Are
you going to heaven?
Are you sure?
Now this is the main point of the things we are
saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the
throne of the Majesty in the heavens, 2 a Minister
of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord
erected, and not man.
Jesus is the Main Point.
After eight chapters the writer says, I’ve said all
that to say this.
We have, personally possess, not just
any old priest, but such a High Priest, the One and only,
ultimate, Eternal High Priest after the order of Marvelous Melchizedek.
He is seated, already completed, His work, and won, therefore He sits in
the place of honor, authority and power at the right hand of the
throne of the Majesty, of God, as God in heaven.
He is Eternally Supreme, King of kings, Lord of lords,
and yet, He ever lives as Minister to us, in the Holy Heavenly Tabernacle.
Jesus is the Main Point.
3 For every
high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore, it
is necessary that this One (Jesus) also have something to offer.
Why? If He’s Supreme over everything, why is it
necessary for Him to do anything? He’s the Boss.
God established the priestly system of
sacrifices and offering and He also declared Jesus a Priest forever after the
order of Melchizedek.
Thus, to be called High Priest, He would of necessity
abide by the very system He Himself established.
4 For (Now)
if He were on earth, He would not be a priest,
since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law;
When He was on earth in the flesh, He did not tell the
High Priest, “Scoot over, I’ll take it from here.”
He did not offer sacrifices as a priest according to
Levitical Law. He was not from the priestly tribe of Levi. He was from the
royal line of David, the line of Judah.
So, obviously, His Priesthood is different than that
of the Levites.
5 who serve the copy
and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed (warned)
when he was about to make the tabernacle. For
He said, “See that you make all things according to the pattern
shown you on the mountain.”
He’s quoting from Exodus 25.
That not only applies to Moses on the mount, but to
you and I here and now.
What we see came from what we can’t see. The Word of
God spoke the world into existence. Hebrews 11:3.
This visible life is a copy and shadow of that
which is to come.
Verily, verily, verily, life is but a dream... and
when we die, that’s when we wake up to the life we have chosen.
Everlasting Life with Christ, or Eternal damnation
without Him.
All the love and goodness of God you can possibly see,
is a foreshadow of the everlasting goodness and glory and joy He has instore
for those who love Him.
All the wretchedness and evil you see is a foretaste
of the eternal terror and torment instore for those who reject His nonstop
knocking.
Moses was warned to make the system of worship
exactly as shown to Him.
We are warned to do the same.
How are we to worship Him?
In John 4, we’re told Jesus needed to go
through Samaria. Turns out He had a Divine appointment with a woman at a well.
He got there first, sat down and waited. He does the
same for you. Wherever You go, He’s already there, waiting, wanting to build a
relationship, and show you how to worship.
When she arrived at the well, He asked for a drink.
She asked why He spoke, since she being a Samaritan was despised by Jews.
He told her if she only knew, she’d ask of Him and
He’d give her living water.
How can You? The well is deep, and You have nothing to
draw. Are You better than Jacob, who gave us this well?
Whoever drinks this water will thirst. Whoever drinks
the water I give will never thirst, for it will become a fountain springing up
into eternal life.
Give me this water! she said.
Go call your husband, He said.
I don’t have a husband.
That’s true, you’ve had five but the guy you’re shacked
up with now isn’t your husband.
You must be a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this
mountain, but You Jews say we must worship in Jerusalem.
Way to change the subject, lady. Jesus wants to talk
relationship—we divert to religion.
Jesus says: Oh, dear woman, the time has come when you
don’t need to worship in this mountain or in Jerusalem, but God is Spirit
and seeks those who worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. John 4:23-24.
She said, when Messiah comes, He will explain
everything.
Jesus said, I AM He.
She believed, dropped her bucket, ran and told the
whole town, and before the dust settled the whole town met Him, and believed.
Jesus chose a despised outcast, to be the first person,
recorded in Scripture, that He clearly revealed Himself as the Messiah.
Are you going to heaven? Are you sure? Why?
If it has to do with religion, dos, don’ts, rules,
regulations, worship in this mountain or that, in this building or that, you
might want to think again.
Jesus plainly tells us: “God is Spirit,
and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John
4:24.
What does that even mean?
Let’s go on and see.
6 But
now He (Jesus) has
obtained a more excellent ministry (service), inasmuch as He is also Mediator (go
between) of a better covenant,
which was established on better promises.
Mediator,
arbitrator, intervenes to restore peace between two parties, especially as it
fulfills or ratifies a covenant.
The Real is so much better
than the copy and shadow.
Jesus as our Mediator is a more excellent
ministry than the Old Testament priests, who were in some ways just glorified
butchers, continually, slicing animals to pieces to place on the altar.
Following the Law without considering the condition of
the heart.
Now, Jesus our Great High Priest reveals the Truth of
what it was supposed to represent. He pierces to the dividing asunder of soul
and spirit to the thoughts and intents of the heart.
He doesn’t require an outward commitment of jumping
through hoops and going through motions, but commands change in the attitude
and condition of the heart.
Outwardly easy, inwardly impossible.
It’s easy to say, “sorry” without being sorry.
But it’s impossible to say, “sorry” and really be
sorry, without heart surgery.
That’s why He introduces this amazing word, covenant.
This is the first of seven times
we see “covenant” in this chapter; (19 in Hebrews).
GOD LOVES COVENANT.
Adam and Eve.
Marriage is a covenant. Man
shall leave his father and mother and the two shall become one flesh, and what
God has joined together let not man put asunder. God created that. Performed
the first wedding.
Noah.
After the flood God used the amazing word covenant,
seven times when he told Noah, He would never again destroy the earth with a
flood. As a sign of His covenant He put a rainbow in the sky as a
reminder for you and I. Genesis 9:8-17.
Abraham.
Ever heard the phrase “Cut a deal”?
God told Abram I’m going to bless you so much that all
nations of the world will be blessed through you.
That was Genesis 12.
About Genesis 15, Abraham worked up the nerve to say,
“How will I know?”
God said, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a
three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young
pigeon.”
To start a petting zoo?
When God said to get the animals, Abe knew exactly
what He meant; they were about to cut a covenant.
By the way, that phrase, cut a deal, comes from
what we’re reading here.
Genesis 15:10, Abram gathered the animals and cut them
in two and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds
in two.
Imagine the bloody scene.
A cow, a goat, and a ram, cut in half, laid in a row,
and a dove and a pigeon one on each side. Separated just enough to leave a
path—a blood path.
Now the cutting is done. Everything is ready for the
blood covenant ceremony.
What happens next?
The terms of the agreement are clearly stated.
In this covenant, God promised to bless Abraham, to
make him a great nation, with lands and descendants; including the Messiah, who’d
bless all the nations of the earth. Genesis 12:2-3.
Abraham’s part, according to, Genesis 17:1-2, was to believe
and be blameless (same word used for Passover lambs that had to perfect,
spotless, without blemish, blameless).
After the terms of the agreement are stated, the covenant
making part of the ceremony begins.
So, Abraham is all set. Ready. Waiting…
But where’s God?
Night came.
Abram stayed.
Vultures came.
Abraham scared them away and stayed.
Sleep came to Abe.
God came in the form of a smoking oven and
a burning torch.
Now, the powerful part of the ceremony.
The bloody pieces are laid in a row, separated by a
path of blood.
Now, the parties, first one, then the other, walk the
path of blood.
As they do they take an oath to abide by the terms of
the covenant or let it be to me as was done to the animals.
God goes first.
Then it’s Abram’s turn.
Abram. Abram! Where’s Abram?
Oh, for Pete’s sake, he’s still asleep.
Like the deep sleep that fell on Adam, when God created
Eve— and the covenant between man and woman.
So, what happens?
Well, if Abram walks the blood path and takes the
oath, to abide by the terms of the covenant, to be, blameless—he’s
doomed.
God knew this, of course.
Did you notice God showed up as a smoking oven, AND a
burning torch.
Normally, multiple times in Scripture, He appeared as
one or the other. A burning bush, a cloud, a pillar of fire.
But here, He showed up as both.
Per protocol of the blood covenant, two parties need
to walk the bloody path.
God takes covenant seriously.
So, what happened?
The Lord took the bloody trail in Abram’s place... in
our place.
Then, when Abram breaks the oath, is less than
perfect, when you and I are less than blameless, when we break the covenant,
when we fail, when we sin, when we turn our backs on Him, and doom ourselves to
destruction…
Jesus steps up and says, WAIT!
I passed through the blood for them. I took their
place. I was cut in pieces for them. I walked Golgotha’s bloody path for them.
Then He stretches out a nail scarred hand toward us
and says, “Wake up. Follow Me.”
Gen. 15:18. On the same day the Lord made
a covenant with Abram...
Made, in the original
text means: to cut.
The Lord cut a covenant
with Abram, knowing the cut and the blood would one day be His
own.
If
you are Christ’s then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the Promise.
Galatians 3:29. According to the Covenant.
The New Covenant
7 For if
that first covenant had been faultless, then no place
would have been sought for a second.
The “first covenant” refers to the Law given to Moses.
The Mosaic Law.
That was a conditional covenant.
Obey and be blessed.
Disobey and be cursed.
They disobeyed right away. Of course. Repeatedly.
The whole system was set up to show them they couldn’t
keep it. They couldn’t be blameless any more than Abraham could.
They needed a Savior.
The heart is deceitfully wicked. Jeremiah
17:9.
The fault of the Law was due to the human
element.
8 Because finding fault with them, (fallible, fault filled, people) He (God) says: (here he begins to quote from Jeremiah 31:31-34): “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, (though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. Jer. 31:32b ) and I disregarded them, says the Lord.
So, since we breached the covenant once again, as
usual, the Lord stepped in, once again, and cut yet another covenant.
You’d think since we keep blowing it that this
covenant would be strict, like a dictatorship.
But it’s not, at all.
This covenant is the covenant of all covenants.
10 For
this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and
write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My
people. 11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none
his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the
least of them to the greatest of them. 12 For I will be
merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless
deeds I will remember no more.”
13 In that He
says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is
becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
Wow!
We keep getting worse and He keeps getting better.
This new covenant is written like a marriage covenant.
Which appears to be exactly what the Lord was thinking
because He quotes Jeremiah 31:31-34, where verse 32 that says: “though I was
a husband to them, says the Lord.”
This covenant is the best covenant ever
offered to mankind.
We in the Church age, have opportunity to be in
covenant with Christ, the Bride of Christ.
What amazing love is this?
He’s inviting us to know Him, personally, close
enough to finish each other’s sentence close, with all our hearts and minds and
souls.
To be at one with Him as family.
How will we escape if we neglect so great a Salvation?
And consider the price He paid to make
this offer.
He knew we couldn't keep our end of the old
covenant.
He knows we can't keep our end of this new
covenant
So, like He did with Abraham, He does with us.
He let us know on the night in which He was betrayed.
I will cut a new covenant with you.
I will walk the blood path for you.
Only the cutting and the blood won't be of animals but
My own.
He took the bread and broke it and said this is My
body which is broken for you.
He took the cup and said this is My blood of the New
Covenant.
That was the Bride price of the New Covenant.
So, He could be reunited, in covenant, once
again with His family.
That’s all He wanted. To be in covenant, with
you.
Are you going to heaven? Are you sure?
The answer depends on whether or not you are in covenant,
with Him?
Greater love has no Man than this than to
lay down His life for His friends. John 15:13.
Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, we are heart broken. Hours after
this Bible Study Your servant, Charlie Kirk was assassinated. He knows what
covenant is all about. He was beyond committed to a cause, he was in covenant
with You. Willing to risk and give his life for this covenant. We pray for his
family and this country that he loved so much. Lord, we pray You use what the
enemy meant for harm and turn it around for good. We pray this is a Turning
Point for the USA, to enter into covenant with You. Use this Lord as a catalyst
to show the world what You will do for a nation that turns to You.
Thank
You, Lord Jesus.
We trust and love You, forever.
Amen.
Prayer Requests:
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Thank you for sharing.
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