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Speaker 1And we're going to get to singing a few songs before we dig in the Hebrews. So, how about the old rugged cross? Hymn number three twenty seven and number three twenty seven. Come on, join us. Come on.
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Stand up with us. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't say that, did
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Speaker 2I? Yeah. On a hill trophies at last I lay down.
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Speaker 1Do you all know the wondrous story? Do you know it? Will you sing of Nah. That's it. I will sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died for me.
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Sing it with gusto and enthusiasm. Hymn number four ninety nine.
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Speaker 2I will sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died for me how he left his home in glory
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Speaker 1Y'all can have a seat, but I did not know that that time signature changed in the middle of that song. Y'all aren't looking at this page like I'm looking at this page. So I was snapping my fingers to the four four in the beginning and immediately when y'all started singing, I thought, that's the wrong time signature. I I never studied this. I never studied the music part of this at all.
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Study the Bible but y'all let me do this. This is fun and it's complicated too. Thank you. You did right and I did wrong. Wow.
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It's great though. I will sing the wondrous story. I ask you to do gusto enthusiasm that went off the rails but announcements, here we are. Bible study happens in the first service. So, during the first service, after the song service is over, the kids go downstairs and then the junior high and high school girls also leave out of the sanctuary at that moment go down and Judy is leading a study for the junior high and high school girls.
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Sounds like it's going well. Started last week. No, two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. Yeah, it's good.
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Youth group tonight is from five to seven. It should be right here starting off here at church. Youth group five to seven on Sundays. We moved it from Tuesdays because of just all kinds of conflicts so that we think that Sunday is the best night for Monday nights at first B is happening. This a message encouragement, words of encouragement, Carl is doing and it's words of encouragement particularly prayer and encouragement from God's word.
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So, using those two avenues, that's what he's talking about tomorrow night. Monday nights at first be meal, music, and a message starting at 06:00. If you're around or if you'd like to make a point to be here, come on. Same thing, same time period. Somebody asked me yesterday, there was a funeral here yesterday and somebody asked me, so why is there like a helicopter landing pad on your floor?
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And that is the Awana Game Circle. So the Awana Game Circle is there. We start out in this room and the kids play games. They do kind of an opening ceremony and then split up in a different age levels. From two years old all the way up through fifth grade and we have a few that have graduated out of the fifth grade program.
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They're in the sixth grade and they're helping with the younger ones which is really nice. If you want an opportunity to share scripture in the gospel with somebody that's a receptive audience, that's a good place for you to volunteer. Tanya, my wife is still in Kenya. She is over there and heading home on Tuesday, leaving on Tuesday, arriving here Wednesday evening. So, she's nine hours ahead of us right now.
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She said, it's already been a good day. So, y'all can know that, you know? It's good. So, she is there just for a couple more days. They'll be making their way back starting tomorrow morning.
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They start moving land wise and then she'll take off on Tuesday night late Community Bible study, engaging God's word. It's open to everybody. There's a Wednesday morning cohort from nine to 11:30. There's a Thursday evening cohort. That's a coed.
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Both of em are coed. If you want to come, it's not a women's or men's. It's everybody come. Thursdays, six to eight and I'm going to hit you with a lot of Bible studies that are happening. All of these are sort of like small groups and if you have a small group that's already going and you want for us to know about it, tell us about it and we can advertise for you to kind of bring people in.
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If it's a closed group or if you're not asking for people to come in, you just enjoy. You don't have to do what you want to do. That didn't get a laugh in the first service either. I just keep doing it. It's funny.
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Girls Bible study is happening. Also, this is happening at the whole grocer community room, 04:00, not 03:30, for eight to 13 year old girls and that's on Wednesdays at 04:00. Dancey Tolson is leading that. She's one of the commanders for Awana. Kids really matter to God and they matter to Dancy too.
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So, if you want to get in touch with her, that's a good way to do it. Thursdays, nine to 11:30, Jane leads a precept study. She facilitates the study on the latter half of Acts. Jesus is witness to the Gentile through Paul. So, that's in this fellowship hall nine to eleven.
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There's a connect hour we call it. It's fellowship between the services to keep us connected so that we don't become two different churches because we meet at two different times. We're one big church that meets at different times and if there's anything else that I've forgotten and there almost certainly is, it should be in your paper bulletin. Anybody else have something they can't let me skip? Seems like there was one more but oh well.
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It's in your bulletin. I promise. Would y'all stand and greet one another and we'll bring you back together with another song.
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Speaker 2Why should the shadows come why should my heart be lonely long for heaven and when Jesus is my portion my constant friend is he his eyes on the sparrow and I know he watches me his eyes I he watches me I sing because I'm happy I sing because I'm free for his eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches I draw the closer to him from care he sets me free his eyes on the I'm free for his eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me
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Speaker 1Holy Amen. Spirit, thou art welcome in this place. Hymn number three eighty seven.
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Speaker 2Amen.
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Speaker 1Y'all can have seat. I'm going to invite the frontline team to come forward. Would you pray with me? We're going to pray for God to use this offering in whatever way he helps. God, would you do your will and your way this morning, lord?
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We ask you to do that and we ask you to receive these offerings, lord. May we have pure hearts that are led by you and in obedience, give, lord, because that's the way that you do your will in this world. When we give of what we have to you, we start where we are. We use what we have and we do what we can. Lord, you can and will multiply that.
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So, we ask that you do it by your power, by your love. We want to join with you in showing and expressing our love for the people in this valley who who do not yet know you and for those on the other side of the world who do not yet know you. May we live lives of surrendered obedience that would join all creation in praising you. Join all creation in pointing towards you. May we, lord, be a part of the solution and not the problem.
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Your plan, A, and there's no plan B. God, would you do what you own alone can do with this? Amen. Thank you, Susie and Judy. This morning, we are up to Hebrews six thirteen through 20.
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Now, I had it in the slides last week. I told you I was going to go four to 12 but I had up through 20 there because it needs to all be taken together. It really, really needs to be taken altogether. So, if you will excuse me, I'm going to go back and pick up from chapter five verse 11 and go forward and try to make it through all this today because I think it matters. It's a review so I won't spend nearly as much time on it as I have for the past three weeks but I think that if you take it all together, this whole passage will make more sense, and we'll end up with the basis of spiritual security in 13 through 20 by Warren Wiersby.
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How many of y'all watch HGTV? Okay, there are a few more that admitted to it in this service than in the last, but the thing I don't like about almost every show on television today, the kind of remodeling shows, they're pretty cheap to make. They'll They tear out a bathroom and put back, you know, a new bathroom in its place or they tear down a hot rod and they put, know, new paint and everything and make it better. But every time they take a commercial break, when they come back to it, they tell you everything that they told you before. It drives me nuts.
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You can watch a whole episode of something if you do it without the review. You can watch it in six minutes. I apologize if that's the way that you feel about my reviews here. Okay? But it matters.
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This makes a huge difference and especially since last week, I left a warning in your lap and I asked you to mull it over. That was about the possibility of apostasy or losing your faith and rejecting it out of hand, forfeiting your salvation, that sort of thing. So, since I left you with that last week, I want to go back and cover this as a whole. I believe that it gives us a basis for our spiritual security but the warning is still there and you can't just ignore it because of your systematic theology, okay? It really is still there and we'll go through it.
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Here it is. Basis of spiritual security. We're looking at the landscape. This happens to be the Teton landscape. We're looking at it.
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I said diagnosis. This was two two two or three weeks ago I mentioned this to begin with. We opened a parenthesis that is kind of a digression where the authors of Hebrews step back for a moment and began a digression that was really a great lesson but diagnosis was based on some symptoms that this author or authors of Hebrews were seeing in the first century professing Christians. They had professed faith in Christ. They had walked away from the old covenant to the new but they were being tempted to go back to this old covenant of works and so, the diagnosis that this author gives starts right here concerning him.
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We have much to say that the him refers I believe to Melchizedek could refer to Christ but I believe that it's Melchizedek. The whole book's about Jesus and this digression or parenthesis is begun right there in that verse concerning him. We have much to say. It's hard to explain. Since you've become dull of hearing.
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Wow. That's the symptom number one. Now, you go into a doctor and you're looking for a diagnosis because you've got symptoms, right? This symptom number one is you're dull of hearing. I just did a test and you're not getting it.
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So, symptom number two is by this time you ought to be teachers. So, at some point, you, all the old covenant, all the old testament stuff that you've got in your life and it's all pointing towards the new and you kind of accepted that as true and you started walking but then all of a sudden, you found that you're drawn back and you're not growing and you're certainly not teaching others. You can't even feed yourself and when you do feed yourself, it's baby food. That's symptom number three. By this time you ought to be teachers, you've had this word long enough that it should be making a difference in your life that you can express it but you're not expressing it.
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That's symptom number two. Symptom number three, need milk and not solid food. A baby food diet for a grown up is not normal. No matter what we're doing these days with all of our intermittent fasting and keto this and who knows what that. It's not normally just baby food if you're a grown up.
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So, that's symptom number three. Symptom number four is harder to explain but since I preached it twice already, I'm not going to do it again. Symptom number four is you're not accustomed to the word of righteousness. Where it comes to walking it out. Salvation, you seem to understand the concept but sanctification, you seem to be having a problem with.
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The word of righteousness, walking it out. You're not like those who are mature who are because of practice having their senses trained to discern between good and evil. Okay, are y'all with me there? So those are four symptoms. Little bit hard to explain but we've already covered them so I'm gonna keep going.
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So the diagnosis being immaturity and voluntary, really, voluntary immaturity because you're not listening. It's not that the teaching is not there, the teaching is there, you're just not paying attention to The remedy for that is this, therefore, leaving behind the elementary teaching about salvation and let us press on to maturity. That's the prescription. Press on. Press on forward.
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Lean into what God has for you and not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith towards God. Yes, that's entry. That's the way you get in. It's still something that's important but rather than paying attention to that, you should press on about this walking it out. Of instructions about washings laying on in hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
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Yes, all that's true but that's elementary. Let's move on. This we will do if God permits, lean, and trust in him. So, then comes the warning which I laid in your lap last week. The warning is pretty strong.
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Strongest one in the if you're asking me. This one's stronger because it it is right there and then in chapter 10, the same warning is repeated, same kind of warning is repeated and it's real and you have to pay attention to it. The warning is this, case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and they've been made partakers of the Holy Spirit and they've tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away. Now, if if you go up through verse five right there, who does that sound like? Sounds like Christians and I think that that's the plain, the plain teaching of the text.
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Sounds like people who have actually tasted and been made partakers and tasted good word and seen the powers of the age to come. Sounds like people who have been in church at least, okay? People who have been around this, Now, this is where the distinction comes in. Is it Christians who have the possibility of apostatizing and walking away from the faith or is it people who profess Christ that really aren't? I left that with you last week.
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I don't care what your systematic theology is. I honestly don't. Doesn't matter to me what you what it is. The warning is real. It's laid out there and it's very, very, very, very, very hard to tell the difference in someone who has actually accepted the penalty.
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I mean, the the the payment of the penalty that Christ made on our behalf. The substitutionary atonement of Christ. It's very hard to tell the difference between somebody who's actually made that and someone who's acting like they've made it because that's what's expected from all the people around. Whether it's a family you grew up in or the culture of the the church or the foundational tenets of the group that you belong to. Knowing the right answer and actually believing it where it works itself out in your life are two different things.
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So, this warning is real. It says, and then have fallen away. So, they've tasted and seen all these things but then they've fallen away from it, walked away from it. It's impossible to renew them again to repentance. Now, the renew there is a passive so it is it's impossible for them for them to be renewed.
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Meaning, it's going to take an it it cannot happen from an outside force. It's going to be something that they themselves before God have to do on their own. If you take it as the absolute that they cannot be renewed again, there no hope for them whatsoever but I believe that God always answers the call of faith and when the prodigal son recognized how far he had wandered away, the father was standing at the road looking down the road for him and ran after him. So, I feel like it's impossible for them to be renewed outside of their own themselves. The spirit is caught softly and tenderly.
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Jesus is calling you home but it's not something. Have you all had anybody that you know and have raised in some cases parents? I'm closing my eyes. Do y'all know anybody that you've raised and then they've walked away and how damaging that is and how much you wanna get that word in there and you wanna text them, this is God's word. This is what it says and it feels like it's doing nothing.
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Now, the next few verses, let me let me back up for a second. It's impossible to to for them to be renewed again unto repentance since they are progressive action, crucifying unto themselves and the son of God and they are progressively putting him to open shame. When they repent of that and they walk away from that, I think that God listens to me. People call me not this week but I've had people call me in the past saying, I feel like I've committed an unpardonable sin. I've committed the only the the Bible says there's one that's unforgivable.
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The unforgivable one is quenching the spirit when he is pulling you in to the family of God saying, no, Jesus deserve the cross. No, I won't allow him to pay my penalty. I don't owe a penalty. All of those things are not true and not good. Ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it.
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So, for those of us who grew up in church, I did and I could've answered the questions about who Jesus was when I before I started school. I could've answered the question. Yeah, he's God's son. Sure. When was it though where it became rather than an answer to a question, it became something was so true in my life that I felt the love of God as expressed through the forgiveness through the substitutionary atonement of Christ and I experienced the forgiveness of God and started to walk it out by loving and forgiving others.
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That's that's a difference. Knowing it and knowing it experientially is different. Ground that drinks in the rain which often falls on it. I was exposed to a lot of falling rain. Rain in the Bible is always a good thing, right?
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Rain coming down. Rain for us is like gotta slog around in this stuff. But it makes vegetation grow. It makes good things grow right here. Ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it, brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is till that receives a blessing from God but if it yields thorns and thistles and I think this is a time for self evaluation right here.
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You look at the warning and then you look at life and you say, is there good fruit in my life or is it just thorns and thistles? Am I going through the motions of acting like I'm a Christian but then, I'm not really producing any kind of fruit. The fruits of the spirit are not showing up in my life. Thorns and thistles, it's worthless. It's close to being cursed temporarily, close to being cursed and it ends up being burned if there's nothing that changes that.
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It ends up being burned. And then there's an encouragement. That's a very strong warning and I know it. The encouragement comes right on the heels of that and then we'll get into the security part, the basis of our the encouragement was this, but beloved, oh my goodness, this is the only time in Hebrews that the author or author says, beloved, those who are loved of God, dear ones, dearly beloved, we're convinced. We usually means authors, you know, instead of one person.
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We are convinced of better things concerning you. In your case, we are convinced of better things and things that accompany salvation. We believe that you are believers because we see the good fruit in your life. That we are speaking in this way and the warning is very real. So, it's up for you to see whether you are actually a believer or whether you're someone who is just kind of playing the role.
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Of what's expected of you from those around you that you care for. But beloved, we're convinced that better things concern you and things that accompany salvation though we are speaking in this way. The warning is very real. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown towards his name. You actually are doing things in God's name and he recognizes that.
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In having ministered to in the past, thanks and in still continuing to minister out of love toward the saints. God has done that in you and that's why I think better things. I'm seeing this. Now, even the authors of Hebrews inspired by God, even the author or authors of Hebrews, there were people and they only judge on the outward appearance And so for me to look and see, oh, that's thorns and thistles. I don't know that person's heart.
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That's why I asked y'all last week and I'm asking you again to do a self evaluation and know whether or not what you're doing is not a motivation, love, or whether it's just done. And we desire that each and every that's what this means. Each and every one of you shows the same diligence so as to realize, don't be sluggish. Don't be lazy about this. We desire that each and everyone of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope.
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Oh, there's the word. Hope until the end. Now, hope is in the Bible. An absolute certainty that has not yet happened. It's not the way we use it in English.
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The way we use it in English is, well, I hope that that package that I ordered shows up before Valentine's Day or I hope that that package that I order shows up at all. Yeah. I hope that I don't have to make a trip to the post office. I hope all of these things but that's not an absolute certainty that is just not come to pass. It's something that should but who knows whether it will?
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In the Bible, when it says hope, it means an absolute certainty that has not yet come to pass and we just hit the word right there. We desire of Hebrews desires for each and everyone of you. For them, it was these folks who'd walked from the old covenant, Old Testament, first century, Judaism to the New Covenant which this was pointing them towards all along and they said that they had accepted this but they're being tempted to go back to a covenant of works. For you, it may be a different draw. It might be into lawlessness or it might be back to legalist, legalism.
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I don't know. We desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end. It's a call for perseverance. The hope that this will come to pass is what's set before us in this encouragement. It's coming.
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Stick with it until the end. Don't turn back. So that those so that you will not be sluggish. This is the whole reason this parenthesis. Here's the whole reason this is written.
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So that you won't be sluggish or dull, lazy, but actually be imitators of those who faith and patience inherited or inherit the promises. That verse 12 right there is pointing towards chapter 11, the the hall of faith. We can see it from here, you know, and it's he's going to give examples. Examples actually by the way, where we can see the works of some of those people and we think, well, that's that would, that's not the example I'd use. That that's kind of a bad guy but he believed God and God was working on him and sanctifying him because of trust in God and the faithfulness of God cannot be overstated.
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He is faithful and he answers the call of faith. He answers when he says, I will call, I will everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. He means it. So that you will not be sluggish but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Now, here we are ten minutes in up to the sermon for today.
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Basis of spiritual security. I try to use the white slides for stuff we've been over and black slides for things that we're going over for the first time together right here. Hebrews six thirteen says this, for when God made the promise to Abraham, now we're talking about the basis for spiritual security. When God made the promise to Abraham, so the first thing that we're dealing right here is God's promise. God's promise to Abraham.
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Now, if you don't know the story, then, you go, well, what is God's promise to Abraham have to do with me? Well, read the story. We'll get back to that. It it's going to it's going to be evident here in a minute anyway. For when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself and some of y'all are thinking, God swore?
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God swore we're not supposed to swear. Well, he cannot commit taking the Lord's name in vain because he is the Lord. He is the utmost. He's the highest. When he does it, there's no way it can be blasphemous and what else would he swear by?
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We see all kinds of examples throughout the literature of that period where, you know, the Norse are swearing by Odin's beard and Thor's hammer and all the other figures. Today, we even see it. Let me go on but I'll get to that in a text in just a minute. For when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself saying, I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you. Now, that is from, I think, that he made several promises to Abraham but since it's the promise and the quote is from this, I'm going to say this is the one.
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The promise from Genesis twenty two sixteen and seventeen, God says to Abraham and he said, by myself, I have sworn because there's nothing higher, nothing greater. Declares the Lord because you have done the thing and you have not withheld your son. Remember the story of God asking Abraham to go up to the high mountain and to sacrifice his son, his only son, your only son. Indeed, I will greatly bless you. Galatians says, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.
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He believed him and he began to walk it out. So, when he's talking to these people, they know the story better than I know the story. They know the story better than y'all probably know the story. There are a few Hebrew scholars in here but they knew this story very very well and they know the promise to Abraham, he believed God and he walked it out. So, what was for them was not that they didn't know it.
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They knew the elementary principles but they weren't walking it out. Indeed, I will greatly bless you and I will greatly multiply your seed, Abraham, as the stars of the heaven, as the sand which is on the seashore, and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. This is a bless, a promise of blessing, a covenant that God made with Abraham. I will surely bless you, Hebrews six fourteen said, I will surely multiply you and so, having patiently waited, that's Abraham, patiently waiting, I don't think of patience when I think of Abraham, do you? When I think of him, I think of him getting the promise and going, okay, God says it's going to happen but it hadn't happened.
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He's tapping his foot and waiting for it to happen and then Sarah says, well, maybe I'll try this. That's not the child of the promise. That's not the way this goes. God said he was going to do it. He's going to do it.
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It's hope. That's what you that's what you need. Hope. It's an absolute certainty that has not yet come to pass. So, I think the author of Hebrews or authors is gracious towards Abraham to say, he patiently waited and he obtained the promise.
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Now, speaking to first century Jewish background Christians to say, Abraham patiently waited. Since the cross in thirty or thirty three AD and this is written about 6667. It's been thirty three years for them. You know, since this event had happened and a lot of people are looking for Jesus to have already come back even in the even in the forties, even in the thirties. People quit their jobs waiting on it, right?
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The first book we study together, Thessalonians. So, I'm impatiently waited, he obtained the promise. You know how long it was from how long the promise to the fulfillment of the promise? About twenty five years for him. Looking backwards For men swear by one greater themselves.
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So, today, you know, in a courtroom, they say, would you swear on this Bible? You know, and I hear people say sometimes I say, no, I swear it's true. Swear on a stack of Bibles. I'm like, one Bible's not good enough. I, the whole stack of em, you know, or on my eyes.
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Oh my goodness. I like my eyes. On my mama's grave, I swear on this. I swear on that. It's something bigger, something that they value more than their own life.
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Swear on my life. They do that too. Men swear by one greater than themselves. That's always been a temptation and with them, an oath is given as confirmation and it's an end of every dispute. Why do we have contracts?
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Because they end dispute. In the same way, God and that strikes me right there. Men do this naturally throughout history. They've done this naturally. There are ways that they they make an oath.
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In the Old Testament, they grab that inner part of the thigh and hold on. This is the way we make an oath or the ancient Hittite, right? This one comes to mind because it's God and Abraham and God says to Abraham, what he's promising and he says, now, Abraham, you take this bull and you split it in two and the pieces split in twain, we shall walk together in between the two. That's an ancient Hittite thing. That's kind of weird for me.
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Southern Baptist, right? But in the same way God, this is God communicated to Abraham in a language that he can understand. Amen. He condescended to Abraham. He couldn't swear by anything greater but he still made a promise and an oath.
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So, the next thing we see is men swear by one greater themselves. With them, an oath is given as confirmation. It's an end of every dispute. In the same way, God desiring even more, even more than just a contractual agreement which that really one-sided initiated by God towards Abraham and Abraham believed it. It was counted as righteousness.
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In the same way God desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise. Okay, here's where it includes us. A promise to Abraham is ours. We are heirs to that promise. The unchangeableness of its purpose.
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God interposed with an oath. So, I don't ever do three point sermons but this one broke down that way. So, God's promise is the first point, really. God promised Abraham and he interposed with an oath. God's oath is kind of the second point.
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It's based and that's coming the third point but so that by two unchangeable things, his promise and his oath in which it's impossible for God to lie. Now, we do see a liar in scripture and it's the father of lies, Satan. He'll use any lie at hand. Anything anybody will believe he'll use. He's the father of lies and when he lies, he speaks his native tongue.
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So, by two unchangeable thing, impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge, we're heir of the promise. Those who have taken refuge. We who have refuge would have strong encouragement. Now, I just gave you the strongest warning in the whole New Testament about the possibility of falling away but it's within this whole parenthesis. The whole passage is really a passage about the security that we have in Christ and in Christ alone in the first service.
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We sang in Christ alone in the song service and asked Carl to come up and sing it again for the invitation because we can in Christ alone have this. Those who have taken refuge in him would have strong encouragement to hate take hold of the hope that is set before us. Again, I say, hope in the Bible is not the way we use it today. It is an absolute certainty that has not yet come to pass and this hope we have as an anchor of the soul. If you have put your trust in Jesus and you have believed those elementary things, do not turn away.
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Turn towards him. Turn towards him and walk it out. He is the anchor of your soul. Where you are fickle and some of y'all since I left the warning in your lap, this week have thought, am I really saved? Am I really saved?
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Because I have the sin in my life that I don't seem to be able to get over. You can get over that with God's transformation help. You do have to give it to him. You do have to yield it to him but he will get you through it. It's the same power that raised Jesus from the dead that's at work with you.
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We have as an anchor of our soul, a hope that is both sure and steadfast, it's ongoing, and certain. There's no doubt about it. The hope is based on one which enters within the veil. Now, for us, Bible terminology, whatever. They had the temple.
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It was still standing. Probably would stand for maybe two, three, four years more after this letter was written but it was about to be wiped out. They knew of the holy of holies. They knew of how that was supposed to go. They had a high priest who once a year on the day of atonement was able to go in and he could make atonement for sins before he could go into the Holy of Holies.
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He had to make atonement for his own or he had to make some sort of a sacrifice for his own sin. Even then, they tied a rope around his ankle so that if he went into the Holy of Holies and God struck him dead, they could pull him out of there. Really? This happened within the veil. In the New Testament, we see in the gospels where when Jesus was crucified, the earth shook and the veil of the temple was torn into from top to bottom.
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Jesus entering symbolically into that holy of holies. We see it in multiple places. In Hebrews, we see it in multiple places and the rest of the New Testament. He entered within the veil. Actually, Ironside, not the guy in the chair on the old black and white TV show but there's a preacher named Ironside and Ironside said that the whole of the Hebrews message is this, Christ working within the veil went outside or without the camp, without the camp and within the veil and we who are without the camp have been led into and that's what the rest of this verse says.
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We have a hope, absolute certainty that has not yet happened but sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil into the holy of holies where Jesus has entered, amen. The anchor of our soul is the hope we have in Jesus. God's son, that's the third point. God's promise, God's oath, it's all pointing towards God's son who has made the sacrifice. Within the veil satisfactory and acceptable to God for whosoever would believe where Jesus has entered and it says, as a forerunner for us, Jesus, God's son, leads the way and we follow after because he's entered in that place and he came, his blood cleanses us from sin.
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Where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us having become a high priest forever and the priestly service of Christ is something that I don't think or didn't think a whole lot about but Hebrews is really giving me great comfort and he is the once and for all sacrifice for us. He has his priestly services great and ever present for us. He has become having become a high priest forever and then we're coming up close of our parenthesis right here according to the order of Melchizedek. So, started off with Melchizedek ended with it. That's the close of this section, the diagnosis, the remedy, the warning, the encouragement, and then the basis of our spiritual security.
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You can rest in the certainty that Christ sacrifice was sufficient. Make sure you are trusting in Jesus and not in self and not in knowing the right answer but in knowing the one who is the answer. The basis of our spiritual security is him. So, like I said, it opened with this designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek concerned him much to say and then it closes with that and it points back and says, according to high priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. Now, the next thing we see is this, for this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God and then goes into an extended passage about Melchizedek that the author authors of Hebrews are saying it's an important thing to get.
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It's not just about Jesus's work on Earth but it is about his role as a high priest forever that continues. Eternity past, eternity future, and this role is going to be something that we see starting next week probably for a couple weeks. Now, I'll ask you to pray because the Melchizedek that we meet in the Old Testament, he's mentioned in one verse in Genesis and then one verse in Psalms, a little story about him four, five verses long in Genesis and then, once in the Psalms and the writer of Hebrews under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit presents more than half a chapter about him. Incredibly mysterious figure because it's limited information available and heresy always thrives where there's limited biblical information and felt need. So, I want for y'all to go ahead and study and think about and dwell on who is this mysterious character, Melchizedek and think about it but we're going to get our answer for the next week and probably two from the author or authors of Hebrews.
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What is our closing song? Cleanse me. It is. Would you come on forward, Judy? Would y'all stand and I I pray that this is prayer.
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It's actually from Psalm 51 and David hit this point several times in his life where he had recognized that he had sinned and he went to God and said, please don't remove your Holy Spirit from me. Cleanse me. Cleanse me from this. I want to be pure and we know David was a man after God's own heart. I pray that we would be in this frame right here looking to see what God would teach us of not just the elementary things but of the word of righteousness and walking it out as we go forward surrendered and yielded with our hearts.
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God, would you bless? As we sing this, may it be a prayer. Move us through these verses, lord, to the place where we know that revival comes from you. Jesus name, amen. The altar is always open
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Speaker 2search me oh God
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Speaker 1Amen. For benediction today, we've got an Old Testament benediction. If you think that God is a cosmic killjoy, who's just looking for something to get on to you about or looking for reason to damn. Read this. God does not take away life.
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Instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him. God, would you use us this week to be one of those ways, an avenue, a we're see the darkness. Of You say that you will save all who call upon the name of the Lord. May you do that through us this week or someone in Jesus name, lord. Let us walk it out.
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Amen.
