity, escalation, fulfillment. There's ways that Jesus is better. His tent is better. The two temples, his is better because one was an earthly tabernacle, and it was in, according to Hebrews eight, five, a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things. And it. Okay, I won't get into it today, but it's cool how it's worded. It ties this idea of a heavenly temple into the Old Testament, not a New Testament reality. His sacrifices are better then the aaronic priests and their sacrifices. It talks about details on how they're better because you have his offering for our sins. But also he can bring sacrifices of joy, of love. There's other kinds of. We'll get into it. Um, his covenant is also superior. The old covenant is the law with its sacrifices, tabernacle and priesthood. Jesus gives us a new covenant in grace, not law, in his own sacrifice, which is greater than any of the sacrifices those priests would have given. And it's his own mediation, his own priestly mediation that's there. Instead of, uh, a priesthood between you and God, it's just Jesus bringing you to God. This is not a New Testament invention. Let's look at Hebrews 8812. So you can see what I mean?

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For he finds fault with them, according the Old Testament here, when he says, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord.

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Paul here is quoting the Old Testament to prove that this new covenant thing is not a new idea, it's an Old Testament idea. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers, uh, on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, so I showed them no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God and they shall be my people. They shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, for I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more. Deep internal knowledge of God, relationship with God, knowing the Lord individually. We're talking about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We're talking about what we see in the book of acts and forgiveness of sins that will be remembered no more. And a new covenant, that's Jeremiah 31, that we just read in the book of Hebrews, Jeremiah 31 31 through 34. God always planned the new covenant. Everything Jesus did was in the mind of God, from Genesis one and before that, really. But it was always there throughout the text of scripture. Hebrews now starts to make clear a point that has only been floating around through the book. And in verse 13 is where you start to see it. In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. And we get into discussions here, we will, um, um, about the nature of our relationship with the law, obedience to the law. There's a movement even now of, um, people who want to be under the law, or at least observe the law. They feel as though christians today, if you're going to really follow Jesus, you're going to really get into your roots of following Jesus. You gotta, you gotta walk according to the law of Moses to whatever capability you can. And we'll talk about that movement, and we'll ask, how do they handle a verse like this? What's becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away? How does the new covenant. Make the first one obsolete. What is going on there?

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How do we interpret that? And we'll get into that in detail. What, uh, follows. This is a contrast between the old covenant tabernacle.

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I hope you were deeply interested in this because I am. The old covenant tabernacle and Jesus ministry and how it's similar, but Jesus is greater. That's what chapter nine is about. Chapter nine gets into this idea of, uh, going, uh, taking a tour through the tabernacle and seeing how it pictures Jesus Christ. Each image in the tabernacle is fulfilled by Jesus. That's chapter nine, verses one through ten.

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I think a lot of people miss out on this stuff. Um, you might think I'm taking liberties when I teach through chapter nine. You can make up your own mind on that. I, um, think I'm actually catching the heart of it. We'll see. God help me. In it, each image of the tabernacle, as you tour through it in chapter nine, each image is fulfilled by Jesus, I believe, and I'm gonna make a case for it when we go verse by verse. But the main point is this. There are shortcomings in the tabernacle. Paul's meaning to highlight the shortcomings because he doesn't want to lower Jews appreciation for the tabernacle. But sometimes what we do is we take something God gave us and we exalt it beyond its proper place, and then we miss out on something God is giving us. Like, I think that, for instance, Roman Catholicism and the way it deals with Mary, even many orthodox, the way they deal with Mary is like this. They take something wonderful, like Mary, blessed among women, which she is, and they exalt her beyond proportion. And then she begins to take the place of Jesus in their lives, in their prayers, and in their trust. Um, and now, does it happen in every case? No, of course not. But it certainly is a trend. It certainly is a trend. And so the Jews could take the tabernacle and they could elevate it to the point of not realizing, like, Jesus is the one who built it, right? Jesus is the one who it's all about. Jesus is the one that it points to. So we're going to take this tour and realize the tabernacle had shortcomings, right? For instance, the holy of holies is barred. Hebrews nine deals with this. You can't go into the holy of holies.

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Why is that a bad thing? Well, that's where the very presence of God is. Only the high priest is able to enter and only once a year. That's in Hebrews nine, seven, eight. Why is that a bad thing? Well, don't you want to be near God? You can't.

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It's showing there's a shortcoming. It's not that there was a flaw. It's saying that it was insufficient to actually unite man to God. But in the second, only the high priest goes that holiest place, and he but once a year, and not, uh, without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people.

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The high priest can only go once a year, and he had to offer sacrifices for himself before he even went in. It was like even once a year and just for a procedure, and then he had to get back out. By this, the Holy Spirit indicates what? That the way into the holy place is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing.

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When Jesus died, that veil ripped, separating the cloth that kept you out of the holy of holies, to show that Jesus has made the way into the holy of holies.

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This is a good thing. This is a way in which Christ's work is similar to the high priest goes in once a year to keep going in. Jesus goes in tears, the curtain apart, offers himself, and then there is no longer a sacrifice, there's just an open door to enter into God's presence.

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Similar, right? Continuity, escalation, fulfillment. Amazing, um, amazing stuff. Verse, uh, ten shows that, shows us that the earthly tabernacle pertained to earthly things. And this is something a lot of people miss when they're reading the Old Testament, but it's kind of obvious to, once you think about it. The stuff in the Old Testament, sacrifices, um, cleanliness, stuff about like how to handle leprosy, what to do when you're unclean for a few days. This kind of stuff that deals with food and drink in various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation. This affirms a couple things, that those cleanliness things, the food and drink and washings, are temporal. They're for Israel for a time, leading to Christ, who fulfills it. And then as a Christian, you're not under those things. Um, but they're meant to be a picture, but they deal with earthly things. Whereas Jesus cleanses the internal conscience of man. He cleanses you from the inside, not the outside of the cup, but the inside.

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And so you don't need the outward ritual because you have the inner reality.

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We'll talk more about that, but this is in contrast to the tabernacle. So Jesus enters. Okay, there's a tabernacle on earth. The high priest enters over and over again, always, continually, yet the separation is always there. Jesus enters into heaven with his sacrifice, into the heavenly tabernacle. This is the language Hebrews uses. He sacrifices his own blood, whereas the priest uses the blood of animals. He fully cleanses, uh, us, where. Whereas the priest, it's a ceremonial type thing. Most of the stuff that they're doing, he secures eternal redemption. Not a temporary ceasefire. That's actually. You're like, why are you saying that, Mike? I'm summarizing what I'm reading. Verse twelve. He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

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Right. Because if the blood of bulls and goats is like, hey, this helps you out till next year, or this helps you out till next time, if that secures a ceasefire.

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Not eternal redemption, a ceasefire. Jesus gives us eternal redemption. The next time you sin, you need to realize Jesus has already made the sacrifice for your sin.

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The sacrifice has already been made and he ever lives to intercede for us to go to God on our behalf, presenting that sacrifice with a one time sacrifice that he. That he has given, so he secures eternal redemption for us. Um, the tabernacle was meant to teach us the need for sacrifice and blood. The rituals, they kind of like, reiterate. See, there's sacrifice, atonement, a substitute. You're getting these lessons over and over again in the Old Testament. Jesus then comes and brings the ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate blood that did the ultimate job so that we could be forgiven. There's continuity, escalation and fulfillment. Verse 22, it says, indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood. Right? That's that repeated stuff in the Old Testament that's meant to prepare you to understand the new. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. This is the principles you're learning. Because the New Testament is built upon the old, so Jesus comes and he ultimately fulfills that. Then chapter nine, verse 23, all the way through 1018, a large section, we get, uh, a long discussion of why Jesus's sacrifice is the better sacrifice. I won't read through this section, of course, but he gives a one time sacrifice that has a continual effect forever, as opposed to the high priests who would give continual sacrifices that all had a temporary effect that had to be redone. That's the contrast. Now we get the significance of Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Father. This is kind of cool. Um, so Jesus sits in hebrews one. Remember, he's seated at the right hand of the most high. That was in the intro because that's like the key to the book.

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Now we get the significance of that. It's a visual message that his task is done. In chapter ten, verses eleven and twelve. Now we're in ten. In chapter ten, verses eleven and twelve, we see that the high priest is always standing and there's no sitting in the temple. He couldn't sit anywhere in the temple. This is a visual message. God saying, your job is never done. Jesus offers a sacrifice and then sits. He's seated with the father because his sacrifice is done.

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Uh, I think it's neat. So continuity, escalation and fulfillment. Um, this is often forgotten when people quote chapter ten, verse 18. Let me read it to you. This context, people forget, so then they misunderstand. Verse 18.

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Um, where there is forgiveness of these, there's no longer any offering for sin.

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Um, some people see this as a warning. Um, I guess it could be if you reject Jesus, you have no other offering for sin. If you reject Jesus. But what we're saying is you don't have another offering to give. When you've sinned, you appeal back to the offering that was already given. Jesus. You don't bring another offering. My daily walk with God, my daily need for grace is secured by the cross of Jesus and his one time offering. I don't need another offering. There's no new offering. There's no additional offering. I have the one time sacrifice of Jesus for my sins.

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It's a blessing. It's also a warning.

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Right? Because there's no other offering. If you reject Jesus, there's nothing else. There's no offering for your sin. There's no second way to God. He's the way, the truth and the life.

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As, uh, scripture says, as Jesus says, no one can come to the father except through him.

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Then ten 931 is another big warning section in the book of Hebrews. Um, one of the scariest passages and also commonly misunderstood rightfully. Um, scary. I'm not trying to unscare the passages. I just want us to know when we should actually be scared versus when we're just being paranoid.

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So, Hebrews ten, verses 19 through 31. Um, I'll just read a few verses starting in verse 26.

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For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sinse. Right? Why? Because Jesus is the only sacrifice. You catch that? Verse 18 I quoted to a moment ago, here's why Jesus is our sacrifice. There's no other sacrifice. If we go on sinning, deliberately rejecting Jesus's sacrifice, turning from Jesus's sacrifice, that's the context. There's no, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a, uh, fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. Here's a continuity, escalation and fulfillment moment. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the spirit of grace?

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Um, this section is to say, um, I guess here's the question we ask. What do we mean by willful sin? Who sins willfully if you go on sinning willfully? Um, I have been a Christian for many years. There are times I still willfully sin. It is not a boast.

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It's happened.

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Um, this is probably true for you. You could probably say the same thing some would say. They don't. I never will fully sin.

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I'll be honest. Me and many others very much doubt that that's true. There are some who just convince themselves that they never willfully sin because their justification machine is very well oiled.

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That's just the reality of things. I think.

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I think that it's not any willful sin that's in light of Hebrews ten. I think it's the specific willful sin of treating Christ's sacrifice as if it's not enough for you, or that you're going to offer some other sacrifice instead. That to me, seems to be a willful sin. It could be going back to the temple system, not doing the temple system in any way, but specifically as a way of saying, um, Jesus. Yep, I believe him. But I'm also going to sacrifice this bull, because if I don't, I'm not going to make it.

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Thus trampling the sacrifice of Christ underfoot.

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There are in the book of acts events where, um, even the apostles continued offering certain sacrifices. They were not trampling the son of God underfoot by offering sacrifices. It depends on the attitude with which they would have done it. Were they doing it in rebellion to God or, or realizing how it connects to Jesus and what he's done? We'll talk more about that when we get to all these stuff, all this stuff in Hebrews.

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But, yeah, it's pretty, uh, pretty heavy stuff. Hebrews, uh, 1032 through 39. The rest of the chapter, it just talks about our need to persevere in faith. This is the constant drumbeat of Hebrews when it, it's like it will turn to Jesus and talk about him in the Old Testament and all these pictures. Then it will turn to you, the reader, and be like, persevere in faith. Persevere in faith. Have confidence. Have confidence. Then it will turn back and it will turn to you again and be like, have confidence. And it'll be like, because the danger is there if you don't, it's, it's going to be real about all that stuff.

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So, Hebrews ten, persevere in faith. Uh, verses 32 through 39, we uh, often argue about whether people can lose salvation. Um, either way, this is, this is, the need is that you have to persevere in faith. Whether you think you can lose it or if it means you never had it in the first place.

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My encouragement is before, don't obsess over that so much as you obsess over the fact that you need to persevere in faith. Uh, do you feel yourself getting cold in your walk with Christ? You need to go back and do those things that bring you fresh focus and awareness and appreciation and love for Christ. You need to persevere in faith. Hebrews reminds us and its readers that their old zealous, their willingness to suffer for Christ that they had before, is what they need to have again.

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Don't grow cold. That's, that's the message we're getting here in Hebrews ten. Don't grow cold. And I think that's a wonderful thing to camp out on. Hebrews eleven, chapter eleven, the hall of faith, famous section of the book of Hebrews. Um, not as famous as melchized, the Melchizedek. Not as famous as, excuse me. It's probably sad that Hebrews eleven is so famous, and yet other passages in Hebrews people are largely unaware of. Um, at any rate, Hebrews eleven three, it shows that God created ex nihilo, created creation out of nothing, which is a, ah, rare scientific prediction in scripture that in fact was confirmed over the past hundred years. And we'll talk about that. It's pretty cool stuff.

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Um, later on, then we see this hall of faith. Um, now we see this in the context of all these individuals. They believed God, they trusted God, they went through hardships, and I could read through them all. You could read through them all. This is the easy reading part. And you just start loading all these Old Testament stories in your mind as you read Hebrews eleven, and it's neat stuff. Pause at each one. Go read their story if you don't know it.

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But this hall of faith is given for a reason. It's meant to tell you that you have to persevere, that you, as a Christian, need to persevere. They're not just cute stories. They're stories you're supposed to identify with and recognize. You must continue seeking to have confident and strong and lasting faith in Christ. Faith has always been the standard. Here's some points that we get from Hebrews eleven.

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Faith has always been the standard, even in the Old Testament, even when they didn't know much about Jesus, faith was the standard. Not works, faith. Faith leads to works, yes, but faith is the standard itself. Um, faith is also in Hebrews eleven. It's about distant future blessings in the midst of present trials.

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And I feel we are always learning this in life and especially when you get older.

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Having seen people get much older, people I've been close with, I realize how much more Hebrews eleven must mean the older we get and the more hardship we have. Uh, faith is often about distant future blessings you're waiting on way out there in the midst of present trials. And that's what Hebrews eleven talks about over and over again, all the examples that they give. It's amazing. We are always learning this. Hebrews 1113 says the following.

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These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

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If Jesus tarries, this is our fate, every single one of us. It's a difficult and dark thing to think about. If you don't die suddenly, that you will be this. I'm going to die in faith. Not just die. I'm going to die in faith. I haven't received the things promised, but I've seen them, and I greet them from afar off, and I acknowledge I'm a stranger and an exile on this earth.

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So, Christian, do not seek a homeland here. Right? Just like Abraham, don't seek a homeland here. This is a good reminder in current political struggles, yes, you can struggle as a representative of the kingdom, but this is not your final home. It shouldn't pacify you from all activity of helping people in your lives and being involved. And we shouldn't act like I'm not going to care about any of that. I'm just about the kingdom of God. Well, these are real people that are being affected by politics. We should care. We just have to always carry politics in perspective to our commitment to our true kingdom, the kingdom of Christ. And, um, easier said than done, I acknowledge. But it's a principle that every Christian should probably agree with, at least, um, so we don't seek a homeland here.

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Verse 19, it ties the. This is kind of cool. It ties the offering of Isaac to the concept of Christ's resurrection, suggesting that there's a hint at the resurrection of Jesus in the book of Genesis. We'll talk about that. There's, uh, a continual focus through all these things on future blessings. So in the examples, Hebrews eleven gives the hall of faith. We have Isaac. When he's dying, he invokes blessing on future generations. Jacob, when he's dying, he invokes blessings on future generations. Right? There's an emphasis on future blessings. Joseph, when he dies, he has faith in the future. Exodus. So he's like, carry up my bones with you, Moses. He refuses the kingdom of Pharaoh, hoping instead for God's kingdom and accepting the pain that came with it, because he had a choice between two kingdoms. And what does he end up getting? He ends up getting, um, this rabble in the wilderness. But he knows he's part of God's ultimate kingdom, the Red Sea crossing, the fall of Jericho, Rahab, siding with the spies. They all speak of trusting future blessings in the face of present suffering. And that is where you're at probably today, probably right now. Be strong in faith. Be a simple Christian who says, I'm not of this world. My treasure is not here, but my treasure is secure. And that's what I wait upon, is the eternal kingdom of Christ. And that's where my hope is. And I confess, I don't have it all in this life, but I don't expect to.

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Hebrews chapter twelve and 1312 and 13. Let's start with twelve. It's focused on application. These two chapters. Application. Application is the major focus. There's other things there, but application, uh, it's kind of cool because Hebrews has invigorated us with all this theology and stuff, and now it's just gonna start giving these boom, boom, boom, heavy, hard hitting, simple application stuff. Um, so you are to face pain, deny sin, and follow Jesus into his promises. That's kind of the main thrust at first. Face pain, deny sin, and follow Jesus into his promises. So, twelve one, we read about the cloud of witnesses. You guys have seen twelve one. People quote it all the time. Um, often this one is misunderstood.

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The cloud of witnesses in Hebrews, twelve one is not people watching you. It's people witnessing to you, and they're witnessing to you from the Old Testament. So you read about the stories of Enoch and Abraham and Isaac and Rahab. You read about these people, and they're witnessing to you that you would face pain, deny sin, and follow Jesus into his promises. So we're part of their same story. We, uh, do tend to devalue our experiences. We tend to think like, well, Rahab was great and David was great, and all these people were great.

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And you don't have to convince yourself. You're like, I'm like King David, great. But you should, as a Christian, acknowledge that you are a member of the body of Christ.

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You are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And what you go through matters. And the situations you're in are significant.

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One of the saddest things is when we as humans, start to think our lives don't actually matter that much. You cannot say that as a Christian, your life matters quite a bit. And I'm not trying to hear, um, there's a part of us that has. We have an unceasing. A lot of us anyways, we have an unceasing desire for affirmations, like, I have a hole no affirmation can fill. And I'm not trying to do that to you.

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I'm trying to help you realize that the time you waste in this life matters. The relationships you have with family, friends, even strangers, those things are significant even if you feel they're not that important. You're just wrong.

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And the trials you go through, the suffering you face, the opportunity to endure and follow Jesus is very important. And it's very important now that you take action to serve the Lord with your life.

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You're significant, but not in the Oprah Winfrey way. You're significant in the sense of God matters, and he has chosen you. You want to honor God with your life.

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So, um, we have the cloud of witnesses. Don't, um, devalue your experiences. Yep. You're part of the same story as them. Don't become lazy because you feel like your stuff just isn't important. I know that temptation. I have faced it myself. So now you're running a race. Hebrews twelve one talks about it.

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It's already on your screen. We are to lay aside every weight and the sin. Anything that slows you down. Any sin which clings so closely and run with endurance. Endurance. The race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Then it talks about how he did the same thing we read about in the hall of faith for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. There's him seated again. Another theological concept is dropped in the middle of a verse.

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Powerful stuff. He was just trying to get you to see this joy, not as a present happiness, right? Joy that is set before you.

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Joy as a future expectation, not as a present happiness. It affects my present attitude, but it's something I'm anticipating in the future. Don't you have joy in the Lord?

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Yes, I have joy in the Lord, but I also have the expectation of the incredible joy of being with the Lord for all eternity. And that gives me courage. Not just joy, it gives me courage in the present.

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Powerful stuff. So chapter twelve then, goes on to give us a lot of application. Tons of application. I'm just going to survey through some of it. Um, endure hostility from sinners without growing weary or faint hearted. That's important. Without growing weary or faint hearted. So you don't become a coward. And you don't become just like, oh, I'm just sick of it. You endure it. This is not a God has a wonderful plan for your life verse, Hebrews twelve three. It's a God wants people who are prepared to suffer for their faith verse. Let's put it on your screen.

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You must consider the one who endured hostility, so you will be able to endure hostility as well.

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It says this in verse four. Um, in your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

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You haven't even bled for your resistance against sin. You're like, I'm trying to stop watching so much Netflix, but it's hard.

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He was just like, you haven't even. You aren't even dying for your resistance against sin. You're, like, struggling sissy Lala struggles, come on, weak Christian. You haven't even bled for it yet.

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Um, my encouragement would be, don't pretend that you would bleed for Jesus if you won't resist. Like, Netflix for Jesus. There's, like. I'm not saying all Netflix is evil, but. But certainly some of it is. And certainly some of this stuff, it can either. There's got to be. We got to have. Be self limiting as christians with all this stuff. If you're not, um, you're gonna have problems.

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So I can be hypothetically strong in Christ, but practically, I can actually be weak in Christ, because I can think, oh, I would die. I would never deny his name. And yet what do I do for his name in reality. In Hebrews twelve 411, we read about chastening, and I will get into this in detail, but the basic idea is that God will put you through hardship as a Christian because he's training you and chastening you. And it's a type of, you could say, punishment. But the word chastening is used there for a reason, in Hebrews, um, because it's meant to train you, it's meant to fix you, to adjust you. And so we'll talk about when God puts us through hardship intentionally, because we need to be taught a lesson like a kid needs to be spanked.

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All right, then we get to chapter, uh, twelve. Verses twelve through 1712 through 17, which is, um, about. I'll call it self work. Okay? I'll call it self work. Uh, therefore, lift up your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather healed. This is about get up as a Christian and start fighting. And you're like, yeah, I'm ready to fight. And he goes, yeah, all right. Strive for peace with everyone. It's not the machismo fight that you might be thinking of. It is. It is the christian fight. Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. This is what I would call self work. As a Christian, they're not psychological tips, and it's not psychological trips through childhood trauma. We often think of, like, I'm going to sort of, like, relive my. My life as a kid. There can be some benefit to this, but it can also lead to a narcissistic personality, a person who is sort of self obsessed with all their own issues. Um, we have to be careful with these things, okay? There's pitfalls on every side. As a Christian, I am told to be active in strengthening myself to serve the Lord.

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I do it in light of all the work of Christ. I do it in light of his love and his grace and his kindness and all the witnesses telling me of their sacrifice and their hopefulness in the face of pain and suffering. But then, at the end of all that, I'm told, hey, lift up your drooping hands. Some would call this your bootstrapping, your own spirituality, but, uh, you're doing it on the back of all the truths that have been stated throughout the book of Hebrews here. But you do have action to take. Yes. You need to get your situation right as a Christian here. Get strong. Stop sinning. Don't be divisive beware of the bitterness that comes into your heart. Avoid sexual immorality right here, verse 16.

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Don't let bitterness come in to your fellowships and your attitude towards other believers.

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That's your job. You got to do that. Don't just ask God, uh, to make it happen to you. He's already done a bunch of stuff. Now he's asking you to interact with it. So this is like self work as a Christian, I think it's motivating. I think it's encouraging. Unless you're one of those people who's like, I refuse to take any responsibility for my own spiritual growth, in which case this is going to be offensive. It's going to be like nails on a chalkboard to you. But you have to change your mind. If that's you, you gotta start thinking differently for your own sake.

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Um, then Hebrews 1218 through 29, more comparisons to the old covenant. So we're not just application here. Um, it talks about how when they were gathered before Mount Sinai, they couldn't touch the mountain because, like, God would strike them dead. Moses tell them, don't even come near the mountain. But instead, with Jesus we can draw near. It was fear on Mount Sinai, but with Jesus it's a feast, and we draw near to God. We come close. It's like, uh, Mount Sinai. There's continuity there, though. There's an ultimatum. Mount Sinai brought the law. It was like, obey me or else Jesus brings the gospel. And it's like, trust Christ for your salvation, or there is no other way. There's an ultimatum that's there. That's in verse 25.

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See that you do not refuse him. Who is speaking for. If they did not escape when they refused him, who warned them on earth? Moses and the law. Much less will we escape if we reject him. Who warns from heaven? A constant theme in the book of Hebrews. Jesus is not only God's salvation, but he is God's ultimatum. He is both of those things.

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So this, uh. Then it goes on to remind us that final judgment is coming, and that final judgment is very serious. He's going to shake all things. And the Bible is never shy about God judging the world. As a Christian, you should not be shy about that either. I know that people feel like they can't talk about it, or they have to. Like, suddenly they could talk about heaven, like, glorious in the presence of God and the joy that it's going to be there.

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But when they talk about hell, they're like, you know, the other place, and there's a natural discomfort that's there. But all I can say is, this guy's. It's coming whether you talk about it or not. We should tell people truth so that they can respond to those truths. Jesus certainly was unashamed of talking about those things, even though it made people mad. Then we get chapter 13. So, chapter 13, um, it feels like the author was sort of running out of space. Okay. And that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing, but it almost feels like. I don't remember, you know, we could look it up, maybe how long a scroll is and stuff like that. I feel like Hebrews, the typical scroll size would have fit more, but it feels like he's running out of space or time or just wanted to cram a lot of things into a small place. And so chapter 13 feels like this. It talks about brotherly love, it talks about hospitality. It talks about helping imprisoned and persecuted christians. The value of the sanctity of marriage. Many christians don't get this today, and I can't wait to teach on it. The danger of the love of money and of being discontented. Materialism, um, how to be content with less than you feel like you want in life. And we'll talk about how you can actually be content and learn that, um, how to treat church leaders. It talks literally. The bible tells you how to deal with elders in your church, and it's. And you're not going to like it.

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Yield to them and make their job easy is one of the commands that's in there. Um, obviously, some of them mess up.

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That doesn't change the general rule, does it? Um, it really doesn't. We got to be people who are humble and yielding. That's what we're called to be. So it talks about this, and then, um, watch out for doctrinal detours. There's a warning about. Not doctrine, about doctrinal detours, about heading into doctrines that are distractions, that are not intended for you, that are unhealthy and unhelpful, and, um, ultimately nothing real. Christian doctrines, it warns about those things. Because guess what? A Christian who has everything else in their life, right, could still fall into weird theology. And the Internet is like, the breeding ground for this sort of thing. This is exactly where it happens. So that'll be a good warning. We'll talk about doctrinal detours.

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Um, doesn't mean you can't talk about deep theology. Deep theology. I mean, it's not a detour to talk about Melchizedek and how he represents Christ or something like that. Um, but rather there are some things that are. So we'll talk about that.

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Then there's more typology. Hebrews 13 more typology is discussed where Jesus fulfills the sacrifices of the Old Testament, the actual animal sacrifices, how they represent Jesus, specifically the day of atonement. Yom Kippur still observed today, though the Jews observing it today. It's nothing like it was in the first century or in the time of Moses, or in the time of anyone in the Bible. Very, very different. We'll talk about that too, then. The need, the desperate need to be continually praising and thanking God. That is, you have a spiritual need to practice the discipline of being thankful to God on a continual basis. Um, we think of like rejecting sin as a spiritual discipline, saying no to sin the moment you're tempted, going, no, Lord, I reject that. I'm going to serve you instead. There is a spiritual discipline we think of as reading the word on a regular basis. Spiritual discipline of praying on a regular basis.

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A spiritual discipline of going to church on a regular basis.

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But there is an emphasis in Hebrews on being thankful, like actually saying thank you to God on a regular basis. That's a spiritual discipline too. And it's actually really huge. We'll try to rescue that back into people's lives. Uh, then it talks again about submission to leaders in Hebrews 13. And man, I really hope the video I do on chapter 13, whether it's one video or multiple, that it gets a lot of views. The truth is that sometimes I have really good content, but it doesn't lend itself well to like thumbnails and titles. And Hebrews 13, going through all these different things, it doesn't lend itself well to thumbnails and titles, will probably be one of the worst viewed videos on the series. But I hope a lot of people find it because it's going to really help their lives. This is stuff everyone desperately needs, stuff they tend to think they already have, which, which is what makes it so hard to get people to watch something like that, because they think I'm already. I got that squared away. Um, but we don't. You don't and I don't. And that's why we need this. We need this stuff. Um, there's, there's also a. Let's see. Um, I skipped it, but Hebrews eleven talks about the need to go to church. Yep, you do need to go to church. And you may not like my terminology, technically, church is not the building. Yeah, I know, I know that, but go gather with the Believers, in the name of being the church.

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Hebrews talks about that too. We'll get into there in Hebrews eleven. Um. Let's look at or ten. Excuse me.

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The benediction. The benediction. So this is the end of the book of Hebrews. Towards the end. The benediction here. It's beautiful. I just want to read it to you now. May the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant. And that should be so meaningful by the end of the book of Hebrews, the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will working in us, that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

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That's the benediction. Then there's a little statement, like, almost like a personal note. Statement. References, Timothy here.

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Um.

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This whole section should be so deeply meaningful by the end of you studying through the book of Hebrews. He's the God of peace and he's brought me peace. He raised Christ from the dead. He's my great shepherd. The new covenant and the blood and the sacrifice and all those things that he's talked about. Anyway, it's amazing. Beautiful stuff.

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It, um, closes by mentioning Timothy after that. And no, I don't know who wrote the book of Hebrews. Uh, maybe I'll do a video covering that debate. At some point in the series. We'll just pause and do who wrote Hebrews thing. I don't know. I probably, when they make the video, will probably say, I don't know, but I could present some of the cases. Here's a case for this person. That person, that person. Was it Paul Apollos or was it Barnabas? Priscilla, some would say. If you say it was Priscilla, you're probably egalitarian. I don't know many non egalitarians that suggest it was Priscilla. Um, um, which I don't care if it was, but then, um. Uh, we'll do. I'll deal with some of the pros and cons there. Was it just some unnamed, some person we don't know?

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We'll talk about it, uh, potentially maybe. We'll see. We'll see. I have all sorts of videos I haven't thought about doing yet that will come to me as I'm studying the book with you. Hebrews is amazing deep theology typology that is the Old Testament and its continuity and escalation and fulfillment in the new. Um, but Jesus changes things. The law leads you to Jesus. And then Jesus fulfills and supersedes it, standing upon it, in a sense, but having fulfilled it, Jesus is seen. Here's some summaries. As our messenger, he's like the angels, but he's God's son. He's greater than the angels, but he's a messenger like the angels. He's a covenant bringer, like Moses. He's the apostle of our confession. Jesus is both the heavenly and human messenger. As angels are heavenly messengers. Moses was a human messenger. Jesus is like both of them. He's heavenly and human, but he's greater than both, for he's not an angel. He's the son. He's not Moses. He's the son. He's greater than Moses, not only because he's a son, not a servant, according to Hebrews, but he's. He's the builder of the house, not part of the house. He also gives us rest where Moses couldn't. That's. And there's prophecy in the old Testament about that. Jesus is compared to the priest. As we go through Hebrews, um, the priests. Priests have an earthly temple. Jesus has a heavenly temple. Here, I'll do it this way. They are, ah, levitical. He's melchizedekian. The levitical historically is predated. Right. They're later than the m melchizedekian priesthood. Jesus predates, and he prophetically post dates the Levites, showing that they're temporary, because psalm 110 shows that there's going to be a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, and boom, Jesus shows up. He's greater than them because the tithing of Abraham also. They offer continual sacrifices. Jesus offers one. They are sinful. Jesus is sinless. They give animals. Jesus offers himself. They stand and never sit because they're never done. Jesus sits because he's completed the offering for us. They offer for Israel. Jesus offers for all people. Jesus brings forgiveness beyond what the law could because it didn't have provision for every kind of sin the way jesus does.

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These are some of the parallels we're getting in Hebrews now that I've surveyed. I'm going to summarize. Right. Jesus gives a better covenant. Right. There were laws were written on stone. Jesus writes them in our hearts. Those were outer rules given to man. Whereas according to Jeremiah 31, Jesus is going to give us an inner transformation by the work of God's spirit.

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Uh, the covenant couldn't give you total forgiveness. Jesus does give you total forgiveness. And this is all prophesied ultimately in Jeremiah 31.

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So it's not just better. There's a fulfillment that's there. There's major warnings. Through the book of Hebrews, we talked about this, the weight of the message. There are eternal consequences for this, versus there were temporal consequences, mostly for Moses, uh, covenant, for breaking it and violating it in some way. Um, there's exclusivity in Christ. There's no other sacrifice. He's the only one. There's a warning there. And if you fail to trust in Jesus alone as sufficient for your salvation, there's nothing left for you. There's no other covering for your sin than Jesus.

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There's also a warning for us to not resist against us, uh, failing to resist temptation and sinning, even, uh, to the point of pain and death, that you should resist sin even if it causes you to suffer. This is very important. This is you following in Jesus's footsteps, in the apostles footsteps. This is just the christian life.

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To turn from sin, not only to the point of feeling bored or like you're not getting what you want to, but actually willing to suffer and even die for Christ. That's a spiritual discipline.

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Then there's needful application, uh, to be confident in Jesus salvation, to draw near. Yes, I see the chasm of fear that exists for those who are apart from Christ. But I am in Christ. I have confidence in Jesus. I should draw near. You're supposed to have confidence after Hebrews in Christ. You just have no confidence for those outside of him. There is pragmatic instruction on contentment, greed, church involvement, dealing with elders, all sorts of other things, casting off sin and running with endurance. All this stuff, and this is just the scratching of the surface, the tip of the iceberg. This begins, today's video begins the hebrew series. This book will probably change your life. I believe it will. It's inspiring. It is terrifying. It is brilliant. It's the road to Emmaus. I want to share this with you. The road to Emmaus is this amazing story in the gospel of Luke where Jesus shows up after his resurrection and he's walking with two disciples, and they're there. They don't yet know Christ has risen. They've heard rumors of whatever. There's weird things going on, but they don't, they don't know Jesus has risen yet. They don't. Haven't heard that. Um, they're walking on the road to Emmaus and they're discussing with themselves how disappointed they are in the death of Christ. Jesus shows up in their midst. They don't recognize him, and he gives them a Bible study through the Old Testament, showing them how all this stuff told that Jesus would come, he would die, he would rise again, and all these things were predicted from the Old Testament. This is an amazing thing. And every one of us has the same response. We read Luke 24 and we go, oh, I wish I could have been there for that. I wish I could have heard jesus do a Bible study through the Old Testament, surveying how it represents Christ and how it prophesies and teaches of Christ.

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Hebrews is like that. Study Hebrews. These 13 chapters is like us walking the road to Emmaus and getting it from the Lord, from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit himself.

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The unveiling of how the prophets, the law, all this points to Christ. Hebrews is the key, and we barely scratched the surface.

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Next week, we're going to dig into Hebrews chapter one. We'll start with the very beginning, and we'll be comparing the theology of who Jesus is in Hebrews one with Jehovah's Witnesses and Arianism and, like, basically false theology about Jesus. The passage is so well suited to dealing with cults that I don't think it's an accident. We'll not only see that Jesus is God's messenger, escal like, but escalated from the angels. We'll answer all the questions, we'll get into the nitty gritty details, we'll understand the meaning of the phrases and all that. Hopefully I can do it in just one study. I don't know. I don't have an exact roadmap each week or each, uh, it won't even be every week, but each time we do a study through Hebrews, I'm just going to pray, seek, study a bunch, and then bring it to you to help you learn to think biblically. We'll cover theology, we'll cover apologetics, we'll cover some slight doctrinally, doctrinal like, I don't want to call them, but basically we'll launch from Hebrews onto questions that are very relevant to our lives today that relate to Hebrews, even though they weren't the direct teaching of it at the time. All of that stuff's going to be covered. This is the hebrew series. You can find a link below to the entire series as I release videos. I'll put a playlist link in each video. And thank you guys, if you appreciate this. Um, this is my favorite thing to do. First by verse study of all the videos I make. I'm excited to start again. I appreciate if you would like the video for the sake of just getting it out to more people. You could share it with others if you want. And, um, if you guys are watching on or listening on podcast, other, uh, platforms that allow you to review the content.

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Reviewing it does help us reach more people. In my ministry, I have like, a philosophy that is give everything away for free and reach the largest number of people possible.

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So you could help with that. If you do love this content, um, you could offer a review, a positive review, positive ratings, if you think those things are true and that would help us reach more people. So let's pray. Lord Jesus, we have confidence in you, not ourselves. In and of ourselves, we are outside, we are at the foot of the mountain, not able to touch lest we die.

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But in Jesus Christ, we have the sacrifice for our sins, a propitiation for all that we ever could do wrong, the full and complete perfect sacrifice for our forgiveness.

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Your one time offering of yourself, presenting of yourself in that heavenly tabernacle, allows us to become and enter into the holy of holies.

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We thank you, we trust you and we pray. Give us courage as we face trials and struggles in this life. Give us courage to face our, even our own sinful desires and to say, no, I, uh, don't need. I don't need that I can die. To that I can suffer for Christ as Christ suffered for me. We pray, Lord, that you would raise up from us and put into our lives more and more sanctification, holiness, appreciation for theology, and the deep things of your word, and that we would be stirred up as lights in the world for others to see. In Jesus name, amen.