El Shaddai Ministries

Pastor Mark Biltz: We're going to take a look now at the Book of Hebrews through Hebrew Eyes. We're finishing the book of Hebrews today. We're going to move on to another New Testament book next week. I've been mulling over which one, but it'll be a good one. It'll be one of my favorites, I promise.

Let's start with Chapter 12, verse 1 and 2. This verse has always excited me. "Therefore, since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses..." Can you imagine? There are people or angels, somebody's watching you. That should put a little fear in your step. There is a great cloud of witnesses watching you, and I can just see as you're running the race, just like when you were a parent and your little kid was in a race, you're cheering them on. There's a great cloud of witnesses that are cheering us on.

How many of you want to be at the marriage supper of the Lamb? We're going to be sitting down. Have you ever thought about sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob across the table from you and you're talking to them? Imagine all the different saints, what it's going to be like looking at all the Bible characters. How would you like to sit across from Adam? "Hey, how's it going, Adam? What's new? What was it like back there in the garden?" Or Noah, or Shem, or Ham, all these people. I used to think, oh my goodness, there's all these great clouds of witnesses. They're all watching, and I can hardly wait to sit down at the table and ask Jonah and all these people what it was like in their day.

But they're going to ask us, "What was it like for you? You are the greatest generation of all of history. Everyone's been looking to what is happening to this generation that's going to usher in the Messiah." They're going to be asking you, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are going to say, "What in the world, what was it like for you?" I don't want to say, "I don't know. I hid behind a rock." No, we need to be working hard for the kingdom.

I don't know how many of you were ever runners. I tried to be. I never was. I was in a small high school, so I got picked for track and I was like, "Are you kidding me?" But anyway, sometimes when we ran, we'd have ankle weights. You'd run with the ankle weights. That way, when you took off the weights and you got in the actual race, you felt like you could really fly. This is telling us we're in a race, and we need to lay aside these weights now.

There are things that have been besetting us in our race. The sin, it says, which clings so closely. It's like velcro sins. We got to peel these things off. And it says, "Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Yeshua." That's got to be our focus. He's the founder, he's the perfecter of our faith. And this is the most amazing verse: "It was for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame, and he is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God."

Can you imagine? It says "for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross." Sometimes after a lot of pain, joy comes. It really does, but you have to go through the pain to have joy, be it a baby or whatever it is. There's pain involved, but then joy comes in the morning.

Look at verse 3 through 6. "Consider him," who's that? "Consider Yeshua, who endured from ungodly sinners such hostility against himself, so that you don't grow weary or faint-hearted. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? 'My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, don't be weary when you're reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the ones he loves, he chastises every son whom he receives.'"

How many of you enjoy discipline? Not really, but we all know it's for our good. When I think of some of these football teams, the coach is out there yelling at them, screaming at them during practices, trying to tell them they got to get in shape. Parents are supposed to be disciplining us. Think in terms of discipleship more than spanking. It's about being disciplined. How many know it's hard to discipline ourselves to get up at a certain time, or even worse, to go to bed at a certain time?

That's what this is talking about. God disciplines us in the sense he wants us to be fit for every good work. He tests us. He sees, okay, how are you doing? If you build a chair, you got to test it to see if it's going to break or not. So God, he's the potter, we're the pot, and he molds us and he shapes us and he says, "Okay, let's see what you're fit for. Oh, we got to put you back in the oven again" or whatever it is. God is testing us and he chastises all of us.

In verse 7 through 11, it is for discipline that you have to endure. How many of you like exercising? I like thinking about it. I don't know if you've heard, I run around the block six times every morning, and then I kick the block under the bed and I climb back in bed. No, just kidding. It's up, down, up, down, then the other eyelid: up, down, up, down. No, we all love discipline, we all need to be disciplined. We all need to spiritually get in shape. Some of us may physically be in shape, but we're not spiritually in shape. God wants us to be spiritually in shape.

"God is treating you," it says, "as sons. For what son is there whom his father doesn't discipline?" When you work with your kids, you say, "Okay, don't eat that, eat this. Go to bed now, get up." All that is part of discipline, he's trying to train us. When I was in this Christian youth organization back when I was 19 called The Agape Force, I'm just 19 years old, I'm new to all of Christianity for that matter, and we're taking Bible classes.

It so happened our leader was a former Navy SEAL. And so we'd get up in the morning, "Okay, bright and early, 5:00 in the morning, let's go run two miles. And then we're going to do all this exercise." And so we were doing all kinds of rigorous physical exercise as well as then going, "Okay, now we're done with all this physical exercise, it's time to go read 20 chapters in the Bible and then come back and tell..." That's how I, when I first got saved, that's the kind of thing I was tossed into. And it hurt so much, it was fun.

It says, "If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you're illegitimate kids, you're not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? They disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good." Why? "That we may share in" what? "His holiness." It's to be set apart. It's easy to not be set apart. And it is hard to be set apart. And it says to share in his holiness, not have our own holiness, but to share in his holiness.

"For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." Those of you that do exercise, you feel more refreshed when you're done. Hebrews 12:12 through 15: "So here's what it says now, lift up the drooping hands." How many of you feel like this sometimes? But it says what we're supposed to do is lift up those drooping hands. We're supposed to be rejoicing, strengthening your weak knees, make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather healed.

"Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness." This is incredible: "Without holiness, no one will see the Lord." That's a heavy verse. "Strive for peace with everyone." That verse has always spoken to me. "See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up causing trouble and by it many become defiled." Bitterness can defile many people. Everyone knows this, people get bitter and the next thing you know, they're causing trouble, and then it affects many people.

Verse 16 and 17: "That no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau. He sold his birthright for a single meal. You know how afterward when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. He found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears." That's a heavy verse. We need to realize, and right now, this is the time when the doors are open in heaven, and we need to be coming before the Lord. A time is coming, Yom Kippur, the door is shut. Time's up. We need to understand God's calendar, his timetable.

Hebrews 12:18 through 21: Here's the good news. "You're not come to the mount that might be touched and that burned with fire." Remember in Exodus, they come to a mount that was quaking; if they touched it, they would be killed. And there was the voice of the shofar and words which voice they that heard it entreated "No more!" They didn't want to hear another word spoken to them. They could not endure that which was enjoined. Even a beast touched the mountain, it was stoned. So fearful was the appearance that Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake."

Can you imagine what it would have been like to be there when the Mount Sinai was just smoking and lightning and thunder and God speaking? Look at Exodus 19:12, here it is. He tells Moses, "You shall set bounds to the people round about, saying, 'Take heed to yourselves, you don't go up to the mount or even touch the border of it. Whoever touches the mount will be surely put to death.'" That's what they encountered.

But guess what? That was the one on earth, that's the pattern, it wasn't the reality in heaven. It says, "Now you've come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, which is" what? "The heavenly Jerusalem." Not the Jerusalem on earth, the heavenly Jerusalem. Remember there's one that's coming down out of heaven at the end of Revelation. "To the city of the living God, to the innumerable hosts of angels." There's probably more angels than stars.

"To the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are in heaven's enrollment." How many of you want to be in that enrollment? "And to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Yeshua the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel."

Then look at verse 25 through 27. "See that you refuse not him that is speaking." Remember back in the first Pentecost, Shavuot, God spoke from heaven and they said, "We don't want to hear that voice, we only want to hear Moses." And to this day, that's the problem a lot of times. They only want to hear from Moses. They got to hear from the voice from heaven. And it says, "If they escape not when they refused him that was warning them on earth, much more shall we not escape who turn away from him that's warning us from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth." That earthquake was caused by God's voice.

But now he's promised saying, "Look at this, yet once more signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have not been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain." God is going to shake everything that can be shaken and that includes faith. Your faith will be shaken. Your faith in man, your faith in God, heaven and earth is going to be shaken.

How many of you ever been in a scary earthquake? How many of you know that's scary being in an earthquake? The first time, no, the second time. I wasn't in any earthquakes in Kansas. I've been up here for over 30 years and I experienced a couple of big ones here. How many of you know when you're close to the water, that's even kind of scarier?

I was working for Terminix, I believe, and carpenter ants can kind of ruin your foundation and ruin the homes and the like. One of the earthquakes, I was underneath a house riddled with carpenter ants in their crawl space when the earthquake hit, and it was right on the Sound in Port Orchard area. And here it's like everything's moving and I'm under the crawl space. "Get me out of here!" I'm scrambling as fast as I can on my hands and knees to get out. But earthquakes, when an earthquake hits, you realize you have no control. You're just going to ride this one out.

And God said he's going to shake the earth. Listen to Isaiah 2. This is an earthquake that hasn't happened yet, verse 17 through 21. I don't know what this will be on the Richter scale, but God says the loftiness of man is going to be bowed down, the haughtiness of men will be made low. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day. The idols he's going to utterly abolish. They shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth. Isn't that what we just read in Revelation? Where do you think John got that from? Right here.

John was Jewish and he didn't have a Gideon Bible. All he had was the Tanakh. And for fear of the Lord, for the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake terribly the earth. And in that day a man will cast his idols of silver, his idols of gold which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats. To go to the clefts of the rock, to the tops of the ragged rocks for fear of the Lord, for the glory of his majesty when he arises to shake terribly the earth. This confirms Ezekiel. "In my jealousy and the fire of my wrath have I spoken, in that day surely in that day there'll be a great shaking even in the land of Israel."

"The fishes of the sea, the fowls of heaven, the beasts of the field and all creeping things that creep on your earth, and all the men that are upon the whole face of the earth shall shake at my presence. Mountains will be thrown down, steep places will fall." How many walls? "Every wall!" Now, do you know Ezekiel 38 is always read during the Feast of Tabernacles? It's always read during the Feast of Tabernacles.

If every wall's going to fall to the ground, don't you think it'd be a better idea to be in your sukkah? I believe prophetically this event will happen during Sukkot some year. And I hope to be in a sukkah and not in a 14-story hotel on that day. Joel 3:16: "The Lord also will roar out of Zion, he's going to utter his voice from Jerusalem. The heavens and the earth are going to shake, but the Lord will be the hope of his people and the strength of the children of Israel."

Wow, look at Haggai 2, verse 6 and 7. "For thus says the Lord of hosts, 'Yet once it is a little while and I'm going to shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land and I will shake all nations. The desire of all nations shall come and I will fill this house with glory,' says the Lord of hosts." Wow. So how many believe God's going to shake the earth?

Let's go back to Hebrews 12:28-29. "Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that" what? "Cannot be shaken." We need to be building his kingdom, not our kingdom, or looking to some other kingdom. And we need to make sure that what we have is unshakable.

"Let us have grace whereby we may offer service that is well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." We know in Corinthians that some of us are going to be building with wood, hay, and stubble, and some are going to be building with gold, silver, and precious stones. God's a consuming fire and he's going to consume everything. And how many know when he does, wood, hay, and stubble are gone? But gold, silver, precious stones are still there. And so we need to know, what are we building with in our lives? That's what's important.

Hebrews 13:1 and 2: "Let brotherly love continue. Forget not to show love to" who? "Strangers." We need to show love to strangers. "Some thereby some have entertained angels unawares." Have any of you ever felt like you may have entertained an angel unawares? Okay, to me, that is very significant. I know it's happened to me, and it's been incredible. But the main thing is we need to not forget to show love to strangers. How do you show love to a stranger? A lot of different ways.

But you know what's amazing is God's timing. How many know it's fun to do it when you know God's all over it? That happened to me just the other day. Friday, yesterday morning. I'm driving to work and as I'm driving, I notice my gas light come on. And it's like oops, and I got an appointment at 8:30 and it's like oh great. So I hit this little button to see I have like 15 miles left. And it's probably eight miles to the office. So I'm thinking okay, well I'm good, I can get to the office and I can get gas later. And then it's like no, I should probably get gas now just to play it safe up here in Bonney Lake.

So as I'm going, I'm thinking okay, this light by the post office, if you know that area, I'm trying to, there's the gas station just past it and I'm thinking okay, if I have to stop at the red light, I might as well turn in. If I hit it green, I'm going to go down the hill and hit the gas station at the bottom. I mean this is just the way I think. Which way do I go? And the light's green and I go through, but something tells me pull in anyway.

So I turn in and there's like 12 different gas pumps. Okay, which gas pump am I going to go to? Well, there's a car that's kind of pulling up and so I said not that one, so I loop and I end up looping all the way around to this far gas pump. And I get out and I put the hose in, I'm pumping my gas, looking at my watch, and I always like to clean out my car when I'm at the gas pump.

So I go and I grab a little cup and a little paper receipt and I go have to walk around all the pumps and I'm going to the trash can. I throw the cup in, I'm going to put this receipt in. And I put it down and I miss the big hole of the trash can, which is why I don't play basketball. But anyway, the wind blows it down to the ground. Now I'm thinking, I'm old, do I want to bend over and pick up this stupid receipt? Okay, but I'm not supposed to litter either. Okay, God, I'll pick up the receipt. And I bend down and I pick up the receipt and I go to put it in the trash again, and the wind blows it this way to the ground.

So I bend over again to pick up the ground, and right next to that receipt is a lady's wallet that had fallen out of her car with a dozen credit cards in it and cash and license. And I'm thinking oh Lord, that's why you wanted me at this gas pump and throwing the receipt on the ground. And I pick up the wallet and I open it up and I'm looking at the driver's... see if there's a phone number. No phone number in the wallet, but there was an address. And the address was about three miles back by where I live.

And I don't know if this lady was off to work because it was Friday morning or if she was coming home from work and I'm thinking I don't want to turn it in to the gas station guy because I really don't trust anybody. I trust me. And so I say, okay. I get in the car and I drive over to their house. And I go up and there's like four cars in the driveway. So I know somebody's got to be home. And I knock on the door and lo and behold, it must have been her coming home from work because there she answers the door. And I tell her what happened. She says, "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!" Can't believe it. And I can't believe it, that the Lord was just directing my steps the whole way because she could have been a believer and just want her daughter to have her wallet back. So all of these are just little divine appointments that happen along the way. Amen?

Okay. Maybe I should have said, "I'm an angel from the Lord. Here is your wallet." Well, angel means messenger. It's like the Lord later told me, "Well why didn't you give me the credit?" I was thinking I got to remember that for the next time. That would have freaked her out.

Hebrews 13:3: "Remember those that are in bonds as being bound with them. Them that are ill-treated as being yourselves also in the body." Do any of you know anyone who's been ill-treated? Have you ever been ill-treated? Do you know why the temple was destroyed they say? Remember both times.

This is a book that we have at our office which is incredible, you can also get it online. It is called Baseless Hatred or Sinat Chinam. What is baseless hatred? That is hating someone for no reason. You could hate somebody that burnt your house down or hated somebody that did something to your family, but you would have a basis for it. This is baseless hatred. How do you describe baseless hatred? Let me tell you.

This is an article from aish.com. A-I-S-H. I love that website, it's a good website, you get all kinds of good things. But I'm going to read to you this little article because I think people can relate. And the reason why I want to read this article also is because it's to our hearts to get prepared for Yom Kippur Tuesday night. On Yom Kippur Tuesday night, we're going to ask God for forgiveness for the things that we have done, right?

Let me take a moment and just read you this little story from Aish. It's from a lady and she says not too long ago, she met up with a friend of hers, an old friend who happened to be passing through my neighborhood. She and I went to elementary school together, so we instantly started reminiscing about the past. We spoke about our teachers, about when we used to act wild and crazy together, how during the recess we used to play Chinese jump rope, and I reminded her about this one boy we both secretly had a crush on. And then she reminded me of Fat Michael.

The heavy-set boy whom the entire class hated and ostracized. He always showed up dirty to school, he was the weakest student of the class, he used to ruin all of the group activities that they tried to organize. When she asked me if I thought our treatment of him was considered baseless hatred, I immediately defended our behavior. "What do you mean? Don't you remember how annoying he was? How he used to bother us, how he used to ruin everything for us? That was definitely not baseless hatred. We had an excellent reason for hating him."

She wasn't satisfied with my answer. "But maybe we did hate him for no good reason. Maybe we did it just to feel better about ourselves. Perhaps we thought if someone else was ostracized then that meant that everyone else liked us. Perhaps our hatred towards him was just our way of making sure that we were definitely accepted by the crowd. Maybe we didn't try hard enough to get him to join our group activities and that's why he felt the need to ruin our activities." "What's with you?" I asked in surprise. "Where's this guilt coming from?" And she took a crumpled piece of paper out of her bag and she handed this crumpled piece of paper to me. "An interesting article appeared in the paper not too long ago which made me think about all of my past relationships," she said. "Take it, I have the original at home. Read it at home and if you have any new thoughts, give me a call."

That evening she came home, she had all but forgotten about the whole thing. She was sitting in front of the TV tired and all of a sudden she felt the article in her pocket. She took it out and began reading. It was called Playing the Hate Game. A friend and I were sitting at the Tel Aviv central bus station waiting for the bus. It was a long wait and we were bored, so we tried passing the time by playing different kinds of guessing games and brain teasers. Soon enough we were bored once again. And out of the blue my friend suggested, "Why don't we play the hate game?"

"What? Don't you know the hate game?" she asked in surprise, as if we'd been playing it since childhood. "It doesn't sound at all familiar. What kind of game is it?" "I'll explain it to you," she said with renewed enthusiasm. "It's a kind of game that's just made for places like the central bus station. We need to have a bunch of people all around us that we don't even know, and you can play it at restaurants, at the airport, or even in any other public place. We simply have to randomly select someone who's in our line of vision. The minute we pick someone out, we have to start hating them."

"I don't get it. What do you mean, hate them? Why, just anyone who we don't know? What's fun about that?" "Let's give it a try and you'll see what I mean. So here, let's take that guy over there in the red shirt." She pointed in the direction of a young man who looked like he was in his early twenties. And she says, "Who in the world walks around with such a loud shirt? Does he think he's so great that he can wear whatever shirt he wants while ignoring all social guidelines?"

"I don't think his shirt's so bad," I told my friend. "Oh come on, look at him! He's checking out all the passers-bys as if to see whether they're deserving of his highness's association. How arrogant!" "I don't know what you're talking about. He's just people watching the same as everyone else is doing." But my friend went on. "I don't believe it! Now he's lighting up a cigarette. I knew he was the type to smoke in public areas. He must cause everyone to choke on his smoke everywhere he goes." "Smoking really makes me sick, especially in public areas. That's not right."

"Well now look at him, he's taking a book out of his bag. You can tell a mile away that he can't read serious books, I'm sure he only reads the comics at home. I really hate people who don't give the proper respect to quality literature," I commented angrily. "They think that life is all about jokes and silly stories." "You can tell from his face he's not serious about anything in his life," said my friend in growing outrage. The young man got up, walked over to the nearby kiosk. "I'm in shock," said my friend. "Just take a look at him getting a drink. He has to buy soda, water's not good enough for him. He's just so pathetic, he's living his life out according to the commercials. He has no mind of his own, he just buys whatever's advertised on TV."

"And that's nothing," she continued. "Think about the fact he can't even hold off on being satisfied for even a minute. He's thirsty, he has to buy something to drink, have some self-control. Think about things a little. Self-respect wouldn't hurt him." "Yeah," I sighed. "It would be one thing if he only disrespected himself, but I'm sure that he has no respect for his family as well, including his parents," I volunteered. "They're probably not so young anymore and he won't even pick up the phone to call them when they call him to see how they're doing." "Well look now, he's taking his cell phone out. He's probably calling another one of his clown friends. His entire crowd must be just like him, that's for sure."

I decided to do something about it. "That's it, I'm going to go give him a piece of my mind! It's just not right that his poor parents sit at home sick while he's wasting his time on silly phone calls to his lazy friends," I said as I got up from my seat to go over to him. At that moment my friend grabbed my hand as if losing interest and said, "Okay, sit back down. Let's move on to the lady over there with the white dog."

I had mixed feelings as I finished reading that section. On the one hand, I was amused, I'm sure I'd be pretty good at this game and I could add some original ideas of my own. On the other hand, I felt a tremendous desire to immediately call her to tell her about how I finally understood what she was talking about. After all, we had such a good time putting Fat Michael down and hating him. It was so easy to ridicule him, and I had to admit it was nice to always have someone to be angry with and to talk about. And then the article goes to this: Hate and Love. I begin to realize just how easy and fun it is to hate people. The more I thought about it, the more I noticed that when it comes to finding the negative qualities in others, our imagination becomes a great fountain of ideas.

But we have to find the good in others, it takes so much thought and effort. I had mixed feelings as I finished reading that section. On the one hand, I was amused, I'm sure I'd be pretty good at this game and could add even some original ideas of my own. On the other hand, I felt a tremendous desire to immediately call my friend to tell her about how I finally understood what she was talking about.

She says, "I tried to imagine myself playing the opposite game called the love game. Where you have to love a person that you don't know and give the benefit of the doubt to their every action. He's on the phone, he must be calling his parents to ask how they're doing. He's getting a drink, he must be very thirsty." And then I thought, how boring. Who has the time to actually think about another person's each and every action? This doesn't quite have the glamorous fun of the hate game.

This understanding flowed beautifully with what I had already known about the Jewish perspective on this. In Hebrew, the word ahava, or love, stems from the root hav, which means to give. In order to love, we have to give. Love is not something that flows in and of itself, rather it's something in which we have to invest in. It's only when we give that we truly love. The best example of this is the connection parents have to their children. The effort-free love that is portrayed in the movies is nothing more than temporary infatuation. In order to appreciate and love someone, we have to make an effort.

I begin to think about whether I was guilty of baseless hatred in my everyday life. Obviously I don't play the hate game, but it is possible that I make up reasons for not liking certain people. And what about situations in which my friends are discussing a certain person and saying negative things about them? Can my listening in on that conversation be considered collaboration? I thought of numerous times when I was drawn into baseless hatred even if it was only considered the simplest kind of hate.

For example, at work all my colleagues enjoy hating our manager. I, just like everyone else, am always ready to publicize certain juicy tidbits about him. Or for example, the weird neighbor in our building. It seems that all the building's residents, myself included, are simply looking for ways to prove that he's dealing in illegal matters despite the fact that none of us know it to be true.

I was able to easily think of many examples, too many, of when I failed in baseless hatred in small and meaningless ways of various people. I recognized my behavior towards Fat Michael was in fact baseless hatred. I was guilty of playing a kind of hate game with him as our victim. She says, "I need to call my friend to discuss all this. But even more important, I needed to track down Michael and apologize for all those miserable years I gave him."

One of the things that we repent of is our talk. I just kind of want to set the ground for us to contemplate over the next few days for Tuesday night. So when we ask forgiveness, it's not just a general forgiveness. It is specific because that's when God forgives us, when we get specific, not in generalities.

Hebrews 13:4: "Let marriage be had in honor among all that the bed be undefiled. Fornicators and adulterers God is going to judge." Verse 5 and 6: "Be free from the love of money. Be content with what you have, for himself has said, 'I will in no wise fail you, neither will I in any wise forsake you.'" That's what we read in the Torah portion this morning and the Haftarah.

With good courage, isn't that interesting how this book of Hebrews that we're studying today ties right into the Torah portion? With good courage we say, "The Lord is my helper, I will not fear, what shall man do to me?" Verse 7: "So remember those that had the rule over you, men that spoke to you the word of God. Considering the issue of their life, imitate their faith."

Verse 8 and 9: "Yeshua HaMashiach is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So don't be carried away by diverse and strange teaching. It's good that the heart be established by grace, not by food wherein they that occupy themselves have no profit." Verse 10 through 13: "We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat that serve the tabernacle." There are some offerings that the priests couldn't even eat of.

It says the bodies of those beasts whose blood, whenever the beast's blood is brought into the holy place by the High Priest as an offering for sin, they're not done on the brazen altar, they're taken across to the Mount of Olives, they're burned outside the camp. This is why Yeshua also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, also was fulfilling the ashes of the red heifer dying on the Mount of Olives, making atonement. "Therefore, let's go to him outside of the camp bearing his reproach."

Verse 14 through 16: "We have not here an abiding city, but we seek after the city which is coming, the New Jerusalem." Through him then let us offer up sacrifices of praise to God continually, which is the fruit of our lips, which make confession to his name. We're to do good and to communicate, don't forget, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. We need to have our lips, the things we communicate, be blessings and praises to God.

Verse 17: "Obey those that have the rule over you, submit to them, because they're watching in behalf of your souls as they that shall give account, that they may do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable to you." Obey those that have the rule over you, submit to them. How often do we hear, "You ain't the boss of me!"

Look at verse 18 through 21: "Pray for us. We are persuaded we have a good conscience. We desire to live honorably in all things. I exhort you the more exceedingly to do this that I may be restored to you the sooner." And then it says, "Now the God of peace who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant, even our Lord Yeshua, make you perfect in everything, every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Yeshua HaMashiach, to him be the glory forever and ever."

It's not our will, but his will to be done. There's a verse in Colossians that ties in this, and it's one of my prayers says, "God, work in me both to will and to do of your good pleasure." Too often we just want the Lord to work for us for our good pleasure rather than us working for him for his good pleasure. We say, "God, I want to do your will for me in my life. What can you do for me and I'll help?" No. It's, "God, I want to do your will, what can I do for you?"

Verse 22 through 25: "I exhort you, brethren, bear with the word of exhortation I've written to you in few words." This is one of the longer books of the Bible, what does he mean "few words"? "Know that our brother Timothy has been set at liberty, with whom if he comes shortly I will see you. Salute all of them that have the rule over you and all the saints. They of Italy salute you. Grace be with you all. Amen."

And everybody says "Amen!" All right, let's stand.

(Hebrew Blessing). The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. In that most wonderful name, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. Amen. Go and speak kind words one to another. Amen. Thank you. Lord bless you.