[0:00] And then all of their epistles are lumped together at the back of your New Testament.! And I showed you, I believe there's a reason for that, because after the Apostle Paul's ministry to the Gentiles or to the church, God has something to say to the Hebrews once again through those men.
[0:15] So then we came at this concept of the messages. A few things to remember. Some kind of bullet points from this idea of the different messages within the Bible text.
[0:27] One of them is you cannot divide your Bible strictly on a book-by-book basis. It's not built that way. That's not the concept of rightly dividing. You can't chop your Bible up like that into sections and just say, that book means to them, that book's to them.
[0:42] It's not that at all. But rather we divide based on the content of the message within the book. And then another concept that came out of that study was that one book of the Bible can contain different messages.
[0:59] And even within a message or even within a verse, one verse of the Bible can have different applications. It can be the same prophet, the same words, and yet they can have a historical context as well as a future context.
[1:16] And only the Word of God can do that. And so it's a special book and we approach it with fear and trembling and we rightly divide it after we study to show ourselves approved unto God.
[1:27] So all of this led us to the book of Hebrews as far as studying a message or messages within the Bible. And before we could even really get into that book, kind of backtracked and laid a little groundwork about what the New Testament is, that it's not Matthew through Revelation, but rather the New Testament is a replacement of the Old Testament.
[1:48] And it made the first old. And the New Testament's a covenant. The Old Testament was a covenant of God with His people. They were enjoined to Him with the sprinkling of blood. And He said, you do this and I'll do this.
[2:01] And they agreed. And there was the covenant made. And that was called the Old Testament. A New Testament came into effect or was instituted by the blood or rather the death of the testator.
[2:12] And yet that New Testament does not just, it's not identical for everybody in the Bible. And this was last week's study. And it's crucial to see that the church and Israel are still two distinct separate groups.
[2:24] We divide between the two of them. And in the book of Hebrews, you're going to have some content that works for the church. And we're going to have some content that works for, strictly for and only for Hebrews at a time.
[2:36] And so we've gotten up to this point. And we have not stepped into the book. But seeing how the time, the circumstances have it with my dad being in town.
[2:47] And he's been teaching the book of Hebrews. So I asked him to kind of pick up where we are and just go wherever he wants to go in this topic of right division. And I thought this would be a great time for him to be here to do it.
[3:00] So, Father, please come. That water's for you if you want it. Okay, thank you. I'm on. This is on. You can hear me? All righty. Ah, I've got some water here.
[3:13] That's good news. All right. So, good morning. Good to be here. Glad to see you. I hope you're glad to see a preacher up here. This is not a Quaker meeting.
[3:24] We're not all going to sit here and all that type of thing. So, as your pastor mentioned, and I won't, therefore, go over that.
[3:35] But obviously, we're here. And the part of the study here is to rightly divide the word of truth. To understand where we are. And as I've said in my Sunday school class back home for me up in Georgia Valley, up in Idaho, that God has spoken at different ways at different times to different people.
[3:57] And that's how we understand our Bible. It's not straight across. Every part of the Bible doesn't apply to you. Now, the whole Bible was written for us.
[4:07] There's no doubt about that. But the thing we have to understand is the whole Bible was not directly written to us individually. So, there's things in the Old Testament that they're there.
[4:20] There's no doubt about it. In fact, the dietary law is given to the Jews. Do you want them to apply to you today? Hey, I don't know.
[4:32] Anybody here, you know, last week or so ago, you had Thanksgiving and maybe a lot of turkey went around. But if you had a ham as a Jew in the Old Testament, you would never have had a ham.
[4:43] And you wouldn't get to eat, you know, maybe scallops or shrimp or lobster if you could afford it. You couldn't eat it. Why? Because it's not allowed under the law.
[4:55] So, there's a lot of things that are applicable in the law that apply to the Jews that don't apply to us, etc. So, we have to understand it. And when we read our Bible, when we come to a place and we say, okay, now, whoa, that's even Jesus speaking in Matthew or Mark or Luke or whatnot.
[5:16] And you say, well, that's Jesus. He's speaking. You know, if you don't forgive, you won't be forgiven. Oh, man, I better get on the phone and talk to so-and-so and forget, because I want God to forgive me.
[5:29] But wait a minute. Aren't we told to forgive as we've been forgiven? So, their forgiveness, or the forgiveness they were given was in response to what they did.
[5:42] But our forgiveness is based upon the fact that we're already forgiven in Christ. Hallelujah. So, when we come to the book of Hebrews, there's a lot of problems in the book of Hebrews.
[5:58] And what I've done here, tried to do a little bit, is I've got two different timelines on here. We're going to deal with the first one. I'm going to fill in a couple of things that I didn't.
[6:09] Obviously, this here represents the law. So, you've got the law given to Moses, the Jews, all the way until Calvary, as your pastor just mentioned, the death of the testator, Jesus Christ, ends the law.
[6:22] So, you have that. You've got the Lord ascending here, up in the glory. Then, of course, over here, you've got, what do you want to call it? We'll call it the church age. That's where we are today.
[6:36] This, what we're looking for in the future, is the rapture. He's coming down, we're going up, and it might happen today.
[6:48] Hold on. Now, don't hold on to something like you want to stay here. You want to get going. This is not like a roller coaster ride where you want to hold on for fear of falling off.
[6:58] So, then we come over here, and I'll abbreviate it, if you will, to the tribulation period. That future period that we have, it's also called the day of the Lord in the Bible. Then, this is when the Lord comes back.
[7:11] The advent, then you have here, and we'll, again, abbreviate it, the millennial kingdom. Thousand year reign of Christ on earth. Now, this is going to be different from this.
[7:26] This is the standard dispensational timeline. And it's fine. It's all fine. This is where we are. I believe Paul, you know, gets saved early here, etc.
[7:40] And this is where we're at. This is, in essence, this is what happened in history. The Jews were offered at Pentecost, and then with Stephen's preaching, the Jews were offered the kingdom.
[7:56] They were offered to receive Jesus Christ as their Messiah. Not necessarily like we see it today as their Savior, but as their Messiah. He's made him both Lord and Christ.
[8:07] And then the men are like, well, what should we do? What must we do about this?
[8:19] And then he goes and gives them a formula that you're not going to follow today either. That particular formula. But that's what happened here. But that's what happened here. But the thing was, they rejected him.
[8:29] Not only the first time because of Calvary. That had to happen because that was prophesied in the Old Testament. But they rejected him again at Pentecost. In 3,000, they got saved, but the Jewish leadership didn't.
[8:42] The nation as a whole didn't come to follow Christ. And neither, of course, at Stephen's preaching. In fact, Stephen got a rousing response, didn't he? Every preacher wants a response.
[8:54] The only thing is, his was a very negative response, and he was stoned to death. Because they rejected Christ the second time in those messages, God postponed the kingdom.
[9:07] He said, I'm putting it on hold. And what did he do? He opened the gospel, the door of faith to the Gentile. Acts chapter 14 talks about that. A wonderful understanding and truth.
[9:17] He opened the door. Hey, how many in here are Gentiles? Okay, I understand. We have some Jewish brethren with us. We're glad for that.
[9:28] But you know, in the Bible, there's the Jew, the Gentile, and the Church of God. So God didn't see you as a Jew anymore. Didn't see you as a Gentile. Sees us as members of the Church of God.
[9:39] We're all part of that body. Both Jew and Gentile in one body. You know, equality comes in Christ. Equality does not come from socialism or communism or anything like that.
[9:55] Equality comes in Christ. There's neither male or female in Christ. And any Jew or Gentile in Christ. Those differences don't matter.
[10:07] Any man here that's in Christ is a priest, correct? We have direct access to God through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. But every woman also is a priest.
[10:18] So there's not that distinction like there was in the Old Testament. So that's where we are today. And we're looking for the rapture, like I mentioned. After that, we believe that God will fulfill what he prophesied back here and finish the Daniel 69 or 70 week prophecy.
[10:37] And he'll finish it over here. Now, whether you believe three and a half years are done or three and a half years are future, or this is all seven years regardless, it's going to take place. But we're out of here.
[10:48] And we're not here. The Lord's going to come back at the end and then the thousand year millennial kingdom. That's how things have happened. That's what we look forward to.
[10:58] Now, here is a different perspective. This is, again, the law. This over here. And then we have the ascension of the Lord.
[11:09] This over here is the tribulation. This over here. Is the millennial kingdom.
[11:21] Now, you notice something's different, obviously. You say, well, brother, you missed something. You skipped something up on top here that you have down here. It's obvious, isn't it? I skipped something big.
[11:34] The church. You know, the truth is, in the Old Testament, though you have it pictured in type, which God could have worked around easily, you don't have the church mentioned as such in the Old.
[11:49] Why? Because in God's scheme of things, the church didn't have to be. And all those verses in the Old Testament talk about the Gentiles getting preached to and saved and whatever else.
[12:02] That would have taken place here and here and not here. There would not have been anybody of Christ. And we're going to, you know, talk about that a little bit. Now, this one on top here, what that represents, though, is this is, again, this is what happens before the second rejection of Jesus Christ.
[12:26] So you have, and let me make mention here, you have, I believe, this is going to be around 33 AD. So around 35 AD, I believe that's about when, as it's stated, when Paul gets saved, around 35 AD.
[12:48] In this time period here, of course, is when you had Peter preaching, Stephen preaching, etc. That's why I gave a little bit of a gap here as well. There was that opportunity, that offer after Calvary, after the resurrection for the Jews to receive Jesus as a Messiah.
[13:05] But when you look at this one up here, and just forget this one down here for now. When you're looking at this time from, I believe this is the Jewish perspective when the book of Hebrews was written.
[13:17] In other words, here's Paul. He gets saved. What's Paul been doing? Persecuting Jewish Christians.
[13:29] He's been persecuting the Christians, but the Jews that he believes now are a sect, a heresy. They're leaving Judaism to follow this Christ.
[13:41] And so he's out there persecuting them. He's bringing them into prison, and he's consenting unto their death. Death, the Bible says. So there's a lot of persecution going on right here.
[13:54] The kingdom has not been postponed. Why? At this point, God hasn't closed the door. Now he's beginning to close the door, as we see it from our perspective. Because he knows this is what's going to happen.
[14:09] But at this point, the door is still open. The kingdom is still available. The door has not opened to the Gentiles. Door of faith. Also, because of that, something that occurred down here, after Paul gets saved and gets going along, and after the Jews have rejected Christ as their Messiah, God postpones the kingdom.
[14:35] After that, and Paul's salvation, God begins to reveal to Paul mysteries. If we have a chance, we'll look at it, just touch it a little bit.
[14:46] He begins to reveal mysteries to Paul. My point of view is, up here, after Paul gets saved, he writes the book of Hebrews, and God has not begun to reveal any of the mysteries to him.
[15:01] Why? Because those mysteries pertain to the church. There is no church here yet. The opportunity to receive Jesus as their Messiah is still on board.
[15:14] It's still, sort of speaking, you know, like we like to say, it's still on the table kind of a thing. Again, so, this one, before the postponement of the kingdom, before Paul gets the church mysteries, etc., mysteries that apply to the church, none of that's revealed.
[15:33] And I believe this is what's, where in the book of Hebrews is written. Go to the, take your Bible for a second, go over to Galatians chapter 1. Galatians chapter 1.
[15:44] Look with me at verse, look with me at verse 11.
[16:08] Now, Paul's talking about, he making a declaration about the gospel, because these churches in Galatia have been twisted in their mindset. They got saved.
[16:19] There were several churches in that area. By the way, Galatia itself is a province. It's not a church. There are different cities where he started churches that are represented here.
[16:30] Like he says at the very beginning in verse 2. And all the brethren which are with me unto the churches of Galatia. Kind of like somebody writing back over here to LA and saying unto the churches of Los Angeles.
[16:44] So not just one church, but a variety of churches that he preached to in the book of Acts. But then these people have been moved away from the gospel. Somebody came in after they got saved and believed by the grace of God, put their faith in Jesus Christ.
[17:00] Some other, as we call them, Judaizers. Some of those Jews that may also have believed on Christ, but believed also that they needed to stay. They were still under the law. They still needed to obey the law.
[17:13] They had to keep, they had to circumcise new believers, etc. Just as they did their baby boys. So look at verse 11. Chapter 1, verse 11. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.
[17:30] For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but what? By the revelation of Jesus Christ. Look, slide down to verse 17. This is after he met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus.
[17:45] Verse 17. Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia and returned again unto Damascus. So evidently, after Paul gets saved, he takes off.
[17:59] He doesn't go down to Jerusalem, doesn't convey, talks to and confirm his faith with the disciples or the apostles. He takes off on his own.
[18:11] He goes down to Arabia. And no doubt while he's there, Jesus Christ reveals himself to him and reveals truth and reveals the gospel. Look back with me for a second in the book of Acts chapter 26.
[18:25] And we see this same type of a thing. When Paul got saved, something that Jesus mentioned to the apostle Paul. Let's see if we can catch the context here.
[18:42] Hmm. So look with me. Let's see. Let's start back at verse.
[18:54] Well, we'll start in verse 13. 26, 13 of the book of Acts. At midday, O king, I saw on the way of light from heaven above the brightness of the sun shining round about me and them which journeyed with me and with them.
[19:06] And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And I said, who art thou, Lord?
[19:18] He said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But arise. Now look at this. But arise. Stand upon thy feet. For I have appeared unto thee for this purpose to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen.
[19:32] Look at this. And of those things in the which I will appear unto thee. And then he says, delivering thee from the people, from the Gentiles unto whom I now I send thee, etc.
[19:47] So Jesus said, Paul, listen, pay attention to what's going on here. And I'm going to tell you about some more things later on. So when he goes to get saved, he goes to Arabia.
[19:57] And Jesus Christ himself holds a personal Bible study with Paul or Saul at the time still. And he explains to him, no doubt, what he did, how he fulfilled Old Testament scriptures.
[20:12] Many of the things he probably said to the disciples when he met with them for 40 days after his resurrection. In Acts chapter 1, before he ascended.
[20:23] And things that he would have said, for instance, how to fulfill what he said to Nicodemus. That you must be born again. And how to be born again. And that he could explain to him how John 3, 16 fits.
[20:37] For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That's me. That whosoever believeth in me should not perish, etc. And no doubt he explained all these things to Paul.
[20:49] But he also gave him a promise that he's going to talk to him about future things. That's what he did, I believe. And that's why we have the different doctrines that we'll mention later on in the church age.
[21:01] Now, let's back up a little bit. There's two standard understandings of the book of Hebrews. And both, one of them fits here.
[21:15] One of them fits here. Most of the people, most commentators, most commentaries that you pick up and read are going to place the book of Hebrews written in the New Testament writings.
[21:30] Like from Romans on written late. Somewhere, for instance, around 60 AD. Well, 60 AD would put it square in the middle of the church age.
[21:45] Paul writes to the book of Romans around 60 AD. He writes a couple of his books a little earlier, like, say, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, maybe Galatians. And most of those beyond that, like Romans, Corinthians, etc.
[21:59] Are written, you know, 60 or 62 and beyond. All the way to around 68 for 2 Timothy. So that's the time frame that we have with Paul writing right in this early part of the church age.
[22:13] But if it's written in 60 AD, then where does it squarely fall? It squarely falls in the church age, doesn't it? Now, the other approach to the book of Hebrews is, it's a dispensational.
[22:29] And I understand, I said before, this is a standard dispensational teaching. But this is a dispensational approach to it, rightly dividing the word approach to it. And I believe that Hebrews was written right there.
[22:44] Go over for a second. Go over to the book of Romans chapter 9. You're in Acts 26. Go to Romans chapter 9 for a second. Look at Paul's concern for his brethren.
[23:02] Romans chapter 9. We'll start in verse 1. Paul says this.
[23:15] I say the truth in Christ. I lie not. That's kind of comforting, isn't it? I mean, you're reading the epistle. You're reading words that we look now as being inspired by the Holy Spirit.
[23:26] But the fellow that's writing it is sitting there saying, OK, I speak the truth in Christ. I'm not lying to you. We say that every now and then, don't you? You know, to tell the truth.
[23:37] You know, telling you the truth. And of course, if somebody's thinking about hearing you and saying, well, I'm glad to hear that you're finally telling me the truth. Because you're lying to me all the other times or what? No, Paul's just saying it's just, you know, he's just being matter of fact.
[23:50] He's talking like we talk. That's all. I say the truth in Christ. I lie not. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost. Look at this. That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
[24:05] For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. Now, I don't know about you. I've got loved ones that are lost.
[24:16] I don't want to go to hell to see them get saved. I want to see them get saved. And I've witnessed in the past and all. But I personally speaking don't want to be accursed for that to happen.
[24:31] And maybe Paul is just, you know, maybe this is a hyperbole and he's just stretching it out. But I don't want that to happen. But bottom line is it shows Paul's heart.
[24:41] And you know when this is written, as I mentioned already, Romans, around 60 AD. So if he gets saved back here in 35, that's 25 years later.
[24:56] 25 years later, he still has a desire and a fervency to see his countrymen, not just his family members, but his countrymen, his nation get saved and come to Christ.
[25:08] If he had it back there and over there in 60 AD, how much more did he have it there? How much more did he have it when he's on his way to Damascus to persecute that sect of the so-called followers of this Jesus of Nazareth?
[25:24] And then he sees him and he's bright as, you know, brighter than the sun. And he recognizes he's talking to deity, not just the man.
[25:36] You know, when Peter was preaching at Pentecost, he said the man Jesus, that God has made him Jesus, who was simply a man in their eyes, both the Lord and Christ.
[25:47] And now Paul, who thinks Jesus is just a man and a charlatan or a deceiver or whatever the case, now he's met him basically face to face, eyeball to eyeball, and he realizes he's the Lord of glory.
[26:06] And it changes him completely. He thought he was righteous trying to keep the law, outwardly righteous. And now he meets one that he knows, intuitively he knows, is pure righteousness.
[26:20] Inside and out. It changes Paul altogether. And because of that, when he goes to Arabia and he says, Man, how stupid was I?
[26:31] I read my Bible, but I never saw that. I never saw how this applied to this one man. I never saw, I was there. I saw what happened to him in Calvary. I saw all these different things, but I never put it together.
[26:44] And he's kicking himself, so to speaking, I believe. And then he's thinking about, well, man, just like the man in hell. You know, talking about Lazarus and the rich man. And what did the rich man, what was his desire?
[26:57] Oh, send, you know, send Lazarus to go back and talk to my brothers and all. I don't want to see them come to this place of torment. Amen. He all of a sudden got a burden for his family to get saved and to come to Christ or come to God, at least in that point of view.
[27:13] So Paul, no doubt, had a fervent desire. So what do I believe he did? I believe he wrote the book of Hebrews. And in writing the book of Hebrews, as you can see when you read through it, he's trying to show the difference between the Old Testament law and priesthood in Jesus Christ.
[27:31] And he starts out right away in chapter one, exalting, showing different things about Jesus Christ that put him on a different level. And the word better is used, I think, what, eight or nine times in the book of Hebrews.
[27:47] And he's better than the angels and he's better than the law. And he's better. We have better promises and better hope and a better covenant and all these things. And he's showing how Jesus is the fulfillment of all that Old Testament.
[28:00] And when God gave the Old Testament, he never meant it or intended it to be the end all or the end of his. The Old Testament wasn't God's full revelation to man.
[28:12] He had something else planned. And we don't have time to go into all that. Now. Either the book of Revelation is written here.
[28:27] That's a good book, too. But either the book, either the book of Hebrews is written here and fits in the church age. And then we're going to see there's going to be a lot of problems because of that.
[28:37] Or it's written much earlier. If it's written here, the kingdom already has been postponed. The gospel has gone out to the Gentiles. Paul has the revelations that we see given to the church age about eternal security.
[28:52] About the rapture. About the indwelling Jesus Christ. About the church itself being Jew and Gentile in one body. But if it's written here early, then when we read the book of Hebrews, we're not going to see the rapture.
[29:10] We're not going to see the church. We're not going to see the postponement of the kingdom, etc. Or an indwelling Jesus Christ. Now. If.
[29:25] Hebrews is written late. Then we would. There's things that we would expect to see in the book. We would expect him to write things about the church. We would expect him to write things about church doctrine.
[29:36] We would expect him to write things about the Gentiles. We won't look at the. At the. I have verses and all we can look, but we don't have the time for that.
[29:47] Now regarding the church and church doctrine. In Paul's 13 epistles. Minus Hebrews. So you go from Romans. All the way up to what? Philemon.
[29:58] 13 epistles. 47 times. Paul mentions. Church. Whether it's. The church. The body of Christ. Or whether it's the local church.
[30:09] But. 47 times. In the book of Hebrews. He uses the word. Two times. In my contention. When you go scripture with scripture. None of.
[30:20] Neither of those. Are referenced to. This church you have here. In fact. We don't have the time. But in chapter 2. He mentions the word church. And when you take the quote. That he uses the quote.
[30:32] From Psalm 22. And guess what? The word. Church is used in Hebrews. But that same verse. In the Old Testament. You won't see the word church. What you see the word is.
[30:43] Congregation. Which is what. The word is. You know. A called out assembly. An assembly. Or a congregation. So. Both. Neither time.
[30:54] I believe. Is used to reference. A church. In the New Testament age. Secondly. The word body. Such as. The body of Christ. Paul mentions it. 22 times. In his epistles.
[31:05] There's only one reference. To the body. In the book of Hebrews. And again. I don't believe. It's a reference. To the body of Christ. Remember how Paul said. When he. He was caught up. To the third heaven.
[31:16] In second Corinthians. He talks about it. Maybe it's. What chapter 12. And. 11 or 12. He's caught up. To third heaven. He said. Whether in the body. Or out of the body. I cannot tell. Meaning. Whether.
[31:27] I. My soul and spirit. Went. But I was. Whether I was in the body. I could. I don't even know. Or my body was still on earth. I don't know. And I believe. That's the way. It's used. In the book of Hebrews.
[31:37] Chapter 13. The word justification. That's a New Testament doctrine. For us. Church doctrine. Justification. 23 times. Paul mentions it. In his 13 epistles.
[31:48] How many times. In the book of Hebrews. Goose egg. Zero. How about. Being saved. Being saved. Getting saved. I was saved.
[31:59] You know. He saved us. Etc. Paul mentions it. 22 times. In his epistles. Zero times. In the book of Hebrews. How about. Born again. Quick and regenerated.
[32:10] New Testament doctrine. For the church. Must be born again. Ten times. Paul makes reference. To those terms. In his other epistles. Zero times. In the book of Hebrews.
[32:22] And how about. What I consider. The catch-all. Lord. Gentile. Now. If it's the Gentile. The church. And if you're over here. And the gospel's gone out. To the Gentile.
[32:32] You would expect. The book of Hebrews. To reflect that. 50 times. Paul mentions. The word Gentiles. Gentile. Or Gentile. Singular. Plural. In his 13 epistles.
[32:43] How many times. In the book of Hebrews. Zero. So. The emphasis. In the book of Hebrews. Is not. On. New Testament. Church. Doctrine.
[32:54] For salvation. It's not. On the Gentile. Who's part. Of the body of Christ. It's not even. On the church. But what is the emphasis. So. The word Levi.
[33:05] Levitical. Or Aaron. Regarding the priesthood. Paul mentions. In the book of Hebrews. Six times. One book. Twelve chapters. He mentioned it. Six times. In his other 13 writings.
[33:16] Zero times. How about. Tabernacle. Very instrumental. To the Jew. In the old testament. And Paul mentions it. Nine times. In the book of Hebrews.
[33:27] Zero times. In his other 13 epistles. How about. Two more. How about. The high priest. High priest. Paul mentions it. In the book of Hebrews.
[33:38] Seventeen times. It's showing. He's talking about. A high priest. Just not. The old testament. High priest. So in his other epistles. How many times. Does he use the word. High priest.
[33:48] Or the phrase. High priest. Zero. One more. Melchizedek. Whom the bible says. That he's going to. You know. Make him a priest. After the order of Melchizedek.
[34:00] That's found in. Psalm 110. Verse 4. In fact. Only two times. In the whole. Old testament. Does that name appear. And it shows you. The Jew. Could have known.
[34:11] God was going to do away. With the law. Because he said. About his son. In the context. The messiah. In verse 1. Of that chapter. That he's going to be. After the order of.
[34:21] Melchizedek. A gentile. Priest. So how many times. Paul mentions him. Nine times. He's mentioned twice. In the whole old testament. Nine times.
[34:32] In the book of Hebrews. So how many times. Does he mention it. In his other 13 epistles. Zero. Where's the emphasis. On the book of Hebrews. On the church. Or on.
[34:43] The Jew. It's obviously. Just by the very title itself. That it's references. Of course. To the Jew. Let's. Go to the book of Hebrews.
[34:53] For a second. Now if. Down here.
[35:14] As I've already mentioned. And when God revealed to Paul. The mysteries. The mystery of the one body. The church. The mystery of the rapture. In first Corinthians 15. The church.
[35:26] Mystery would be in Ephesians chapter 3. The mystery of the indwelling Christ. Colossians chapter 1. The mystery that. Israel is going to be put aside. Temporarily.
[35:37] In Romans. Yeah. Romans chapter 11. Those things. For instance. He mentions here. And we build our New Testament doctrine on it. Because when I talked about the rapture.
[35:47] Group of you said amen. You're looking for the rapture. That's what we are. They weren't. We're looking. We have eternal security. But guess what?
[36:00] They didn't. If Paul's writing. References historically. That period of time. And doctrinally. This period of time.
[36:13] Then those mysteries. That God revealed to him later on. That apply to the church age. And we build our foundation upon. We're not known to them. Did not apply to them.
[36:26] There was no church. Therefore no rapture. There was no eternal security. Why? Same economy under the law. We don't have time to go into.
[36:39] You know how somebody saved in the Old Testament. That came up yesterday in the car. There. There. The one simple thing to understand here. Under the law. There was no single sacrifice.
[36:53] To take away sin. Even the day of atonement. Was an annual event. Right? Annual. Every year. So it was repeated.
[37:04] Every year. Those priests would come and go because they would attain the priesthood, the high priest, and then they would die and somebody else would take their place. There was no single sacrifice to take away sin.
[37:20] Jesus Christ came and died. The final, finished, forever sacrifice for sin was accomplished here. Now, on the other side of that is the opportunity, the ability for somebody to be saved and saved for all eternity.
[37:36] But this economy here is still applied here because they hadn't at that point received Christ as their Messiah and it's going to apply here doctrinally.
[37:51] The church here, we have eternal security in the church, but we're going to go up, right? So when the tribulation comes, their economy is going to be the same as this over here.
[38:05] With the exception that instead of them offering an animal sacrifice, they'll believe on the sacrifice Jesus Christ made. But according to Revelation, it seems and appears as though not only do they have to have faith in Christ, but they also have to, the Jews keep the law.
[38:22] just like back here. And that applies over here. So when Paul's talking, he's not bringing into account.
[38:33] I asked you to turn, we've got to close, but go over to Hebrews chapter 3 for a second. Hebrews chapter 3. We see three places, and your pastor will no doubt bring this out as you get into the book of Hebrews.
[38:49] There's three specific places in the book of Hebrews that teach a conditional salvation. If you do this, this, or if you don't do this, you won't have this.
[39:03] Look at verse 6. But Christ, as a son over his own house, whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
[39:16] If. Now, how do you get away from that? How do you get out of that problem? Well, if you're, if you're one of those believers down here, a fundamentalist that believes this dispensational chart, the only way you have is you have to somehow work around it.
[39:34] And some people like a J. Vernon McGee changes the word. So it's not if, it's since. It says, you know, Christ is the son of the house, whose house we are, since we hold the confidence.
[39:49] Well, since is not conditional because we already have done it. But if is very conditional and that word is conditional. Then look at verse, verse 14, same thing.
[40:03] For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. Are you if-ing it?
[40:15] I don't think so. It's not an if. Salvation. It's a no-so. Real quick, go to chapter 6. Chapter 6, look at verse 4.
[40:29] For it is impossible for those who are once enlightened, have tasted the heavenly gift, were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, slide down to verse 6, if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance.
[40:42] They're losing their salvation. There's a condition. They have to keep faithful and keep faithful. What did Jesus say in Matthew 24, speaking about the period of time, the tribulation period? But he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved.
[40:57] And if he doesn't endure to the end, he takes the mark of the beast, worships the beast, he won't be saved. There's a condition in Matthew 24, just as there are conditions in the book of Hebrews.
[41:11] And real quickly, look at chapter 10, and then we'll close here. Chapter 10 says this in verse 26. For if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, etc.
[41:29] Then he says, what in 27? But a certain fearful looking for a judgment, fiery indignation. Are you concerned and afraid you're going to lose your salvation? I'm persuaded in neither life nor death, angels, principalities, etc., etc.
[41:47] Separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. That's what Paul said for us. But here, Paul's writing something entirely different. Why? Trouble is, some people take this and they change that a little bit.
[41:59] If we sin willfully, if we practice sin. If we practice sin to the degree that shows that you never really were saved, proof that you were never saved, therefore.
[42:11] And the same thing goes with the other, back in chapter 6, it talks about the idea of being a partaker. Well, if we're a partaker of Christ, we're saved. But they change that to going along with.
[42:24] So if you go along with the Holy Spirit, and if you have a Schofield reference Bible, he'll make mention of that. The problem is this.
[42:34] Hebrews has a lot of problems. And if we take the book of Hebrews and we try to place it here in the church age, we're going to really hang ourselves. Or we're going to have to change the scriptures to accommodate it with the church age.
[42:48] But at the same time, if we put it where I think it fits, early here, that historically fit Jews that still had the hope of the Messiah, the kingdom, Gentiles, the gospel hadn't gone out to Gentiles, it fits.
[43:06] Because they didn't have those mysteries that Paul received later on. And then when you read the book of Hebrews, you say, okay, well that fits, that applies. I can see that. Now listen, we're not taking the book of Hebrews and ripping it out of our Bibles at all.
[43:20] It fits in beautifully. But don't we have chapters of the Bible, books of the Bible that apply to us as a church? But as a church, you don't read Leviticus for church doctrine.
[43:36] Now you might have spiritual application, which is all perfectly fine. But for doctrine, you don't necessarily go to Leviticus or Deuteronomy. We go to Paul's epistles.
[43:47] Where are they going to go in the tribulation? Paul's epistles, the church, they're going to go to Hebrews, James, the Sermon on the Mount, and things like that.
[43:58] Anyway, sorry for taking a little bit too long. I hope that's just an introduction, you know, a tip of the iceberg sort of speaking, trying to get an understanding of the book of Hebrews. and your pastor will take off from here and go and plumb the depths, I'm sure.
[44:12] Our Father, thank you for your goodness to us and your mercy. When asked, Father, your blessing upon what was said and done this morning, you bless the service to follow. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.