Participants: James Rafferty, Ty Gibson
Series Code: BOTB
Program Code: BOTB00007A
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00:21 Welcome friends to books of the book
00:23 The program that explores the bible one book at a time 00:26 I'm Ty Gibson and with me today is my co-Host James Rafferty. 00:30 And we are in the midst of a study in the book of Hebrews. 00:35 And James we are about in chapter 6, the latter part, 00:37 Let's just launch right in. 00:39 Yes grab your bible, a listening ear and let's look 00:41 At Hebrews chapter 6, so far Paul has admonished the 00:45 believers in Hebrews to not be slothful, be diligent, to 00:49 get back into the Word of God, he's couched this with assurance 00:53 with encouragement, he said I am sure I have faith that you 00:56 guys can do better than you have been doing, of course 00:59 that's very important whenever we are seeking 01:01 to encourage others, to be more diligent. 01:04 Then he goes into, verse 13, promises 01:07 that God is making to us. 01:08 He says here, "for when God made promises to Abraham, 01:11 because He could swear by no greater, He swear by Himself, 01:14 saying, surely blessing I will bless thee, verse 14, 01:17 and multiplying I will multiply thee. " 01:20 This is really vital James, because according to scripture, 01:23 God has admonished us, not to make oaths, I mean we as 01:27 human beings are very, very likely to have an expanded 01:33 or an inflated idea of what we are capable of. 01:36 God is the one Who's making the promises here. 01:40 God is the promise-Keeper. 01:42 Many times our promises are like ropes of sand. 01:45 it's almost impossible to climb up on anything when you are 01:49 holding on to a rope of sand. 01:50 That's right! 01:51 And so it's not wrong for us, in a sense, it's not wrong 01:53 for us to make promises, perhaps to one another, 01:55 I make promises to my children 01:57 all the time and I try to keep them. 01:58 but when it comes to spiritual things, we cannot 02:02 make promises to God because we are not promise-Keepers. 02:04 when it comes to our relationship on a 02:06 spiritual level, with God. 02:08 Very strong language is used here, in which God is describing 02:12 how He is approaching us. 02:14 God is saying I am going to swear an oath and that oath 02:19 is immutable, that oath is unchangeable, it absolutely 02:23 will be brought to pass, what I say, the words that go 02:27 out of my mouth will not return void, they will 02:30 accomplish the purpose for which I have sent them forth. 02:32 And that is why God can swear. 02:34 In the Bible, old and new testament, we find that God does 02:37 make these types of oaths because He can be trusted 02:41 to accomplish what He says, 02:43 where as we, we are told by Jesus in Matthew, chapter 5 02:47 for example, 33-37, swear not at all, neither by 02:50 heaven nor by earth. 02:51 Why? Because we cannot make one of our hairs white or black. 02:55 but God is able to bring to past what He says. 02:59 So God can be trusted, man cannot. 03:02 The Bible brings this out in many different ways. 03:04 But one of the themes of scripture is the weakness of 03:10 human beings to accomplish their own salvation, to 03:13 deal affectively with sin, but God's effectual power, 03:18 to deal with the sin problem, we have already noticed in the 03:22 book of Hebrews, in chapter 1, that Jesus Christ, and I love 03:25 this language, by HIMSELF, purged our sins. 03:29 And then later on in Hebrews, leading up through Chapter 4, 03:32 we're simply called upon, by faith, to put ourselves in 03:37 Christ, to put ourselves in a position of confidence, 03:40 a position of trust and a position, 03:42 Paul says in Hebrews 4, of rest. 03:45 Absolutely and I really like this, because the word 03:48 immutable means unchangeable. 03:50 And you can only rest when you have that kind of environment, 03:55 an environment that is trust- worthy, an environment that is 03:58 stable, an environment that is unchangeable. 04:01 Whenever you are in an environment that is, Oh, uneasy, 04:05 we find ourselves unable to rest. 04:08 I find myself not sure about what the future holds, 04:11 and that makes me restless. 04:13 So God establishes, by His word, by His promises, oath, on these 04:18 two immutable things, these unchangeable things, His word 04:21 in an oath, He establish us in a stable environment. 04:24 James, Paul is laying ground work here for later comments 04:28 he's going to make on the new covenant, and one of the themes 04:32 of the Book of Hebrews is that the essence of the new covenant 04:37 is that it is based on God's promises and God's power, 04:41 God's better promises, better than our promises to God, 04:44 And that the Lord is able to bring to pass exactly what it is 04:49 that He has established as a purpose for us. 04:52 We see the Old Testament experience of Israel for example 04:56 that the old covenant was characterized in the 04:59 Book of Exodus, by their promise to God were they said, all 05:05 the Lord has said we will do and obey all His commandments 05:08 Well we know from the Biblical record that they in fact did not 05:13 fulfill that very grandiose promise to God. 05:16 Absolutely! 05:17 So we move forward in Scripture and we see God turning the 05:21 tables and saying now, I will forgive your sins and iniquities 05:25 I will cast them into the depths of the sea, 05:28 I will remember them no more, 05:29 and I will give you a new heart, and I will write my law 05:35 in your heart, that is a promise from God, that He 05:39 intends to bring to pass. 05:40 And that's why Paul, in verse 18, calls these immutable 05:45 things a strong constellation. 05:47 A strong constellation and a refuge that we are to lay hold 05:53 on as a hope that is set before us. 05:55 I love this terminology here, we have strong constellation 05:58 we have a refuge, we have a hope in Jesus Christ, 06:01 all of this is centered around the promises of God, the oath 06:05 of God that is immutable, unchangeable that is given to 06:09 us today, in His word. 06:11 Then Paul launches into a very powerful statement in 06:16 verses 19 and 20, that we want to explore. 06:19 He says in verse 19, "This hope we have as an anchor of 06:24 the soul, both sure and steadfast," there's that 06:28 confidence language again, " in God's immutable oath, 06:30 sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence 06:34 behind the veil;" 06:36 and then verse 20, "Where the forerunner 06:40 has entered for us, even Jesus, having become high priest 06:46 for ever according to the order of Melchisedec. " 06:50 So right here James, in verse 19, He's telling us that our 06:54 hope is a hope that reaches in through the veil 06:59 into the very presence of God where Jesus has entered for us. 07:02 Now this is where we are making a transition, now, we are taking 07:05 the Word of God, we are taking the oath of God, we are taking 07:07 strong constellation God has given us in Jesus, and now 07:11 we are taking it somewhere. 07:12 We are taking it into a phase of ministry, a phase of the 07:16 gospel, an understanding of truth, that has to do with 07:20 Christ in heaven, Christ in the presence of God for us 07:23 as our high priest. 07:25 We need to explore a little bit, the language that is being 07:28 used here, because we have a Presence, Capital P this is 07:32 obviously the Shikina presence of God, and we have this 07:36 Presence behind the veil. 07:38 This is sanctuary language. 07:40 This is temple language and it is bringing to our attention 07:43 the old Testament sanctuary service as a symbolic type 07:47 In which the Christian experience, the spiritual 07:50 experience of God's people, 07:52 was represented, or symbolized, by kind of a journey, a path, 07:56 or a way, and the believer is called upon by faith, 08:00 to follow the priest, in a series of moves, beyond or 08:05 through a series of three veils or curtains. 08:08 First into the courtyard, then into the holy place, 08:11 and finally into the Most holy place to the Shikina 08:15 presence of God. 08:16 This is exactly what Paul is seeking to do friends. 08:18 Paul is seeking to lead us from the earthly sanctuary 08:21 from the earthly priesthood, from that type to the heavenly 08:24 reality, he is seeking to lead us from everything that 08:27 was typified in the Levitical priesthood in the earthly 08:30 sanctuary to the reality that we have in Jesus Christ, through 08:33 these veils in the heavenly sanctuary. 08:36 This raises the question James, Why is it that we are separated 08:41 from God, by a veil? What's the meaning of this veil 08:45 and why is it that we as human beings have to be 08:49 in this separated state from God and then make some kind 08:53 of journey back to where we belong? 08:56 We have separated ourselves our sins have separated 08:59 ourselves from God. 09:00 We have pulled away from Him, and God is laying this out 09:04 in a type so that we can see how it is that we can make 09:07 this journey back to Him. 09:08 God is not very far from anyone of us, but He sees that sin 09:12 has affected us and broken that relationship that we 09:15 once had with Him. 09:16 What is it, is it Isaiah 59:2 I believe it is? 09:18 Were it says your sins have separated between you and your 09:23 God, your iniquity, has caused you to, what does it say? 09:27 Be blind to Him, you don't see Him, I can't remember 09:31 the exact language but the idea is separation. 09:33 What is so powerful about Isaiah 59:2 is the context verse 1 09:36 says "the Lords hand is not shorten that He cannot save, 09:40 neither is His ear heavy that He cannot hear. " 09:43 In other words, God isn't far from us, He is very close to us. 09:46 He isn't distant from us, He can hear us, He knows 09:49 what we are going through, but our iniquities, our sins 09:53 have separated us from Him, have hid His face from us. 09:56 So that we do not hear. 09:59 This idea of the veil is brought up other places 10:02 in Scripture, and I'm thinking specifically of 2 Corinthians, 10:06 Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 were the Apostle Paul develops 10:10 this idea and he says that there is a veil that has been erected 10:15 in our minds, and he uses this language, he says, that our 10:20 minds have been blinded to the glory of God by the 10:22 activity of Satan, the enemy of God, who is imposing on 10:27 on our minds, on our perception, lies about the character of God, 10:31 and then at that point, with that veil over our minds were 10:34 we are blinded to the truth about God, Jesus enters. 10:38 In Chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians, verse 6, it says very clearly 10:43 that Jesus is the one Who comes and just as God said let light 10:47 shine out of darkness, in Genesis, He has caused light 10:51 to shine in our hearts, by the glory of Jesus to reveal to us 10:56 the truth about God. 10:57 So the veil of our mind is penetrated and that is somehow 11:03 represented by this veil in the sanctuary service. 11:06 There is a sense James, in which as you read this veiling 11:09 language in Scripture, in which we are separated by God by our 11:13 sins, in a very real external sense, and we are all so 11:18 separated by God, in a mental, perceptual faith sense. 11:22 And so the veil needs to be penetrated literally, there is 11:25 an literal sanctuary, in which God is to be worshipped 11:29 and ultimately we are moving back into immediate fellowship 11:33 with God within the throne room of the Universe, 11:37 the Most holy place, at the same time, 11:39 there is a veil in our minds that need to be 11:42 penetrated, prepatory to us being able to feel 11:46 comfortable returning to God. 11:47 And we see this all through the book of Hebrews, Hebrews has a 11:50 lot of symbolism that points to reality, Melchisedec was a 11:53 literal priest, king, Melchisedec was a person that 11:57 was in the Old Testament and yet here he symbolizes Christ. 12:01 He symbolizes a ministry that Christ has accomplishing for us. 12:04 A ministry that points to a type of priest hood that is 12:08 different than Levitical priesthood. 12:09 And now the reason why Jesus is brought to our attention here as 12:14 our high priest is because Paul says that He is our fore-runner. 12:20 This is an exciting idea James, the word fore-runner 12:25 can be translated scout. 12:27 Now we know what a scout is, a scout is someone who goes ahead 12:31 of a traveling party, to scope out what's in the distance 12:36 ahead and to come back with a report as to whether 12:38 or not there are friendly forces, 12:40 or hostile forces up ahead. 12:42 And so Jesus is our fore-runner, that is He has run before us 12:47 into the presence of God, through the veil, into 12:51 fellowship with God and He is giving a report, He is speaking 12:54 back the good news of gospel to us as human beings and 12:59 saying, listen I know that in your experience 13:01 referring back t Genesis, that you became afraid of God, 13:05 in a very negative sense, you hid from God, 13:09 you are in a condition in which you are separated from God, 13:12 and you perceive Him with a veil on your mind, 13:14 as a hostile force, as someone who is against you, 13:17 but Jesus says God is not hostile, 13:21 He is for us, the Father Himself, in John 16, loves you 13:25 Jesus says, so the scout, the fore-runner who's gone before us 13:30 it's as He has traversed the whole path of human experience, 13:34 as a human being, and He is shouting back and speaking back 13:37 to us and He is saying, come on move forward, come boldly into 13:42 the presence of God, before the throne of grace, 13:45 He'll give you mercy and He'll give you grace to help. 13:49 You don't need to be shy about this, come boldly before God. 13:52 Amen, and we see that in this context, verses 19 and 20. 13:55 Pointing to the fore-runner, pointing to the sanctuary in 13:58 heaven, calling us to come within the veil, 14:00 and by the way that word veil, can stand for the veil, the 14:03 curtain that was before the holy place, the Most holy place, 14:06 The point that Paul is making here is we want to go from 14:09 the earthly to the heavenly, we want to go from the types 14:11 to the anti-type, the fulfillment to the reality I 14:14 should say, we want to enter into the veil, and we 14:17 want to see Christ in there as an Melchisedec priest hood 14:20 a Royal priest for us before the Father, He scouted it out and 14:24 he's telling us that it is a friendly place, a place where 14:28 we can find acceptance, we can find mercy, grace and power. 14:31 Were we can find the joy and happiness God wants us to have. 14:35 We are going to explore Hebrews Chapter 7 further in just a 14:37 moment James, but we are going to take a break and encourage 14:40 our viewers to stay with us, as we continue moving through 14:43 Hebrews Chapter 7. |
Revised 2014-12-17