Bible Study: March 17, 2021

Since we were inspired, you know, through Hebrews 11 and looking at the people of faith that went before us, that should have inspired us to follow God even more closely than we had before. In chapter 12, we learned to, we were admonished to follow God, lay aside the weights that would be in our road, to weigh aside the sin that does easily beset, don't let things get in our way, cherish the birthright that God has given us, to being a part of the Church of the Firstborn.

He tells us it's a tremendous, tremendous blessing for us. And then as we got into chapter 13, you know, we began to recount the things that He would have us do. And the first part here, He reminds us about Agape, you know, let brotherly love continue, and He gives us three ways to show that. Don't forget that you may be entertaining angels when you encounter strangers. Remember those who were in prison. We talked about some other things that we can do just as part of our love for one another, things that don't take a lot of time, but just recognizing and acknowledging and just greeting someone through the week can really make a difference in their weeks and weeks.

And that's a real service. That's a real service to some people, to just get a phone call or to get an email, and they know someone is thinking about them, especially when they're not feeling well, but anytime. That's a nice thing for them to have. In verse 4 of chapter 13, we talked about marriage. It's one of those, the institutions that God put in that where we really learn how to become one and commit to our spouse for the rest of our lives. I always tell the people when we're counseling for baptism that baptism is the most important commitment we will ever make.

It's for eternity, and marriage is the second most important. It is for the rest of our physical lives, and so it's a very good training ground for us to learn how to come together as one, to give up self, to give up our own things and please the other person, and to learn how it is to live together with one.

We have the same principles of being together with God and committing to Him for eternity. Now we talked about sex and the illicit use of sex per the Bible and how God looks down on that and specifically says people that abuse that relationship or that function won't be in His kingdom. We talked about money and covetousness in verse 5. We talked about just how do we conduct our everyday business? Where are our hearts? Where's the treasures that we see in our hearts? God says where our treasures are, our hearts will be also, and it's right to have money.

It's right to enjoy the blessings that God gives us, but our real focus needs to be on building the treasures that He gives us, the treasures that will last forever. Down in verse 7, then we finish that section. As you finish verse 7, really when we get into verse 8, there's another section of chapter 13 as He concludes the book. He says in verse 8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. As we've gone through the book of Hebrews, we've seen this.

We've gotten the deeper appreciation of who Jesus Christ is, the significance of who He is, the significance of His life, and what it has meant to us, and all the things that we've talked about. We talked about the Old Covenant, we talked about the New Covenant, and you know if you go back to Hebrews 8 and 8, you see the problem was not ever with God's law.

Jesus Christ was perfect, is perfect, always will be perfect. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. As we've gone through this period of man's history, as we've recounted it in Hebrews, we see Jesus Christ as the same. His commands and His way of life that leads to happiness and peace and everything that we should want, they've always been the same. The fault has always been with man. The fault is not with God. The fault is with us. We have to yield to God. We have to deny ourselves and sacrifice our lives to Him so that He can build in us the character that we need to have that eternal life that He wants us to have.

Jesus Christ is the same.

You and I just need to change in order to become more like Him so that we can enjoy that. So then as we get into verses 8 and 9 here, we see that the tone of Hebrews 13 changes a little bit. The first part, he talks about some of the physical things that we need to do, the agape, the not coveting, the things that we do in our lives, but there's a spiritual element as we get into verses 9 and through down through the effective end of the chapter here in verse 21.

In verse 9, you see this, we talked about this last week, he talks about our spiritual lives. Don't be carried about, he says in verse 9, with various and strange doctrines. And we talked about last week that when Jesus Christ came to earth, He literally changed everything. Even people who have never heard the name Jesus Christ, He really changed everything when He was alive and in His death. It changed the world and it rocked religion as the world knew it because people, not just Jews, would come to God, but God opened the door for Gentiles to be called as well.

And anyone of any ethnicity, any background God could call and they would become part of His spiritual family. So everything changed. But then you see people, then you see new religions and little twists on their religion popping up everywhere. We talked about Gnosticism, agnosticism. You have the things that come up that would take people away. They didn't stick to the trunk of the tree. They listened and their own desires enticed them and they moved away from the truth that they were called to. They didn't focus in on the Bible, the Word of God. They didn't stick with the truth that God had led them to. They had the itching ears that Timothy talks about and they wanted to go off and they wanted to follow these doctrines. And so all of a sudden you have people leaving the church with bodies that look similar but have different teachings. They're not the same.

And you know when you're at the Church of God, it's going to be teaching the same thing that Jesus Christ spoke, the same thing that the apostles, the early apostles preached. And that's what we look for today is where the truth of God is being spoken, that you can go right back to the Bible and look at it. That's why you've heard in years past, and we should say it more often today, look in the Bible, follow the Bible, and follow where you hear that word being preached.

That's not what some of the people in the early New Testament did. Many people today can get carried away. It's one of the tools of Satan that he can take just a little think of.

Satan's not upset if we, you know, if we, he's only upset if we remain completely loyal to God. It's okay with him if we go off just a little bit, you know, just a little bit, because what God is looking for us is to be focused on him. Satan is okay if we just divert a little bit, compromise a little bit, go off into another belief in just a little bit, because then that's taking us away from God because God won't have in his kingdom that aren't people that aren't completely loyal to him. So the author here in Hebrews reminds us, don't fall to that prey. Stay true to the Bible. Don't let yourself be enticed if that happens to be one of the things that is a weakness for you. Don't let that happen. Ephesians 4 says, you know, uses the word trickery of men, the cunning words that people can use that can take people right away from the truth. Don't be carried about with various and strange doctrines, for it's good that the heart be established by grace. Remember that God has called us into his truth, that he's watching over us. He gives us his Holy Spirit.

Live in that grace. Live in that place that he has us be with each other and with him, not with fools, which have not profited those who have been occupied with them.

I know people get off on various tangents, but he may be leading right into verse 10, where he makes an interesting statement, and you can see the author now going back to the time that this book was written. Remember when Hebrews was written? It was around in the early 60s A.D. You had the Christians, we had the true Christians who were following Jesus Christ, and you still had the Jewish world that was still there. The temple was still standing at that point that Hebrews was written. There were still sacrifices going on every day. There was still a whole priesthood going on in Jerusalem, and then you had people who came out of Judaism into Christianity. It was an interesting time. Now, as they were 20 and 30 years into their calling, if we want to call it that, into Christianity, perhaps as the author gets into verses 10 through 12 here, he sees that they're beginning to look back a little bit to that religion and maybe letting something come in or into their lives. But he shows in these verses that there is a distinction between Christianity and Judaism. Judaism, they keep the same Sabbath we do. They keep the same holy days that we do. They are not the same religion that Jesus Christ lived on earth. He lived those days, but he didn't live it like the Jews. And so many people, I won't say so many people, many people can find themselves going back to Hebrew roots and doing studies into Jewish things, and all of a sudden they find themselves off onto some twig or some other belief, and they're taken out of the church. And perhaps that was what was happening here in Hebrews. The same thing I want you to keep in mind as we talk about verses 10, 11, and 12 here, we live in the same type of environment today. You and I call ourselves Christians, and there's a billion other people on this planet who call themselves Christians as well.

But true Christians are not the same as the Christians of the world. They may say that they believe in Jesus Christ, and I believe they are sincere when they say they believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior. But when we say we believe in Jesus Christ, we know that that means we must follow Jesus Christ. We must live as he lives. There is, while the name is the same, Christianity, and they may call themselves Christians, and we may still call themselves Christians, they are two very different religions. Now almost all of us came out of some Christian background, whether it be Catholic or Protestant or whatever it was, and the very many segments of Protestantism there is. And we too could find ourselves looking maybe back and looking at the world around us and saying, well they've got that right, and is that so wrong? And maybe allowing some of the ideas of that Christianity, if I can call it that, to find itself carried over into our lives. Or they tell us, well you're just like us, you're like us. The only thing different between you and us is you keep Saturday for yourself. Not so. Not so. And so, you know, we could find ourselves in the same situation that the author here in verse 10 is going to talk about as he's in that distinction. Let's just look at verse 10 here, because the next few verses are quite interesting, and they teach us something again about what God has called us to. And it's a very good unleavened bread lesson, you know, that we'll have in the next few verses here. In verse 10 he says, we have an altar. We have an altar, okay? When he says we, he's talking about you and me. He's talking about New Christians, New Testament Christians. We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. Now, who are those who serve the tabernacle?

It's the Jews, right? It's the Jewish religion back at that time that Jesus Christ came out of, if you will. We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle, the priesthood, have no right to eat. Why would they have no right to eat? If we keep common holy days and common Sabbaths and people came out of that religion and now they're following Jesus Christ, how do we have a right to eat from the altar that we eat of?

Well, we reject our prior life, right? When God calls us, our eyes are open, we see we have not been living in accordance with God's law. No matter how good of a Christian we might have thought we were in our old life, it didn't even come close to measuring up to the stature and fullness of Jesus Christ that we read about in Ephesians 4 around verse 14. It didn't even come close to it because we weren't doing anything that Jesus Christ would have set the example for.

So the way we would have yeah, is there a comment? Mr. Shaby. Yes, sir. What you're saying just struck me. The difference is, correct me if I'm wrong, the difference is the Jews were looking to be sanctified by animal offerings and we're sanctified by Jesus Christ. Is that the difference he's talking about here? That's the difference he's talking about. Yeah, that's the that's the altar. We had to give up, right?

We had to accept Jesus Christ as the sacrifice for our life. The Jews didn't. They still were looking to animal sacrifices. They were still looking to that blood. They were still looking to the law and believed that they were going to be saved by the law as opposed to Jesus Christ the Savior. So when the author here draws this distinction, he says, we have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat.

So it's like they're not one of the same. You know, if they say they want to come, you know, I don't know if I should even draw comparisons, like they want to come to keep Sabbath services with you and whatever. Well, they've got to they have to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. That means when we did that and we were baptized, we buried our past life.

We said we don't want our life anymore. That life is dead. And we came up out of the waters of baptism. We committed to God that we would follow him the rest of our our lives, our eternal lives, that he would that he would created us, that new creature, and that he would lead us, and that we would yield to him, that he would allow him to write his principles and his way of life on our minds, and that we would practice that way of life that was distinct and different than everything we did before.

Part of our commitment to God is burying the past. The past is left behind. It's new, and we walk forward toward the kingdom as a result of that. The people who still serve the tabernacle, they haven't done that. They can still be our friends. They can still be our family members. We wouldn't say we don't talk to them and we don't want anything to do with them, but they don't have they don't they don't eat from the same altar we do is what the what the author here is saying. He goes on. Everyone get that distinction that he's making there? He goes on and he says there in verse 11 then, and we know exactly what he's talking about.

He says, for the bodies of those animals, those animals, okay, he's talking about the sacrifices that were made over there in Jerusalem with the with the temple. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned outside the camp. He says a lot. He says a lot in that verse. So he's just he's specifically talking about them, if you will, and says the bodies that they're burning of those animals over there that are being sacrificed. They're brought in. They're brought into the sanctuary by the high priest as an offering for sin, and then he says they're burned outside the camp.

Now what could he be talking about? What is he talking about there? What is there one specific festival that he might be referring to when he's talking in verse 11 there?

Well, let's go back to Leviticus. Leviticus 16. Did they have a tournament? They have a tournament, yes. Leviticus 16.

Usually every day of the tournament when I'm speaking I reference Leviticus 16. Probably wherever you are, you go back to Leviticus 16. It's an extraordinary ceremony that went on in Old Covenant times. Extraordinary, especially when we know the New Testament end of it and we can see what God was doing in the intricacy of that ceremony and what it was symbolizing going forward. You remember in Leviticus 16, Aaron, I think we talked about this in Sabbath, a couple of Sabbaths ago, you know, Aaron before he could go into the Holy of Holies, only he, only the high priest, only one day a year could go into the Holy of Holies, he had to offer a bowl for himself. He had to cover his sins for him and his family, and you remember he had to take that bowl and then he had to take it into the Holy of Holies and sprinkle it around the Mercy Sea. And then there were the two goats of Leviticus 16, one that would be sacrificed and killed, that represented Jesus Christ, and the other is Ozil goat that would be the over which Aaron would lay his hands and confess all the sins of Israel and then take it out to a place, take it out of place in the wilderness, and it would be set free there. That, of course, sets on, symbolizes Satan. So we had two animals that were sacrifices for sin, if you will, that day, one for Aaron and one for the congregation of Israel, a bull and a goat. And verse 27 of the Leviticus 16, it talks about those two animals after it tells, you know, it gives the instructions of what Aaron is going to do. It says, the bull for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering whose blood was brought in to make atonement of the holy place shall be carried outside the camp, and they shall burn in their skins, their flesh in the fire, their skins, their flesh, and their awful. So in verse 11 of Hebrews 11 or of Hebrews 13, he's talking about those animals that were there. Now these are the animals that needed to be carried outside the camp in order to be burned. It's one of those details that God has there in Leviticus 16 that we can overlook and read over it, and we get the gist of what Leviticus 16 is, but part of the whole ritual that went on that day was to go through all that process and all the washings of the clothes that happened at that place. But when those animals were sacrificed and the blood was sprinkled around the mercy seat, which pictured God's throne, then those animals had to be taken outside the camp in order to be burned. And that little detail gets left there in Leviticus 16 until we come to Hebrews 13 in verse 11.

And we see the author here highlighting that little detail to us at that time. Now as he talks about Jesus Christ, we know without me having to repeat it, but I'll repeat it anyway, forgiveness of sin comes through Jesus Christ. The only way our sins can be forgiven. The Old Testament ritual on the Day of Atonement and the sacrifices could cover sin. Sins are only forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ.

But here in verse 11, if we go back to Hebrews 13, we see that ritual and that specific action with those two animals on the Day of Atonement spoken about. The bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin. That happened one time, one day, brought in by only the high priest on only that one day of year, into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp. Now we can pause and think, why would God build that detail into that ritual? What into that ceremony that day? Why outside the camp? If we pause and think about it. If we look at verse 12, we can begin to see perhaps what God is talking about and what we learn in this section of Scripture as he's about to close the book of Hebrews.

Therefore, Jesus also, we know those animals. All that ritual pictured the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He's now the sacrificial lamb, the ultimate sacrifice. We don't need animal sacrifices anymore.

His blood was worth more than all the blood of every animal that's ever lived, more than any many of our bloods. His blood was worth more than anything. So he was the perfect sacrifice.

At his death, he opened the door. The veil parted on as he died, and we now have access to the throne of God. Not just one man, one day of the year, having access to God's throne, but you and I, every day of the year, 24-7, can approach his throne. Therefore, Jesus also, as we foreword from the bodies of those animals to Jesus Christ, therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Now, when he says Jesus suffered outside the gate, those animals were burned outside the camp, Jesus suffered outside the gate, what is he talking about? How did Jesus suffer outside the gate?

What might he be talking about then? We know what it is back in Old Testament times. They would carry it outside the camp, but what did Jesus do? How did he do what the author is saying here happened to him? Where he was crucified, he died outside the gate, where he shed his blood as our sacrificial lamb. Yep, yep. John 19 verse 17 tells us, you know, he was crucified in tall gotha. You look it up in any of the atlases, you see that tall gotha is outside the city of Jerusalem. And so I think he was taking on the sins for the people. Yes, that's right. He became sin, right? He became sin for us as he took on those sins. So he was crucified, spilled his blood outside the gate. If you look at the commentaries in the story of Jerusalem there, they say, you know, criminals could not be killed inside the city, could not be killed or could not be put to death inside the city gates. They had to be taken outside the city gates. Jesus Christ was a criminal. He was taken outside the city gates. You remember he was crucified and he had the thieves on either side of him. He died the death of a criminal even though he committed no wrong. So he fulfilled that part of it and that part of Leviticus 1627 where those animals were burned outside the gate, Jesus Christ fulfilled the same thing. He was outside the gate when he suffered and died.

What might God want us to think about spiritually when we learn that Jesus Christ suffered outside the gate and that that's part of the Old Testament ritual and a part of what Jesus Christ fulfilled in his death? What might outside the camp or outside the gate mean to those of us who follow Jesus Christ? Any thoughts on that at all? I think it means to come out of the world, come out of the world in the way of sin and go to the true tabernacle to follow Jesus Christ is what makes me think about. Also, John chapter 4, Christ and the Lady of the Well.

Outside of the gate, also outside of Jerusalem, he says there's a time coming where you'll worship the Father and Spirit and truth and you don't need to be in Jerusalem, the physical city. Yeah, outside the gate. Okay, come out of the world, come out of Jerusalem.

Let's talk about come out of the world. Come out of the world because what else that reminds me of is at the end of Revelation where it says none of these things shall come into my kingdom.

Everything, all these bad things are going to be left outside. That kind of comes to mind as well.

Very good. So there's a number of things that are outside the gate, right?

As we're here in this time, you know, this time we're in before the Passover of the Days of Unleavened Bread, we can think back on coming out of the world as one and there's a couple more we can talk about as well. You know, Jesus, as New Testament Christians, Jesus Christ wants us to come out of the world. We're told that in 2 Corinthians 6, we're told that in Revelation 18, God says clearly come out of the world and be separate. Don't touch the unkind thing. Don't touch the unclean thing. If we look back at the Old Testament, as God brought His people, Israel, out of Egypt, their world, that's what He completely did at that time. He took them completely out of their world. When they were going to follow Him and what He was going to set them free from bondage, He didn't leave them there and just make them equal citizens with the Egyptians. He literally took them out of the world they knew and everything they knew was left behind.

Literally everything. They packed it up after the death of the first born in Egypt, and they were they hightailed it out of Egypt, and they were gone. They were in the wilderness. We go back to Exodus 12.

Exodus 12. God was preparing them through all the time for this exodus that they were going to make from Egypt. They went through plague after plague after plague, some of which affected them.

Later on, God made the distinction between His people and the Egyptians, and the latter plagues didn't affect the Israelites. But He was preparing them for the time that they would physically leave that land, and He even told Moses ahead of time, you know, you'll plunder the Egyptians when you leave. When we come to chapter 12, we see that Passover where the first born were all killed, and Pharaoh finally relents and submits to God and says, take everything, take everything and go. Just get out of our, just get out of Egypt and be gone and be done with you. So verse 42 of Exodus 12 is we're coming up on the night to be much observed next week. You can see Israel, I mean, they packed it up and they left. I mean, they physically were leaving. It says it's a night of solemn observance to the Eternal for bringing them out of the land of Egypt. He could have just as he said, for bringing them out of the world.

He brought them out. They were no longer going to live like the Egyptians. The same thing when you and I commit to God, we look at our lives and we say we will no longer live the way we used to live. Now we will live God's way. And part of our commitment and sacrifice to Jesus Christ when we commit to Him is not that we won't, that we will hate the people that we knew before and never talked to people before and never talked to family members. That's not at all it, but the way of life we lived before is no longer the way of life we live going forward. We live according to God's way going forward. And that's part of the counting of the costs that we do when we're baptized. Yes, I will leave the world behind. Yes, I will leave these ideas behind. Yes, I will leave this lifestyle behind and I will embrace the lifestyle that God has given me to live. So here when they're in verse 42, I mean, they've left on the morning of the Passover day. They traveled all day. Now they find themselves out of Egypt. It says, it's the night of solemn observance to the Lord for bringing them out of the land of Egypt. You know, God did the same thing with us. When He opened our minds and we began to understand the truth, we knew that we couldn't live the way we did anymore.

And part of we had to say we have to leave the past behind. We have to separate ourselves from that.

God took physical Israel, literally physically out of their world. This is that night of the Lord, a solemn observance for all the children of Israel throughout their generations. He wanted them to remember that He brought them out and He was going to make them a separate people. Chapter 13, verse 3, Moses says, Remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. For by strength of hand the Lord brought you out of this place, and then of course no leavened bread shall be eaten. So he says, Remember this. And as we go through the days of unleavened bread, part of what we do as we prepare for Passover is remember. You know, remember what God has done. Remember what He's done in our lives personally. Remember the commitment that we've made to Him. Remember that we committed and counted the cost and said, Yes, I will leave my past life behind and I will embrace my new life. Similar to the covenant, you know, that when we make, when we get married, when we get married, it's not that we never talk to our family members, never talk to our friends again, but there is a new way of life that's starting at that point, that is a new way of life going forward than was before. It's just part of the commitment that we make. And we're in essence, you know, becoming part of the family of God. So when God says, outside the camp, you know, definitely out of the world, coming out of the world is part of what He wants us to remember as we enter into these holy days. We committed we would come out of the world.

Now, Mr. Shamy. Yes, sir. I was going to say there's also another really interesting example of that in Exodus 33 with Moses, because after the incident of the golden calf, it says in Exodus 33 verse 7, says, then Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting, which was outside the camp. So even had Moses, as he was a type of Christ, act out the exact same thing. Yep. Very good. You can kind of see this. And what Moses, you know, what Moses saw, there's sin inside Israel, and he didn't want to be part of that camp where that sin was. So they went outside, you know, to Moses. Very good. You know, so the lesson for us today, God doesn't take us physically out of the world like he did Egypt, right? And the lesson of Israel is they were completely apart from Egypt. They were in the wilderness for 40 years. They saw God provide for them every day of those 40 years. They saw God work tremendous miracles that we think would have just absolutely built their faith in him forever and ever and ever.

And yet they couldn't live God's way. Today, God tells us to come out of the world spiritually, but Jesus Christ in his prayer on that Passover says, I'm not, I don't pray that you take them out of the world, but that they not be part of the world. They're not of the world like Jesus Christ wasn't of the world. So our job spiritually with God's Spirit, leading us, guiding us, and our commitment to him and the choices that we make is to not is to be coming out of the world more and more and more as each year passes that we are walking with God. We learn to rely on it less.

We learn to rely on it less, trust in it less, to leave the things of it behind, and to look to God more and more and more. The Israelites literally look to God for everything, everything. And that's what we have to be coming to as well. So one of the lessons of the days of Unleavened Bread, you know, is we can look at that. We are to be outside the camp. We are to be outside the world, if you will, living in God's community. Now we, you know, we could go back if we wanted to. You remember the verses that we read in Hebrews 11 just a couple weeks ago where we talked about the men and women of faith. And it said, it said that, you know, they having seen the promises afar off, they never received them. They all died not having received the promises. And it made the comment that they were seeking a better country. That they, and if they had been mindful of the country they came out of, they would have had opportunity to return, but they chose to come out of that world and to stay with God and to have faith in Him. Those same words apply to us. Every single one of us here today that never listens to any of this, you know, we all have the opportunity to go back to the world. I hope that we would always make the choice to catch ourselves and say, no, I have to be working toward that heavenly country, city that God has prepared for us, and just associate our coming out of the world more and more as we go by. So certainly when He says outside the camp, that's part of what He's saying. They've touched on another one we can draw, another analogy that we can make of this outside the camp that the author of Hebrews may have had in mind when he used those three words, the same three words God used in the Old Covenant there.

May I? Mr. Shavey? Yes, absolutely may. Yes, Vengele. I was thinking of leprosy. Leprosy? Yes. Do you remember that if you were diagnosed with leprosy, you were put outside the camp and you couldn't re-enter? Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. Another example about outside the camp? Yes, and Christ, when that He was prophesied in Isaiah, it said that His... What was it? 53, I think? I'm never good about the passages. Yeah, 53, yes. But that He was despised like one that wasn't seen, that we turned our eyes away, and we didn't see Him. That's what they did with lepers. You were supposed to, you know, call out if you were going by somebody that was healthy and you had leprosy, so that, you know, they didn't come close and they weren't infected. You know, He... I'm not explaining this well, but He bore all of our diseases. He was... He was reproached, and, you know, He was scourged so that we can be healed from all of our illnesses. And this was all before He was killed, you know. And as I'm looking here in 12, it says, you know, so He might sanctify the people through His own blood, and He suffered outside the gate. That includes that suffering. It's not just the crucifixion. It's everything that went before, too, yes?

And He certainly suffered while He was on the... Absolutely so, yes. Yes. No, very good. They... He was persona non grata. They wanted Him outside the camp. And so, you know, as we look at our lives and as we look at the world we live in and we can begin to see the picture of where the world is going, there's going to become a time when you and I, based on what we believe, are going to be persona non grata in this world. And people are going to want us outside the camp. They're not going to want us any more than they want in Jesus Christ. He said, if they hated Me, they're going to hate you. And as the world focuses in their attention and their intent that everyone will believe the same thing, that whatever group decides is the way of thinking, those who think otherwise will be outside the camp and will suffer. We'll suffer for it.

That's one of the things that we just need to keep in mind and let God be preparing us for.

Mr. Shaby? Yeah, now? Yes, one of the things that I think God wants us to remember because of the suffering is the suffering of being, that we are going to suffer being Christians. So that's why Jesus said, take up your cross and follow Me. So the suffering and scorn that He experienced outside the camp, we should condition ourselves to expect those types of suffering also if we follow Him. In 1 Peter 4 verse 14, here's an example. It says, if you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed for the Spirit of glory and of God rest on you. So if we accept the scorn and the suffering that Jesus Christ suffered for us, then we are we are blessed. So we have to take up our cross and follow Him outside the camp. There he is, yeah.

That's what I meant, Al. That's the rest of what I was thinking. Good.

Yeah, all those things. Anything else? I mean, there's another thing that we've come out of, as we come out of the world and as we leave our lives that we knew behind, our way of life behind.

There's another analogy that we could look at, looking at the spiritual end of, while this whole thing is spiritual, we all left. We all left a church behind, right? And maybe we didn't go to any church at all, but we all left a way of belief behind when we came into into, you know, God's truth, God's church. Israel, ancient Israel, left that behind, too. They may have known who God was, but they had been in Egypt so long, and it becomes so familiar with their gods that it had just kind of rubbed off on them. So when God took them out of Egypt, you know, while they were still in Egypt, He said, see exact vengeance on all the gods of Egypt. Israel left knowing that there is no God more powerful than Yahweh, YHWH, the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the god that we worship. They knew that absolutely, and then He had to teach them their way, the way, His way of life, and that's what He did for 40 years in the wilderness. As we leave our past behind and our former beliefs behind, we have to be taught God's way of life, and then for the rest of our lives in this life, when we're outside the camp of where we used to be, and outside the camp of mainstream Christianity, if we want to call it that, the Protestants of the world and the Catholics of the world, when we're outside that camp, we learn God's way.

You know, there's a danger. There's a danger, as I said earlier on, and maybe allowing ourselves to think, they're Christians, we're Christians, there's similarities. Whether it's similarity, as we believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior, it pretty much ends there, as far as everything, and what really matters is yielding yourself to Christ, when you know all that, I won't repeat it.

As we come out of that way, get my train of thought back here, oh, you know, when you look back at Egypt, Israel in Egypt, and you watch Pharaoh, and how many times did Moses go to Pharaoh and say, you know, if you don't allow the people to go and worship God, as he says to worship him, this plague is going to come upon you. And it almost became, you know, a joke.

Moses knew that when Pharaoh would say, pray to your God, get the plague removed, that Pharaoh was going to change his mind, and he wasn't going to let the people go. But as you read through the detail of that, you see that sometimes Pharaoh would say, tell you what, Moses, how about how about some of you go out in the wilderness to worship your God? But sometimes he says, okay, the men can go, I'll let the men go to worship your God, just leave the herds behind and leave the leave the children behind.

And Pharaoh continually tries to compromise with Moses through that. Okay, I'll give you what you want. Let's just do it this way. Just do it this way. Note that Moses never flinches. He never stops and thinks about it and says, well, maybe that would be okay. Maybe that is what God, God will be okay if just the men go out and worship him for three days. It's God said exactly what he wanted. All the children of Israel, all the herds, all the flocks, they all go.

And Moses never flinched and he never compromised at all with Pharaoh. There's a lesson to us as we come out of the world and come out of our former religions and even see it around us and you know and are familiar with it that we never allow those beliefs that are contrary to the Bible that we would compromise them and say, well, that's okay. Maybe that maybe God's okay with that.

It's the same thing about God is always exact in what he expects us to do. He's exact in what our goal is and where perfection lies and what our goal is is to become like Jesus Christ. He's not a guy who's compromising and saying, okay, you did most of it. The standard is we obey him. Moses said diligently and carefully follow God. Every word that applies to every single one of the Bible applies to every single one of us and we need to learn to do it exactly the way God said. You know, I'll just give one example and I don't think anyone online here probably listens to this.

You know, one of the main stays of the world's Christianity is once saved, always saved. Once you're baptized, you are sealed. You have eternal life and then, you know, etc, etc. That is not at all what the Bible preaches. And yet, I know where people, there may be some who still hold on to that a little bit in some way. That as long as we're baptized, we can never lose the sanctification that God has done for us. And we've seen, you know, twice in the book of Hebrews where we've seen the warnings, it says, absolutely you can.

Absolutely, if you drift, if you neglect, if you become hard, dull of hearing, let your heart be hardened. Don't listen anymore. Hebrews 12, 25, if you refuse him who speaks, if you do any of those things, you are in danger of losing the salvation that God offered to you by our own actions. So we want to watch what we're doing and not allow the Christian of the world in any of their way of worshiping their gods, whatever it might be, to ever come in and say it's okay.

God tells us how to worship him, and we need to do it exactly the way, you know, he says. Okay, one of the things, I'll tell you, one of the things that came up this afternoon in the Bible study and talking about outside the camp is, you know, Jesus became sin for us. And, you know, we have the example in 1 Corinthians 5, that what sin was found in the church, that person was put outside the camp.

He was put outside the camp until he repented and came back in. And of course, when he repented, genuinely, you know, heartfelt, heartfelt repentance came back into the camp, there was joy, but he was put out outside the camp. And so Jesus, who took sin upon us, was put outside the camp at that point as well. I thought that was an interesting analogy as well.

So those three little words sitting there in Hebrews 1311 and Leviticus 1627 have some meaning for us as we, as we look at, at, at where we're, where we're at here as we approach the days of Unleavened Bread.

Any other comments, thoughts on that?

Okay, let's, let's, let's go on then. Let's take L, L, L walked us through verse 13 here. It says, therefore, let us go forth to him. Remember, Christ is outside the camp. He's outside the world. He's outside Jerusalem. Let's go to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. And L quoted for us, 1 Peter 4, 14, I think it is, where we're going to suffer like Christ. We're going to be, you know, we're going to, the world is going to turn against us. We're going to experience the same type of rejection that he experienced just by the things that we believe, the things that we stick to and don't yield to the world for. Verse 14 gives us the encouragement, for here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. That's what the Hebrews 11 heroes and the men and women of, if we call them heroes, that of Hebrews 11, they did. They didn't look to the world as, as any type of place they wanted to put their stock into that kept their eyes on the kingdom of God.

You know, I know, I don't know if we have any young people listening in. I think those of us who are older, we see, you know, the writing on the wall. I don't think any of us could look at the world and say, that's where I want to put my, that's where I want to put my stock. I'm going to hang my, I'm going to hang my hat on the fact that the governments of this world and the leaders of this world have all the answers and they can, they can lead us into a utopia. If we're clearly thinking, we realize that on every single basis the world is headed toward disaster. It simply cannot continue in the way it is. You look at it economically, it's just a matter of time until, until everything falls apart. You look at it environmentally, it's just a matter of time until it all falls apart. Politically, it's a mess. It's a mess and this pandemic has shown that mankind doesn't even know how to handle diseases. You know, one of the promises that God made, Israel as they came out of Egypt, came out of that world where they had all the physicians and all the things that went on there, he's told them in Exodus 15, 26, if you will just obey me, if you will just yield to me with all your heart, mind, and soul and believe in me, I won't put any of the diseases of you on you that were in Egypt. I am the God who heals. So on every single, on every single level, God has shown us and is leading us to the perfect world and to eternity. If we stop and think what we're doing and what our choices are saying to God, sometimes I think we would be appalled at what we're telling God, but we have to learn to sacrifice self, do the things that God wants us to, and forget about our feelings and our ideas and just completely yield to Him.

Here we have no continuing city, he says in verse 14, but we seek the one to come.

Verse 15, there's that word therefore, therefore, therefore by Him, by Jesus Christ, we know and we've learned through Hebrews literally, and we knew it before, but I think it's been enhanced as we've gone through Hebrews literally, we owe everything to Jesus Christ, everything. There is nothing that we don't owe to Him. Nothing in your and my lives that we don't give Jesus Christ credit for. We are nothing and we are hopeless without Him. And so when Paul says in Romans 12, 1, and 2, it is our reasonable service to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, of course it is. We're nothing without Him. There's nothing left to hold on to. None of us had anything that God absolutely has to have. What we need to do is yield to Him and let Him build what He wants to build in us. The character, personality, everything that God wants us to have. Therefore, by Him, by Him, let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. Every prayer Paul tells us in Philippians should be punctuated with thanksgiving. With thanksgiving, let every supplication make every supplication to God. And sometimes we might want to come to God and we can complain about this in our life and this in our life and this in our life. The Israelites, what are the things they're known for? They would murmur and they would complain. We don't have this. We don't have that. This is too hard.

If they had just paused to thank God for what they had, to thank God for getting them out of Egypt, for delivering them from Egypt, to thank God that He did provide manna every day for them, that He would provide water from all things to rock, and that they could have come to know that He will provide whatever they need. And if we do the same thing, and if we come before God with thanksgiving, it changes the way that we look at God and changes the way we look at ourselves. So, you know, let's be people of gratitude and openly take our cares and concerns to God. Jesus Christ says to do that when we pray to the Father. He and Jesus Christ want to hear our concerns and they want, you know, they'll bear our burdens with us. But let's also always be people who are grateful for what God has done for us, remembering, you know, remembering that He brought us out of the world and He's given us, He's given us promises that we couldn't have even imagined.

In verse 16, He goes on, see He's using the word sacrifices there then to, you know, the tabernacle, they were doing sacrifices. Today, the sacrifices are of what we do. You know, we offer the sacrifice of praise. We, in verse 16, don't forget to do good and to share for with such sacrifices, God is well pleased. You know, we read 1 John 3 again in all the places where God says, take the opportunity by your works. People will know you. If you see your brother in need and you have the opportunity and the means to help him, help him. You know, that is a sacrifice sometimes to just stop what we're doing and help someone else or to give of our resources to help someone else because we see they need it. And if we can help them along, that's what God wants us to do. Remember that Jesus Christ sacrificed more than we can imagine. His physical life, yes, but He was God. He had eternal life and He allowed Himself to be emptied of that, to be born a human, and to die a horrible death, just so you and I would have the opportunity to be turned to life.

How much more, when we have the opportunity to serve others, should we take that?

And God sees what's in our hearts, you know. We can harken back to Matthew 25, where Christ says, in the end, when He separates the sheep from the goats, how does He separate them?

Not just by Sabbath observance, not just because they dutifully calculated their tithes and sent it in. There are people that are doing what in chapter 25, those days are doing those things anyway, but they also have the added that when they saw their brother have need of drink, food, clothes, visits, they did it. They took the time to make sure and understood they were their brother's keeper, and they were there to help him. And God looks at the same as us. We do all those things, but we learn to practice the love that He wants us to have as well. Verse 17, I'm just going to read it the way it's written. I was looking for an alternate translation. You know, let me just read the verse. Obey those who rule over you and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account. And let me, you know, Jesus Christ when He was on earth, He, you know, He spoke about what what what leader the how the way the the gentile rulers would lord it over people. And He said, that's not the way your leaders will be. Your leaders, true, true leadership in the Church of God is being willing to serve others. And you know, when He says, I have my background is in accounting and finance or whatever. So when I read the words, must give account or whenever I see the account, the word account in the Bible, I know what God is talking about. You know, when you when you work in financial areas, you got financial statements, you do the accounting, boy, everything has to be accounted for perfectly. This is so you can say, this is exactly how much money we spent on this. This is how much money we have in the budget for this. Everything is accounted for. It's not like, well, you know, we lost ten thousand dollars over here. Can't give account for that. Don't know where that money went. Everything's got to be exact.

And what God is saying to the people, you know, the people in these positions is, I'm going to be looking to you. How did you take care of my sheep? So remember that, you know, remember that. And I'll have to say, I recognize and, you know, it's not going to be just the ministers, you know, all of us are going to be giving account for how we worked with each other and how we, you know, how we how we helped each other. If we saw someone going astray and we saw something that was going on, did we take the time to go back and get that one sheep and see if there was a way he could be brought back into the fold? Sometimes it can happen. Sometimes our minds are set. They simply close their minds. And there's other ways we do it as well. Yeah, did you have something you want to say? No, okay. Okay, well, let's go on from there, then. He says, let them do so with joy. What he's saying is, you know, we're all in this for the same purpose. You know, what I want, what I pray, is that everyone, really everyone who God calls, everyone in our congregations, everyone who's online tonight, that we will all be in God's kingdom. When I preach, I ask God, please just let them hear through your words, open their ears, that they may hear something that will draw them closer to you. That's what ministers want. Just give yourself more, yield yourself more Jesus Christ. Understand what he's saying. Look at the time, be watchful, and commit more to him. That's what we're here for, you know, and we're all working together on that. That's what the Bible tells us. We're all here. We're all our brother's keeper. We all pray for one another. We all want each other to be in the kingdom, and everyone that God calls. And we all love all of mankind because we know, ultimately, in the second resurrection, all of mankind will have the opportunity.

Let them do so with joy. You know, we all have human nature. We're all going to, you know, sometimes going to be testy, some conversations that might have to be had, whatever. But, you know, let's all keep in mind that we're all here for the same thing, to be, to march forward into the kingdom of God. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.

The author says in verse 18, pray for us, and we should all pray for each other. Pray for us, for we are confident that we have a good conscience in all things desiring to live honorably. You know, that is a very peaceful thing to be able to say that, to be able to say it with surety, that we have a good conscience. You know, that just doesn't mean it does, you know, it could almost sound like, well, we think we have all the answers or whatever. But as long as we're humble, as long as we're looking to God for direction, as long as this Holy Spirit is leading us, as long as we're asking God, correct us, teach us, mold us, let us become who you want us to be, let us be who each other need us to be, so that we can become the one body you want us to be. You know, we could be confident. We know when we have that joy when we're walking with God, and we know when we feel a little apart and a little down and out and whatever, maybe we're not walking with God the way we should. Well, and that's the times we get on our knees and we pray to God and ask and then get back into the relationship with Him and amend our ways to stay close to Him.

Okay. Pray for us, for we are confident that we have a good conscience in all things desiring to live honorably. That should be one thing that we all keep in our prayers. Help us always to desire to live honorably in accordance with God's will.

But especially, the author says, or Jew in verse 19, to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner. So he's saying, I want to come back to you. I want to see you again. I want to visit you. We look down at verse 23. He talks about Timothy, who's been set free. He would like to come and visit them with Timothy, and he sends greetings to all the saints that are there. So he's looking forward to that as he closes the letter. And in verse 20 and 21, he closes it, but he says something in verse 22 that kind of wraps up the book of Hebrews a little bit too. He says, I appeal to you, brethren, bear with the word of exhortation, for I have written to you in few words.

You know, we can remember that too. Bear with the word of exhortation. We're not going to walk through life and be told by God every step of the way and everyone we come in contact with, you did that just perfectly. You did that just perfectly without any kind of assessment, or this could have been better. God, you know, as we go through this examination period before Passover, you know, God is going to continually show us where we can improve in our lives, whether it be our attitudes, whether it be the shortcomings that we have, areas that we just need to shore up in order to better serve Him and each other. The sins that we have, none of us are perfect. We'll be perfect as long as we're drawing, you know, this physical breath. So there will be exhortation, you know, bear with him. Reminds me of Hebrews 12, you know, verses 5 through 12, where he said, you know, no chastening is pleasant for the moment. But remember, God has our best interest in hearts. He wants us to have eternal life, and so bear with Him and follow Him and yield to Him and become, let Him, you know, let Him and be willing to give up the old life and the old person to become who He wants us to become. You know, if you haven't, I think I put in my Friday letter, Colossians 3, certainly before Passover, reading through Colossians 3, it's a good picture of, you know, put off the old man, put him away, he's buried, put on this new man that God has raised, has raised us up out of the water to baptism to be. So verse 20, now may the God of peace, who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenants. He wraps up things here, many things we've talked about in Hebrews, may He make you complete in every good work to do His will. And that's what God wants us to become. You know, Hebrews 6, we read about the fundamental principles, the elementary principles, He says in Hebrews 6, but as well as we go on to perfection. God will complete us, He will bring us to spiritual maturity, He will bring us to that measure, the stature and fullness of Jesus Christ as we yield to Him. May He make you complete in every good work to do His will. It's not a matter of just knowing it, it's a matter of doing it and making the hard decisions sometimes to deny self and to do what God wants us to do. Put away the old, put on the new, and work hard at it using His Holy Spirit. He will make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. So let me conclude. That really concludes the book of Hebrews. We can discuss for a while.

You might want to. It has been a notable study through the book of Hebrews.

I hope you will take some time, if you haven't, to go through that review.

Those review questions I gave you to kind of put in your minds what the book of Hebrews is. It's a very good book for us to have studied, headed into Passover in the days of Unleavened Bread.

But don't forget the lessons of Hebrews, and don't forget what God is doing, good doing with us.

So let me just end there and open it up for any discussion.

Just one comment, brother, Shavi. In regards to where you were talking about verse 17, I would have to say the summary there may be just the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy, that none of us should be a hypocrite, as we will deceive ourselves in that aspect. And we are each other's keeper, whether we're overseen, whichever way God has put us in the body to serve.