Scripture and Our Great High Priest (Part A)

Making us a product of His environment in the spirit. Don't dismiss it when you think, you know, waiting for example. One thing that bothers me about waiting is that I might be waiting for nothing.

I might be waiting for something that I am not impressed with. Well, that's not my business and I have to guard against that. I have to understand it is your will be done, not my will be done, and be committed to that, whether I like it or not. We will begin at verse 11, 11 through verse 16. So if you would turn there in your Bibles. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. For the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of the soul and the spirit and of the joints and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And 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, seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Well, we look at the 11th verse again where the writer is continuing making his point, and again we will be reminding ourselves of this throughout our study in Hebrews, that he is telling them, he is warning them, you cannot mix Christianity with anything else and still be left with Christianity. If you try, then you will forfeit whatever gains you made in Christ, you will lose it all, and so he is telling them throughout. He started off saying in the second chapter, in the first verse of the second chapter, he encouraged them, he said, therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard lest we drift away. And then he went on to tell them about the Jews who fell short of entering into the promised land because they did not believe, and he used that as his backdrop to make his point.

And so he is continuing that and that is why he says, let us therefore, he is joining what he is about to say with what he has already been saying. Now it may take us several months to go through Hebrews, but that is not how it was written. You could probably read through it in about 15 minutes. I do not think you will make it because if you are anything like I am when I read the scripture, I stop and I think.

It starts to penetrate, it starts to dig into me, it causes me to stop. It would take a discipline to read through without pause. So he says, let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest lest anyone fall according to the same examples of disobedience.

So he tells them to be zealous for Christ and not Judaism. Magnificent advice to tell them to be diligent. We are not all diligent because of our fallen nature. We tend to be sluggish too often and we benefit from encouragement. From someone coming along, especially someone who we admire or respect and nudging us along and telling us to be watchful and work.

Not one without the other. Diligence involves both to be careful and to labor. Some work hard, but they are not careful enough. They can cause problems that way. You employers of others, you know this first hand. Some are careful, but they are not hard working enough. So the writer says, be both.

Strike this balance. Be diligent, therefore, remembering the things that happen to those who do not believe. As a Christian, we covered this or we have been talking about this a little bit from our study in Chronicles on Wednesday nights. As Christians, do we pray, God, may I not cause pain.

Now, not conviction. In the time when it's time to convict with truth and gentleness, that's not the same thing as hurting someone. To be diligent in our prayers, to be mindful of such examples from the scripture, and to draw them as we would go to a well to draw water and to say to the Lord in our prayer, Lord, that I would not cause pain, that you would expand my territory, that I would not be this recluse, that I would not have these gifts, which have no use because I have drawn my lines, made my borders myself.

No, I'd rather, Lord, you expand my territory. Well, that's how Jabez prayed, and that's a diligent prayer. It's a little off the trail from what the writer to Hebrews is saying to his audience because he's saying don't you depart from Christ, but I'm taking the opportunity to say let's be diligent in our walk with Christ. He says to enter that rest. That's heaven. We even say that. He's gone to his resting place.

One day I will rest from all the troubles in this world, and that rest will fully be realized. If we are diligent and stay the course, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. He's very blunt. He comes right out and says, he's telling them the stakes are too high.

Do not be diligent. Falling short of the promised land, dropping dead in the wilderness, they did not enter in. He says I don't want you to be that way, and we say the same thing to someone who is on a course away from God, and that's where they were, and so he's bringing them back as best he can, and he's going to hit it. When we get to chapter 6, he is going to slam it.

We won't get there this morning. Verse 12, for the word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of the soul and the spirit, and the joints and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. I think it helps to remember that he is essentially talking about the Old Testament. We have a greater revelation now because we have a fuller revelation. That does not reduce the size of the Old Testament. It just causes it all to shine brighter. What God has to say cannot be esteemed enough by any preacher of the gospel or preacher from the pulpit.

It's just too big, but in our attempt to do so, we get a lot of work done. We damage the causes of hell by preaching the word in line with trying to live up to it also. To just preach the word is not enough. We must be diligent. We must work hard and be careful ourselves. This preaching is good for us.

We need to hear it. You won't find it outside the church like this. Where else can you gather a bunch of people listening to the word of God being preached at the same time, subconsciously even aware that their brothers and sisters around them are being ministered to by the same Holy Spirit who authored the word of God and who is ministering the word of God. The ministry of the word. It's more than just preaching.

It's doing something with it. He says that the word of God is living. It is alive with meaning, with purpose, with application, with truth, with results, with prophecy, with eternal life, the recipe for eternal life. Here is what David said, that great Old Testament articulate of the scripture. Psalm 19 verses 10 and 11.

Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them your servant is warned and in keeping them there is great reward. That's what he's telling. That's what the writer to Hebrews, he's telling his audience. The word of God is living and it is powerful.

It's sharper than any two-edged sword. New Testament Paul says all scripture is given by inspiration of God. It is God-breathed. It's God put life into Adam.

He formed him out of the clay and he breathed into him. Man is dust and deity in that sense. And the word of God is just words until God breathes into those words. And now it becomes scripture and it is profitable for doctrine.

That's right thinking, for reproof. That is correcting wrong thinking, for instruction in righteousness and that is how to pull it off. That the man of God may be what? Complete. The man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The right gear, the right training, the right timing, the right usage of these things. We don't live in the presence of miracles as the parting of the Red Sea or Elijah being taken up in a chariot of fire. It is those quiet times, those still times when apparently nothing is going on that God is still working in us.

Making us a product of his environment in the Spirit. Don't dismiss it when you think, you know waiting for example. One thing that bothers me about waiting is that I might be waiting for nothing.

I might be waiting for something that I am not impressed with. Well that's not my business and I have to guard against that. I have to understand it is your will be done, not my will be done and be committed to that. Whether I like it or not. That God can do with me whatever he wants to do with me. He doesn't have to be merciful to me and I am greatly delighted that he is. But I also understand he is so high and so lifted up, he doesn't have to be.

But he does because he is obligated himself and that just draws me more to wait for him, to be patient knowing that he knows what he is doing. His word has taught me this and in that it is alive. The mention of the word of God. It should produce feelings in the believer of warmth and hope and excitement. It should stir us even in our lowest moments. Psalm 119 verse 103, How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Job, I have not departed from the commandment of his lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.

And we need food. We all know that. He says the word of God is powerful. Again so powerful that it damages the course of the devil. The work of Satan, the word of God does damage to that. Causes the guilty to squirm in their seats at the hearing of the word of God. It makes enemies even of some professed Christians by simply preaching it and upholding it. It is powerful.

It is the word of God that said let there be light and there was light. Sharper than any two-edged sword. Now this sharpness means the Bible cuts deep into the guilty and the innocent alike. And the innocent in this sense. There are innocent souls that feel guilty over things they've not done. And the word of God comes and relieves them of that. It cuts in and says no this is not humility. I cannot use you this way.

I need you to understand right and wrong to be a discerner of that which is good for you and bad and good for others and bad for others as the case may be. God's word cuts deep into the conscience. There's no sword like it. There's nothing like the word of God because where it cuts it offers eternity.

Nothing else can do that. Not eternity in heaven. It is double-edged. It's a sword for the battlefield. This life is the battlefield.

As Tozier, A.W. Tozier was often saying this life is not a playground. It's a battleground.

I don't like that but it's true. I can't get away from it. Therefore I have to stock up for it.

Train, retrain, build up the arsenal, the inner man and the spirit. Make sure my sword is sharp and ready to be released when necessary. A sword is an excellent metaphor for God's word. Ephesians 6, 17, take in addition to the other parts of the Christian gear, of course the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the feet shod with the gospel, take the sword of the spirit which is the word of God, unquote.

How many Christians believe it's more of a pocket knife than a sword? How many people are in pulpits this very moment who simply don't believe that? They claim to have respect for the Bible. They call themselves churches.

They have a cross here and there. They don't believe it. They don't believe that the word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, so they don't preach it. They preach what the universities tell them to preach. They preach what the culture is telling them to preach. They preach what they think the people in the pew want heard from the pulpit. I have no idea what you want to hear overall. Those of you I know that love the Lord, I know you want to hear the word, but I don't know what applications to make.

I ask God, what do you want me to say? And he unfolds it. He impresses it.

The next thing I know, it's there. And that's how we conduct the ministry one way, the ministry of the word. Another thing about a sword, especially a double-edged sword, is that there is very little, if anything, humorous about it, especially when it is unsheathed.

It is a serious tool. The facts of Scripture are just like that. They are a threat to everything evil in me and outside of me, in the spirit and in the flesh. The word of God goes against those things. The word of God as a sword is both offensive or defensive. You can use it to shield an attack or you can use it to make an attack.

It is necessary for both, and we should learn to do both. Those who use the word of God can also be cut by the word of God. It is double-edged. It speaks of the church militant, that the church militant will be the church victorious if she has her sword. It speaks of a holy war, not physical violence, never that.

Spiritual violence to destroy the works of principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places, to come against them. Psalm 149, verse 6, Let the high praises of God be in their mouth and a two-edged sword in their hand. The psalmist may have been speaking about violence also, saying, Let us praise the Lord and defend the land of the Lord.

And under the Old Testament economy, that was totally permissible. But in the New Testament, we are not looking to cut people with a sword of violence, except to say violence to those ideas, to the lies of hell, to those ideas that are contrary and offensive to God. Taking every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ Jesus, Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10. So the enemies of the church are not flesh and blood, but wickedness. Wickedness out of the mouths of the lost, wickedness in the hearts of the lost, wickedness of our own flesh. We take a sword to it, a scripture.

Where would we be without it? Where would you who are saved be without God's word? Now maybe there is someone here who is not a Christian, and you think this is just rhetoric.

You think it's just an alternate view. I hate for you to find out the hard way that you're wrong. You have an opportunity to find out the sweetest honey way or perish in your sin. The enemies of the church, there have never been a shortage of them. There won't be until Christ returns and purges the world of them. But for now they are here, and our primary weapon is the sword. You can have people that are into praying and into doing good things, but if they have departed from the expressed will of God, which only comes to us through His word as the final authority, then you have a problem.

You can find people in other religions that want to do humanistic things or goodness towards humanity that can pray, that can cut themselves and flog themselves in this way or that, but are totally disinterested in the word of God that cuts, that is powerful. Proverbs tells us that Satan has a double-edged sword too, and he's looking to cut you with it also. Speaking of the immoral woman, it's just the immoral person, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

Proverbs 5 verse 4. It is piercing. That means it gets in there. It penetrates. You know, the three wounds, the puncture, the laceration and the abrasion. The puncture is the worst one.

It gets in. And, well, of course, by degree, but the soul and the spirit are pierced. That's where our life resides.

Well, for some. Some just have a soul. They're the only part of them alive other than their flesh. It's that part that interacts with other human beings, but they have no interaction with God because their spirit is dead. And if they think they do, it's a false god because they're not rightly related.

They are not born again. That's offensive to those who object to the gospel. It's all offended you will be. And God is offended in return. You know, those people who act like they're offended at everything, are they that dense?

Do they not understand that they too can be an offense to someone? But it's all about them, right? Well, it's not. It's all about me, as it should be. The part of us that deals with God is the spirit. And if you're not born again, the spirit is dead. And you are dead in your sin. But when God, when you're born again, when God touches you from above, you come to life.

Your spirit is alive now. And He divides these things. He separates them. They're very detailed and complex to us, but not to God. People, even Christians, the best of us, are very complex at times, but not to God. We were created, as I mentioned, from the dust. And then God breathed into us His life. He gave us life that He has. And He offers to us the identical eternity going forward that He has.

And He invites all to come and get it. And those, again, who don't are judged. He says of the joints and the marrow.

There are the intricate details. His scripture finds no part of us unreachable. We're talking about the Bible. And the writer is saying to the Jews, therefore be diligent to remember your scripture as I've been quoting to you, to you who've been thinking about going back to the temple to offer sheep when Christ was crucified for you.

You better pay attention to the word of God, because therein are the blessings and the judgments. It is a discerner, that Greek word, kritikos. It means it is a critic.

We get our English word, kritik, from that Greek word. There are those who think that they are criticizing the scripture, but in the end, the scripture is criticizing them. It is the supreme critic, and that's how it penetrates. The Bible says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks and what is in the heart defiles the man. You read those words and you can't help but saying that is true.

I don't need a scientist to tell me that. I don't need a preacher to tell me that. I know it's true from my own experience, from my own heart. God's word judges men. No matter what they say or think, God's word judges them, and in that, it is living and it is powerful. It is sharper than any two-edged sword, pierces even to the division of the soul and the spirit and of the joints and of the marrow. It cuts all the way through if necessary. It will sever limbs if necessary.

Verse 13, and I'll pause here a moment. Remember we said there's nothing humorous about a sword unsheathed. When someone pulls a pistol on you, it's not ha-ha.

That's funny. A sword and a pistol, the only difference between the two really is distance. One can cut a thousand feet away. The other cannot.

Well, maybe a thousand feet. I mean, Derringer wouldn't be able to do that, but still has a greater reach. Verse 13, well, let me close that up in case, huh, what were you talking about? Scripture is serious business, just as serious as someone pulling a weapon on you.

God's word is a weapon on sin, and if you are enjoying sin, if you have not repented about it, if you are careless about a relationship with Christ, that sword is drawn on you. You've been listening to Cross-Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply log on to crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross-Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com or simply search for Cross-Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Hebrews, right here on Cross-Reference Radio.