Bible Study November 25, 2020

Okay. Well, we are here on talking about the book of Hebrews. And I'll have to say that, you know, as we've been going through this book, it's been interesting to me because there's been some other things happen apart, you know, from people who are coming to church and that have had me in the book of Hebrews and talking about things like the Sabbath and is it really binding in the New Testament age and things like that. So, you know, some might say it's coincidental, but I realize there's nothing with God that's coincidental. And so as we go through the book of Hebrews, it's interesting that, you know, even from the outside as some, you know, challenge what the beliefs of the church are that we're dealing with that. And it's just, it's me now, but it's probably you, too, and it's good for us to be able to study and look really intently at this book that God has given us because the book of Hebrews, you know, every week I find myself wanting to say and remind us just what an important book it is in the Bible. It really is the bridge between the Old and New Testament. It helps us to understand what those Old Testament symbols and statutes and the temple sacrifices and that whole system of rituals was all about, you know, and how it relates to the New Testament that we live in today. As I've been looking and just reading some of the commentaries and, you know, thinking about the book and how it's laid out, and as we talked about how the first three chapters of Hebrews really does lay out the fact that Jesus Christ is better, right? Better than angels, the position's better than or more glory to him than Moses, you know, that he is a high priest. That's better than a physical high priest. All the things that the book lays out for us and points us to Jesus Christ and what his purpose is and how we need to look to him and how he speaks to us today. It's a good prelude for the rest of the book when we get into doctrine, which pretty much from chapters 4 through 10 we'll talk about doctrine, and then at the end of the book it talks about how to apply those doctrines into our lives. The balance of the book is about that, so it's a pretty complete manual, and as we get into chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 we're going to see some detail that we go into on how that sacrificial system worked back then, what it foreshadowed, and what it means for us and what we learned from it in our lives today.

But as we begin, I wanted to put up on the screen for you something that I saw here this week as I was looking again at the at the book of Hebrews, and I just want to read through this. If I remember, I didn't put that, I think this is Adam Clark. This may be Barnes-Nose. It's one of the two that this comes from, and this is just a section of their introduction to the book of Hebrews. You know, as you look at even Church of God writings and not just the United Church of God, but other two churches of God, it's very interesting how much information is there about the introduction to the book of Hebrews, much more than other books. And I think that's because it's so important, and it's such a it's such an important book to understand. But let me just read through this. As a prelude here, as we go as we get back into chapter four, where we left off last week, it says, the general purpose of this epistle is to preserve those to whom it was sent from the danger of apostasy. And we've talked about that. At 30 years after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, people were tending to become lax in the faith. They were looking to maybe go back to the way things were before. They were becoming laity-seated in attitude. And so the book of Hebrews was was there to write them, to encourage them. Stay strong. Stay focused on Jesus Christ. Get your energy up. Don't drift away. So the purpose of this epistle is to keep people from the danger of apostasy. Their danger on the subject did not arise so much from persecution as from the circumstances that were fitted to attract them again to the Jewish religion. Again, the book is addressed to Hebrews, but it really does have quite a meaning for the Gentiles as well. So I kind of disagree with some of the things that commentaries are saying. But it was addressed to Hebrews, and people were beginning to look at that Jewish religion, you know, more maybe longingly than they should have. The temple, it is supposed, and indeed it is evident, was still standing.

The mourning and evening sacrifice was still offered. The splendid rites of that imposing religion were still observed. The authority of the law was undisputed. Moses was a lawgiver, sent from God, and no one doubted that the Jewish form of religion had been instituted by their fathers in conformity with the direction of God. That was the belief of the day. The Jews called themselves the people of God, even though Jesus Christ said, you departed from what the religion that God wanted you to have. You misapplied Scripture. You taught as commandments of God, your commandments. They still were seen as the people of God. Then notice this last part here, this next part that I've highlighted. Their religion had been founded amidst remarkable manifestations of the deity in flames and smoke and thunder. He's referring back to Exodus 19 and 20, where the then commandments were given to Israel. It had been communicated by the administration of angels. He uses the word angels. It's really the prophets of old. As we've talked about that word, angels, really means messengers. It had been communicated by the administration of angels.

It had on its side and in its favor all the venerableness and sanction of a remote antiquity.

And it commended itself by the pomp of its ritual and by the splendor of its ceremonies.

So what he's saying is it was a very physically attractive religion. The temple itself was very attractive. The rituals had an appeal to them. All the physical trappings of the Old Testament were there, and they were perhaps becoming a temptation to people in the New Testament Christians that were wanting and then looking back at the longing of the physical appeal of that religion. And all the pomp and circumstance and all the physical observances of the Holy Days that were attached to that time. Keep that in mind. On the other hand, the new form of religion had little or nothing of this to commend it. It was of recent origin. It was founded by the man of Nazareth who had been trained up in their own land and who had been a carpenter and who had had no extraordinary advantages of education. Its rights were few and simple. It had no splendid temple service, none of the pomp and pageantry, the music and the magnificence of the ancient religion.

It had no splendid array of priests in magnificent vestments. Fishermen were its ministers, and by the body of the nation it was regarded as a schism or heresy that enlisted in its favor only the most humble and lowly of people. And so, you see the contrast that is showing, the Jewish religion had all this physical appeal to it, all the rites and ceremonies. It was about the temple. It was about the dressings. It was about the physical keeping of the Holy Days. But the new religion, Christianity, true Christianity, had none of those things. There was no physical temple. God now dwelt in us, and he's building a temple in his church and in his people. You know, all the trappings of the, for instance, the Day of Atonement, all the attention that went to that, now the Day of Atonement was kept in a different way. There was no ceremony with a priest and all these vestments and all these washings that we go into the Holy of Holies once a year. Now it was all have access to the throne of Jesus Christ. It was just different than what the, it was different, and it didn't have the physical. It was much more about the physical manifestation and the truth. I can reference you to John 4, 24, when it says, you know, we must worship God in spirit and truth.

The Old Testament had a lot of physical to it. The New Testament has not a lot of physical to it. We still keep the physical commandments, but not all the trappings that was there before. Going along, he says, in these circumstances, how natural was it for the enemies of the gospel in Judea to contrast the two forms of religion and how keenly would Christians there feel it? All that was said of the antiquity and the divine origin of the Jewish religion they knew it admitted. All that was said of its splendor and magnificence they saw, and all that was said of the humble origin of their own religion, they were constrained to admit also. Their danger was not that arising from persecution.

It was that of being affected by considerations like these and of relapsing again into the religion of their fathers and of apostasizing from the gospel. And it was a danger which beset no other part of the Christian world. You know, I pause there for a moment because, you know, as I read that, it struck me that, you know, in the Old Testament, and we talked about it when we talked about the Sabbath last week, there's a physical keeping of the Sabbath, just like Jesus Christ did in Matthew 5, you know, when he was filling up the commandments and showing it's not enough just to not kill physically someone, but don't even hate someone in your heart. You know, ditto for the other commandments that he talked about there. There's a physical keeping of it and a spiritual keeping of it, and the same thing with the Sabbath. There's still a physical keeping of it, but it has a spiritual meaning, too. It's been filled up. But just like when we read in 1 Corinthians 15, there's a physical first and then a spiritual body, so the pattern of the Bible is that way as well.

There was this physical trappings of the physical adherence to the commandments, but in the New Testament, after Christ, you know, came and we have God's Holy Spirit, it's the spiritual keeping of it as well as the physical, because we learn about the spiritual from the physical we understand.

Let me complete this because I thought the author here did a really good job of talking about the book of Hebrews and again lending the credence and the importance to it. He says, to meet and counteract this danger of people gravitating back toward the physical was the design of the epistle of this epistle. Accordingly, the writer contrasts the two religions and all the great points on which the minds of Christians in Judea would be likely to be affected and shows the superiority of the Christian religion over the Jewish in every respect, and essentially in the points that had so much attracted their attention and affected their hearts. He begins by showing that the author of the Christian religion was superior in rank to any and all who had ever delivered the word of God to man. He was superior to the prophets, even to the angels. He was over all things, and all things were subject to him. There was, therefore, a special reason why they should listen to him and obey his commands. He was superior to Moses, the great Jewish lawgiver, whom they venerated so much, and on whom they so much prided themselves. In Hebrews 3, having shown that the great founder of the Christian religion was superior to the prophets, to Moses, and to the angels, the writer proceeds to show that the Christian religion was characterized by having a high priest superior to that of the Jews, and of whom the Jewish high priest was but a type and emblem. So I thought he did a pretty good job of highlighting what we're dealing with in the book of Hebrews, and a part of the transition that had to occur in the minds of the Jews who did have a different set of circumstances than the Gentiles. You know, in Romans 2, in Romans 1 and 2, it will talk about the sin of the Gentiles, which was obvious to everyone, such a contrast to the law of God. And in Hebrews 2, it will talk about the sin of the Gentiles, or the Jews. They were still subservient to the law, and they believed the works of the law would save them as opposed to looking to Jesus Christ. And you know those things that we've discussed before when we were going through the book of Romans? Mr. Shady? Yes, yes, why not? Sorry to cut you off. There's a scripture in the Bible, I believe, it says Jesus was the foreshadow of things to come. And also there were things that were nailed to the cross. Which means that apparently we are no longer obligated to work with those things that were nailed to the cross. So what are some of the things that were nailed to the cross that we are no longer obligated to do today? Well, that's a whole thing. You're talking back to in collages too, right? If you look at collages too, what was really nailed to the cross? What was the problem with mankind? Why did Jesus die? Did he die because of the law? Did he die because of the Ten Commandments? Was that what he was hung for? Or what was nailed to the cross? Was it the sin that mankind had as he disobeyed that law? What did he die for? Was the reason that he had to die because of the law or because of sin? I would say sin. Right.

And so what was nailed to the cross was the penalty for sin, the failure of mankind to obey God.

Indeed, up to that point, they couldn't unless they had the Spirit of God. They couldn't obey God.

So if you go back and look at collages too and look at that, maybe we should do that one day because I'm dealing with another issue here on the side. If we look at that chapter side by side, or word for word, like we've been doing with Hebrews and we've done with James and Revelation, you would see what was really nailed to the cross. You got to look at the words, you got to follow what the subject of the sentences are and see where it is. But what was nailed to the cross was the penalty that Jesus Christ paid for us. We earned death. We earned death by the law because of the law. We understand we transgressed it and that's what we've earned. He didn't, it wasn't the law's fault. That still is, and Paul even says, you know, the law is holy, just, and good. It's still the way to life. It's still the way to peace. But what had to be nailed to the cross, what Jesus Christ died for, was for our sins and for earning the death or having the death penalty brought on us. Is there shaving? Yes, sir. Yeah, in that passage, you know, the word that is used, the law expressing ordinances and things like that, it also actually means like a certificate of debt or a warrant. So basically, it's what we have earned because of our sins that was nailed to the cross. Nothing to do with the law being nailed to the cross like you mentioned. So that's kind of different translations of that phrase there. Yeah.

Maybe one day we'll get together and talk about that. Maybe we'll do a Bible study on that as well, Coligians 2, and tear that chapter apart, verse by verse, so we can see really what was Paul was saying there in Coligians 2. Because that is a series of scriptures that are used a lot in the world to justify not doing anything, not keeping the Sabbath, not doing anything. And many people believe you don't even have to do anything of the Ten Commandments anymore because of that. And that's just a total misinterpretation of the scriptures.

Okay. Okay. So where was I? Okay. So as we get back into Hebrews 4, you know, that backdrop of Hebrews. And I kind of want to keep reminding us of this book because it is important for us to know it. There's many things in this book of Hebrews. And as we get into the doctrine part of it here over the upcoming weeks, you know, for us to remember, this is the writer. Again, we don't know exactly who it is, but we know it was inspired by God, given to us so that we can understand the New Testament or the New Covenant better and how it applies and how it relates to the Old Covenant.

Nothing wrong with what God had given the people back there to do in the Old Covenant, but it was a precursor to the New. And in the New, you know, we learn from those things. All those things that happened back in the Old Testament times, God tells us in 1 Corinthians 10, happened as examples to us upon whom the ends of the earth have come. So, excuse me, we see the symmetry of the Bible, you know, when we see the way they live their lives and the rituals that God would have them go through.

And then how does that apply into our lives today without a temple and knowing that God works in a temple not built with hands today, as it tells us several places in the New Testament? So, we talked last week about the Sabbath. And we talked about how the word in the Greek is Strong's, Greek number 2663 is talked about in Hebrews 4, in most of the places that we see the word rest here in the verses that we went through.

But then down in verse 9, it's the word saboteezmos, which means a keeping or an observing of the Sabbath, the only place in the New Testament that word is used. But in the verses leading up to verse 9, which is a key verse, a key verse in understanding God's plan and understanding that the Sabbath is binding today, you know, it is binding today, and that the ancient Israel, they never did enter into God's rest. And why do you remember any anyone why the two reasons that they said they didn't enter into God's rest that he would have wanted them to?

Because of their unbelief. Right, is one of them. The other one goes hand in hand with it. And they're disobedience, right? Because of disobedience, because of unbelief. That's why they didn't enter the rest. So, they didn't have God's Holy Spirit.

But today, since they didn't enter in, and they didn't enter in because of disobedience, right? They didn't they didn't pay attention to God's law. They didn't obey it the way they should. So, they couldn't enter into rest. They did enter into the promised land, the physical land, but they didn't enter into the rest that God wanted that God would have liked to have them enter into. And so, it tells us in verse 6, because it is part of God's plan that there will be those who will enter into that rest, that millennium, and that time where we are apart, how do I say, apart from disobedience, whether we become people who obey God's law.

They weren't able to enter in because of disobedience and belief, unbelief. It tells us we have to be people who obey and people who believe in the way that God says. So, we come down to it. God says, don't harden your heart. And in verse 9, He says, therefore, there remains, therefore, a rest or a keeping of the Sabbath. We translated last week, and many of the newer, well, some of the newer translations will actually use that verbiage.

There remains, therefore. There should be nothing unclear about that. The author comes through there. He likens the first Sabbath when God rested from His works and simply physically rested from His works. And then He ties it to the rest that He's talking about, the rest from sin and the rest from disobedience and the rest from this world and our own natures that we enter into, that He wants us to enter into, that we can only do with His Holy Spirit and only do if we learn to believe and obey. There remains, you know, here we are in New Testament times. There remains, therefore, a keeping of the Sabbath for the people of God.

So apparently, even in this day and age, most commentators say 62-63 AD is when this book was written. Some 30 years after Jesus Christ, some were beginning to espouse that the Sabbath is done away with. You don't have to keep the Sabbath. You, maybe they were saying some of the things that we hear in the world today. Now we just keep the Sabbath spiritually. As long as we have a spiritual Sabbath, God doesn't care if we physically keep it. But the author, God, says there remains. He ties the physical Sabbath of the Old Testament into the expanded spiritual Sabbath where we cease from our works, right? We cease from our works. We don't do the things that we did before. That means we don't go to our jobs, we don't mow the lawn, we don't do the laundry. All those things we do in the other six days of the week, we cease from those works and dedicate this time to God. But we also, in a spiritual sense, the works that we do are no longer our works. If we go back to Col. 5 and 19, you know, when God says, and there's a spiritual element to the law, when he says, cease from your works, right? That physically do it, but also spiritually do it. And when we, when we're baptized and we receive God's Holy Spirit and we tell him we're going to follow you, we're telling him we're going to cease from our works, the things that are naturally a part of us.

Col. 5 and 19 talks about those works that we are to cease from if we plan to enter that rest.

Right? Col. 5 and 19, now the works of the flesh are evident. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Wow! There's a lot of works that we cease from, you know. I hope, I hope as we read through that list, I know we see us in some of those works. I hope, I hope, you know, maybe not every single one of them that we're guilty of, but maybe we are as we look through it, and we think about it more, you know, as we think about it more. But those are the works we cease from. We cease from the physical as we observe the Sabbath because we learn from the physical cessation of work, and we also have to spiritually cease from the works of the flesh. We are no longer those people led by the flesh. If you are of the Spirit, if you're led by the Spirit, then you are, if you are the Spirit, you're led by the Spirit, we're told in Romans 8. Those are the works that we have to no longer do. That's the rest that we enter into that you and I are entering into now by the decisions we make, the choices we make, and the attention we pay to our lives that we cease from those things. And some of those things, I mean, they're just part of us, right? I mean, we can look at some of those things and say, man, I've been battling that all my life. It's really hard to cease from that work.

But we've got to cease from it. That's what God has called us to do, and he gives us the, you know, the power to do that. And so we cease from that work, but in verse 22, we learn the things that the Holy Spirit leads us into. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. Goodness should be a gentleness, self-control.

All those things that we need, you know, in times past we didn't have those things as part of our lives, but now we do. And as we are led by God's Holy Spirit, you know, Ephesians 2.10 tells us we were created for good works. You know, now we do the works of God. Now we do the things that He wants us to do. That would be, you know, a complementary and a result of His Holy Spirit, you know, being in us. So when we look at Hebrews 4, we see this meaning of the Sabbath day that comes out, and I hope, and I don't know if I'm doing a good job of explaining it or not, but I would ask that you would contemplate it a little bit too. You see the beautiful meaning of the Sabbath day and what God has us observe. You know, certainly every seventh day to be focusing in on that, but to realize on that seventh day what our lives are supposed to be like. So when we physically stop our every six day of the week activities, other six days of the week activities on the Sabbath, also be focusing. We have to cease from these other works. We can no longer be those people we used to be. We have to be asking God and in obedience to Him, get rid of the wrath, get rid of the the contentions, get rid of the whatever it is in that list that's there, that God's, you know, so really thoroughly lists what the works of the flesh are.

That makes sense? It's important that we grasp that because there is an expanded meaning to the Sabbath day, and as we keep it each Sabbath, you know, again it's not just about, ah, here comes a 24-hour rest period. I can lay in bed all day because I had a rough week.

Now it's, there's a rest. There's a rest, and certainly God, that's part of it that we have time to be refreshed. That's, that's a good thing. But if we forget the spiritual refreshment that has to come from that day and that God intended for that day, then we've missed a big part, a big part of what the Sabbath observance is. And spiritual refreshment, God shows us how we get the spiritual refreshment from that day. Physical refreshment, yes. Spiritual refreshment is part of it as well, and there's only one way to get that, and that's the way, the way, by observing it the way that He, that He commanded.

Okay, again. Yes, yes ma'am. A question, probably the weird one. Okay, Jesus created the heaven and earth in six days, and on the seventh day He rested. Right. And my understanding is that He rested from the creation. Does that mean He didn't do anything else after the creation?

He continued to rest, so I know that's sort of a weird question, but what did He do after that?

Well, He did, right? I mean, the six days He created every, the world, the earth and everything and, correct? Right. So He had, He created man on the sixth day. What do you think that God might have done? He was no longer creating, the creation of the world was complete at the end of the six days. He looked at everything and said, it's good. The seventh day He ceased from all of His works.

Man had just been created the day before. What do you think that He might have been doing on that seventh day? Just taking it easy and saying, hey, you're on your own, I'm disappearing, and I'm not going to see you at all? Oh, no, He was still governing, you know, looking over the earth.

He's just going in the creation of the heaven and earth. He was probably teaching mankind on that day, wasn't He? He was probably teaching them on things. And as He progressed in teaching, you know, He let them know about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and don't take this tree, but take of that tree, and all the things that we know that God instructed them, because He certainly couldn't have told them accountable if He never told them any of those things. He would have been at fault if He ushered them out of the garden of Eden. They knew right from wrong, they made the wrong choice. So on that Sabbath day, He wasn't doing the physical creation anymore, but He was probably, and I, you know, God can correct me if I'm wrong, and He was doing some teaching on that day. Just like on the seventh day today, He tells us to congregate together and to be taught His Word on that day, and to have that spiritual refresher that we need on that day as well.

That would, that's kind of my idea on it, and the way I've always looked at it. So if anyone else has any thoughts on that? Wynoma, does that make sense? Oh, it does. It really does. Okay. Yes.

Okay. Let me... Okay, well let's, okay, we're in Hebrews 4.9. Okay, so again, it seems like a very clear verse in how mankind always disappeared, you know, get detours off of this verse is beyond me.

There remains, therefore, an observance of the Sabbath, the keeping of the Sabbath, for the people of God. Verse 10, for He, that's talking about mankind, for He baptized members of the church, led by God's Holy Spirit, for He who has entered His wrist, His rest, well, we're baptized.

Remember, God now sees us as His children. We're telling Him, we're entering Your rest. We're going to, we're going to put away these works of the flesh. The rest of our physical lives, we're going to, we're going to overcome them, and we're going to learn to obey You, and not be guilty of these works that our God labels as disobedience. So, you know, so that's, that's what our mission is.

That's what our calling is, and that's what we do during the rest of this physical life. For He who has entered His rest, God calls, we repent, we're baptized, received His Holy Spirit, we enter into His life, we, He has entered into His rest, has Himself also ceased from His works. There's those works again, you know, we, the works of the flesh, we no longer do those things. Doesn't mean we're perfect the day we're baptized, but means our mindset is that we want to become blameless, as, you know, Jesus Christ said in Matthew 5, 48, become you perfect means blameless or spiritually mature, become you perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. That's this period of time in our physical lives. For He who has entered His rest has Himself also ceased from His works as God did from His. You know, He ceased from the physical, He ceased from the physical and then taught the spiritual. If we can, we can say that He began to teach of those things. And so we cease from our physical works, the works of the flesh, and we begin the spiritual works.

I've got, let me check my notes here. See, they've got some...

Okay, verse 11. You know, let us therefore... there's that word, therefore. Okay, now we've talked about this. He's talked about us ceasing from our works, the works of the flesh, but also the physical works on the Sabbath day as we keep it holy. Let us therefore be diligent. Okay, well, anytime we see that word diligent, that means you're in my effort. You know, God's going to give us the Holy Spirit. God will give us whatever we need, but without our diligence, without our commitment, without our action, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen.

God will provide whatever we need, but He's got to see that we are interested in this as the desire of our heart. When we look back at Deuteronomy, when Moses is reminding the children of Israel before he dies, what does he say about the law of God? He says, diligently and carefully keep it.

Diligently and carefully, meaning look at every word, understand it, grow in the obedience to it, and understanding what God means, because there's a purpose for everything that He does.

And as we keep it, not just out of, you know, rote obedience without thinking about it, oh, here comes Friday sunset, I just stopped, and I don't think about the Sabbath day. But as we grow and understand what God is doing on the Sabbath and on the Holy Days, and in our everyday lives, even, you know, we begin to see it and we embrace it. So He says, you know, the author here uses that word, let us therefore be diligent. You know, it means put your effort into it.

You know, in Hebrews 2, it says, don't drift away, pay even more earnest heed to what you've learned.

Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest. And again, when Jesus Christ returns, if we have been diligent in entering into that rest by the decisions and what we do in this life to build, to get rid of the works of the flesh and the things that God looks at as sin, as He sees our heart and the diligence in putting that out with the power of His Holy Spirit, you know, then we'll enter that rest. But today, you and I are entering that rest. This is our time. Peter says judgment is now in the house of God. And so, you know, it's our time to be being diligent and overcoming the sins of the flesh and those works of the flesh. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest lest, okay, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.

So again, he's referring back to the children of Israel. They never entered that spiritual rest that God wanted them to because they disobeyed physically. They broke His Sabbath. They looked at the idols of the nations around them, and they disappointed Him, and they tried Him, and they tested Him as we read in chapter 2 over and over and over again. So He said He was angry and frustrated with that people for 40 years. But it tells us in New Testament times, you know, be diligent. Let's not fall to the same example of disobedience. Let's learn the lesson, they disobeyed. Let us not be people who would disobey. Let us be people who are committed to obedience in the letter of the law as well as the spirit of the law as Jesus Christ set the standard in Matthew 5. Because if we disobey, the same fate that was spoken of of ancient Israel will be spoken of of you and I who, regardless of our backgrounds, are descendants of heirs of Abraham and seen as the Abraham seed today. Okay, the next verse there. You know, looking through this, I mean, there are some key verses, and we're going to see those throughout Hebrews. I think Hebrews 4.12 is one of those key verses that tells us more than we might see when we first look at this verse. It talks about the Word of God, you know, the Bible that we have in front of us. For the Word of God is living. Think in the Old King James, it says, what means living, right? So when you look at the Greek word and what it should be defined there or translated as, For the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and is it a sernor of the thoughts and intents of the heart? I mean, that verse is packed, packed with meaning. Let me pull up another, let me just pull up another commentary here.

Yeah, I want, again, Adam, as I read through some of them, some of the comments, you know, it's interesting, some of the commentaries just have no comment at all on verse 12. It's like they don't even really know what God is talking about. Others, some of the more ancient ones, I guess, if you will, or older ones like Adam Clark, have some pretty good insights, some of the stuff you wouldn't agree with, but there's some verbiage in there that I think is quite interesting that we can look at. He says, this is what he says, he says, the book of Hebrews represents the revelation of God as an active being living, all-powerful, illumined, the book of Hebrews represents the revelation of God as an active being living, all-powerful, illumined, executing vengeance, discerning, and penetrating all things. I mean, he's got a lot of adjectives in there, but what he's saying is the Word of God is profitable for so, so much, even more than we could think of. And then I didn't have any idea what this reference to the wisdom of Solomon is, so I looked it up on the internet and thought, what is the wisdom of Solomon? It turns out that it's a book that's in the Apocrypha, much like the Maccabees and whatever. So he quotes that. It is in the Catholic Bible, not part of the Bible that we have, but as I read through some of it to see what is this book, this book called the wisdom of Solomon, it did have some interesting, interesting things that parallel the proverbs that Solomon wrote, and only God knows why it isn't part of the Bible. It's not part of the Bible, but there's still some interesting things in it. Well, the verse that he quotes here out of that book says this. It says, Your children, O Lord, know that it is not the growing of fruits that nourishes man, but that it is your word that preserves them, that puts their trust in you.

And as I read that, I thought, well, that is really true, and that is talking and speaking to what we see in the book of Hebrews. The old religion had a lot of physical, and people looked at the physical.

We were keeping the physical, but the word of God, as we understand it, that's the thing that preserves life. We're told by Jesus Christ, eat the bread of unleavened, eat the bread of unleavened life, or eat the unleavened bread of life, you know, his body. Your children, O Lord, know that it is not the growing of fruits that nourishes man. Certainly, they do physically. It is your word that preserves them, that puts their trust in you. And so let's look at what he says, you know, let's reference Deuteronomy 8.3. Let's go back at Deuteronomy 8.3 and see what he was looking at there, as he would look at that verse 12 in Hebrews 4, and have that thought come into his mind on what the word of God is like and how it is that it pierces to every division of the body, which is so detailed. Deuteronomy 8.3 is the story of ancient Israel wandering through the desert.

It says in verse 3, he humbled you. He allowed you to hunger. He fed you with manna, which you didn't know, nor did your fathers know. Why did he do that? He provided for them. He provided for them physically, even as we see in verse 4. Their garments didn't wear out. Your feet didn't swell 40 years. Why did he do that? That he might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

Why did God do those physical things? He wanted them to see everything that God does, everything that he says, everything that he was recording, was that we need to pay attention to it, but life comes from that. And so from the physical, we learn so much about the spiritual.

Yeah, I'm fascinated when I learn something about nature, and I see how it works, and then I realize, well, that's part of the process of what God works in us, but I see it unfold in this or that or whatever the elements or this characteristic of an animal or that thing in a way of flower blossoms and grows or how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, and all those things that we learn from nature that we can apply to our physical, our spiritual existence.

Looking at that verse, maybe think of other verses as well. Let's go back to Isaiah, or forward, I guess, to Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40 and verse 3. This is a familiar set of verses, but if we look at it from a spiritual sense, if we look at it from a spiritual sense and not just a physical sense, look what God is saying to us. The voice of one crying in the wilderness.

Prepare the way of the eternal. Make straight in the desert. Now, as we read these verses, we think, oh, what God is doing, but look what he's doing with us spiritually. The voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord. Get the people ready. Prepare them for the return of Jesus Christ who is going to return to the temples that he's building.

Make straight to the desert in the wilderness. Get them looking straight at God and marching directly toward them. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted. What does God say and Christ himself say? It will be the humble. It'll be the lowly that will be exalted.

The low things of the earth. The weak things of the earth. The valleys of the earth, if you will. Every valley will be exalted. And yet every mountain and hill, the proud, the arrogant, the ones who promote selves that think they're the greatest thing on earth. Every valley will be exalted. And every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked places. You know, we could look at ourselves as crooked. The crooked places shall be made straight. Getting right with the word of God. Following Him implicitly, diligently, and the rough places, smooth.

As God works with us and we yield to Him and allow Him to do what His will is. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed. It's not because we're such great people and whatever. It's because God has been good to you and me. He has blessed us with His calling, blessed us with His Holy Spirit. And as we allow Him to, all the glory goes to Him for what we become. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

Romans 8 says, the whole creation groans and waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. The mouth of the Lord has spoken. Let's look at verse 8 too here. Well, let's go ahead and read verse 7. The grass withers, the flower fades because the wrath of the Lord ablows upon it. Surely the people are grass. We have physical life. It's going to pass away. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God stands forever. It will be there forever. His word is everlasting.

His word is eternal. You know, John 6, 63, His words are the words of spirit and life. And we just, you know, we need to recognize that. And as Hebrews is talking about talking about the word of God and the Bible, you can see the tribute, the God, and the importance on this word of God that He has preserved for us through, we probably have no idea how many times Satan has attacked the word and how it was going to, you know, how it would be, how it would would disappear, but through it all, God preserved it for us.

So I'm going to keep my screen up for a minute because I'm going to go to the bottom of the page here too in a minute. For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. If I, I don't know if you can see the whole thing on the screen or not, but let me go down to there. Sharper than any two-edged sword says, more cutting.

What it means is more cutting than any. The word of God penetrates deeper into a man than any sword. It enters into the soul and spirit, into all our sensations, passions, appetites, nay to our very thoughts, and sits as judge of the most secret intentions, contrivances, and sentiments of the heart. I know none of us would want to die from death by sword that could pierce through our bodies, pierce through our hearts, end our physical life, but the word of God pierces even deeper than that. Not just, not just the physical body, but every single thing that's a part of us.

All our thoughts, all our passions, everything that it penetrates, because God and that word cuts to the core. It gives us direction. It helps us to see who we are. It shows us what needs to be healing, what needs to be weeded out of our lives, and even what needs to be put into our lives. You know, he concludes here and he says, Phioclides has an expression very similar to our author. He's talking about God, where he says of reason that it is a weapon which penetrates deeper into a man than a sword. Put up another, another one here for you.

Share screen.

Okay, now this is from, this is again from Adam Clark. Let me read what, what, what he says, because it helps give us a real insight into how meaningful this verse is and how valuable the Bible is. You know, at one point he says, and I had never seen this before, the law and the word of God in general, and this is just an excerpt of what he wrote, the law and the word of God in general is repeatedly compared to a two-edged sword. You know, you can mark down there Revelation 19. It costs about Jesus Christ returning and he comes, he comes as a, a, a, a sword. Let me, you don't have to turn there. Let me turn and just read it so I'm not paraphrasing what is there. Revelation 19 and 15 says, Now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should strike the nations, and he himself will rule over them with a rod of iron. He himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. So Jesus Christ, he's called the word of God. The Bible is the word of God, and speaking of the word of God, the Bible that we have here, but Jesus Christ comes with a sword with which he smites the nations, kills them physically, but's going to educate them with that as well and kill the, the, the evil. I guess that's within us, but here Mr. Clark says, um, the word of God is repeatedly compared to a two-edged sword among the Jewish writers, and he gives the Hebrew word there, the sword with the two mouths. By this sword the man himself lives, and by it he destroys his enemies. By the sword the man himself lives. Well, you know, as God, as God pierces into our hearts and our minds and our souls and our intents, he's giving us life, because all those things that are not correct, not in accordance with his will, are going to kill us.

So that two-edged sword will give us life, but at the same time it destroys our enemies.

With his Holy Spirit, with the word of God, we can kill. We can eliminate those things that are in us that are part of our thoughts and minds that would otherwise kill us. I thought this next part was interesting too, because, you know, probably many of you, and I remember before I was a minister, I would, you know, sometimes listen to a sermon, and I thought, wow, wow, that's exactly what I needed.

And I've had, you know, people, I've had people comment to me when I remember fair very well, because she was point blank. She was absolutely sure I was talking about her, or that someone had said the whole thing, and I assured her no, I had no idea. As a discerner of the thoughts, just listen to what he says, what he says here. It is the, when it says the two-edged sword, is a discerner of our thoughts. It's a critic of the propensities and suggestions of the heart. How many have felt this property of God's word, where it has been faithfully preached? How often has it happened that a man has seen the whole of his own character and some of the most private transactions of his life, held up, as it were, the public view by the preacher, and yet the party's absolutely unknown to each other?

Some, thus exhibited, have even supposed that their neighbors must have privately informed the preacher of their character and conduct. But it was the word of God, which by the direction and energy of the divine spirit, thus searched them out, was a critical examiner of the propensities and suggestions of their hearts, and had pursued them through all their public haunts and private ways. Every genuine minister of the gospel has witnessed such effects as these under his ministry in repeated instances. So, you know, God knows what we need, and he will preach it to us.

You know, we might even hear it from our friends. We might hear it from our spouses. We might hear it at church. You know, doesn't mean someone's tattled on you. Doesn't mean that it's whatever God leads, because he will give us what he needs. He will warn. And when we read his Bible, it's that two-edged sword that's going to pierce to our thoughts. Mr. Clark, you know, talks about this separation going between joints and everything. He says, well, while this effect of the word or true draught of God is acknowledged—let me pull it up here in case the whole thing isn't on there—but while this effect of the word or true draught of God is acknowledged, let it not be supposed that it of itself can produce such effects. The word of God is compared to a hammer that breaks the rocks and pieces. And he references to Jeremiah 23 verse 29 that says exactly those things. The word of God does break like a hammer. It'll break us down. It'll tear us apart if we let it. But will a hammer break a stone unless it's applied by the skill and strength of some powerful agent? It is here compared to a two-edged sword. But will a sword cut or pierce to the dividing of joints and marrow or separation of soul and spirit? Unless some hand push and direct it, surely no. Nor can the words and doctrine of God produce any effect but is directed by the experienced teacher and applied by the Spirit of God. Focus on applied by the Spirit of God. When we hear these things, when we read these things, when we see ourselves, God can illuminate it and put it in neon lights.

But if we don't do anything with it, then shame on us. Shame on us. God can illuminate what we need to do. He can be an asserner of our thoughts. He can show us what the intents of our heart are.

You remember that David prayed, you know, show me. Show me, God, the motives of my heart. Show me if there's any wrong motive in me. He wanted to know because he wanted his heart to be exactly the way God wanted it to be. And as we look at the Bible and as we read the Bible and as I tell people when I counsel and sometimes I get the impression, you know, there's more magic. There's more magic.

Everything that we need to do in life is in this Bible. We just have to apply it. There is no magic pill. We just have to search and we have to apply and we have to listen and we have to acknowledge what we need to do. But God will illuminate it. God will lead us into truth. The Bible is there as a living Word of God that's going to help us and lead us into the rest that he wants us to, that he wants to give us, if indeed we apply our diligence and have that as a focus of our lives.

So when we read verse 12, you know, look at that verse. And I'll ask you again, think about that verse.

Think about that verse and how important that is as God is telling us, this is the thing.

This is where it's this Word of God that will lead you and guide you and direct you if you let it, if you don't close your mind to it, and if you let his Holy Spirit and then you put the diligence in, as he says in verse 11, be diligent. Be diligent to enter that rest. The Word of God will show us how to enter that rest. And then in verse 13, he says it is going to, verse 13, he tells us it's going to reveal to us everything that we, everything that we need to know. There is no creature hidden from his sight, even between, you know, the vision of soul and spirit between Jogues and Meru. I mean, it gets that deep into it. There is no creature. There's nothing hidden from his sight.

You know, we can fool anyone, right? We can fool our spouses. We can fool each other. We can fool our boss. We can fool anyone we want, right? We're all human beings and we can be fooled.

God can't. Probably every single one of you, I remember, you know, my parents saying, God says, you can tell me anything, but you know, you are, God sees everything you do and you're accountable to him. And one way that's a warning to children, but it is so true. And we have to realize that there's nothing hidden from God. You know, if we think that, if we think that we're fooling God by just going through the physical manifestations, you know, go to church every week or maybe not even go to church every week and I'll do this and I'll do that. But there's no spiritual development. If there's no searching of their heart, if there's no diligently seeking the word and the change that comes with it, God's not going to be fooled. All the Sabbath keeping in the world, if it's not mixed with change and a desire to become like him, all the tithing in the world, you know, if it's not mixed with learning his way and becoming like him, if our intents and our hearts and our minds, as Jesus Christ said, all our mind, body, and soul isn't given to him, he's not going to be fooled. We're fooling ourselves if we think so. There is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. He's watching. He's watching and he's aware. Now, let me... I've got some scriptures here that I wanted to turn to in that. Oh, verse 13. Yeah, let's turn to Numbers 32.

Now, because that is... we see it throughout the Bible in the Old Testament and the New. God's not going to be mocked. God's not going to be fooled. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our strength. He knows our weaknesses. He knows what our motives are. We can even fool ourselves and deceive ourselves, and he warns against that many times in the Bible. In Numbers 32, verse 23, what he warned ancient Israel was, he said, but if you do not do so, then take note. You have sinned.

You have sinned against the eternal, and be sure your sin will find you out. Be sure your sin will find you out.

So sometimes a sin can be revealed, and maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a spouse, maybe it's someone that sees something in us and something comes out, and we can be embarrassed about it, perhaps.

Probably remorseful when we realize it, but hopefully the remorse isn't just because we got caught or something came out about us that we've been trying to cover up.

We should not ever look at that and say, oh that's an awful thing. The only thing I want to do is cover it up.

We certainly don't shout it from the rooftops, but that's God working in our lives.

That's God showing, you know, if you're going to enter into my rest, this has to be dealt with.

And so it has to come out, and sometimes it comes out with church people, sometimes it comes out in marriages, but that's the opportunity for us to overcome that and to allow God to pierce into our minds and our hearts and our thoughts and our intents and make the changes in us with His Holy Spirit when we put our diligence and effort into it to become the way He wants.

So Paul, that's why Paul will say, you know, rejoice in your trials. Rejoice in those things.

It's God working with you. He's perfecting you. You know, it doesn't mean sweep it under the carpet and forget about it. It means really, really diligently work on it, but be glad that God is working with you because these things need to be revealed in us in order for us to become who we want so that we can enter that rest. In Jeremiah, Jeremiah 23 and verse 23. Jeremiah 23, 23.

Oh yeah, Jeremiah 23, 23. Am I a God near at hand, says the Eternal, and not a God, a far off?

Okay, I'm near to you. I'm watching you. I'm there with you. I'm interested in you. I'm paying attention to you, not to condemn you, but to help you and to lead you into that rest.

Am I a God near at hand and not a God a far off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him, says the Eternal? Do I not feel heaven and earth, says the Lord?

You can't hide. Don't want to hide. Let God reveal what's in you, not for the purpose that you're embarrassed. You know, there's the verse in Luke. Is it Luke 8? Did I write that down?

Luke 8, 17. I think this is it, where God says there is nothing hidden that won't be revealed.

See if that's the scripture here. Yeah, for verse 17, nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.

I look at that verse, and God may illuminate something in our lives and our attitudes and the way we approach things, a fault of our hearts, an attitude, whatever it might be, an outright sin that we're doing that we're unaware of. When that happens, what do we do? Do we continue in it?

Do we continue in it? Because if God gives us that opportunity to overcome it, and we're diligent in overcoming it and recognizing, hmm, I can't do that anymore. I've got to leave that out of my life, and I'm gonna have to make myself think. Every time that comes up, I can't react that way any more. Anytime that temptation or that trigger hits, I can't do that any more. And I pause when that happens, and I ask God to give the strength to overcome that. You know, we can do it ourselves, and I don't mean ourselves without God's Holy Spirit, but if we don't, if we just continue, and just kind of like, well, no one sees it, it might well be that God is saying, I am going to reveal it. The people around you are going to see it, because I will get your attention, because I really want you in the kingdom. Either you'll do it yourself, and recognize it, and work with God to overcome it, or it may be revealed in an embarrassing way in some way. So we have, you know, I don't know that. That's kind of my own kind of theory, and just watching things in my life, how they work. And so I watch what's going on, and think, God, help me to see what you want me to do, and let me just yield to you immediately, you know, and not hold on to anything, and not to hold on to any attitude, or fault that I have. Let me just completely yield to you. He does say deny self, and that's part of denying self is, okay, I didn't see it before, but let's overcome that now with His Holy Spirit. So perhaps that's what He's talking about here, and He does that because He loves us. Not just to embarrass us, but if embarrassment is what it takes for us to see our sin, then, you know, better that and that than to be left out of His kingdom, better than better that than to never enter into His rest, because it was never addressed, it would seem to me.

I keep talking, but anyone else that wants, anytime along the line, you know, where are we on time? I'm going to wrap it up pretty quick here. I was thinking about going, well, we are in verse 14, because when we get to verse 15, it starts talking about high priests, and I'd like to keep that together with chapter 5 and chapter 6 as we get into some discussions about Melchizedek. Oh, actually, you know what? Chapter verse 14 does that, too. So let me just pause at verse 13 there, and leave that thought with you, and then the next time we'll pick up with Jesus Christ as our high priest and go into some of these things, as it says in chapter 5 verse 11, some of the things that are hard to explain. It says that we will take some time to delve into and look at the Word of God and see what it means. But let me just pause there at verse 13 and, you know, any discussions or anything that we want at that point. So just remember, you know, only those who truly obey, truly obey in heart, mind, spirit, physically as well as spiritually, only those who obey are going to enter into that rest. So it should be a motivator to us to let that two-edged sword of God pierce into us and show us the way and what we need to do while you're thinking.

And let me ask you to just contemplate those things that Hebrews bore. There's a lot that's discussed in there, a lot we've talked about. I am, we, Debbie and I are going to be leaving for Cincinnati next week. We'll be up there, we'll be up in Cincinnati on the next two Wednesdays. So we won't have a Bible study on December 2nd or 9th. So our next Bible study is going to be December 16th. So that'll give you some time to look back over what we've done in Hebrews so far. Maybe look ahead and jot down some notes and thoughts as we get back and we delve into more of the doctrine as we get into chapters 5, 6, 7, and some of the shadowing of what the temple and some of those rituals were to Christianity today. So Shavie? Yes, sir. So I was looking at verse 11, especially the last part, which talks about the same example of disobedience of the Israelites.

Right. And then that, I think, hearkens back to verse 2 of the same chapter, what it explains is that the preaching that the ancient Israelites received was basically of no profit for them because they did not combine it with faith, I guess, with the pistos thing. Right. So that's the element, I guess, that you need in order to, like you said, to obey.

You obey because you believe it's true, and they failed because they don't actually believe what they saw in that sense. Right. And that belief, remember, I keep reminding myself that pistos in faith and pistoio, it means it cuts to the soul. It changes the way we think and perceive things even when we have that deep of belief. In a way, that's like the word of the Lord that pierces through the joints and marrow and soul and spirit. Very good.

Anything else? Anyone? Mr. Shavie? Yes, sir.

And then we're in Luke. You're reading in Luke. What chapter was that? Was it verse 17 or chapter 17?

It was Luke. Luke 817. 817. Okay, thank you.

So, Mr. Shavie, will you be home here in Florida for Thanksgiving, or will you be up in Ohio? Oh, no, we'll be here. We're not leaving until December 1st.

I have to be up there the second. Yeah, we'll be leaving next Tuesday. We'll be here through Monday.

I gotcha. You said no Bible studies the second and the ninth?

Correct. So, the next Bible study will be on the 16th. Okay.

Awesome. I hope everyone has an amazing Thanksgiving. Yes. And safe. Let me echo that.

Everyone have a very nice day tomorrow. A lot to be thankful for. A lot to be thankful for, not the least of which is, in fact, the very most of which is God's calling and everything He's provided for us. Yeah, I appreciated your message, Sabbath. That was really good. It was encouraging. It was positive. You know, in such a negative world, it was, you know, look back and be thankful for and just focus on that. It's a good focus. Thank you for that message.

That was a great pondering. Like, all week, I just, every day, you were right. That was just, it stuck with me, too. That we really do have so much to be thankful for.

Well, you know, sometimes I don't watch a whole lot of TV as in sitcoms and anything. One of the things I have found on Netflix are some of these historical dramas, and I know they're fictionalized, but I watch them just to kind of get the pieces of history and not this, not so much the stories that go along with them. But as I watch the depiction of life in some of these ancient kingdoms, I find myself just so thankful I wasn't alive during that time. I can't even imagine what life would be like. Wade and I were just discussing that yesterday. Like, I think we're watching some part of a King Arthur documentary, and we were saying, who could live in those times where everyone's saying, kneel to me, and no, you kneel to me, and... And everything was about war. I mean, it just looks awful. It's like life would be, you would just be glad to have it over with, because it would be just a complete chore from beginning to end. It's a struggle. Now, you and I don't know any of that. We haven't lived that way at all in this life, so... No.

Okay, everyone, we'll have a very good Thanksgiving. I will see... Actually, we're going to be in both services. We'll be in Jacksonville in the morning, and Orlando in the afternoon. Orlando, look for an email from me either tonight or tomorrow on where exactly we will be. It will be at 2.30, just a matter of where. Okay? Okay, bye, everyone. Have a good Thanksgiving.

Enjoy, everybody. See you on the set. Have a good one. Me too.