Angelic Conflict part 138: Human history – Heb 3-4;11:6; Jud 5; 1Ti 4:1-2; Phi 2:12.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 138: Human history - Heb 3-4;11:6; Jud 5; 1TI 4:1-2; PHI 2:12.

 

HEB 3:1 Therefore, holy brethren, partakers [partners] of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.

 

HEB 3:2 He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house.

 

HEB 3:3 For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house.

 

HEB 3:4 For every house is built by someone [therefore, someone had to establish the dispensations], but the builder of all things is God [deity of Christ].

 

HEB 3:5 Now Moses was faithful [dependable and stable] in all His house as a servant [not doulos - a noble servant], for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later [communicated later];

 

HEB 3:6 but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence [all outspokenness] and the boast of our hope firm until the end [faithful son as opposed to unfaithful].

 

Take full possession of your confidence (all outspokenness) [katecho] in Christ so that He will become the Celebrity that you are occupied [katanoeo] with.

 

The subjunctive means that this is a third class condition, meaning maybe you will or you won’t secure the possession of your confidence in Christ. Confidence comes from trust. God gives the believer time to perceive God’s faithfulness and power so that the believer will trust in Him.

 

Hold fast gets us right back to our old friend of late, endurance.

 

Now the writer quotes PSA 95:8-11

 

HEB 3:7 Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says [divine inspiration of OT],

"Today if you hear His voice,

 

The rebellion of the exodus is as pertinent today as it was then. What is most important today is if you will hear His voice through the intake of doctrine.

 

HEB 3:8 Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, As in the day of trial in the wilderness,

 

Hardening of the heart begins when the celebrityship of Christ comes in conflict with some other priority in your soul.

 

The symptoms of this are a sloppy doctrinal intake and a resultant sloppy spiritual life.

 

It can begin when you don’t deal with mental attitude sins through divine problem solving, or you get your eyes on people or things, or you get your eyes on the frustrations and disappointments in life. Something begins to cloud your occupation with Christ and something or someone else dethrones Him in your soul.

 

Means of beginning reversionism:

Reaction to problems with MAS’s.

Eyes on people or things.

Eyes on frustrations and disappointments.

 

Signs of beginning reversionism:

Loss of contentmentpeacerest.

Frantic search for happiness.

Anger, depression, desolation.

 

It happens to every believer (I repeat - this happens to every believer), and multiple times in his life, and the ones who overcome are those that recognize this dangerous trend early enough and change their system of thinking through recovery.

 

For those to whom this letter is written, they have about 2-3 years to recover and get out of Jerusalem before it is too late.

 

HEB 3:9 Where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, And saw My works for forty years.

 

This reveals the progressive nature of their thinking. They are extreme liberals in that they reject absolute authority and you can’t do that without rejecting truth and accepting untruth and then justifying yourself by stating that there is no truth. It begins in the spiritual life and then reveals itself in political life. The people want their idols and not divine law, they fail spiritually, and then they plot revolution against Moses to stone him, so then they fail politically.

 

Satan desires chaos in the midst of God’s people and God’s nation so that the people will beg for security over freedom.

 

“tried Me” is peirazo meaning that they tried God for good or evil and “testing me” is dokimazo which means to test for purity. Neither should be done to God.

 

HEB 3:10 "Therefore I was angry with this generation, And said, 'They always go astray in their heart; And they did not know My ways';

 

 “go astray” - plana,w[planao] = to wander away; to be deceived or seduced into straying from the course.

 

And they do not know My ways…? What ways? So simple, yet they were so completely disinterested.

 

HEB 3:11 As I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest.'"

 

The tremendous blessings of a land flowing with milk and honey (an idiom for prosperity) demands a people with a certain capacity for that. That generation rejected capacity and therefore rejected blessing from God and so they could not enter.

 

 “I swore” - solemn oath - “those without capacity shall never enter my rest and feel my wrath.”

 

God naturally gives us time to enter that rest. 40 years wasn’t enough time for this group and another year or another hundred years wouldn’t have mattered.

 

HEB 3:12 Take care [beware], brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away [revolting] from the living God.

 

Jud 5

Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.

 

Hardness of heart leads to deeper reversionism and a breakdown in the ability to faith rest.

 

2CO 5:7

for we walk by faith, not by sight

 

This is an application of the short sightedness in 2PE 1:10 described of those who lack the virtues of the CWL.

 

COL 2:6

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him

 

HEB 11:6

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him [endurance].

 

HEB 3:13 But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

 

Encouraging one another would not indicate telling others lies in the form of flattery, or hugging them, or counseling them, or sharing with them. Encouragement comes from spiritual growth. With maturity you will have the fruit of the Spirit and any other believer who witnesses that fruit will be encouraged to keep pressing on. Certainly words of encouragement are in view, but words are empty if there is no life to back them up.

 

You never know what tests people are going through. Think about what to think, say, or do or not to think, not to say, or not to do that will be encouraging rather than adding people testing to the test they are already in.

 

GAL 5:22-23

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control

 

The fact that you can forgive another and do not judge or malign them is encouragement. Operating in divine love, being patient, etc. all of these become a great source of encouragement to others and they are supernatural. Human counseling is not supernatural, although it has it benefits and places, but not spiritually.

 

HEB 3:14 For we have become partakers [partners] of Christ, if we hold fast [katecho] the beginning of our assurance firm until the end;

 

Verse 14 is not position but experience. The inference here is a mature partner like the fishermen whose partnership was based on a mature knowledge of fishing. This partnership is based on a mature knowledge of the plan of God for the Church and the church age believer.

 

In religion there is a hierarchy and some are elevated above others. There is an authority structure in any church, but that is for the purpose of functioning in an orderly fashion when communicating doctrine.

 

Partners imply EPEO as believer priests and not some religious, businesslike, church hierarchy. All believers are royal priests and can choose to take full advantage of their priesthood.

 

Machiavelli wrote that paganism was better than Christianity because it honored strong worldly men who take revenge and kill and live as though the ends justify the means. He blamed Christianity and its bearing suffering and putting other above oneself as weakening nations. Men like this and religious hierarchies would render to Caesar what belongs to God.