Hebrews

[0:00] If you will look at your scripture sheet, we will attempt to conclude with chapter 5 of Hebrews today, and I want to give you a little heads up, so in case you'd like to look ahead, you may do so.

[0:12] But chapter 6 and the first few verses happen to deal with one of the most controversial issues in all of Christendom. It has been that way for at least the last 1,500 years or more so, and it isn't likely that we will solve it as a result of the time we give to it here, but I just wanted to give you a heads up in case you'd like to read ahead a little bit and develop any thoughts that may come from those first few verses of chapter 6.

[0:42] We would be happy to entertain them. But now we are continuing our consideration of Hebrews chapter 5, and the writer is talking about our Lord Jesus Christ and His superiority as a priest, and we read in verse 7, and I'm on page 5b now, that Christ in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplication with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard, in that He feared, though He were a son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered.

[1:28] That does not at all imply that Christ had to come from a position of disobedience to obedience. It doesn't mean that at all. And we talked a little bit about the impeccability of Christ.

[1:40] But what it does mean is that He experienced obedience in connection with each trial that He faced. He came out victorious.

[1:50] So it was still a learning process for Him, in that each situation to which He was cast, He emerged from it with the experience of having been obedient.

[2:03] And that, of course, reflects upon His nature and character, because if He were not the Son of God in truth, then, of course, He would have been subject to disobedience.

[2:16] But we know the temptation did not result in that, of course. And being made perfect or complete, and He was made complete in the sense that He suffered the whole gamut of everything that humanity could be exposed to, and yet He came out victorious.

[2:36] And He became, as a result, the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him. And this obedience has to do with the obedience of faith that the Apostle mentions in other places in Scripture, and I'm thinking particularly now of Romans, where he opens in the first chapter of Romans, and says, the reason that he was called and raised up of God to be an apostle was to bring the Gentiles to the obedience of faith.

[3:15] Faith is the response that we have to the finished work of Christ, and it is an act of obedience. Unbelief is disobedience.

[3:25] Belief is obedience. And then, the Apostle Paul concludes Romans with the same thought. And it's really interesting that he opens it with that, and he closes it with that, because it is absolutely critical to our salvation.

[3:42] This obedience of faith. Faith is the response, the obedient response that we render when we hear the Gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[3:53] What do you think about that? And when you believe, when you trust, when you commit, that is nothing more than the obedience of faith. Some take it to mean that it is the obedience that faith produces.

[4:06] Well, that's not wrong either. Both of these are involved. So, it's kind of like a mixed bag. But, the point of obedience is, and I think this is very, very important.

[4:19] Obedience is tied inseparably, connected to our volition. If we do not have a volition, if we are not a free moral agent, then obedience or disobedience is beyond us.

[4:39] But, it isn't beyond us. It is something for which we are responsible. And, that ties in with the obedience of faith. So, we are culpable. We are capable.

[4:50] We are responsible. And, God holds us accountable. In fact, it is the very fact that we are volitional creatures with the ability to make decisions between A and B.

[5:05] It is that ability that renders us accountable to God for what we do. And, if obedience were above and beyond us and just something out of our venue, then, of course, we wouldn't be responsible.

[5:19] But, we are responsible because we are volitional creatures. Yes, Joe? And, that faith you're talking about, you have to have that faith, that obedience faith. It is so important that you do not do works.

[5:33] If you do works, that's showing you lack faith. You lack faith if you do works because He paid the price. It's a free gift. And, if you are thinking, I've got to do some works here in order to get my salvation, you don't have faith.

[5:47] That's true. You really don't have faith. See? We are saved by faith. That works. Right. There's no works involved. Now, I hate to mind the interrupted here, but, last week, we were talking about works, you know?

[6:02] The works came kind of automatically. You accepted the Lord. But, James, in his book, James 2, yeah. Hebrews and Peter, these people were talking about the Jews that were going to probably go through the tribulation yet because, you know, they expected the end times to come real quick.

[6:20] You know, the tribulation was going to have to go through that tribulation. Then we're back to the dispensation of the, you know, the prophets of Israel's dispensation with God were away from Paul.

[6:33] Like you said, that's a mystery. That's secret. That just sat in there in the middle. Right. Right. So, when James is talking, there are works involved. You have to do work. Matter of fact, Jesus even said, you have to do works.

[6:45] And he's talking about these Jews at the end times in tribulation. Remember the goats and the sheep? The goats and the sheep. Right. When Jesus says, and he essentially says, if you aren't a sheep, he's talking about the nations come before him, and he divides them up, goats and sheep.

[7:00] If you aren't a sheep, then you're not going to be right. The sheep are the ones that help people. He said, you helped me when I was in food and hunger and needed visiting and so forth.

[7:13] You did those things for me. Those are works. You did. So, you have to have these works. He's talking about the dispensation again of the Israelites, of Jews. God's dealing with the Jews.

[7:24] So, works will be needed then just like they were before. So, we're back into that time period then of the tribulation.

[7:37] See, it's during the... And he even tells what kinds of works you have to do. Jesus tells us in Matthew there, I forget what chapter, 24 I think it is, in that goat's thing.

[7:48] He tells them that you have to feed me, house me, give me clothes. He's telling them, if you do that, you're going to heaven. It's very Jewish flavor. He says, you're going to heaven.

[7:58] And it's in keeping primarily with the dispensation of Israel, and that will come into play in the tribulation period. And by the way, if you keep in mind what Joe has just said, it also factors in to the Hebrew 6 thing because there, the writer is talking about if they shall fall away.

[8:18] Well, who is it that's falling away? That is frequently interpreted as people losing their salvation and they fall away and they cannot be renewed again into repentance seeing they crucify fresh the Son of God.

[8:30] So, all of this ties in and it is in keeping with what Paul said and we might be able to get to it yet this morning in 2 Timothy 2.15 when he says, be diligent or the King James says, study to show yourself approved unto God a workman that needs not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth.

[8:55] And what Joe was just talking about is the word of truth has to be divided. And if it isn't, if you do not rightly divide the truth, the only alternative is to wrongly mix the truth.

[9:11] And when you do that, you result in the confusion that confronts Christendom today that is responsible for all of the denominations, splits and splinters, interpretations, etc.

[9:24] So, maybe we'll even get to that yet this morning. So, let's move on here in chapter 5. He is called of God, verse 10, and high priest, and then in your new sheet, this will be 5D, after the order of Melchizedek, we're on 5D now, and verse 11, of whom we have many things to say.

[9:56] That is an inference to the fact that what the writer of Hebrews is, I think, clearly telling us is that, you know, I would really like to go into detail regarding Melchizedek and his order of priesthood, and the priesthood of Christ that follows after that order, I would really like to develop that, but I'm not going to do so because you're not able to handle it.

[10:33] And, Pellas, that is not intended to be a compliment. So, the writer of Hebrews is actually kind of scolding the people who are going to be recipients of this by telling them they are not where they ought to be so they cannot handle the information that he wants to give them.

[10:58] So, let's read on. Verse 11, of whom we have many things to say and hard to be uttered. Now, actually, that word uttered is probably not a good word.

[11:13] What it means is they are not hard to utter or hard to talk about, but what makes them hard is your understanding what is going to be uttered.

[11:25] That's the difficulty. They are hard to be uttered, and the reason, well, look at some of the other translations. The ASV, American Standard Version, says, and they are hard of interpretation, or hard to be explained.

[11:42] And Goodspeed says, but it is difficult to make it clear to you. Moffat says, which is hard to make intelligible to you.

[11:54] In other words, I don't think I can get this profound truth down to the level where you can grasp it. And you know what?

[12:06] Doggone it, it's your fault. That's what he's saying, putting it politely here, seeing you are dull of hearing.

[12:18] There's nothing wrong with the sending mechanism. The fallacy is in the receiving mechanism. You don't have the ability to absorb this truth.

[12:31] Shame on you. That's exactly what he's saying. Seeing you are dull of hearing. Moffat says, you have grown dull of hearing. You have become so dull of apprehension.

[12:45] Since you have grown dull in understanding, 20th century New Testament, you have shown yourselves so slow to learn. Today we call these people slow learners.

[12:59] Slow learners. And they just keep bumping their head on the same old rock. And William says, since you have become so dull in your spiritual senses, and I've got an idea that what is behind this fellas, and I don't know how else to put it, but my only understanding of the concept of understanding is that all truth has to be based upon previous truth truth that is received and understood and appropriated.

[13:44] In other words, truth is built upon truth. You have to have a base of truth with which to work.

[13:55] And truth kind of begets truth. In other words, the more you learn, the more you have to learn with. and the more you have to learn with, the more you are able to learn.

[14:12] Consequently, the most dangerous thing we can do is to hear truth, understand it to be true, and refuse to do anything about it.

[14:28] That's a sad situation and that is exactly the situation in which these people found themselves. Now, I want you to keep in mind the background. The recipients of this letter are Jews.

[14:46] They already have, I'm confident, a good grasp and appreciation of their Old Testament scriptures. Keep in mind, when the writer of Hebrews wrote this, the New Testament did not exist.

[15:01] The person of Christ, of course, did, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and the gospel that's gone out. And there are a number of Jewish people who have received Jesus as their Messiah.

[15:17] Probably the most prominent one that we are really familiar with is the apostle Paul, himself a Jew. Excuse me, boy, I don't know if that coffee did it, or if I need another cup.

[15:29] but what the writer of Hebrews is trying to do is to get them to move past what they have learned and add to it this new truth, but they are really slow and reluctant and sluggish in doing so.

[15:50] He's trying to get them off dead center. And the thrust of this whole epistle is let us go on. Let us move out further.

[16:03] Let us capitalize upon what we have learned in the past and move on to this new truth that God wants us to understand and appreciate. And they were very reluctant to do that, and one of the reasons, one of the reasons, I believe, is because they are still infatuated with the old mosaic system, and they are reluctant to see the progress of doctrine that moves from that into what we would call the new truth.

[16:36] They are stuck there, and the writer of Hebrews is trying to get them out. Look, Moses was great, and the law was great, but they are passé.

[16:47] They serve their purpose. Don't stay there, for you are entangled with the washings, and this will come up in Hebrews 6, and the word in the original is the baptisms, the ceremonial cleansings, over and over again, and the sacrifices, and all that.

[17:07] Let us move on. You've got to understand that that was fine for its time, but its time has passed, now something is new. Joe? Kind of an analogy of that.

[17:20] People think that cavemen, the first men, were dumb. They were just as intelligent as we are today. Those people back there were just as intelligent just because they had to make shovels out of stone and knives out of stone.

[17:34] You'd think, well, they were dumb. No. They only had limited knowledge, like you said then, of what to do. And each man along the way built on that knowledge until now the knowledge gets more and more and more and more.

[17:46] And so today, we have computers and stuff. But, you know, they were just as smart then as we are now. But they built on that knowledge to have what we have today.

[17:57] It's called change, you know. People are reluctant to change, and that's what you're talking about there. They are reluctant to change. change. Well, I'm a perfect example of that.

[18:08] Thank you. I'm reluctant to change too. I've often had to admit to my embarrassment that I have been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

[18:24] And some of this technology, I must admit, I lack motivation to really get involved with it. And yet, I don't want to be stubborn about it because there is a lot of positive things that it has to offer.

[18:42] So, I've got to overcome some of my reluctance in that field. And you know what? The principle is the same. The principle is the same. Dan? I think, expanding on what Joe said, none of us like change.

[18:59] And when we're young, you know, 20-year-olds, 18-year-olds, 20-year-olds, we often either reject or question what our parents said. And we kind of have to learn things all over again.

[19:12] People our age, this is the way it's always been our whole life. And you're telling me, I need to switch a new system? You're crazy. Yeah. That old system is the way it's supposed to be. I would anticipate that a lot of the new Christians were the young kids.

[19:27] And a lot of the Jews that were stubborn were probably more Irish. Yeah. And really, what we're talking about is just a progress and a development with things changing.

[19:39] But sometimes, and it doesn't exactly involve truth or error. It just involves something additional to be added. And that is a different kind of learning.

[19:55] That's a reluctance to change and a different kind of learning. But the more serious kind of learning is that which separates truth from error.

[20:07] And that's where it really gets tough. Because, as I've often said, and I've found this to be true in my own life, it is much more difficult to unlearn and discard something that you formerly believed because you have discovered it to be wrong.

[20:29] The tendency is to maintain the emotional attachment to that and be unwilling to let it go. And that is a really dangerous thing because it retards one's learning.

[20:46] if we are not open and receptive to new truth, assuming, of course, that it's true and not additional error, if we are not open and receptive to that, then we spiritually retard ourselves from developing and maturing as we ought.

[21:06] So, this is why it is so critical, so critical to be a Berean. Like, when the Apostle Paul went to Berea and preached the gospel and gave them the information about the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, the only thing he had to appeal to was the Old Testament.

[21:28] The new was not completed, and what he did was the same thing that Christ did when he encountered the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and it says that he opened the scriptures unto them and he showed them himself in the Old Testament, where he was in Genesis, where he was in Isaiah, where he was in the Psalms, and of whom is this speaking?

[21:57] He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, Christ is saying to them, that was me, that's the one of whom I am, the one of whom Isaiah was speaking, I am the seed of the woman, and Paul did the same thing when he went into the Jewish synagogues, and he revealed Christ, and when he went to the synagogue in Berea, we are told that Paul preached regarding these truths that we just shared with you, and the Bereans searched the scriptures daily to see whether those things spoken of by Paul were actually true.

[22:41] Boy, I can just see them pouring over those pages, pouring over those scrolls, and looking up those references, and coming, I think, to the conclusion, fellas, it all fits, it fits, all of these things converge on the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and he is indeed the Messiah.

[23:03] And that's the conclusion they came to, and they had to do a lot of unlearning. They had to do a lot of unlearning regarding the necessity for the law of Moses and all that it contained, and move on to this truth that had developed in the meanwhile.

[23:20] And it was a difficult thing for them. Bob? I had a friend of mine in the house about too long ago, and she was talking about the crucifixion of Christ, where he was beaten severely by the officials, and she said, well, the fear of, he had to be just horrified at that fear of being lashed like that.

[23:47] I said, but he knew about that a thousand years before that. I had explained it to her, the spirit had foretold that. It was in the Bible, foretold that a thousand years before that he was going to be punished.

[24:01] She said, what? She had, it didn't, the person at the church was trying to glorify the being instead of overlooking the whole thing that this was the whole part of the plan.

[24:16] Absolutely. Christ knew full well what he was getting into when he left those ivory palaces and came down to this earth.

[24:26] He knew exactly what lay ahead of him. And his ultimate conclusion regarding the whole thing was, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

[24:39] Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. John, and then Roger. I'm going to put it back to verse 8.

[24:50] where he tries to learn obedience. Alright, back to what you were talking about. Jesus knew he's God, so he's omnipotent, so he knows everything.

[25:03] He doesn't have to learn anything in his deity, but in his humanity did he learn, and in all points he's like us, and he so, it's kind of hard for me to wrap my mind up.

[25:25] Yeah, mine too. He knows everything. He's a creation. Yeah. So he doesn't have to learn anything, but here it says he learned. Yeah.

[25:35] In his humanity, he experienced obedience, and let me put it this way, Christ added death, burial, burial, and resurrection to his resume.

[25:55] All of that was added to him, and each one of those was a learning experience. He had not experienced those things before in his humanity at all, and each one was a kind of learning experience, and that's exactly what it was, and he suffered a learning experience.

[26:14] Roger. wasn't Apollos speaking kingdom ways, and then Lydia of the women showed him a more excellent way? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[26:25] He had to learn something better. Exactly. Apollos was a great teacher, great speaker, very articulate. We were told that he was mighty in the scriptures, but his knowledge was deficient, and he needed an update, and Aquila and Priscilla who were fully familiar with death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and the setting aside of Israel and the coming into the Gentiles and everything, we are told that Apollos knew nothing beyond the baptism of John, and that was very early on, and what Aquila and Priscilla did was they brought him up to speed.

[27:12] They filled him in on the details that he did not know, and of course, it added to the content of this message. Did I see another hand? Okay, can we move on then?

[27:25] It says, these things are hard to be uttered, and the reason they are hard to be uttered is because you are dull of hearing. For, or because, when for the time you ought to be teachers.

[27:40] Now, he's talking about the amount of time that has lapsed since they first heard the truth of Christ, up until this present time that he is sending them this epistle, and we do not know how much time that involves, it could have been a few years, from the time you first started learning about Christ, who he was, what he did, and why it matters, up until this present time, you have received enough information that you ought to be at the place where you can pass it on and communicate it to others.

[28:20] After all, it is wonderful information that you have received, and I think it applies across the board, that one of the most noble things that you can do about good information that you have received, is to pass it on to somebody else.

[28:43] Some things that you hear are just too good to keep to yourself, and the gospel is one of them. For when the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God.

[29:00] In other words, it is kind of like Paul is saying, look, you people are at the place in your life now where you ought to be high school graduates, and yet you have a need to return to kindergarten and start all over with the ABCs.

[29:19] And I suppose that would be kind of discouraging, but you know, the Bible tells it like it is, and by the way, do you realize that this is not politically correct preaching?

[29:30] do you realize that, do you realize that this could well hurt somebody's feelings there who's on the receiving end of that? And I'm sure that it did, and you know what?

[29:43] I think that was the intent. I think that was the purpose. It was designed to get these guys off the dime. You have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles, the ABCs, of the oracles of God, and you are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat.

[30:09] Wow. Like I said, this is not intended to be a compliment. Paul is saying, you know what? When you consider the amount of time that has passed since you came to faith in Jesus as the Messiah, you folks should be enjoying delicious cuts of T-bone steak.

[30:32] You ought to be eating very well. You should be eating gourmet meals, and yet I have to take you back to milk and pablum because that's all you can handle.

[30:47] Wow. What an embarrassment. And it is designed to be embarrassing. You know something? When a person is incapable of being embarrassed, they've got a bigger problem.

[31:04] We've got politics today, political situations, and people engaged in politics that are not subject to being embarrassed.

[31:17] You can't embarrass some people because they have no moral absolutes by which they evaluate themselves.

[31:28] Their whole game is wrapped up in not absolutes, but in relativity. They themselves determine what is right and wrong.

[31:42] And when you do, you don't ever have to be wrong. You can always be right because that rightness and wrongness is evaluated by your own personal standard.

[31:55] And this allows the kind of justification that says the end justifies the meaners. All that matters is that you win.

[32:09] And these people are incapable of being embarrassed or shame. Have they no shame? No! They don't! All they care about is being right and winning.

[32:21] And we are seeing that almost on a daily basis on the political spectrum out there. And what's more, both sides of the aisle are capable of it and often crank it out.

[32:35] And sometimes it gets discouraging to those of us who are called upon to vote and take decisions. Okay. Anything else anybody wants to add?

[32:47] We didn't get the chapter finished but we came close. Yeah. Dana? Out of curiosity, what languages are on your t-shirt? Oh, it's Hebrew.

[32:58] Well, it's actually it's anglicized Hebrew. Okay. So we can pronounce it. Yeshua. In the Hebrew language there is no letter J.

[33:13] It doesn't exist. They replace it with a Y and it's Yeshua. And same way with Joseph is Yosef in Hebrew.

[33:27] And so Yeshua is Jesus or Joshua and Ha is the Hebrew definite article the, T-H-E.

[33:40] So it is Jesus the Messiah. Mashiach is the way it's pronounced in Hebrew. Yeshua HaMashiach Jesus the Messiah.

[33:52] He giving a Medicare of the located in the Indian and the unit are and the meat and As I am but is possible to murder the that and yang