Jesus Christ's Real Life Story, Pt. 7

Ron Weinland

April 22, 2017

Today is Part 7 of the sermon series that we have been going through. This one is entitled, Jesus Christ's Real Life Story.

I think it's good to note that this is being recorded on a particular day, the seventh day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. A lot of people who will be watching this at a later date don't understand those things about Passover and what follows Passover, the first of the annual High Days, Holy Days, or Sabbaths that God gives to His people and has commanded that they keep through time. As long as there are human beings on this earth mankind is to follow those appointed times that God has given. The world has become totally oblivious to those things, so this particular series here is bringing out many of the aspects of things that people are ignorant of, that they've never been taught. If they do read over some of these things in scripture, they don't understand it; they're blind to it. Their eyes are closed to it. It's exciting to understand we're coming into a time where their eyes are going to begin to be opened, that they're going to begin to be given understanding and insight to see things because the ability to truly see things that we're talking about here is up to God. Only God can open the mind, can give to the mind the ability to see, to perceive, and to understand those things that are written throughout scripture, to see and understand those things that he has given to a few through time.

There are people who believe that they have a purpose to proselyte to others, to spread a certain message, whatever that message might be, and they don't understand that God Almighty has to call individuals. He Himself has to draw individuals to Him, and it's something He does in His time.

Anyway, we're going to continue on with this particular series. We're going to pick up from where we left off in Part 6, and mention a couple of things here. First of all, we had read through the part where Jesus Christ went into the temple. He went to the temple on the Sabbath day; this is just before Passover period here. So on the weekly Sabbath he'd gone to the temple. He looked around toward the end of the day there. We read the account where by the time they had talked about and had gone through the temple area that it was almost to the end of the day on the Sabbath. So they returned then to Bethany, again, which was only 2 miles outside of Jerusalem, the same place where Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus lived, where Lazarus had been resurrected from the dead. It was only two miles outside of Jerusalem.

So this was the area they went back and forth from for a few days there. And then, I believe it was then on that Sunday where he went into the temple, went back to the temple again. And this time, if I have my timing correct, he went into the temple area and he overthrew the table of the moneychangers and so forth. He made comment, "Is it not written that My house is a house of prayer?" Its purpose and intent is that people be able to come there to pray to God. Yet there is much more of the story about praying to God and people being able to do so. There are those things that God hears in various ways at different times. It was a different kind of relationship that they had. It was different for those who wanted that relationship then than it is for those today.

So here was a physical temple in Jerusalem that people were to come to during the Holy Day season of the year and to worship God, to offer up offerings to God and so forth. People could also come there to pray. He said, "You made it a den of thieves," basically condemning the Pharisees and the Sadducees and others for allowing certain things to go on in the temple that they should not have been allowing, yet they were allowing things to take place and they knew better. They knew better but they allowed it to continue on and to exist. So they were not doing the things that God told them to do in the way that God told them to do it. People look at areas like Judaism to this day, which we're going to talk about, as well as Traditional Christianity, but Christ condemned Judaism 2,000 years ago – all of it! Today it is not a religion at all. It is not a worship of God at all in any fashion or form in the way God said that He is to be worshipped.

So even the Jewish people have to come to a point here where they're going to have to repent and they're going to have to repent of what they did a long time ago in moving Passover to another day, to the next day, to the next evening and observing a Seder meal and calling it Passover or referring to some of it as Passover perhaps, but doing it exactly at the wrong time. There are reasons why people do things like this and why they have done things like this as well, those who have led them, those who have taught them. And part of it is because of this story here, the real life story of Jesus Christ, that he is the Messiah, that he is the Christ. If they were to acknowledge that in any fashion or form, that he is the Messiah, or he was the Messiah, they have to change everything about their beliefs and how they worship God. And who do you think is going to do that?

That's why God's getting ready to deal with this world in a different way and things are going to begin happening. I noticed on the internet here, I believe there was some sort of a news thing on there the other day of how right now there has been a spike, a great spike in searching of phrases, and there is one in particular that has had a huge spike here in the last week or so: World War 3. People are stirred up. They understand that it only takes one move, one bad move in this world and the world is at war, not just any war, but the fact that there can be nuclear weapons used and different ones who have pretty much stated that that's what they're going to do at a particular time. As a matter of fact, whenever North Korea has finished doing some of its work that it's doing and has ballistic missiles that can travel long distances, it's well known that Iran can have those within a few weeks; they will produce them for them for money, for aid. North Korea is hurting in that respect. So if they can sell those things over there they would. Iran has made it quite clear who they want to destroy. They want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. That's why Israel isn't going to allow things but to go so far, and if the United States doesn't intervene, they will. They have to. They have no option; their back is to the wall. Anyone who knows anything about what's happening in that part of the world and knows the Jewish people and what they believe and what they know. They have a lot of nuclear weapons that they can use if they have to. Incredible, the world we live in today. And North Korea possibly having those that they can put into submarines now, to launch from submarines? Incredible things going on in this world. China. Russia. Syria! Hot spots!

So one of the things that's being put on Google a lot here in the last couple weeks, World War 3, yet that's what man has to come to. Man has to come to the point where they begin to do that which they don't believe that man would ever do. But it's coming. They have to be brought so low that they will begin to listen to God for the first time as people around the world. Now, not everybody's going to, but a lot of people around the world are going to be moved to begin looking for answers and when they hear certain answers being given that are identifying certain things they have, incredible what can take place.

Interesting here, had a discussion here just before services with someone here, discussing certain things happening over in Europe and how that the Pope, the Catholic Church invited 27 nations to Rome and they had their little meetings. They’re getting more involved, doing exactly what we have known for a long, long time, of what God gave to Mr. Armstrong a long, long time ago back in the 1950's, late 1940's when those things began to be given to God's Church, of things that were going to happen in Europe that eventually there would be 10 nations. They already have discussed and have in motion a program. They could have 27 nations a part of the EU, 26, 25, 24, 20, it doesn't really matter. They also have an inner circle of nations who are functioning and governing already. I believe the count is 9. If you count the other one that isn't really a part, in one respect, but is a big part, it can be 10.

So we live in a volatile time in the world and all the other nations can do what they want within that circle of 27 or 26, it doesn't really matter to them, but there will be a certain group there in the middle loosely tied together. They have already acknowledged here – I thought it was incredible – just a few weeks ago that they have nuclear power. They have nuclear weapons. They acknowledge that France has a lot of them so that any time they need them they can use them. They also have NATO, which we even talked about a long, long time ago. They're already there. We live in an incredibly volatile world and it takes that for mankind to stop and finally begin to listen to God. When people are scared to death, when people are living one day to another wondering about their survival then people will stop doing what they're doing and begin to take life a whole lot more seriously.

So I thought it was interesting. The great Google search: World War 3. Awesome!

So here we see this example of what Jesus Christ said and everything that Jesus Christ was teaching before that Passover. We're approaching the Passover in just a few days. He taught so much during those days. I've already gone through some of my notes for the future here in this series and I've taken out a lot of things I'm not going to go through because there is so much that he taught. So I'm going to try to hit the high areas, the high points. There is so much that he taught during that period of time; it is really incredible! Most of it is geared in a very powerful way for a specific purpose. It's what he's getting ready to fulfill and begin to build because he's going to change everything! He's going to change everything at that moment in time from a physical ritual relationship toward God to a spiritual one – from a physical temple to a spiritual one. So he's going through a process here toward his death to make a point about the physical temple: "Look what you have done in your supposed service to God, Scribes, Pharisees, those of you of Judaism! You hypocrites! You liars," as he called them. He didn't spare any words. He told them what they were, called them what they were. "You hypocrites! You snakes in the grass!" He didn't say it mildly; he said it with power, with authority! And they didn't get it. So he addressed the thing that revealed exactly what they were doing, what they were allowing in the temple and he went to clean it up!

I think it's awesome to understand what God is doing before Jesus Christ returns the second time, cleansing the spiritual temple. Awesome! It shouldn't escape us, what he fulfilled before his first coming and what is happening now before his second coming. Then it was on a physical plane, and now it's a spiritual one because he is the one cleansing the temple again. I'm not. I'm a part of it. The ministry is a part of it, but Jesus Christ is the one who is doing it. That's why it's expedient upon people to take seriously the period of time we're living in and to get your lives right with Almighty God! God is not playing games with the Church right now. Everyone with whom we have contact, this is a different age, this is a different time for me as a minister in God's Church, as a servant in God's Church, because I am not holding back on being straightforward about certain things when they need to be done in a certain way. In times past when something has been done in a wrong way, more time and more mercy and certain things could be given to give people time. Certain things could be mentioned in a sermon, but now a lot of it's far more direct and far more face to face and then it's up to us whether or not we receive it and make the changes we need to make in our life because there is still far too much messing around in the courtyard in God's Church. You think God's going to allow that? You think Jesus Christ is going to allow that, if he overthrew the moneychangers and ran them out as he did? He chased them out of the temple. He overthrew their tables and their money and told them, in essence, to get out! "Look what you've done to the temple, to the house of God!" How much more to those of us who've been given the greatest opportunities that any human being could ever conceive of? Because at this point in time God has given more understanding, more insight, more about what He's doing than any other time in human history. That's awesome to understand!

When I go through this story and I read certain things I am in awe! I am dumbfounded by the things that God has given to us. So much! Sometimes we just don't grasp it or don't have the perspective of grasping how much has really been poured out upon us and how much we really carry, but with that goes very great responsibility. It's not a small thing. With it goes great, great responsibility as to what we do with what we have been given.

So all the little petty things that human beings tend to do, and too often tend to do even within God's own Church, little bickering, little jealousies, little envyings, whatever it is, little power struggles, little desire to have power, or whatever it might be, whatever people do, often do, too often do, it’s not going to happen anymore. It's being whittled away. It's being gotten rid of in the Church. Either we repent and get rid of those things quickly and cry out to God to forgive us and have mercy upon us and help us to keep going forward and to be watchful and alert spiritually—I'm saying it again and again and again—or we will not be there! God determined whom He allowed by hundreds of thousands and millions, of who could come into the promised land on a physical plane. Do you think he can do that with a few hundred on a spiritual plane? It's a small thing with God to determine who will come in and who will not. The rest died in the wilderness. He saw to it. Every single person to a certain age, they were not allowed to go in. Now, that was massive, into the millions, at least maybe a couple million, I should say, several hundred thousand. So that number was not allowed to come in. Incredible, the power of Almighty God. So we have to grasp those things and be sobered by those things.

So all this perspective having to do with what Christ was getting ready to do. Fulfill the Passover, yes, but why? What was the purpose of it? What followed? What followed after he was resurrected? Things that people don't know. What happened on the day of Pentecost? What's really important about those things? What began at that point in time? Incredible what God has given!

So again, we talked about some of those things, about what Jesus Christ was doing, a cleansing of a physical temple, because he was getting ready to change something. There would no longer be a physical temple. There would no longer be rituals. There would no longer be a ritual service in the temple of God anymore or the physical temple. A new kind of service would begin. In time here we're going to go through some chapters in John 13 that discuss a Passover and a Passover service as Jesus Christ kept the last physical observance of Passover eating a lamb, roasting a lamb and eating it the way God commanded beginning back there concerning the period of time in Exodus 12 in that story of the Israelites keeping their first Passover when God first introduced a Passover. All of it is about Jesus Christ. Now, what an awesome thing that we're at a point in time where Jesus Christ is getting ready to do away with all of that. There’d be no more Passover like that! No more eating of a lamb like the Jews do to this day thinking that they're observing Passover. Jesus Christ did away with that. The Messiah did away with that. The Anointed of God did away with that. That which they still talk about and some look to in different ways, and they have so many different beliefs amongst themselves. And you think, "What a horrible thing, fully rejecting the truth."

While I'm on that subject (might as well say), they're not worshipping God the way God said to do it in the first place. Where is your temple? How can you serve God? How can you worship God with Judaism? These are horrible lies, hypocrisy 2,000 years later. The Messiah told you, "Hypocrites! Liars!" It is still the same to this day! Hypocritical, lying, ignoring the truth and the reality before them. Where is your temple? Where is your Levitical system? How can you worship God and claim to be worshipping God and not observing those things that God said you must do? "Well, we don't have the physical temple. It's been destroyed." Well, la-tee-dah; you're disobeying God by not doing what you're supposed to be doing, so what are you going to do about it? Well, you've done nothing about it over the centuries. People have no idea what they mess with. Traditional Christianity isn't any better. It's far worse!

So we were reading here where Jesus Christ asked the question, "Whose son is the Messiah?" "Whose son is he?" Well, they thought they knew who it was. It's David. That's what it says in the scripture. He is of the lineage of David. He's the son of David. Then Jesus Christ said, we'll read it again, Matthew 22:42. So he says, What do you think of Christ? Or the Messiah? Whose Son is He? And they said unto him, Of David. They believed it. That's their answer. He then replied to them, How is it then that David in spirit, as we read the verse in another example that was given here, of the holy spirit. He was inspired of the holy spirit to write this. David was a prophet; the things he wrote in the Psalms were inspired by the holy spirit of God. God was working with him as He works with people in the Church to this day, as He did with people in the first 4,000 years, giving them of His holy spirit, various ones, various prophets, and so forth. Here David was a prophet and he was inspired to write this.

Here is what he wrote. So he's asking them, How is it then that this is what David said in spirit, by the inspiration of the holy spirit, David in spirit calls him 'Lord,' a son. How could he say this when he's talking here about a relationship between a supposed son, a son then and a father. So who is his father? And they said, "David." So this is why he quoted these scriptures: How is it that David in spirit calls him 'Lord,' saying: The Eternal, and this is if you go back to those verses, this is the Eternal Yahweh. …the Eternal said unto my (David's) Lord… It's David's Lord that Yahweh is addressing by the inspiration of God here prophetically in scripture. So he's saying, "How can this be written this way then? How can he be the son of David, of the lineage of David," which he was, but it's more than that. David, obviously, isn't his father, so all they knew of was a lineage here and what does this mean then that David is inspired to write something here about a relationship between the Messiah and Yahweh, the Eternal Self-Existing God?

So he says, again here, verse 44—The Eternal (Yahweh) said unto my (unto David's) Lord, (which is Christ, the Messiah), Sit you on My right hand, so "Sit you at My right hand," until I (Yahweh) make your (Christ's, the Messiah's) enemies your (the Messiah's) footstool? Awesome what is said here! If David then called him 'Lord,' how is he then his son? They couldn't answer because they only saw something they thought they grasped and understood. It's about as bad as the woman at the well when Christ told her about the living water and she thought her days of coming down to the well every morning were over, that she could have this living water and never have to go back there every day. Life would be so much easier. "Give me that water and I don't have to come back here every day." She didn't understand and the same thing is true here. People think they understand certain things until more is given that they've never been taught or shown or grasped or understood. So how is he then his son?

And with that then we jumped ahead a little bit to a period of time after Christ's resurrection, to a period of time of Pentecost that followed the Passover because there are more things here that speak along the same lines of things that David was given. It also shows some incredible blindness within Traditional Christianity that shouldn't be there because these things are plainly written, but they're not understood though they're plain, plainly spoken. So we jumped ahead here. We're going to pick it up again there in Acts 2 because it's following up on what Jesus Christ told them, or asked them, when he said, "Whose son is he?" and then explained this matter, written in the Psalms about David and the holy spirit, discussing something that was between the Messiah and God Almighty, not between the Messiah and David. David's out of the question. The only thing he had to do here was write it by inspiration of God. He had nothing to do with it.

So in Acts 2:22, again, reading this where we left on Part 6—You men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man has been proven of God among you by miracles, and wonders, and signs. He's saying here God did these things. God proved who he was. It's that same word that is used that is used for us, of how we're to prove God's way of life. I think of times past when too many thought that by studying the verses, by studying scripture, by using a Strong's Concordance that that's how you prove something. It's not what it's talking about at all! Because nobody can prove diddly-squat unless God Almighty gives it to them. It's not by what they grasp and understand; it's by what they're taught by God through God's apostles. So going back to a period of Mr. Armstrong on.

So again here, this story is continuing on here and these things are being brought out about how we are able to learn. So he says here about proving something. That's why the example is given here about proving oxen. How do you prove them? You go out and you work them; you work them in the field. You know, a farmer's excited when he goes out here and he gets one of these brand new tractors or combines that he pays $100,000 plus for now a days. They're all excited when they get something like that that's brand new and the new technology and the latest thing on it and they have it loaded, and they go out and they get to use it and it's exciting! Hey, I've been there. I've done that. I love it! I love going out there in times past, when I was young (much younger) and went out there and worked the land, had opportunity to run combines and so forth and we got new combines and I worked with groups that had new combines on a regular basis. To have something new which has something new on it, it was great to be able to go out there and see what they could do and use them. There is something exciting to a farmer or to someone like that.

That's the example being given here. It's that same kind of word; where God, he says, has proven who he is by all the things he did, that he couldn't do these, no man could do these things unless God's the one who does them. God is the one who did it. So he says God has proven who he is, that he's the Messiah, basically, but you haven't listened.

And so it goes on to say, which God did by/through him in the midst of you, as you yourselves also know— Him (Jesus Christ), being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, he was delivered to you. You couldn't do anything to him except God allowed it and had it predetermined for a purpose. What's that purpose? Passover, Passover for all of mankind. They didn't get it. It says, you have taken, and by wicked hands, so this is Peter speaking and talking to them, and he says, and by wicked hands you have nailed him to a pole… Driving that point home again. It wasn't a cross! Traditional Christianity, sorry! Well, I'm not sorry. It's not a cross; it's a pole, plain and simple. That's why we went through and talked about this example here of why they died, why he died the way that he did and his hands together with one spike. You think the Romans are going to waste something on building something more elaborate when they can kill people faster by putting them on a pole by one spike going through here and one pole up and down? You think they're really going to take the time and nail all these things? To have something like that, it's going to take some reinforcement. It is easier if you just do it on a pole. That's what they did. That's how they killed people; they put them on a pole, spike through the feet and a spike through the hands. It’s simple, a simple process. So many scriptures testify to this.

And so we went through and talked about how all of the Greek writings that were around this period of time, and for I think it was a few centuries, all the way up through the 4th century as well, and several centuries later, even in the writing of Homer and so forth, that never, never, never is the Greek word "stauros" used to mean anything but a straight up and down pole stuck in the ground. That's all it ever has meant. In all those writings that are done, it’s never, never, never, ever used as having two pieces of lumber that are somehow put together in an “X” or an angle or a cross of any kind. It doesn't exist. There are words for that and this isn't one of them.

So again, we're going to continue on. Verse 25, from where we left off in Part 6. For David spoke unto him. Again, or spoke of him, if you will. Now Peter is discussing some things just like Christ did, that are written by David who was a prophet, who was inspired by the holy spirit to write things in the Psalms. So this is what Peter is talking about. For David spoke concerning him, concerning the Messiah, I (the Messiah). This is the Messiah. David wrote this but this is the Messiah. I foresaw Yahweh; that's what it is back in the Old Testament, Yahweh, the Eternal One. I foresaw Yahweh always before my face. It's about a relationship between the Messiah and Yahweh, the Eternal God. For He (Almighty God, Yahweh) is on my right hand, to his right. He's on my right hand, incredible, that I should not be moved. Therefore, did my heart rejoice. And over and over again Christ spoke of things of the relationship with the Father, with God Almighty that was very obvious, the relationship that was there. Powerful!

And my tongue, again, the Messiah still speaking, my tongue was glad. Moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope because You (Yahweh) will not leave my life, that's the word, "soul," not something that lives on forever. You will not leave my life in hell. So people say, "See, there's a hell!" No, that's what the Protestant world would like you to believe going way, way back several centuries. And it's a word for the grave. That's all it means, hades. You will not leave my soul (my life) in hades, in the grave. That's all it's referring to. It's a hole in the ground. They used to use the word up in the New England states a long time ago when they would go out and bury potatoes; they'd go out and bury potatoes in hades, a hole in the ground. Amazing! You know, because they understood the word.

So again here, there are things translated, sometimes by ignorance and sometimes on purpose, in a wrong way. There's one behind it all that people don't even grasp nor comprehend, a being that wants to mess up people as much as possible and get them as far away from the truth as possible to something that's not real, to something that's false.

So it says here, But You (Yahweh) will not leave my, speaking of Christ here, the Messiah speaking this, saying this, my soul in the grave (in hades). Neither will You allow Your Holy One (the Messiah), You're not going to allow the Messiah, Your Holy One to see corruption, and that has to do with his body. That has to do with him being in hades, that his body wasn't going to decay. It wasn't going to "see corruption." That's what these words are talking about here. It's what it's referring to. You (Yahweh) have made known to me, the Messiah saying this, the ways of life. It was in his mind. It was in his being in a way that has happened to no other human being, that knowing. Beautiful! You (Yahweh) shall make me (the Messiah) full of joy with Your countenance. That means "Your power," "Your might."

Verse 29—Men and brethren, let me speak freely unto you of the patriarch David, King David, one that the Jewish people uphold and esteem mightily, which is good, which they should. He was a prophet of God and wrote a great deal in scripture and had an incredible kingdom that he served in a very powerful way in a relationship with God Almighty. And so it says, Let me speak to you plainly of the patriarch David. So he's touching on a word here, a person that they knew well. They had certain beliefs in who he was. See, Jesus Christ already encountered this, that they thought the Messiah would be David's son, with the understanding that they had. …that he (David) is both dead and buried. So what happens when people die? They're dead and they're buried. That's what happens to most people; they're buried out here in hades. They're buried out here in the ground. That's what happens in a graveyard. They're put under the earth. God says, "Dust you are, and dust you return." That's what happens. Your body does decay. The Messiah's didn't. But that's what happens to people at death. You go out here and your body starts to decompose. It's just a body. It's just a physical thing and it's not meant to stay.

So it says, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. He's dead and buried and his body is still there in that sepulchre. That's where he's at! Who believes that today? "Oh, no, no, no, David, of all people, if anybody's gone to heaven it's got to be David for sure. And Moses, and a lot of those people of old, they're up there with God Almighty in heaven." No, he's not. That's what Peter is saying; he's dead and buried and his sepulchre is with us to this day.

Therefore, being a prophet, David was a prophet, and knowing that Yahweh, referring back to Yahweh, God, as it says here, had sworn with an oath to him (to David) that of the fruit of his loins (of David's loins, his lineage) according to the flesh, physically, lineage going down through time, He (Yahweh, God Almighty) would raise up the Messiah (Christ) to sit on his throne, to sit on his throne. He, seeing this before (David), spoke of the resurrection of Christ (of the Messiah), that his life/his soul, talking about his life, was not left in hades. That's what the word is, not left in the grave, not left in the tomb, if you will. …neither his flesh did see corruption. It didn't decay. So that's what this relationship is being spoken of prophetically between the Messiah and God Almighty that's spoken of here, about how he was filled with joy, full of joy, and so forth, and that his flesh would not see corruption. That's exactly what Peter is referring to here.

I think it's interesting. I'm going to go over a couple scriptures here, John 7, because Traditional Christianity thinks you go to heaven or hell. You go to this burning place where you're going to be tormented for all eternity or you can go up there and be up there in some kind of a lofty area with clouds and whatever and doing what you like to do for the rest of eternity and looking upon the face of God for all eternity. I think, what kind of a God wants people to look upon Him? Millions and billions and billions out here just looking on Him for all eternity? That's not what God wants. That's just nuts! It’s like someone being up there, and people say, "Old Joe liked to fish and we know he's up there fishing now." Anyway, I'm sorry, but the thinking of human beings. It's just like this idea of evolution. It just blows me over! I have a hard time with it, how willingly ignorant and dumb sometimes we can be as human beings and ignore the things that are staring us right in the face.

So this verse here in John 7, verse 34, notice what it says: You shall seek me and shall not find me, and so this is what Christ is telling them. He's saying, and where I am you cannot come. So he's telling them there is going to be a place he's going to be and letting them know ahead of time, "You're going to seek me, but you can't come where I'm going to be." He talks about this all in different places in John later on, in 14 (and we're going to get into that later on in this series), and he tells us plainly that you can't be there. Nobody can go to heaven! Nobody! No human being can go to heaven. So what about all the people who've died in the past 2,000 years in the Church? Where are they? Well, just like David they're dead and buried and in their grave to this day. That's where they are. They haven't gone anywhere. They have nothing immortal in them that's living on, and yet that's the big fat lie that the Catholic Church started and perpetuated through time. That's the big fat lie that the Protestant world has embraced since that time and has held on to, thinking that man somehow has something immortal living within him that lives on after death. It’s not true at all. It's a big fat lie. It’s sad that people aren't told the truth.

Back up here a little ways to John 3. Notice what he said when he was talking to Nicodemus. If you remember the story of him talking to Nicodemus, he was a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews. He starts out with a different relationship here, because it shows here even early on that there were things that he desired to know of Christ and saw Christ in a different light than the rest of his cohorts did. Even toward the end in Christ's death Nicodemus is mentioned again and there was a change in his life as time went along, unlike some of the others. So he was talking to Christ and Christ was explaining certain things to him and explaining to him that there were certain things he couldn't "see." He wasn't going to be able to "see." He wasn't going to be able to understand.

But anyway, jumping on down here, let's pick it up in John 3:12—He says, If I have told you earthly things and you don't believe, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly/spiritual things? "How are you going to be able to believe those things if you can't believe the basic physical things, earthly things, things about the temple, things about whatever it might be that you don't ‘see,’ that you don't believe? How are you going to believe if I tell you more? You can't." That's what Christ was telling him, "You can't ‘see’ it; you can't know it yet." So he's asking this question and he goes on to say, And no man has ascended up to heaven. No man. That means David. That means none of the prophets. That means Moses. That means all the people of old that Nicodemus would be familiar with at this point in time. He said, "No one has ascended up to heaven." No one is up there. No one has gone there. No human being has ever gone there. …but he who came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. So again, some of this is in a prophetic state here of what's going to take place as time continues on here, what Jesus Christ is going to fulfill. There's one who came down. That's because he is the Son of God. He came out of, He came from God. A lot of these words have to do with that which comes out of God, in essence, as we go on in some of these verses. But again here, making it very clear here that there is that which came from God and will go back to God. That's what he's saying here. There will be one man that ascends to God Almighty, no other human being, only the one who came out from heaven, out of heaven, out from God Almighty, who is the Son of Man, the Son of God, in essence.

People like to twist and distort some of these things and say, "Well, he was up there and he gave up his life to become a man and then he went back." It's not saying that at all. People read into scripture then. There is too much, so much more that candidly reveals where his life began.

It says here in verse 14—And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so the one who is from heaven. He is from heaven because he's from Almighty God. He is the Son of God, that one. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, and we'll go back and look at that in a moment because I love that story. It shows how things can be passed on for hundreds and hundreds of years and it's still here to this day and has never gone away. It's still there and people don't know where it came from. It's an awesome story. And so, important to note here what he's saying. He's talking about his death and what's going to happen to him, "just like the serpent," and the serpent was put on a pole. It wasn't put on a cross. And he's making it very clear here just like what happened to the serpent and people were able to look to that, "even so must the Son of Man be lifted up."

So it goes on to say here, And Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, in like manner. He's going to be put on a pole to die, to be the Passover for all mankind. So it says, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And so I hate what the Protestant world has done to things like this, saying, "You just have to believe." "Just believe." "Do you believe Christ?" "Have you accepted Christ?" What does that mean? If they only understood that believing, it's not about little stories and platitudes about him, it's about believing what he said. He was the Word of God made flesh, the Word of God, the Logos of God, the mind, the being, the purpose, the intent, the truth of God that came from him then as he taught and as he taught the truth, the word of God. He magnified those things that were in the Old Testament. He magnifies the Holy Days. He magnifies God's plan and purpose. Again here, when people are able to grasp these things, that he is the Passover and they receive him as their Passover, that's a beginning. That's not the end, but it is a beginning. It's the beginning of a process whereby God makes it possible that human beings can have a true relationship with God because in the Old Testament the people didn't have a true spiritual, relationship with God in any fashion or form. Only a few did whom God worked with. We mentioned some of those; we know some of those names. Obviously, the prophets: Moses, David, Daniel, different ones all the way through time, Sarah, Abraham, on and on it goes. Those individuals were worked with by God, but as a whole the nation never had a spiritual relationship with God. And here Jesus Christ, because he's dying as a Passover, is about to change everything. The Protestant world likes to teach something else. They like to teach that he changed the law, that he did away with the law, that something was changed there that you no longer have to keep the law, and what they mean is that you don't have to keep the seventh day Sabbath and you don't have to keep the Holy Days of God, but they don't mean that you can go out and have your neighbor's wife, or your neighbor's mate, or whatever it might be, or you can't go out and kill someone or you can't go out and steal from others. Oh, no, those are good laws. Those are good laws to have.

So, in other words, you should keep the seventh day Sabbath? "No, no, no, that was nailed to the cross. That was nailed to the cross." Hypocrisy, absolute hypocrisy, and lying of human beings. I'm so thankful God's getting ready to change that in this world. Whether people like it or not is immaterial, but change is coming. People read through stuff like this and they don't grasp.

Let's go over to Numbers 21 right quick like, just to notice what happened here. It's an awesome story, just to interject that here because Christ is making it very clear the serpent was lifted up. What did it mean for the people? What's the analogy of the story here? Why did he use this particular story? Well, it tells it here in Numbers.

Again, picking up this particular story in Numbers 21:5. It says, And the people spoke against God and against Moses. So this is just another one of those times they were grumbling, murmuring, complaining. Here is another one of those times. So it says, they said, Wherefore have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? "We come out here now. We're following you, Moses, and you just bring us out here to die. Things aren't going well. We don't like how things are going. We don't like the way you're doing things." I think of what's happened in the history of the Church through time and I think of what happened during Mr. Armstrong's time and how many people found fault with things he did and how he did it. They didn't understand what they were doing.

So they went on to say, For there is no bread, neither is there any water, and our soul… What do you mean your "soul"? Well, our lives, our bodies loath this light bread. They were saying we're tired of the manna. We're alive and we're eating, but we're tired of the manna. Well, tough cookie! God was providing for them but they didn't appreciate it. If they had cookbooks back then they could have had 1001 Ways To Cook Manna, prepare manna. They had a lot of different things they did with manna and here they are complaining.

And the Eternal sent fiery serpents among the people. Incredible! You want to complain? You want to murmur against your God? The God who brought you out of Egypt, the God who opened the Red Sea, destroyed the Egyptian army, the entire Egyptian army, destroyed Pharaoh, and you want to murmur against God? Incredible! Sometimes people begin their journey when God calls them, "Oh, this is too hard. I wish I didn't know what I know. This is too hard. Woe is me! This tithing thing, this going to the Holy Days, this keeping the Feast of Tabernacles, it's just too hard." Well, anyway. And the Eternal sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people; and many people of Israel died. I don't remember the exact number here, but it seemed like it was around twenty thousand.

But anyway, let's go on: Therefore, the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned. Isn't that amazing? All of a sudden that's what happens at the end here. People start to die and people's attitudes kind of get adjusted a little bit. Death comes near the door or food is not there like they wanted before and all of a sudden it's like people are able to put things in their proper perspective and what's important now. So here it is. They start dying by the hundreds, by the thousands, and so what do you do? Now we can look inward and say, "I've sinned," basically, "I don't want to die. I don't want my family to die. I don't want any of my family members to die." So out of selfishness they were motivated to have an attitude adjustment, but it wasn't real, and it didn't last long. We have sinned and we have spoken against the Eternal and against you, Moses, in essence, pray the Eternal that He take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

And the Eternal said unto Moses, Make you a fiery serpent and put it upon a pole. So there was this serpent made out of brass on this brass pole. He said, "Put this serpent, wrap it around the pole, fashion it like this, and set it upon a pole," the serpent, and it shall come to pass that everyone who is bitten, when he looks upon it, shall live. Simple enough. So if you get bitten, what do you think you're going to do? When you see hundreds of people around you that are dying, thousands, what do you think you're going to do? You're going to go look on the pole that has the serpent because you want to live, and so that was the agreement. You do this and I'll protect you. Incredible!

Yet Jesus Christ used this as an example. You want life? You want to be saved from death? Then look upon the one who died for you as your Passover, who was put on a pole. That's what he's saying: "Even so the Son of Man has to be lifted up," put on a pole and die there for all of mankind on a pole. It wasn't on a cross. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole. And it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. Incredible! I can't picture anyone who wouldn't, but you know what? There probably were, knowing human nature. You have to laugh sometimes at the stupidity of human nature.

I want you to turn over to 2 Kings 18 because this is an interesting story; it continues on. And for all in the future who watch this they have never heard such a story. They have never heard it. They have never been taught what Christ said back there in John at all. So in 2 Kings 18:1—Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah.

Now it goes on to say, And he did what which was right in the sight of the Eternal, according to all that David his father did. He removed the high places and broke the images, so these were areas of false worship, of what they were doing and taking on paganism at that time, pagan beliefs, pagan ideas, pagan worship, like Ba-al worship, which has to with the worship of the sun, which has to do with worshiping on the first day of the week, which they began to do and all the things that followed. So no mystery that that was happening long before Christ ever came along and it continued on in time and they still used the name of God in their worship. They used the name of God in their worship, the God of Israel that delivered them from the Egyptians. They still used God's name. Incredible!

So it says, they cut down the groves and broke in pieces—notice this—and broke in pieces the serpent of brass that Moses had made. For unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it. Incredible! Seven hundred years later! Awesome! Seven hundred years later they were still doing this; they were still using this same image, and as human beings tended to do, they made their own little images because it became a symbol of healing. That's what it did. You got bit, you had something wrong with you, and so people began to look to it as a symbol of healing. That's why I tell people, "Look on the ambulances that go up and down the road, and hospitals and so forth, and they have a serpent there wrapped around a pole." Sometimes they add a little more to it, but as a whole that's where it came from. It was passed down since that time. People don't know who they are! Israel! Scattered tribes, scattered nations of Israel scattered throughout the earth, scattered throughout Europe, migrated to Canada, to the U.S., and became the U.S. in time, Australia, New Zealand, on and on it goes. Incredible! Western Europe. People don't even know who they are, where they descended from. People go to “ancestry.com” today and try to figure out who they are. Well, that has its little glitches in it because they can only go so far back because they don't know where everybody came from. Interesting.

Anyway, incredible stories seven hundred years later. So Christ is using this example here of being lifted up. He's getting ready to fulfill something. He knows the Passover. He knows why he's there. He knows he's the Passover and he's going to die.

So again, going back to the story here in Acts and following through. The special relationship of what is recorded here in the Psalms that's being brought out and talked about to the people who were gathered together on Pentecost there by the apostle Peter as he went through and discussed some of these things and then talking about how David is still dead and buried and his sepulchre is with us to this day. Again, incredible story here of those things that are revealed in what he had to say about a relationship between Yahweh (God Almighty) and Jesus Christ. David wasn't in the picture. Most people read David as to be a part of the picture here.

Let's continue here, Acts 2:32—This Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ being spoken of here, This Jesus has God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father… It makes it very clear here as Peter's talking. He tells who the Father is. It's God Almighty. Yahweh Elohim is the Father. And having received of the Father the promise of the holy spirit, He (Yahweh, God Almighty) has poured out this which you now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens, but he said himself, The Eternal said unto my (David's) Lord, Sit at My right hand until I make your foes your footstool. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this same Jesus, whom you have nailed to a pole, both Lord and Christ. So, incredible story here as it goes through and discusses some of these things of Christ being the Son of Almighty God, one God, the Eternal God.

Let's pick up the story here now in Matthew 23. Again, teaching after teaching of things that Christ was giving shortly before all these things had come to pass that were being recorded here, and all of it leading up to the Passover period. So again here, in the final couple of days of Jesus' life incredible amount of teaching here of things he was giving instruction in.

But here is one in Matthew 23:1—Then Jesus spoke to the multitude and to the disciples, saying, The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, so those decisions, those judgments that are rendered from that specific office, he's telling them, and one of the primary things was a matter of keeping track of time and keeping track of when Holy Days were and so forth and the counting of those things and the holy calendar and the like.

But going on, verse 3—All, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do, and don't do after their works. So they have a responsibility and a charge to fulfill something, and he's telling them. It's like talking about certain things that were given to the Jews as far as the writings of the Old Testament, as far as the gentiles and that which is in the Greek language there in the New Testament, those things that were to be preserved in a specific way. It goes on to say, and therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do, but don't do after their works, in other words, the way in which they conduct themselves in their religious beliefs and practices. You're not to follow that. So he's telling them there's something else you're to follow, there's something else you're to live. There is other instruction and guidance and direction by which you're to live your lives and not from them, not from those teachers, not from Judaism. …for they say, in other words, what is to be done, and they don't do it. For they bind, as the word here in the Greek is like a chain or to tie as a prisoner, heavy burdens that are grievous to be borne and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

Verse 5—But all their works they do for to be seen of others, saying that's not what religion is. That's not what worshiping God is about, to be seen of others. They make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments, and they do to this day. There are those that have certain garments that they wear that they believe is that which was given in the Old Testament, and somehow they're religious by doing this. There are certain ways they pray and they have no idea what they're doing. They don't understand what they're doing. And really, the Protestant world isn't much different here at all because they've done similar things. People do things often to be seen of others. That's why they do the things they do. They like power. They like authority. They like to be seen. People like to be seen in a restaurant and they bow their heads and they all bow their heads around a table and make a show of their religious beliefs. "Look at us! We're praying before we eat." "Oh, aren't they religious people." No, they're not. No, they're not. So people do things in the world to be seen of others. It's more about being seen. That's why Jesus Christ said, "When you pray, go into your closet." It’s between you and God alone to pray, not to be seen out here in public by others. It's a personal thing between you and your God, not to be seen of others. Don't let that get in the way. So we have adjusted some things even within the Church so that we have a better balance on those kinds of things, and to be careful about those kinds of things, so that we're observant to those kinds of things because we don't want to be like the Protestant world. We don't want to reflect the kinds of things that are reflected out there as a matter of absolute hypocrisy. So he's addressing some of these things with the Jews.

And they love the uppermost rooms at the feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, they want the best place, and greetings in the markets, and to be called by men, Rabbi, Rabbi. That's what they want to be seen for and so they have these little garments and things that they want to stand out to be different. They don't want to dress like other people. They want to have something that sets them apart so they can be looked upon as pious and religious and sometimes almost to the point of folding hands. They want to be seen as being religious. "Oh, you're a religious man." No, they're not. They don't teach the truth. They don't teach things that they actually know that are not true. It's very common. They know there are certain things that aren't in here that they teach. They know it, but not in all cases. Some are just ignorant to it and blind to it, but some who have done certain studies and so forth, they know. They know. That's why they don't have any problems of going from one church to another church, and they have commonly said, "Oh, I don't have any problem teaching what they believe. I have certain beliefs with this thing that I have learned, but I don't have any problem teaching them what they believe." Okay.

So he said, Don't be called of any man, Rabbi, Rabbi. So what do the Jews do to this day? They don't accept Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah. That's the problem. So they don't listen to this, "Don't call any man Rabbi." So the Jews, they still call their teachers Rabbi, and yet Jesus the Messiah is saying, "Don't do it!" But who listens to him of the Jews? None.

So don't be called Rabbi; for one is your Master, in other words, your teacher, your guide as a religious title, in other words, even Christ, the Messiah, and all of you are brothers. And call no man your "Father" upon the earth; for one is your Father. There's only one Father! Yet people like the religious title of "Father," especially in the Catholic Church, and the grand one of all, Papa, the Pope, the great "Father" of all. No, he's not. No, he's not. It’s sad. And why is it then that those who profess to follow Jesus Christ, to believe him, what do you believe? Well, you don't believe what he said. That's obvious. You believe your own things about Christmas and Easter and rolling around eggs like they did at the White House today. They even did it today. They were out there rolling around eggs, you know, and kids were going out there. They were making a big production of the kids: "Isn't this nice the kids can go out there and get these eggs and find the eggs and have little contests and see who gets the most eggs. And it's a nice thing for children." No, it isn't. No, it isn't! It teaches them wrong things. It teaches them lies and fables. That's why I heard someone say here the other day about a time when they quit believing in Santa Claus. I thought back because I kind of remember it at about five years old, and then it hit me, mainly because of the things with the Easter Bunny. I knew that was a bunch of crock! You know, it doesn't take a genius. When you're five or six years old, little kids, they know that eggs don't come out of rabbits. I grew up on a farm! You're not going to fool me with that one. I might be five, but I'm not that stupid, and that's all it took. I was five years old, because I remember the place we lived when I knew it and I was only five years old when we were there. Then the light bulb went on, "Ah, this Santa Claus thing too, that's got to be a crock." I didn't say, "crock," because I didn't know "crock" at that time, but basically, it was the same thing. So what do people learn? They've been lied to. You lie to children? What do you expect them to believe? It’s a sad, sick world. "Oh, but they're nice little things and little stories. And even the one about the tooth fairy, you know, it's just a nice thing and you put the tooth under the pillow and you can give them a quarter, a dollar, or whatever you want to give. That's okay." You teach them lies. It's no wonder people grow up the way they do, disbelieving.

Do not be called Rabbi, for one is your Master, even Christ. Then it goes on to say, And call no one your Father upon the earth, for one is your Father. The words of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ said it and yet people say, "Oh, I've accepted Christ. I believe him." Bull. You don't either! You don't believe him. All who are Catholics and they still call people Father. All who are of other religions and they use other religious titles. "Reverend," that's no better. "There is only one," in essence, it’s as if Christ is saying here, "one who is reverend, God Almighty," not any human being. There is no one human being like that. Neither be called Masters; for One is your Master, even Messiah/even Christ.

So simple little things we're talking about over and over again, things that happen when they die. They’re put into a grave, put into hades, but they believe this thing about hell because their Bibles say "hell," so they got this thing about hell, or going off to heaven, and yet Jesus Christ says, "No man has ascended up to heaven, but he who came down out of heaven." No man has ascended up there. Then Peter calls and tells the Jews David is still with us to this day. He's out there in that sepulchre. He's still there. He hasn't ascended. He's not anywhere but right there in that grave. And the scriptures you read, they're not about David, they're about the Messiah.

So story after story after story, and Jesus Christ getting ready to die as the Passover and Jesus Christ getting ready to change things from an old covenant to a new covenant, to change things from worship within a physical temple to worship within a spiritual temple. That's what he's getting ready to do here and so much of what he's teaching is exactly what this is all about and he gives an example. I love the one of cleansing the temple because the same thing is spiritual for the second time before he's here, before he comes to fulfill even that which is greater, above and beyond. Now to be able to go beyond the Passover and now to come as the Messiah, as the King of kings, to fulfill that role now. He didn't come before to fulfill the role of the Messiah, but now he's getting ready to. So again the temple is being cleansed, the spiritual temple.

So again, awesome stories here about the kind of cleansing and the kind of things that God is doing. And at this point here I think it'd be good to go back and look at some of this in the book of Hebrews because here Paul is talking to those who ought to know better. He's talking to those who fully rejected from the very beginning, those who had the greatest opportunity, if you want to look at it on a physical plane, because it is a physical plane. Though Paul was an apostle to the gentiles he wrote to the Hebrews. He wrote to the Jewish people in a profound and powerful way because he was one and he was highly educated, incredibly, highly educated as you follow the story and know the story about Paul. And he then wrote to them in reason and explained to them the things that were taking place and what was being done and the changes that were happening, and basically telling them about the Passover and what he had fulfilled, telling them about the Messiah and what he had fulfilled and what was being accomplished. They rejected it all. They rejected it as they have for nearly 2,000 years.

So we're going to pick up the story in Hebrews and begin here. We'll not get very far today, but we're going to begin here. That means we definitely have a Part 8 and probably a few more, but it's a very long story over a short period of time that's covered here, but there is so much information and so much truth and so many things that correct this world for what it is and set things right to what they should be and what they're going to become now, because now we're at a point in time where God's going to bring these things to pass and accomplish and fulfill things that haven't been done yet except within a small group of people through time, and especially in the last 2,000 years with the Church.

So beginning here in Hebrews 7 we're going to pick up some of the story flow. There is so much here, the whole book of Hebrews, but Hebrews 7:14—For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which the tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood. So he's explaining things that people that would have the past of the Hebrew heritage, in that essence, should know. And basically mostly just Jews at this point in time obviously. Levites mixed in there and some others, but primarily Judah. So he's explaining to them things that are written back in the Old Testament and speaks of one who would spring out of Judah. So he's referring to the Messiah. He's referring to Jesus Christ and he's saying, "Look at this individual who is not a Levite. He is not of the Levitical system. He's not of the priesthood." But in essence here he's getting ready to tell them, "But look what he has to do with the temple. Look what he has to do with what God is revealing. Look at what he has to do with those things that he's fulfilled in his life to this point in time." So it says, "Look at this individual, Jesus Christ, Jesus, and the fact that he sprang out of Judah, not out of Levi." That's what he's saying to them.

And it is yet far more evident that after the similitude of Melchizedek there arises another priest. So they were familiar with things about a Melchizedek. They didn't understand it all, but they knew a Melchizedek and Abraham's relationship and some of the things written there in the Old Testament, in scriptures, I should say. The only scriptures they had to that point. …who is made not after the law of the carnal commandment, but after the power of endless life. So, in other words, he's saying, "Look at this person who has been made in a different way, coming out of Judah, not out of Levi, and not made after a carnal commandment," in other words, not made according to the law about the Levitical system. He didn't come out of the Levites. He didn't come out of that priesthood. He's different. He's made from that which is "the power of endless life." He's made spirit. He is on the right hand of God Almighty.

Anyway, it goes on to say, For He testifies, speaking of God, of what is witnessed and said, You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Here is a priest that's not out of Levi, but now he's the priest. "And to endless life." Awesome! Something so powerful that changed. No longer is there a Levitical system. It's over. It's been done away with. So people read things in scripture and they think of any law that it might be referring to. They like to get rid of a certain law and they might as well just be honest about it and say, "Well, the law we want to get rid of is the law of the weekly Sabbath and the Holy Days," and basically that's what the Roman Catholic Church did anyway. That's what they said, they said they're going to get rid of the Sabbath and the state religion from that point forward should be Sunday. It got to a point in time very shortly after that that anyone who would observe the other would just be put to death and that way it'll create some solidarity here in keeping the first day of the week, Sunday. It started off with a big bang and it's been going on for centuries ever since.

For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before, for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof. So Protestant's, teachers, ministers read that and say, "See! See! The law's unprofitable. It is the disannulling of the law. It's being done away with because it's not profitable. It's not what God intends. He instead has given us grace, grace to live by. We're under grace. We're not under the law." And so they like scriptures like this and they like to take it out of context. Yet they don't understand what's being said. It's very plain what's being said.

…for the law made nothing perfect. Well, the 10 Commandments, does that make anything perfect? God makes it very clear that human beings can't keep the law, and because of that we sin, and because of that we need a Passover. We need to be able to be forgiven of sin. There's nothing wrong with the law, the 10 Commandments. It's what's wrong with us that's the problem. We're not able to keep it on our own. So indeed we've been given grace, a lot of mercy, a lot of patience from Almighty God, but that doesn't do away with the law. So what is the law that's done away? …for the law made nothing perfect; but the bringing in of a better hope did, by the which we draw near unto God. In other words, there is a method here now, there is a system, there's a means by which we can all draw near to God that we didn't have before. Now we have something different and something new. New! I use that word because some like to talk about those things in the Protestant world and they like to put emphasis on some of that and lead people into something different that isn't true.

And inasmuch… So again here, what was unprofitable was what they did when they offered up offerings on the altar. It's talking about a priesthood. It's talking about a physical temple. It's talking about sacrifices that are offered up on an altar. That's what the context and the whole thing of Hebrews is all about. That law is being changed. Things about the physical temple are being changed because there is no longer the need for a physical temple. It's being done away with. No more physical temple. No more Passover lamb. No more rituals to be observed anymore, and so that becomes clearer as you continue on in context. And inasmuch as not without an oath he was made priest. Again, those words are added in there, but that's true. For those priests were made without an oath. In other words, it's saying here those priests, the Levitical system who came out of Levi, their process here of what they were entering into, they fulfilled something that was just handed down generation to generation and something that was established by the law of the priesthood and so forth that went on through time. But not by an oath. There's something different about the Messiah, about the Christ, about Jesus.

…but this with an oath by Him that said unto him. So this is what God Almighty said to him. God is the one who made him who he is, not a lineage of people on a physical plane who had service in the temple, not that kind of a priesthood. The LORD swore and will not repent, You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. That's what God Almighty said of Jesus. So he's telling them this. That which was in the Old Testament long before the Levites, that priesthood that existed, not by law, but from God Almighty, Melchizedek, because the other was something started a lot later, a lineage of Levites. Jesus Christ is not of the Levites. He's different. …by so much was Jesus made a surety for a better covenant. Again, Protestants like to misuse this. See, we have a better covenant and we're under grace and that's what's happening and the law has been done away with. No, it hasn't.

Verse 23—And they truly were many priests, because they were not allowed to continue by reason of death. So again here, he's just saying that here there is a lineage of priests that continued on. They couldn't continue on very long because they would die off. So there'd been many and others would come along and then they would serve until they died and a new generation would come along and they would serve. And so it's talking about all these priests. But this man, because he continues ever, in other words, into age lasting life, has an unchangeable priesthood. It's already stated here: "You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." Wherefore he is able to save them to the uppermost part that come unto God by/through him, speaking of Jesus Christ. He's able to save through what God has given in and through him. It begins with the Passover, through his blood. People can begin to have a process of a relationship with God through the forgiveness of sin. The Israelites were never able to do that! They were never able to be forgiven of their sins. They had them, a remembrance, and a process they were to go by in order to address those things in their life and to live within a certain realm on a physical plane as a nation of people. They were bound by those things to live by them in obedience to God as much as they were physically able as human beings, which they didn't do a good job, their history shows. So again here, they were not forgiven of sin. No one was except for those God has called and dealt with throughout time on a spiritual plane through the power of His spirit.

So he was able to save them to the uppermost that come unto God through him seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them. For he became such a High Priest for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners… He didn't live that kind of life. He was totally without sin. That's why a lamb had to be picked out in the beginning; a physical lamb was to be one without any blemish because it pictures not having any fault, any blemishes, any sin in his life. He didn't have sin. …and made higher than the heavens; in other words, above the heavens of this earth and the heavens that we know in physical universe. It's God's throne and that which is spiritual, where He is.

Again, the story about Melchizedek and who he was and there's been much confusion about that. It was God's way of dealing with man toward the beginning. He manifested himself as Melchizedek, as High Priest in a relationship with man. Awesome, how He did that. We'll come to those scriptures here in a little bit, but it's an awesome story, an awesome thing that God did and how He worked with people in different ways in different times for different purpose.

So it goes on to say, who needs not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice. So in the Levitical system there are these sacrifices that just are perpetuated and things that continue on within the temple and work within the temple day by day by day, routines they had of rituals and physical service within the temple of God. Beautiful. It's being revealed here that that temple has no purpose anymore. It's not used anymore. It has no meaning anymore. Judaism has no meaning. They have no temple. Weren't meant to have a temple. There are things fulfilled and accomplished in Christ, the Messiah, the one whom they've rejected that has done away with the temple, the physical temple because he is the spiritual one—the Body of Christ—he is the making of the temple of God on a spiritual plane. Awesome!

So it says, who needs not daily, as these high priests who offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins and then for the people's, for this he did once when he offered up himself. So here was one who had no sin. He makes it plain here, "who offered himself up once" to die for all of mankind, to have the spear run through his side and blood come out on the earth, to die as our Passover that Paul talked about as we began this series: "For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." Awesome! People in the Protestant world believe that? To what degree?

Going on, For the law makes men high priests. What law? The 10 Commandments? No, it's not talking about the 10 Commandments that they like to say has been done away with, disannulled, no meaning. It doesn't make anything perfect. No, it's talking about this; this never made anyone perfect. The Levitical system, the offering up of sheep and bulls and goats and everything else, all the sacrifices and blood that was spilled didn't do anything to get rid of sin! It kept them focused. It was supposed to keep them focused about a relationship with God and how they were to live their lives as a community, as a people in obedience to God, but it wasn't a spiritual relationship with God at all. "For the law makes men high priest." What law? The Levitical law. The book of Leviticus is filled with laws about how the priesthood was to be conducted and organized and so forth. …which have infirmity. They have problems. They're physical human beings. Yeah, they have sins. They have weaknesses. Jesus Christ had none except being a physical human being who could die. ...but the Word (or Logos) of the oath, which was since the law makes the Son, the Son of God, who is consecrated, perfected, in other words, forevermore.

So I'm going to continue on here because man put in the chapters and the verses and so forth so let's just continue on with what Paul was saying. Now the things which we have spoken, this is the sum. This is the sum of it all. This is what it's all about. We have such a High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. He didn't exist before. The high priest was a man. The high priest was there as a matter of lineage, the Levitical system, Levites and so forth. This goes on speaking of Christ, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true temple, true tabernacle. It's talking about the true temple, which the LORD pitched, and not man. Man made the physical temple, made the one that was pitched in the wilderness. His hands had to make it; man did later on. Solomon built that temple in Jerusalem that was there, that David wanted to build and had planned and so forth and Solomon was allowed to build it. The temple then became and resided in, if you will, in Jerusalem from that point forward through time and the Levitical system that served there through the centuries, through the time after that. He's making it very clear here they did that, man did that, but the Eternal God made this one, is making this one. This temple is not a physical one, it's a spiritual one. That's what Paul is telling the Hebrews.

For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices. That's what their function is, their job, the Levitical system. Wherefore it is necessary that this man have somewhat also to offer. For if he were on earth he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests who offer gifts according to the law; who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things. So he's making the comment here that all these things in the temple, all this service, everything that's being done pictures something to come later on. That which was physical pictured something that was going to come later, that which is spiritual.

That's why I love some of the stories like Leviticus 16 that talk about the Day of Atonement and it goes through this entire story talking about this process of what the High Priest did, which is really about Jesus Christ, what he was going to do. It talks about the Day of Atonement there in Leviticus 16 and it goes through an incredible story and it eventually comes to a point where it talks about the High Priest went into the Holiest of Holies, the last section of the temple, and he wasn't to come out until certain things were finished and accomplished. It's a beautiful story because it pictures exactly what Jesus Christ is doing. He's in heaven. He's with God Almighty performing a work and he can't return until certain things are fulfilled. Do you know what that is? It’s when the 144,000 are finished and complete. When that's complete, which it is, then he returns. Awesome! Awesome, the story here of what we're going through, of those things being accomplished. Then it talks about how the High Priest then comes back out of the temple, but there is still a part of that story that isn't finished, and that is the cleansing of the temple. It's still going on. It'll happen till the day he returns, till the time he returns. In other words, that doesn't stop. Cleansing continues.

So again here, it goes on to say here, priests had offered gifts according to the law, who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle. So he was told specific things, how to do it and so forth. For see, says HE, That you make all things according to the pattern (type), so everything here is to be followed explicitly so because it's a pattern or a "type," showed to you in the mount.  So everything is a type of a fulfillment of something greater. Just like the lamb on Passover day is a fulfillment, it's a "type" of that which is to be fulfilled later in Christ.

But now has he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant. So the Protestant world likes to say, "See, we're under grace now. We don't have that law anymore. We don't have the 10 Commandments." It makes me sick. …a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. Paul explains some of those things and he continues on. He makes it clear that people haven't had a relationship with God on a spiritual plane. He makes it clear that sins haven't been able to be forgiven until now, through our High Priest who fulfilled the role of Passover. So Paul explains these things, explicitly so, as we continue to read the story. It's a beautiful story and the world doesn't follow it. They don't know the real life story of Jesus Christ. They don't follow it. They don't believe it.

Verse 7—For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. I tell you, this is what the Protestant world teaches, "See, that old covenant, that Old Testament, it's been done away with. That means the law, the 10 Commandments, have been done away. You don't have to keep the seventh day Sabbath." "Oh, so you can just keep the first day." "Well, you can worship God on any day." I love their answers… I hate their answers. I hope you understand I'm being facetious. Well, if you nail them in a corner, put them in a corner about certain things, people will say, "Oh no, no, no. You can worship, we should worship God every day of the week. There's no special day." Well, then, what's Sunday? It's like it's more convenient. Everybody's doing it and that's the day and it's the weekend.

For finding fault with them… It wasn't with the laws; it wasn't with the system by any measure. The fault was with the people! That's what its saying. It wasn't the fault with the covenant; it's the fault with mankind. It shows the inability of mankind, without God's help, that man can't keep God's laws, can't keep His way of life, and has to be able to be forgiven of sin in order to be saved because we all have sin. We all have sin. There is no one without sin. And the more refined you become as a part of the Body of Jesus Christ the more you learn and are able to see the nature that human beings have, that it's selfish. It's motivated by selfishness. That's our motivation. That's what's inside of us. And that's where the battle is. We have to fight self, to learn to fight against feelings of jealousy, feelings of envy, feelings of lust for power or lust for whatever it might be, and on and on it goes. You know, fighting against becoming offended at something that someone might say, that somehow our feelings got hurt and so people get into fights and they get into arguments because their feelings were hurt.

Now today in this society here you have political correctness because it's about people's feelings. If you hurt them too much they even have to have these special rooms they can go into so they can deal with their feelings. Aren't we sick? The world has become so sick with all this political crap of correctness. Because that's what it is, political correctness. The words you can't say because we have to tip toe around people's feelings. I'm sorry. I am so sick of this world.

I'm so thankful we are where we are, that Jesus Christ this time is not coming back as a lamb. He came as a lamb the first time, the Lamb of God. And in Revelation 19 and 20 it makes it very clear he's coming back as a lion, the Lion of God with great power and might to put an end to the stupidity of this world, to put an end to those who are destroying this earth. That's what he says. He's going to "destroy those who are destroying the earth." That's why so many hundreds of thousands are going to die so very quickly and why he returns for that last 50 days, so that the potential is for more; the potential is there for as many to be destroyed then in that 50 days as there was leading up to that point in time. That's up to people whether they will listen to God or not. Sad, the nature of human beings and how selfish we are. All we have to do is acknowledge that selfishness and cry out to God to have mercy upon us and forgive us and to help us.

For finding fault with them, with the people, not the law, not the covenant. So God has mercifully given us a different covenant whereby we can be saved, because of our weaknesses as human beings and because of our sick, lousy, selfish human nature, which was intended to be that way so we could learn the lessons we need to learn, so we become so deeply convicted of what Satan, Lucifer, and the millions upon millions of angelic beings who followed him did in a rebellion against God Almighty. People need to become so deeply convicted of the wrong and the evil and the sickness of that kind of nature. And so we have to live it to become sickened by it, to be sick of our own human nature. I loathe my selfish human nature. I rejoice in a nature that comes from God that helps us to transform and to think differently and to be differently toward other human beings. That takes time to change. It takes time to bring that into subjection to the laws and the ways of God and the spirit of God and to learn to live right toward others.

You see, it's totally foreign to me now to be offended at someone else, to be jealous of anyone else; to have any of those kinds of emotions is such sin and such garbage and filth and evil. I loathe it so much it's not in me. I have other problems and other weaknesses of life as a human being. It all revolves with all of us having to do with selfishness, but it's so much different than what it was in the beginning, so much more deeply refined than what it was in the beginning. I say that because it gives encouragement and hope and a matter that you have to realise you have to keep fighting against your human nature until the day you die. And that's the battle. Fight! Fight! Fight! That's why I've told people, you've got to fight for this way of life. It's not going to just happen. You can't just laxly, in a lackadaisical type of way drift into this and somehow drift along and things are going to change for you and get better for you and be blessed in life. No, you've got to fight against your own human nature. You've got to make changes in your life. Especially now, of all times. We're almost there! Incredible where we live!

For finding fault with them He said: 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. They never had this before. …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 continued not in My covenant, and I regarded them not, says the Lord. So the problem was with them. That's what He's saying here because they didn't continue in it because the reality is and the history of Israel is a great proof. God could have worked with any kind of people and it doesn't matter what tribes of the earth, who it was, but whoever it was that He would work with they're going to do the same thing. They're going to complain, murmur and complain, and be unhappy and gripe and murmur and complain and gripe some more. And that just repeats itself over and over again. People resist God and fight against God and sin and live how they want to live and disregard what God has to say. That's just the way it's going to be. That's the way we are as human beings. So we need help and we need a lot of it. That's what Jesus Christ was all about. God's made possible a help, and it starts with our Passover, to be forgiven of sin and then to begin changing life, a transformation in the very mind itself. That's awesome!

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. Not a physical people! And yet people read through something like this and this is all they see: "Oh, the house of Israel. Where is the house of Israel? Well, it's in Israel today. It's the Jews. It's about the Jews." No, it's not. It's about the whole world. All the world, all peoples are going to have the opportunity to become a part of the house of Israel. It's a spiritual one, just like the spiritual temple. The physical one has been done away with and so was the fact that God was working with a physical nation. There are only certain things being worked with on a physical plane in those physical nations now as a matter of prophecy, to bring certain things to pass and to fulfill certain promises that God gave, that He would make one nation the greatest nation the earth has ever known, the most powerful, most affluent nation the world has ever known before the end. This country. Manasseh. One of the tribes of Israel. And another one that would be up there with them as well in what they do and what's done through them. Ephraim, who God prophesied would be a great nation and a great company of nations. There's more to the story, and about all the gates and so forth of what they would control at the end of a time, if you will, all the things that the British Empire had at one time, Great Britain being the tribe of Ephraim, and Canada, and Australia, and New Zealand being a part of that as well.

So the prophecies written today when people read about Ephraim and Manasseh they have no idea what on earth it's talking about. They have no idea it's talking about people that are alive to this day as far as a nation is concerned. Sad. Pathetic. And they hear the word "Israel" and they think it's just over there. "Oh, that's that place." I don't know if you've ever seen “Watter's World.” He goes out every once in a while and he asks people questions. I am dumbfounded sometimes about the great ignorance of human beings that live in a country that should have more intellect and where people don't even know countries of the world, that they’re even countries sometimes. It's like, "Well, in what state is that located?" And it's dumb, dumb things that people come up with and they have no sense of the world. Instead they have a sense of maybe a little town or city, New York or Washington or Chicago that they live in, and the rest of the world, not even sure of where it is, what it is. How can anyone expect to know where Israel is? "Oh yeah, that's over there. That's where Jerusalem, Tel Aviv is in Israel." They have no idea. It's prophetic about millions and millions of people around the earth who migrated out of that region of the world, who were taken captive up into Europe and who migrated through time into other regions. Israelites. Not Judah. Not Jews. Israelites.

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 in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be My people, or shall be to Me a people. Spiritual Israel, the Church of God, the Family of God, those whom God would work with in time to begin to live on a spiritual plane and not on a physical one, who would learn to worship within a spiritual temple, not in a physical one. And we're blessed to live those things in life and so are others as they will repent and change and truly accept the real Jesus Christ for who he is and what he said and how he said life should be lived and begin to obey those things, because it's not just come as you are, as the Protestant world says, "Oh, just come as you are." You know what? God's Church isn't like that. It never has been like that. You can't just come as you are; you have to obey God. You have to be determined to obey God and want God in your life.

Yet the world is taught such a lie, "Just come as you are. We'll accept you. We'll take you in. Anything and everything, whatever it is you're doing, that's okay." No, it isn't okay. You want to bring your adulterous life into God's Church? It doesn't happen. That's what happens a lot out here in the Protestant world, especially in the south. Well, it happens everywhere, but see, there is great hypocrisy in that, because in the south that kind of stems out of Nashville and some of those areas and all the kind of country music that people hear. You can go do this and you can play the music backward to get back your dog, your cat, your money and your job, and your mate, your wife, or whatever it is and everything is okay again because that's typical of the Protestant world in the south. That's how people live. They lie as they go to church. They live lies in church. How can you come before God? How can you come before Jesus Christ and know that you're committing adultery? Living with someone else's whatever it might be, or just committing fornication and living with people without marriage. Sick world we live in. Truly sick.

Well, we'll stop there today and we'll begin Part 8 at some point here in the book of Hebrews again because there's a lot more to the story. It's an awesome story, and there’s so much more to come out as we continue on that talks about the real life story of Jesus Christ, why he died, and what he changed and what he got rid of as a result of his dying for all of mankind.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1