[0:00] We've been talking about Hebrews chapter 10 in the last couple of weeks.
[0:20] We're going to finish it up today and move on to chapter 11. Remember, they talked about the fact that Hebrews chapter 10 is a pivotal. He's been talking about all the things concerning the old system.
[0:31] And now he's talking about the fact that the old system is over. There's a pivot that's going to take place to the new system. He talks about that new covenant that Jesus made that supersedes that old covenant.
[0:45] And he talked about the fact how the old method of sacrifice, the old covenant, the old high priest system, all those things have been changed.
[0:57] And he talked about the fact that this wasn't just a, oh, let's try something new. It had been determined. We looked at Acts chapter 2, verse 23, where he talked about him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.
[1:16] God had a plan. Acts chapter 4, verse 28, for to do what's over thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.
[1:26] God had a plan. This was not just a, oh, what do we do now? God had a plan from, we talked about from the foundations of the world. And we talked about the fact that when Jesus went to the cross, he made the declarative statement, it is finished.
[1:47] So all of that was done. All that was put behind. There was going to be a new covenant that was going to take place. Then we talked about the fact that Christ's new way had come.
[1:58] When he did that, it is finished. That new covenant, that new thing, new way had come that he had in place for us. And we talked about the fact that, you know, he had a new high priest.
[2:09] He had new boldness that we could come into the presence of God. Didn't have to come through the priest and through the veil anymore. We could do all those things. And we said that in light of all these doctrinal things that he's teaching, he said there's some things that we should do.
[2:22] And he looked at verse 22 of chapter 10 and it said, let us come near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.
[2:33] Verse 23, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering. Verse 24, and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking each and sending ourselves together.
[2:47] He said, because of all of these new things, because of this new, let us do these things. He said, to draw near with a true heart, to hold fast, to consider how we treat one another.
[3:05] So there's some good things that came because of that. Then he went on, we talked about a little bit, to talk about the challenge that awaits us.
[3:15] And the challenge that awaits us with this new system is the fact that God is going to judge willful sin. When we come before God and we do things willfully, if a person has the gospel presented to them over and over and over, and they keep saying no, no, no, he says, there's only one sacrifice for sin.
[3:36] If you reject that, there's nothing else you can do. So he said, you know, when we come and willfully say no, I don't want it. Look at verse 26. He says, for if we sin willfully, after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin.
[3:54] We know the truth. We know how we get saved. We know what Jesus did for us. We reject it. He said, there doesn't remain any more sacrifices or sin.
[4:05] You can't go to the priest and say, let's do this or let's do that. So he said, nope, there's only one way. Does this mean that this going to be a priest in the confession booth is well-enjoyed?
[4:19] I would say so, yes. Yeah. The Bible says there's one mediator between God and man and Timothy. There's one mediator. That's Jesus.
[4:30] So going to the idea of going to a priest and making confession, why? He says there's one mediator, Jesus Christ. So...
[4:41] John 14, 6 talks about that too. Why is the way that he's like? No man cometh unto the Father but unto him. Right. So, yeah. Jesus says, I'm the only way. If you want to get to the Father, you have to go through me.
[4:54] Not through anybody else. He goes on and he... Look at verse 27 and 28. But in a certain fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
[5:10] He that despises Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much sore punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, whereas he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace.
[5:36] He says, if they reject what Jesus has done for them, he says, what else can be done? Okay. But just to go back to the confession, just look at the other side of it.
[5:49] Of course, it's safe to say that we all say, do confess one another to sin against one another as well. I think sometimes we look at one thing and say, oh, no, we can't do that at all.
[6:01] We don't go to anybody. True. But I think it's, you know what I mean? The forgiveness of sin only comes through Jesus. Our apologizing for doing something to someone, no, that's still a valid thing.
[6:15] There's a big difference, being proud of Catholics. Being, it was more like the priests were using that to control you. If you don't tell us exactly what you did and how you did it.
[6:28] But I believe in my heart that Jesus is saying, you don't walk around acting as if you're perfect and you're automatically going to heaven. You confess to others that you're a sinner.
[6:40] But you don't have to recount every single sin that you have done. Yeah. We're all sinners. Exactly. And I think that's the difference, that the priests were using that as a way to control you and put fear in your heart.
[6:58] Where Jesus says, no, just say you're a sinner. That's it. You know. Yeah. Don't act like you're perfect. Yeah. You think about it. You're talking about apologizing to people because you're not perfect.
[7:11] But going to God saying, I sinned. I did this wrong. I did it. You know. Doing that kind of confession to him who can change it, who can forgive sin and stuff.
[7:24] If you go to a priest and, you know, you were there, what kind of things did they tell you to do? In order to give you. The rosary. The rosary and stuff.
[7:34] Yes. You know, pray to Mary. You know. Yeah. And what do those have to do with forgiveness of sin? Jesus is the one who forgives sin. So you go to him. So.
[7:46] Yep. Well, I was actually referring to the fact that it says that once, you know, once you have died for you and you accept it, you go forth and sin no more.
[7:58] And then it says here, and if you do, you die. Okay. Okay. There's a difference between sinning. You know, we sin.
[8:09] We're all going to sin because we have a sinful nature. And doing it, he said, willfully. Willfully, I take it as, I don't care. I know what the law says or what Jesus says.
[8:21] I know what the Bible says. I'm going to do it anyway. There's a difference between, yes, I sinned. I just did it. I wasn't even thinking. I did it. Versus, oh, I don't really care.
[8:34] I'm going to do it anyway. I think it's attitude and heart. Yep. It's a heart attitude with which you do it. Thank you. Because we're all, because we are all sinners. We have a sinful nature.
[8:46] It was born into us. So we ask for forgiveness of sin in general. And he says, I forgave you of your sin. Done and over with.
[8:57] And yet we still sin. But that's because we have a human nature. When our bodies change and we get our new bodies and new spirit, he says, then you won't have that problem anymore.
[9:11] But right now it's ingrained into us and dwells us because we have a human nature. And that human nature is going to sin. That's why he gave us 1 John 1.9.
[9:23] If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I sin, I go to Jesus and I say, I sinned. I need cleansing.
[9:35] And he'll take care of it. So the one thing that cannot be forgiven is the blatant disregard for the blood of Christ.
[9:46] Right. And the cost that was paid for our sin. If we walk over that and we say no to that, that is the unforgettable thing.
[9:58] Yep. And he says, you know, if we do that over and over and over again, he says, I'm not going to keep striving with men. I'm not going to keep going after you.
[10:09] You keep making that decision. No, no, no, no. Okay. It's no. You said no. No, I will leave you alone. That's the scary one. He starts leaving us alone.
[10:22] Okay. Verse. Yeah. I was just making sure I covered everything on 29. I wanted to.
[10:33] Okay. Actually, go to verse 31. Well, we can read verse 32. Verse 30 says, for we know him that hath said, vengeance belongeth unto me.
[10:45] I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to come into the hands of the living God. And we talked about that last week. How many people just don't.
[10:57] Don't care. Again, you look at our world today. You know, God's word says this, this and this. How many people are like, I don't care. You know, I'm going to live my life the way I want to live it. I don't care what God's word says.
[11:08] I don't care. I don't believe in God. So, yeah. I don't care. And he says, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But then we talked about how many Christians take that verse and just kind of disregard it.
[11:22] You know. God's word says, you know, there's certain things we should do and certain things we shouldn't do. And we just kind of, hmm. So, we need to be very careful.
[11:34] All right. That's where we left off. I wonder. I'm not going to say how I feel. But I wonder how God feels about all these churches that have taken his word and changed it so they can be more worldly.
[11:50] Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of people who take things and kind of stretch them or change them and stuff to make it so that they can do what they want to do.
[12:02] One of the verses I always go back to, see if I can find it real quick. It's in Galatians. Galatians. We'll get to it in our study in Galatians, but Galatians 5.1.
[12:19] 5.13.
[12:30] Galatians 5.13. For brethren, ye have been called unto liberty. Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
[12:43] We take so many people who say, well, I've been saved. And because I've been saved, because God saves for all eternity and I'm going to be saved, I can do whatever I want. Yeah. Yeah.
[12:55] And that says, no. He says, look, you have liberty. You can do things. But don't use it for liberty for an occasion to the flesh.
[13:07] But by love serve one another. He says, you use that liberty to make it so it's easier for you to go out and tell the gospel to people. It's easier for you to go out and show people who Jesus Christ is.
[13:17] You don't use it to make sure, oh, I feel like doing this and I feel like doing that and I feel like doing the other thing. And I can do that because I have liberty. I'll mention that a little bit this morning probably. You know what? So we need to be very careful how we use it.
[13:32] Then believers need to faithfully endure. They need to faithfully endure. Look at verse 32. It says, But called to remembrance the former days in which after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions.
[13:49] He said, after you were saved, what happened? You had a battle on your hands. Things did not go, you know, the way they used to.
[14:00] We had opposition because we weren't living. How many of you were saved when you were a little bit older? And you had friends and different ones. And once you got saved, there was a strain on the relationship.
[14:15] You know, because you didn't do things like you used to. You didn't live like you used to. And it caused a strain on the relationship because they were going to do certain things.
[14:25] And you said, as a Christian, I can't do that. So, he says, be so, you know, here's going to be a change that comes. It says, in spite of the afflictions, is this actually, you've been saved and now you know what you're doing wrong, but the temptations are overwhelming?
[14:44] It could be that, yeah. You're going to face temptation, yeah. So the devil's going to, he's not going to give up easily on you. And he knows your weak points. You know, he knows that sin you really liked.
[14:55] He knows the thing that you, you know, like to participate in or do. And he's going to hammer that and try to get you to go back to it. But not only that, it's going to be affliction and the fact that because you've changed, you're going to face affliction from other people as well.
[15:14] Were you going to say something like that? I was just going to say, when you take a stand, a lot of people say that you've got to go along to get along.
[15:28] But you can't. Once you, once you're saved, you've got to take a stand and say, no, that's wrong. Yep. And that does turn people off.
[15:39] They don't want to hang around you. Yep. Bonnie was telling me. You want to tell? When I was first saved, I was teaching in a public school. And one of the responsibilities for a teacher was you had to do duty at a certain time, like chaperone a dance or be at the door in the morning for a whole week.
[16:00] And it was my turn to chaperone a dance. And I was, that was something I really loved. So that was something that, you know, Satan knew. So I went to the principal and I said, I don't feel comfortable doing that.
[16:15] I was, I cannot do that. And he just looked at me like he said, well, you used to do it. I said, but I've had a change in my heart and my life. And I explained to him what that change was.
[16:26] And he said, well, there's another teacher here who claims to be that way, but he doesn't. And I said, well, it's a, it's not a conviction with him. So they ended up assigning me, instead of one chaperone, I had to have morning duty for an entire week.
[16:42] And it happened to be the week, the second day, that my husband Craig at that time was killed in a car accident. So I, it just, yes, I was going to have a consequence for changing my position, my point of view about something I had previously not seen in the wrong way.
[17:04] And the other thing I was going for was, she was watching a video yesterday from Voice of the Martyrs. And it was about a pastor in Romania. And he had, he was in a meeting when the communists were taking over.
[17:20] And all these pastors in the meeting were saying, yes, we think we can go along with a communist. We can, you know, we can adjust to make sure that we, you know, stay within the laws and stuff that they're trying to do.
[17:32] And this one pastor got up and said, no, I can't do that. I can't follow that. And he wound up being persecuted and wound up being tortured and stuff. And he was in the midst of other pastors when he made the statement.
[17:44] But they were all going to go along. Like you said, go along to get along. They were going to go along. And he's like, no, I can't do that. Because of the things that they want us to teach and things.
[17:55] I'm concerned that that's what this country is going to be coming to. Yep. So. Go along to get along. Yep. So. Look at verse 33.
[18:06] He says, partly whilst ye were made a gazing stock, both by reproaches and afflictions. And partly whilst thou became companions of them that were so used.
[18:18] He said, you had to endure the fact that you're going to become people who get pointed at. And you're associating with people who are going to get pointed at and get pointed out.
[18:30] He said, you're facing trials because of who you are and because of who you hang out with. It's going to become much more difficult individually and collectively as a group for them.
[18:43] He goes on, verse 34. And he says, and ye had compassion on me in my bonds and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and enduring substance.
[18:58] He said, you took compassion on me while I was facing persecution, while I was in jail. You took care of me. You helped me. He said, you're looking also that you lost a lot of your goods.
[19:17] Things were taken from you. The spoils were taken away from you. And he said, but you understood that there was something better. You know, we've had the whole thing so far in Hebrews.
[19:28] This is better. That's better. This is better. That's better. He said, you understood that you have a home in heaven. You have rewards in heaven that are being stocked up. He said, you understand it.
[19:39] That was better than the things that you lost here. Verse 35. He says, cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.
[19:51] You said, you keep your faith in Christ. You keep watching him. You keep going with him and allow him to do his work in your life. He said, you'll find things so much better.
[20:03] You'll face persecution, but you'll have the hand of God upon you. Verse 36. He says, remain faithful.
[20:18] Follow God's will. Do whatever. You remember in John chapter 14, she mentioned verse 6. First three verses say, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions.
[20:30] If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself. That where I am, there ye may be also.
[20:41] How confident are most Christians in the fact that Jesus is going to return and take us home and reward us for our life for him?
[20:57] He tells us that. And we say we believe that. We say we trust that God is coming back. Jesus is going to come back. But do we live our lives like that?
[21:11] Do we live our lives in the fact that I believe God's word? I trust Jesus for what he has done for me. I trust what he is going to do for me. I trust him.
[21:23] Therefore, I will live for him no matter what. You know, I think we say those things. But do we...
[21:34] And there are doubts in the back of our minds sometimes. Is he really going to? Is he really going to take care of this? Is he really going to take care of that? Especially if we're going through something. Does God really care?
[21:45] Is he really going to take care of this need that I have? He says there in verse 37, he says, For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come and will not tarry.
[22:00] He says God is coming back. And he says, look, you claim to be a Christian. You claim to be followers of Christ. Verse 38. Now the just shall live by faith.
[22:12] But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. He says, you've got to live by faith. Do you trust God? If not, he says, I take no pleasure in that.
[22:26] If you're not trusting God, why is he going to help you? He's going to trust those who believe. He's going to help those that believe. He's going to help those that trust. Are we trusting him?
[22:38] And he says, look, he takes no pleasure. And then, verse 39. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
[22:54] He said, you're not going to be like those that pull back. You know what? We're going to go back to doing the old things. We're going to go back to doing the sins that we used to do. We're going to go back to being the religious people we were.
[23:08] He says, no. He says, you're not going to do that. He says, you're going to believe to the saving of the soul. Jesus is coming again. Jesus, when he comes, is going to take us to heaven.
[23:21] And when he takes us to heaven, he says, there are rewards awaiting us in heaven. Do we believe it? That's the thing. God's word says a lot of things.
[23:32] How do we live according to those things? He says, have confidence in him. Have, did you notice how it was worded there? He said that we're to believe to the saving of the soul.
[23:47] Do we have faith in what God has for us? Go with me to chapter 11. I'm just going to flip things there.
[24:00] Chapter 11. Maybe. Chapter 11, living by faith. He's talking about the fact that we need to live by faith.
[24:11] We need to make sure that we keep our faith there. This is a neat chapter. You're all familiar with this chapter. You ever been to a Hall of Fame?
[24:23] Anybody ever gone to a Hall of Fame? I've been to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. Great place. Been a long time since I've been there. So I'm sure they've added a lot of things since the last time I was there.
[24:37] I always wanted to go to the baseball one in Cooperstown. Football one in Canton, Ohio. You saw some sort of Hall of Fame things when you were in Washington, D.C.
[24:48] You get to see some things there. Did you go? You said you weren't happy with the Navy one. Did they take you to the Marine one? Yeah. The Marine one is cool. Yeah. The Marine one, they've done a lot of neat things there.
[24:59] They even have a women's one. Yep. They even have a women's one. Yeah. So it's a cool place. There was something strange going on in today's world that I've run across lately.
[25:12] You know, on television, I watch a lot of Fox movies, but that's not necessarily the only place I've seen it. I watch NASCAR. And more and more drivers are praising God for their win.
[25:26] Yep. Now, this is something we didn't see 10 years ago. You go on regular channels and you see three and four different preachers on their praying course.
[25:37] Mm-hmm. It just seems that for some reason, that God is becoming more put in front of the country than what he has in the last 20 years.
[25:48] Mm-hmm. And that people are, you know, as a preacher on, you've got Billy Graham, you've got this Yusuf guy, you've got this actor character out of Hollywood that's asking to pray for you.
[26:00] I mean, is something strange going to take place? I don't know what. I believe in God's word says that before he returns, there'll be a revival type thing and people, you know, getting his name out there.
[26:17] Sort of like a last push before he comes. God's giving the world a last chance. And I think he's going to do that.
[26:29] And the word is getting out there and people are being able to say things before it all gets shut down. I think eventually it will get shut down. But for right now, yes, the word is going out.
[26:40] God's allowing that to happen, getting people to go out there and to talk and praise him and lift him up. I mean, it shows up in places you wouldn't even think about it, like probably about three of the commentators on Fox.
[26:54] No. Of course, I mean, and then you've got this Buy My Mattress guy. Yep. And even during the Olympics, there were a number of Olympians who praised God for what he was doing and how he was working in their lives.
[27:10] There's also more miracles happening, too. Yep. I asked Wednesday night for a prayer for this gentleman who was in ICU on a ventilator.
[27:20] And it sounded as if the doctors and those surrounding him didn't give him much hope or anything. But he's home now. Yep.
[27:30] He's actually well and whole. Well, it's like your doctor saying to you, oh, you're still alive? Basically, yes. So, yep. So, God gives us a Hall of Fame here in Acts chapter 11.
[27:47] And I was going to start it today, but we're going to wait, I guess, because it's already quarter past. And I've got people waiting out in the foyer. So, we'll pick it up next week, Acts chapter 11. All right, let's have a word of prayer.
[27:58] Father, just thank you for this. Thank you.