Our Friday Bible studies have people who come when they can and if there are many who weren’t there the week before, Pastor Don does a bit of a review so we are all on the same page of the Bible – so to speak (she says smiling)
We looked back to get this passage in context to Hebrews 12:23-24 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.
The Old Covenant, Moses and Abraham is still in effect, but we now have a better Covenant, the New Covenant established through Jesus.
A covenant is not a contract agreement. A contract is valid for a short period of time and for certain conditions. But a covenant is a lifelong binding agreement between parties. They agree and the covenant provides services and material cooperation.
Verse 24 shows us that Jesus is the mediator of the New Covenant. A mediator sits between the two parties of the covenant and guarantees results. But the covenant is really made between the Father and the Saints, entering in wilfully.
Abel gave a more pleasing sacrifice to God, he sacrificed blood. The covenant is a blood covenant, and the New Covenant is sealed by the Blood of God (Jesus). It is a marriage covenant, the marriage covenant of the Lamb. Jesus’ blood was spilled for redemption.
Cain slew Abel. The blood of the innocent was shed out of envy. Pastor Don told us that our earth is so soaked by the shedding of blood of innocent lives that in the end days we will need a new heaven and a new earth, so that it is freed from that innocently shed blood. We can already see that our earth is not pleased, and is vomiting out the defiling things – look at the earthquakes, volcanos, etc. In fact in the last battle, Armageddon, fire will come down and consume those coming against the Lord so that no blood is spilled on the earth.
Jesus spilled His blood for our sakes, for the removal of sins and our redemption. Jesus offers His blood to satisfy God’s requirement for payment. Man comes into life, born into sin, and that sin needs to be paid for by blood. What can man pay his sin debt with? Everything we have – trees, water, money, etc. is already God’s. The dollar is a federal reserve note and does not belong to us, we use it as legal tender but it doesn’t belong to us. The only thing man has to offer is his blood. Our blood recycles and the power of life and death is in our blood. It is the only thing we have absolute control over. The only currency we can pay for sin is blood.
Pastor Don then told us that there are many sicknesses of the blood today, and by faith we can take authority over the blood diseases. God can change the blood, removing what is impure.
The spilled blood of Jesus paid for sins. He paid for sins – past, present, and future. He is the only pure sacrifice and no other is needed.
Pastor Don then talked about the marriage covenant, how the marriage between a man and a woman gives us a picture of that covenant. Paul gives us a mystery.
Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
Sometimes it is helpful to read the passage backwards – as to the Lord, wives submit to your husband. We have a wrong picture of submission. God did not want us to submit to a bullying dictating husband who is abusive, but to submit to our husbands as we would to our loving Lord.
Ephesians 5:23-24 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
The Church is subject to Christ. EVERYTHING is subject to Christ. We are to be subject to our husbands in EVERYTHING.
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her
But we have to remember that it all hinges on this. What woman cannot subject herself to her husband if he puts her first and is willing to die for her the way Christ died for the Church? If the husband loves the wife that much, then it is easy to submit. When the woman submits, and the man makes terrible choices, God takes full responsibility for those choices made.
For Adam and Eve, all Adam would have had to do was to tell the serpent to shut up, and tell Eve not to talk with the serpent. But Adam did not do his responsibility. Because of that, sin came in, and rebelion for the woman. Now part of the curse is the woman desires to be in the man’s position. In every church there is a heart of rebelion against Christ. In every saint there is a part that has a heart of rebelion against Christ. Many feel that they need to rebel and not sit under authority.
Yet we need to learn to not rebel, to sit under authority. This is practice for Heaven, for there is no room for disobedience, pride, and rebelion in Heaven. That’s what creates evil order. We have the responsibility to make right decisions and to realize the weight of our decisions – make sure there is wisdom in them.
When Pastor Don makes a decision for the direction of the church, the weight of that responsibility lands on him, for responsibility is the essence of leadership.
Adam failed by not taking responsibility. He could have gone to God and said, “I’m sorry. I sinned. We sinned. We are responsible for the decision.” Things may have gone differently if Adam had made confession of his sin, instead Adam pointed to Eve, Eve to the serpent, and Adam blamed God for giving him Eve.
Pastor Don’s wife, Cynthia, can point to Pastor Don and tell God, “Don did it.” For she is under the covering of Pastor Don.
Divorces happen because people don’t dig in their heels and refuse to submit to temptation. God is only asking you to be dominated by God, not an ungodly desire. Don’t submit to an ungodly desire, tell that desire that you are head of the house and what you are asking is immoral and Jesus, My Head, does not permit it.
At some point the husband recognizes he is in the position of Christ. And when that happens he becomes willing to relinquish personal desires for the benefit of the family. There is only one exception, if the wife is making an ungodly request.
Moses and Zipporah – Moses had to learn to trust the leading of God. While living with the Egyptians his heart became touched by the slavery of his people and he feels he has to take action in his own strength – so he kills a slave master. This caused him to have to flee Egypt and take refuge in the wilderness for 40 years until he learned to be a shepherd and be led by God. During this time he marries the daughter of a gentile – Zipporah.
Pastor Don told us that often we say, “I will do this for God.” Do your commitment to God, but let God guide you. If you do it on your own or in your own power it can often lead you to attack authority. Pastor Don told us it takes five years to get a person from a pew into discipleship. Some people will live and die and never be used for God. They are saved but not yielded to authority. God will only give us what we can carry.
God will establish Moses, but the first act that Moses did was out of his self – killing the guy. It took Moses 39 years to learn obedience.
God waited until Ishmael left the camp before reveling to Abraham the condition of circumcision under the covenant, for those who are circumcised fall under the blood covenant of Abraham, blood was spilled to make the covenant.
Moses did not fulfill the agreement of the covenant of Abraham – the circumcision for his son. And he almost lost his life over that. God cannot place a person in leadership who does not follow God’s directions. God would have removed Moses from leadership if he did not obey God. It is God who puts kings and leaders into place and removes them. If a leader violates the covenant, the leader becomes history.
Some preachers do not tell the whole Gospel. We have to have respect for each other, and do no harm. All are anointed, not all are prophets. We need to be careful what we say about each other, and consider the other more important than you.
Ephesians 5:21 submitting to one another in the fear of God. In the fear (awe) of the Lord.
Saul (Paul) at one point was attacking the Christians, killing the saints. When God came to Ananias (Acts 9) and told him to lay hands on Saul (Paul) to restore his sight, Ananias told God about the things that Paul did to the saints. But God was not looking at Paul as an enemy of the Cross, God knew what Paul was going to become.
When we begin to judge other saints, we are not seeing them through the eyes of God. When God looks at us, He sees us at the endgame, not shaky or unfaithful as we are now. We are not there yet, but somewhere up the road of our lives we will become what God sees in us.
Husbands and wives are in a blood covenant. Pastor Don talked about the blood shed by a virgin on her wedding night. Right now in our day and age it is hard to find a virgin, male or female, over the age of 16. At least 60% have given up their virginity. Many that Pastor Don counsel before marriage are not virgins and he counsels them to make the choice to be spiritual virgins – making a pledge to keep themselves pure until they get married.
In the pressure that kids face in today’s culture, it is hard for some to face the price that others set for relationship – if you love me you will have sex. They submit to sex for fear of losing the relationship. We have lost the culture war, movies and peer pressure tend to impact our kids more.
In ancient Biblical culture by the time the young girl has her first period and puberty, she is within five years of getting married. If she is not pure and virginal and submits to fornication, the punishment in those days was stoning by death. By the age of 25 almost everyone was married. Priests, Levites, and Nazarenes may not be married by that age. Jesus did not plan to be married. Paul was not married, but dedicated himself to preserve marriages. Celibacy was a personal vow, and there is no scriptural basis for the priests to be celibate.
What Jesus went through in punishment for us is off the charts. He would have had the long sideburns and the corners of his beard uncut. Unlike current drawings of Jesus, the rest of his hair would have been short and trimmed neatly. When Jesus went before the court and they pulled his hair and beard they would have grabbed these long pieces and yanked. Jesus did not have to face that punishment and the cross, at any point He could have said, “Hey, I’m just the son of a carpenter.” But Jesus shed His blood for us, for the New covenant.
The young girl who would be married in the wedding covenant had the goal of maintaining her virginity, and when the husband came back to consummate the marriage (the marriage officially began with the acceptance of the contract of marriage, but the husband then goes away to prepare a place for his bride, then when he comes back often a year later, they consummate the marriage), after they consummate the marriage, the sheets are brought out to show that there was blood shed, and then the family preserves these sheets incase any would complain about her purity. The husband then provides the home for her and has a job to support her – and the two become one.
Ephesians 5:27-31 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body,e]’>
The couple leave their earthly parents and are joined and the two become one flesh through the act of intercourse and the shedding of blood.
Ephesians 5:32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
This is the great mystery. Marriage is given to us by God in the Old Testament and it is a picture of what God is doing with the church. The reason the devil is destroying marriage is to hide the mystery from us so we don’t see it, hence divorce rates are high and unions that are not sanctioned by God are increasing. So that God is not unequally yoked, we have the spiritual blood of Christ which provides the act of uniting us to become one flesh, we share the cup and the blood of Christ.
In the Jewish wedding the girl would indicate her acceptance of her potential husband by taking the cup, the cup of wine. Then the suitor would go to his father’s house to prepare a place for his bride – to provide for her. Is the not a picture of what Jesus told the apostles? “In my Father’s house are many mansions, I go to prepare a place for you? ” Where do all the marriages start out? In the Father’s house.
God’s plan is for extended families. The suitor will come and get the bride when the work is done. If the bride rejects the husband, she does not drink the cup, but pours it out, showing that she does not want participation in the blood covenant of marriage.
The Jews had to come to the temple to get to God, several times a year. They tithed about 22 1/2 percent of their earnings, and part of that tithe was the expenses to travel to the Temple and sacrifice. Their sacrifice did not completely eradicate the sins, it only covered their sins. But because of the shed blood of Jesus our sins are forgiven, gone, justified, just as if they never occurred. Jesus wants to live by faith in the hearts of all those who believe.
In the Old Covenant, they had to repeat the sacrifices. Once Jesus shed His blood no other sacrifice was needed. The veil of the temple split – from top to bottom. In Josephus, Matthew and Luke this is recorded. The veil was so thick that no human hand could have done that, and then the shekinah glory came out of the Holy of Holies. The high priest ripped his robes and told the people that there was no longer the shekinah glory in the temple. In AD 70 the temple was destroyed and the Jews dispersed.
Gentiles tried to reinstate the role of High Priest – in the form of pope, temple priests were the cardinals and bishops. They tried to get people back to yielding control over their lives. At this time the people could not read and it was not until Wycliff that the Bible was translated into languages where the ordinary person could read the word of God. The early priestly potentates wanted to have the people believe that the only way to get to God was through them. Many church doctrines that are not biblical came into being from transubstantiation to confession and absolution of sins through priests. The protestants had their doctrines of what they considered holy, the rules and regulations that people had to observe, the examining themselves before communion. In all denominations there is truth and things that are taught in error. Many of the doctrines of the churches are rooted in cultural traditions that have nothing to do with the Word of God.
Ephesians 5:32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
The key to our marriages, the key to the Church is CHRIST. For most marriages today most men only are aware of their mothers and when they walk into a marriage they are expecting to be cooked for, their clothes cleaned and the woman to be for them like their mother and grandmother was, so that their needs are met. Men need to learn how to love a woman, and women need to learn how to love and respect their men for the marriage to function correctly.
Kids should not need to earn their freedom, you need to give it to them so that they can demonstrate responsibility. When they act responsible, more responsibility can be given. If you are holding kids to being tested before you give them any liberty they won’t learn responsibility. We didn’t earn trust, we were given it. God trusted us.
Ephesians 5:33 Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband
Man has to learn how to love his wife and learn how to nurture her. The wife needs to learn how to respect her husband. Today many fathers spoil their daughters so much that they have not taught their daughters to respect them and this lack of respect carries over into their marriages.
Pastor Don did jail ministry before he became pastor of our church and he pointed out how when a prisoner has all freedom taken away from him, what is left is respect, and many a fight in jail occurs due to lack of respect. Men need respect. One of the things that high school sports does is about positioning ones self to be respected.
How are we supposed to respond to Jesus? Jesus wants our respect and our love even more than our service. Christ as the head wants respect from the Church. As the Bride of Christ, the Church needs to respect Him. That is why praise and worship is so important in the church.
Hebrews 12:24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.
When the sacrifice occurred, the blood of the animal was sprinkled on the mercy seat. When Jesus went to Heaven, he sprinkled His blood on the Heavenly mercy seat. In the 70′s a man named Wyatt theorized that when Jesus was on the cross his blood seeped into the cracks and crevices and found it’s way to the temple and the mercy seat.
Hebrews 12:25-29 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shakei]’> Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we mayc]’> may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darknesse]’> or shot with an arrow.”g]’>)
Moses was also afraid. Yet God entered into a covenant with Moses and the Children of Israel. This covenant was a birthright for us all, but many have turned their back on it.
Pastor Don then told us that on tours of Israel people are brought to a mountain that is claimed to be Mount Sinai, but it is not. He feels that the real Mount Sinai is in Arabia, for the mountain in Arabia has all the things mentioned in the Bible about it. There was lightning and fire from heave, and the mountain in Arabia has burnt stones. Over a million people camped at it’s base, the mountain in Israel did not have an expanse of land big enough to do that, so the mountain in Arabia better fits the description. There were twelve pillars of stone, but in Israel there is no pillar remnants found. When Moses struck the rock water came forth. When we are able to see where the true experiences occurred it builds our faith.
Hebrews 12:18 For you have not come to the mountain thatd]’> and tempest
God spoke in a way that was frightening to the Israelites. The Holy Spirit speaks as comforter and does not rattle and shake us to death. We are under a different covenant so we can be in a spiritual relationship.
In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve were in a direct relationship with God. The were innocent and not aware of sin.
As an example, Pastor Don pointed out that if the road outside the church had no speed limit signs we could go any speed we wanted and not be breaking a law. But once a speed limit sign was put up, if we go faster we are breaking the law. You can’t break a law until the law is established. Once the law is established, even if you don’t see the sign and you break the speed limit you are still subject to the law.
But before the law began to be established, Adam and Eve had no concept of evil, no demonic thoughts, no shame.
God set up circumstances so that we could again have a relationship with Him and be of His Kingdom. When mankind was created, we were created in God’s image, and so that we could know Him without sin. Adam and Eve chose to disobey God and once they did that, it kept them from hanging out with God the way they did before sin entered their lives.
God gave us free will, but not all choices that we make are good. Not all choices lead us to holiness and righteousness. God lets us grow and at some point there will be judgment where God separates the sheep from the goats. That way God gets the best of the best of the best. Some choose to pursue relationship with God, others deal with the earth and their immediate circumstances. Some want no part of God at all.
Those who choose God are led by God to grow closer to Him and we will be a phenomenal creation when God is done with us. New worlds will be built and governments in creation, and as we come into His perfection we will be suited to do the work He has for us to do. Yield to the potter’s wheel so that that which is not of God can be discarded and we can be shaped into vessels useful for His kingdom.
Hebrews 12:19 and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore.
Not everyone wants to hear God speak. We want to hear from the Holy Spirit, to hear from Jesus the Gentle Shepherd, and yet there will be judgment. God will point out to us our wrong decisions.
Hebrews 12:20-24 (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stonedf]’> And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”
