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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Well, anyway, I want you to take your Bible and turn there to the book of Hebrews. Just been looking at a few things in the book of Hebrews and it’s a very interesting book. I believe one of the main purposes of the book of Hebrews is that the whole book put together explains why eternal security is the theme. Because the purpose of the whole book of Hebrews is the background, it’s the foundation on why, once saved, always saved. So when you really follow the thinking, the logic in the scriptures, you come out with only one conclusion.

You’re saved by grace, not by the law. He gives you eternal life. He’ll never cast you out. He’ll never lose you. And then you’re to live by faith. And if you don’t live by faith in doing what God wants, He’s gonna chase in you in chapter 12. So the whole book is the Christian life explained, but it’s a, it’s a little bit on the hard side. And it says so. And that’s going to be that way because when he’s talking to the Hebrew Christians, he says, you’re dull of hearing.

That means you’re, you’re lazy. You don’t want to hear because you don’t want to obey. See, some people just don’t care what the word of God says because they don’t go and do it anyway. When you really want to do what God wants to do, man, you want to hang on every word you can get. you want to learn every truth you can get. So you’re always trying to read right notes, make marks in your Bible button. You don’t care, you know, it’s that year, and this goes in this year, right on that year, because it’s not gonna affect your life.

When I used to go to church, I couldn’t wait to hear the preacher. And I might listen to a whole sermon, I get one good thought, if I was lucky. But I like getting a lot of thoughts from a sermon, that, hey, I can write, I can use that, I can use that, I can use that. But see, if you’re not gonna do anything, well, I can’t use any of it. Why? Because I’m not gonna do anything. But if you got to do something, then you can use it.

Use it. Use it. So he told him, he says, you’re hard of hearing. He said, I’ve got many things to say to you, but you’re just babes in Christ. And he says, we’re going to go on to maturity if God permits. This is what we want to cover. And what we’re going to cover in chapter 6 on, it’s kind of rough. And it’s hard teaching, but it’s for those who have learned how to eat a little meat. You know, it’s for those who want to go a little bit deeper.

So you want some milk, just study the book of John, but milk, there’s milk in every scripture all over the place. But there’s some things a little bit harder to explain. And so when he gets into milk, he’s the deck and the priest and the high priest and all these things, it gets a little bit complicated. But for somebody who wants to go deep in the Word of God and understand some more deeper spiritual truths, Hebrews is a good book for you.

But I want to try to lighten it a little bit tonight. I want you to take your Bible and turn there to the Book of Hebrews and look there in chapter 5. Chapter 5, we’ll kind of wander a little bit, you know, of course, we do that a little bit. But it says here in chapter 5, for every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God. Now here you’ll have that ordained four men and Jesus Christ was also ordained and called and as you see down through here in verse four and no man take of this honor unto himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron.

So Aaron was called of God And he was to be the high priest. And there was other priest, but there was a high priest. And the high priest was the one you got to go into the holy of holies. Now, remember this. God was a fearsome God. He’s a holy God and shows you how sinful man is. A man was scared to listen to what God was saying from Mount Sinai. And they said, we don’t want him to talk to us.

You let him talk to you and then you tell us. So they were afraid. And, you mean, God is, he’s fierce. And he’s enough to scare you half the death. But you see, people couldn’t just go into his presence. So he made a place where he would meet with people. He called it the Holy of Holies. Now there was the outer court, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies. And there was a thick veil. And nobody could go and pass that veil except the high priest once a year, but he had to offer a sacrifice for himself and for his family and for the sins of the people.

So it was a scary time that is God going to accept this offering. They say that sometimes they would pry a rope around him that if he couldn’t come out they could drag him out but then nobody else would go back in there. So there was a high priest. And because of the high priest, well he was Aaron of the tribe of Leba. And that’s why you have a book in the Bible called Leviticus. Well it’s on the priestly duties of the high office of the tabernacle.

And so you have a whole book set aside for that. But Aaron was Moses’ brother. And so Aaron was given this responsibility, but he didn’t just take it upon himself. Look what he says in verse 1, for every high priest taken from among men is ordained for God and things pertaining to God. That he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin. Now one of the main purposes of a priest is to have access to God. The high priest had access to God.

He could go into the presence of God. And so the Shikonah glory over the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, well, he was going into the presence of God. This is why he represented the people and he would go into the presence and he had access. But nobody else did. And it was a thing of fear and trembling. Well, it just seems like exactly the opposite since Christ has become the high priest. See, Christ is now the high priest and we are believer priest.

So look what he says here in verse 15 of chapter 4. For we have not a high priest, which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. This was Jesus Christ. Now he is that high priest. In verse 14, talk about we have a great high priest. So Jesus Christ is a high priest. And through Jesus Christ, we have access to God. So the priest was to represent the people.

And the high priest in the Old Testament was to make that sacrifice for the sins of the people so that God wouldn’t destroy the people. And so it was an innocent animal that had to die. Now, no animal sacrificed ever pleased God. It appeased His anger and it was like a covering, an atonement, but it was not something that washed their sins away. It did not make them, you know, guiltless. It was just a picture of one day there would be a sacrifice made that would represent everybody all at one time, never had to be done again.

But see, they had to do this every year, every year. And so he makes a statement here in verse 16. Now you and I, we, like going to the throne of grace, it’s like going to the presence of God. And we are believer-priest. And believe it or not, God considers us to be a royal priesthood. You see, in the Old Testament, the head of the family was considered to be like the priest represents his family. And then there was the priest that came on later that represented the nation of Israel.

And they had to come through the tribe of Levi. The other 11 tribes didn’t have to, but they had to pay ties to this one tribe. So they did the work in the temple and whatever they made out there, see a tenth of it, minimum had to be given to the temple. And so that’s how the tribe lived. But they didn’t have their own little area. They just lived among the people of all of the other tribes. And so he says in verse 16, let us therefore come.

See that word, and the word boldly is mentioned several times throughout the book of Hebrews, because you and I have access now into the very presence of God. And because of that, we can come boldly, not in fear and trembling like they had to do. Because see, somebody, our high priest, has already done, gone into the very presence of the Lord with a sacrifice that’s made all the sacrifices that needs to be made. Now, one thing it’ll help you a little bit, I kind of like sometimes the old school field reference Bible because sometimes the notes are pretty good.

But just hold your place right here and look over there in the book of 1st Peter and we’ll find it here in a minute. First Peter, you got to see this because this is good for you. Look there in chapter two, first Peter chapter two. And notice what he says in verse nine. Now first Peter also is referencing Hebrew Christians and he’s mentioned to them some of the things that they would have a greater knowledge concerning because of the temple and the ben-Jewish and all that.

But in verse nine he said, but ye are a chosen generation, a royal priest who had a holy nation. Pecue your people that ye should show forth the praises of Him who have called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Now go all the way down to, if you have an old school for reference Bible or one of the church Bibles, go down to the bottom of the page. Get down to the bottom of the page. And there’s a little number one and that little number one down at the bottom will give you a good summary of being a believer priest.

And the New Testament priesthood, and it’ll go through and it’ll list all these things for you. But what I want you to look at is number four. See, right before number four, there is one sentence says, the priesthood of the believer is therefore a birthright. You You see, we are in the right family. Just like Aaron, he was a Levite, but Aaron was a high priest and those under him who came through his line were automatically to serve in the temple.

And they had rotation, paces them when they had to do it. But we now, being a child of God, we have by birthright we are a priest. we can go into the very presence of God and notice what he says here. Just as every descendant of Aaron was born to be to the priesthood. Number four, the chief privilege of a priest is access to God. Under law the high priest only could enter the holiest of all and that was once a year.

But when Christ died, the veil, the type of Christ’s human body was rent so that now the believer priests equally with Christ the high priest have access to God in the holiest. That’s why he keeps him come boldly to the throne of grace because see we don’t have to come in fear and trembling we already know that God the Father has accepted the sacrifice of God the Son and so because we have access into the Father we can come boldly to the throne of grace because we’re His children.

And then you’ll notice down at the bottom, it says, the high priest is corporately there. Then he says number five, in the exercise of his office, the New Testament believer priest is one, a sacrifice who offers a threefold sacrifice. His own living body, remember what Baba talks about in chapter 12, present your body as a living sacrifice? That’s the sacrifice we as a believer priest, we make to God. So we are to offer a sacrifice. Our bodies is not to be one that we burn on the fire, praise the Lord, but we’re to give our bodies as a living sacrifice unto the Lord.

And then we also have in the book of Hebrews in chapter 13 about offering the sacrifice of praise, and then notice this be praise to God, the fruit of the lips that make mention of his name to be offered continually. And I will commune with thee from above the mercy seed and his substance, things that we have that God has blessed us with. So we make offerings and sacrifices to the Lord because we are priest of the Lord. And so this is what God wants us to know, but there’s something else He wants us to do.

Now go back there to the book of Hebrews in chapter 5. Now down there in verse 5, I want you to see there’s a statement that’s made here, and this statement is important because it kind of lets us see that it’s a quote from an Old Testament scripture. You see there in verse 5, so also Christ glorified not himself. So this is one of the things that we need to be aware of ourselves. Never try to exalt yourself or glorify yourself.

Just submit yourself to the Lord and do whatever God wants you to do with your life. Because if it wasn’t for the grace of God, none of us would be saved. If it wasn’t for the grace of God, we wouldn’t even be here today. If it wasn’t for the grace of God, we wouldn’t have air to breathe. So we live only by the grace of God because it can stop your heart from beating just like that. And you don’t have to burp out when you’re gonna die and how you’re gonna die.

when he gets ready, you better be ready. All of life is just getting ready to meet God. Prepare to meet thy God. You ever heard that before? Prepare to meet thy God. Why? Because that’s gonna be an awesome event. But notice what he says here. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made a high priest, but he that said unto him, thou art my son today, have I begotten thee? as he said also in another place, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Now hold your place right here and turn all the way back here to the book of Psalms, a 110th Psalm, the 110th Psalm. And you’ll notice that this is talking about a high priest that’s prophesied to come down the road that’s not gonna be after the order of Aaron because to be after the order of Aaron, you’d have to be born of the tribe of Levi. But you’ll notice in the 110th, look what he says here in verse 4.

That’s just looking in verse 1, so you get a better picture. Verse 1, the Lord said unto my Lord, now this year you will find this verse mentioned in chapter 1 of the book of Hebrews. Hebrews uses a lot of Old Testament scripture. The Lord said unto my Lord, which is to Christ, sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Now this is written by David a thousand years before Jesus Christ came. And he says, concerning the Lord, the Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion, rule thou in the midst of thine enemies, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power and in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning and thou hast the do of thy youth.

The Lord, L-O-R-D, Jehovah, the Lord hath sworn and will not repent or change his mind, reconsider, thou art a priest, forever after the order of Melchizedek.” Now this verse and this verse one is talking about Jesus Christ, telling us in advance that Jesus Christ is coming, but he is not going to be after the order of Aaron, because see, all those priests died. They would live, they did the work, and then they died, and then they had to get another one.

And then he would do his work, and then he had died. But there’s another one, a high priest that’s coming, and he will only die once, because it’s only appointed unto every man once to die and after this to judgment. Jesus Christ will only come and have to die one time because man only dies one time. So whenever a man dies, well, he’s not committing anymore sins. He’s dead. He’s dead. So Christ only has to die for men once, not two or three times.

And that’s why he says there in verse 4, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now there’s a reason for saying that, and I go back there to the book of Hebrews. When he says, I’ve got many things to say to you, but they’re hard to be uttered or hard to be explained because you’re not on a spiritual mature level where you can understand it. But he says, we’re going to lead those principles of salvation and go on to mature things.

And this is what we do if God permits because it’s difficult for some people to grasp deeper truths because some of these things will really play havoc on your mind, trying to understand exactly what all he’s talking about. And people have got hung up just on verses 7 and 8 and 9. I mean, they’re not the easiest verses in the world to even talk about. But now go back there to verse 7 of chapter 5, who referring Jesus Christ in the days of His flesh.

When he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crimes and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared. Though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. Being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation. And to all then, that obey him. And obey him means to simply believe the gospel, which is to trust Christ’s Savior. So that verse nine there, being made perfectly, he can be author of eternal salvation.

And I believe that this whole book is really about eternal salvation. This eternal salvation is eternal security. Just hold your place right here and just look over there with me very quickly in chapter nine. Look in chapter nine. And just notice what he says about this high priest because of what He did, and that’s why you compare it with what the Old Testament priests were like, they couldn’t hold a candle or what Jesus Christ did. Theirs sacrifices never took away sin.

That’s why he says in chapter 10, it’s not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. So it never took away sin, but Christ’s death did take away sin. If it takes it away, it doesn’t have to do it again. So he looked there in verse 11, but Christ, being come and high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building.

Neither by the blood of goats and calves get this, but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained what kind of a redemption? Eternal redemption. In other words, He was gonna make a payment that was good forever. The payment He made, the offering that He made, the shedding of His blood for the sins of the whole world once and for all never has to be done again. Then look what else He says, “‘For if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled the unclean sanctified to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ get this, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot.

In other words, he was perfect. He had no fault, no flaws, no sin in him. So then he says here in verse 15, and for this cause, he is the mediator of the New Testament or New Contract, New will, that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, the law, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. So he made a payment once and for all in order that he might give to us an eternal inheritance, one that cannot be taken away, a salvation that would be perfect and never can lose it.

That’s right as you go through and you really study chapter the rest of 9 and chapter 10 by this one offer and he has perfected forever them that are sanctified or made pure in holy. The whole book of Hebrews is about showing you the difference between works under the law that cannot save and comparing it with grace that gives you eternal life that you don’t even deserve and don’t work for. And once you trust Him, it’s done. That decision I made 57 and a half years ago to trust Christ as my Savior was good for all eternity.

I’d never have to do it again. That’s why he says, when he talked about on that great day of the feast, Jesus stood in Christ and if any man thirst, let him come in to me and drink, and as the scripture have set out of his belly-shelf-low rivers of living water, because it’s water that satisfied. Once I took that drink, I never had to take another drink. It’s satisfied because that’s the spring of living water. And when I trusted Christ as my Savior, the Holy Spirit dwells me.

And from me, I’ve explained the gospel to others. And so then they got some of that spring of living water and they share it with somebody else and it’s just like a river. And we are supposed to be the spring of living water. Now I want you to look at this verse here in verse 7 of chapter 5. Who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared.

Now, there is a view that people can have, and I won’t fault either way. Believe in that when Jesus Christ was… You know, praying was he praying that God would keep him from the cross. In other words, he was afraid. It’s almost like if that is the view, it’s almost like right at the very end, Jesus is having a panic attack. I can’t picture myself. Jesus having a panic attack and that he’s afraid of going to the cross. He came for that reason.

He’s going to down the cross and right before he gets there, he’s falling apart emotionally. And he’s word, he’s scared and he’s afraid and he’s asking God, I don’t want to do this. Take this cup away from me. I don’t want to, and it’s just hard for me to wrap my mind around that. So there may be another view, but I can’t prove or disprove. I can only say this is what I believe and I’ll tell you why. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Mark chapter 14.

Mark chapter 14, the gospel of Mark. I know y’all have a photographic memory and you’ve got it all committed to memory, but just the human the preacher, just go ahead and look at it anyway. All right, the book of Mark and chapter 14. Now in Mark chapter 14, you’ll notice in verse 32, he just talked to them about, you know, what Peter had said and Peter says, though I’ll be offended, I will not be offended. And they says, you’re going to deny me tonight, three times.

But he says here in verse 32, and they came to a place which was named Gethsemane. Now that’s the garden. That’s at the foot of the Mount of Olives. I’ve been there a number of times. And He said to His disciples, Set ye here, while I shall pray. And He take it to with Him Peter and James and John and began to be so amazed and to be very heavy. And saith unto them, my soul is exceeding sorrowful unto what?

Now this is in the garden. This is not when He’s going to be up all night and going to the cross and so forth. This is in the garden. He says this. Now is this because it could be in a premature death in the garden? I don’t know. But it seemed like Jesus knew the hour that He came for. And He says, no man take it’s my life from me. I lay it down. I can call 10,000 angels and all the seven, 12 leagues.

there’s no reason for me to think that right at the end, he fell apart emotionally and he prayed and asked God to take that cup away from him. If there’s any other way possible, now if he did, okay, I just misunderstand. Or is it because he was under such pressure in the garden? That’s when the angels came and ministered to him and he had great sweat drops of blood that he was close to death in the garden and he didn’t want to die a premature death in the garden and he was asking God because it says and that he feared and he called upon God that he delivered him from death.

Well he didn’t deliver him from the death of the cross because he died there so it’s got to be one of the other. Are you ready to learn how to live your life as a strong Christian? Lead others to Christ or excel as a church worker or ministry leader? Then look No further than Florida Bible College of Tampa with traditional and online classes taught by instructors with years of experience. Florida Bible College of Tampa can help you grow in your Christian life.

Whether taking individual classes or working toward a one-year degree, Florida Bible College of Tampa is here for you. To learn more, visit online at floridabiblecollege.us or call the Registrar Bob Gilbert at 8502275325. It’s 850-227-5325. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. And now, a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound, and we will be changed.

Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep in looking up.