No matter what you're going through, no matter which way it ends up, so long as you stick with the Lord, there will be a day when it will all be gone, and you will be with the Lord in glory forevermore. And Satan knows this, and so he devotes himself to pushing you off.
And if he cannot push you off the faith, then he just wants to shut you up so you don't preach the faith. And we come back and we say, but wait a minute, my scripture is so mapped out. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Hebrews.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Hebrews chapter 7 for a brand new study called A Better Covenant. We are going to turn to the book or the letter, the epistle to the Hebrews chapter 7.
We will take verses 11 through 28, beginning at verse 11. Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood, or under it the people received the law, what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed of necessity, there is also a change of the law. For he of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe from which no man has officiated at the altar.
For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood. And it is yet far more evident if in the likeness of Melchizedek there arises another priest who has come, not according to the law of fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life. For he testifies, You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. For on the one hand, there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect. On the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God, and inasmuch as he has not made priest without an oath, well, they have become priests without an oath, but he with an oath by him who said to him, Yahweh has sworn and will not relent.
You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. By so much more, Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant. Also, there were many priests because they were prevented by death from continuing, but he because he continues forever as an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore, he is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For such a high priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens, who does not need daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifices first for his own sins, and then for the people.
For this he did once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints as high priest men who have weakness, but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints the son who has been perfected forever. That was a little long, but it's not wise, I think, to break up this section because it is so joined together.
We could do that, but I would run the risk of sounding even more repetitive and making the points, so we're going to try to close up this entire section. It is about a better hope and a better covenant. It is difficult for us to accept change. Some people have a harder time with it than others. You can rearrange the furniture in the fellowship hall, something as simple as that, and there will be some that will bristle at it.
It is a very difficult thing, but we are not to give in to it. And the reason why I bring that up is because the Jews had to go through a radical change in their religion, radical development. Jesus said this concerning change and the response to it, no one puts new wine into old wineskins or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled and the wineskins be ruined.
And then he goes on to say, be like new wineskins. You have to be flexible, not surrendering the truth, not giving up the principles that come from God, but being wise enough to understand the development and the movement of God through his word. And this is the very thing the writer is dealing with. And it is only by the Holy Spirit, only by the love of Jesus Christ and only through the cross could these Jews have a chance at receiving what God was doing.
In other words, they had to be born again. We need help in our faith. All of us, all the time, the abiding presence of Jesus Christ through his Holy Spirit. And the writer knows this. As he's dealing with these issues, he is depending on that.
He understands that he can make all the points that he wants to make and he makes them wonderfully. If the Spirit of God is not received in their hearts, if they resist and block and run away from what they know to be true, then there's nothing anyone can do. So it's very high stakes, this letter to the Hebrews. As said earlier in other sessions, Paul dealt with this very thing in his letter to the Romans and to the church in the region of Galatia. And I believe it is Paul writing this letter here, this document.
Again, it's more than just a letter. And he has had to fight this his entire walk. He had to deal with people who were going opposite of God in God's name. They have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge, he said to the Romans, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness have sought to establish a righteousness of their own. They're doing their own thing and they're putting God's name on it. And we see this in Christianity. We see Christians say, I believe it should be this way and do it this way. You know, that's opposite of what the Scripture is saying. And so it is something that is relevant to all of us and we now look at verse 11, Hebrews 7-11. Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek and not be called according to the order of Aaron? Now as stated earlier, and I have to say that because I don't want you all to think that I am, you know, it's difficult to not repeat yourself when you make points over a long period of time.
So I want to make sure you understand that it's on purpose this time. You have to have a basic knowledge of the Old Testament to get so much out of this letter to the Hebrews. You have to understand who Aaron was, how he became the high priest of Israel, what that meant to the nation. Melchizedek, how he shows up in the Old Testament, the Levitical order, what the priesthood meant to the Jews. We make the distinction it was not the same priesthood that you see in the Episcopal Church or the Roman Catholic Church. This was an entirely different priesthood. And with that understanding, you have a little bit more strength going forward. Where he says therefore, he's talking about what we know to be verses 1 through 10, that God's plan of development for the religion of his people was going to undergo radical changes and the changes would be superior, that Christianity is superior to everything else.
Judaism in its day was superior to everything else, but baked into Judaism was this plan to come forward with a greater plan in Christ. He knows they're going to challenge him, some of them, so he continues in anticipation of their questions and then their objections. He goes forward with these points he's making. In this chapter, we would say he's using Psalm 104 as his text. You know, when a pastor steps into the pulpit and he teaches from the word, if it's a topical message, he wants to have a text. That's the authority. This is what God has said and this is what God has shown me through what he has said and now I share to you.
As Paul said, that which I first received, I delivered to you. But he is going to use as his cross reference, which is a buttress to the verse, it's a support member to the verse, Psalm 104 is Genesis 14 and the story of Melchizedek. That is supposed to mean something to them.
That is their authority. See, I could come up here and say, I read in the book, I saw in the paper, statistics say, but rather than appealing to those authorities, I'd rather use the scripture and say, Thus says the Lord. We could use some of those other points from time to time to make the point more clear, if possible, but we use the scripture.
That's our final authority in life for everything as believers. Now, unbelievers don't understand that. They cannot understand that. The carnal man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to them, nor can he know them. They're spiritually discerned. Well, that's where we come in, to turn some lights on so they can see these things and respond to God's invitation to accept him through Jesus Christ.
Well, there's a lot involved there. But anyway, this is their scripture that he is bringing up before them when he mentions Melchizedek. And if Judaism's priesthood was so good, why in their own scripture did God promise a better one? That's the question they have to answer.
If they were going to ask the writer any questions, he's asking them some questions. And it is a powerful point. Verse 12, For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law. Well, he says it's needed. He's saying that Old Testament system, it was greatly flawed, not because of God, but because the system was not enough to deal with sinners.
It needed more. It was enough to do what it had to do, as one who would bring you to the master. And Paul makes that point in Galatians. The law served as a tutor, he says. And the tutor, that Greek word he uses in Galatians, is not someone that, as we think of a tutor today, that sits down and helps you get the intricacies of whatever subject it is. The tutor was the one that brought you to the teacher, brought you to the lesson.
It was usually a slave that was appointed to this assignment. And so Paul says our Old Testament was that one that brought us to the master. And it was, again, necessary in its day. But if it was perfect, then it should have been left alone. But it was not for us. God had something better. And the divine lawgiver retains the right to overrule law with law.
That's an important point. Because a lot of Christians think, well, we're not under the law. Well, that doesn't make us lawless. We still have laws. We're still not to murder, to lie, to commit adultery, to covet. We're still under the moral code.
So the law that God has brought in has to do with the law of grace and not the system of blood sacrifices that the Jews adhered to so much that they cherished. In fact, they cherished it so much, they missed it. And they missed it so much, they were now going back to it.
And as we've been and will continue to do every session in Hebrews, remind everyone, especially for those not aware of it, that is the whole problem of the letter. They were going back to a dead system. They were throwing away the Christ. Living by faith was too much for them. They wanted to live by oxen and sheep bringing coming up to the altar. And the writer is saying, if you do that, you will damn your soul.
This is very serious. You will insult God for sending His Son as the Lamb of God and then going and offering lambs. His blood did it all. God, using King David, changed everything in ancient Israel's approach to worship and government through this one king.
And we've been going through this in Chronicles. He lifted the spiritual darkness that his predecessor, rotten King Saul, had left the nation in. David comes along, and he pours into Yahweh, his God, and it flows out of him and it washes the entire nation. Within that were prophetic utterances. In other words, within David's life and his songs and his leadings, there were these truths about the future that came from God to him and were backed up by scripture already written, and Melchizedek is one. The 110th Psalm is all about Messiah.
We know it's Christ. The Hebrew word for Christ is Messiah. The Greek word for Messiah is Christ.
Same word, depending on which culture, what emphasis you want to place upon it. Psalm 110, verses 3 and 4. David writing the Psalm, he says, your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power. He's talking about coming Messiah, and we'll tie that in momentarily. He goes on, in the beauties of holiness, and then he adds the next verse, Yahweh has sworn and will not back down. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
Now, here's the tie-in. This is a direct link between David dancing before the ark with the ephod of a priest with the crown of a king. He is saying prophetically there is coming a Messiah. He will be both priest and king.
We've never had anything like this before, but it's coming, and he will follow that pattern of Melchizedek who long ago in the days of Abraham was both, Melchizedek was, a king and a priest. And so we go to that moment in 1 Chronicles where it talks about David dancing before the ark and the Psalm that he delivered at the delivery of the ark to Jerusalem, and the ark represented the presence of God. It wasn't Noah's ark with all the animals. This is that chest that had the mercy seat atop of it, the angels facing each other, the cherubim that is. I don't want to get that wrong. Somebody will correct me.
I thought it was a cherubim. And we want to make sure we get that right. 1 Chronicles 16, 29, give to Yahweh the glory to his name. This is the song he delivered at the delivery of the ark. Bring an offering and come before him. Oh, worship Yahweh in the beauty of holiness.
See the connection? Psalm 110. See, I can see it because I have it right here in front of me. Psalm 110, in the beauties of holiness. 1 Chronicles 16, the beauty of holiness.
In other words, David's mind was fixed on Messiah coming in the beauty of holiness. He connected the life of Melchizedek with the coming of Messiah, and he demonstrated it in the dancing before the ark as king-priest. And God honored it all. He radicalized the nation. He brought a wave of worship in that Israel had not seen since the days of Joshua. And he did all this. God is doing all of this without insulting the Old Testament.
He's just moving past. It's sort of like change of software developers. They bring in new software.
They insult maybe the end user, but they don't insult the old software. They just move forward on the strength of prior discoveries. Now that might not be the best analogy of how the word develops, but it makes the point that change is constant, and when it comes from God, it is wonderful. In other words, the prophecy of Melchizedek was a sleeper prophecy. Do we have sleeper cells?
We know about that. There are those agents that are out there, and they're just waiting for a command to do whatever it is that they do. This has been in history from the beginning of the insurrections and overthrows of time. Well, with the Lord, the prophecy of Melchizedek was sort of a sleeper prophecy, waiting for activation, and then God activated it right according to plan in Christ. And so we have Galatians, but when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law.
Now you might say, what does all this have to do with my problems? I don't know. Verse 13.
No kidding. The word of God is living and powerful. That's what. No matter what you're going through, no matter which way it ends up, so long as you stick with the Lord, there will be a day when it will all be gone, and you will be with the Lord in glory forevermore. And Satan knows this, and so he devotes himself to pushing you off. And if he cannot push you off the faith, then he just wants to shut you up so you don't preach the faith.
And we come back and we say, but wait a minute. My scripture is so mapped out that only the hand of God could have done it. I will side with God's word no matter what's happening to me. I will stick with the Lord even though I may think that he's not sticking with me. By faith, I accept he will never leave me nor forsake me. Why else would a pastor spend so much time digging into verses, and not just me, other pastors who do this, why else would we waste our time if it was a waste of time?
But it's not a waste of time. It is the very thing hell fears, that Christians will get it, that the lights will turn on and they will be stronger because of it in the face of opposition. There are those opposing forces that we face that we can beat because God empowers us. But then there are those opposing forces that are more subtle, and we don't find ourselves as confident in the faith when facing them. We begin to complain to God, to whine about his methods and his systems, and God lets us go just to see when it's all said and done where we will be. And so it's critical we make up our minds that I don't care what happens around me, I will stick with the Lord. Ten thousand may fall at my right hand, a thousand at my left. It will not come near me.
That's the idea. Well, back to this development, Christ, the end of the law, Romans 10, 4. Let me read the verse.
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, not without it, to everyone who believes. What happens if you don't believe? I wouldn't want to be you.
That's the first thing. And the second thing, you don't have to be you. You can be you in Christ. Jesus, like David, Jesus, the greater King, has changed everything. David never lost sight of that. He wrote it in his Psalms. He said, the Lord said to my Lord, there's one higher than me, and he's coming, and I love him.
I've not seen him, but neither have you. And we love him, and we know him because God has moves that we could never, never understand because they are that high. Verse 13, for he of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe from which no man has officiated at the altar. For, verse 14, it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood. Well, if you were a Jew in that system, only those who were descendants from Aaron, who was from the tribe of Levi, could be a priest. Judah's tribe, no one there could be a priest. The writer is talking to Jewish people.
They know this. And he's saying, now let's remember, Jesus came and he was not from Levi. He was from Judah.
And he's systematically establishing the prophetic fulfillment of Christ as Messiah according to Genesis and according to Psalm 110. That old system barred Jesus from being priest, but not the order of Melchizedek. It invited him to be priest. It demanded he be priest.
And forever. You see, Aaron's tribe never received from God this word, you are a priest forever. But the order of Melchizedek did, from which Christ is going to assume in his ministry. We'll get to this in verse 22, I owe you, I owe you nothing but love, in verse 22, when we get there. And verse 15 now, and it is yet far more evident if in the likeness of Melchizedek there arises another priest who has come, not according to the law of fleshly commandment, but according to the power of endless life, for he testifies you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
How many times this morning have I said Melchizedek? And I'm not done, there's more. So you see again, we started off this Hebrew consideration with these words, it is a pile driver. It is going to hit that piling over and over until it hits the bedrock and it won't stop until then. And you know, if you've ever listened to a pile driving for, I don't mean a little job, I mean a big skyscraper, it's got a little beat to it. On and on until finally it's like, shut that thing off! Okay, I'm back.
Just a minute there, I had a hard hat on, short sleeves and everything. So on the basis of his indestructible life, where it says here that there arises another priest, verse 15, then in verse 16, but according to the power of endless life, this is what overrules everything. This priest, unlike Aaron and Eleazar, his son, and all those after him, they drop dead. This one did not. Christ died on the cross, but he did not drop dead, he gave up the spirit.
He lives forever. 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.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-06-04 10:09:02 / 2023-06-04 10:18:21 / 9