Prayer Request For A Troubled Child

I apologize that the details regarding this prayer request need to remain anonymous. My family is close to another family whose youngest child is suffering extreme behavioral issues. So much so that it is putting her life in jeopardy.

Because He Lives

 

“Because I live, you will live also,” John 14:19. This is a promise from the lips of Jesus Himself. The resurrection was God’s assurance to His children that what He promised, He would perform. It is the promise God made to the Jewish patriarchs, Acts 26:6. The promise—witnessed in the Law and Prophets—was this: “that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles,” Acts 26:23.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, Redeeming Those Under The Law

 

Hebrews 9:15 And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

 

We pause at the beginning of the verse to ask the question: for what reason? The author states, “for this reason,” Christ is the Mediator of the new covenant. It is beneficial sometimes to forget chapter and verse breaks, since the numbers can adversely impact our understanding of a passage. Sometimes they are read in isolated pockets, like every verse is an island unto itself. But each verse deepens the theological context of the overall idea the writer is attempting to convey.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, Ritual & Reality

 

Hebrews 9:13 For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh,

 

The sancitfication mentioned here is ritualistic or ceremonial in nature. That is why the writer expresses it as sancitfication for the purifying of the flesh. It ritually cleanses the body, or symbolizes the spiritual cleansing that all such sacrifices are the antitype of. But specifically, what is the author referring to from the Mosaic Law?

Hebrews Chapter Nine, The Security Christ Offers

 

Hebrews 9:12 Not with blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption

 

The writer conjures the imagery of the high priest of the Aaronic priesthood entering the Most Holy Place during the Day of Atonement. Described in Leviticus chapter 16, it was a very solemn day for the nation of Israel. It was a reminder that what the high priest did, he did for the whole of the nation of the Jews. The blood offered on the mercy seat within the Holiest of All was for all Israel. Caiaphas, inspired by the Holy Spirit, said much the same regarding our Lord.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, Greater

 

Hebrews 9:11 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation.

 

Again, following the natural progression the writer leads us along, he wants his readership to pause when he says, ”but.” The word “But” is a conjunction, used in writing to contrast one idea against another formerly mentioned. Verses 8 through 10 focused on the earthly tabernacle, made by Moses and the Israelites by God’s express direction.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, What The Law Imposed

 

Hebrews 9:10 concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation.

 

These fleshly ordinances are “imposed until the time of reformation.” Skipping to the latter half of the verse, we learn the very stark fact that, fleshly or otherwise, these ordinances were imposed. They were compulsory, enforced, or obligatory. Failure to participate resulted in being cut off from one’s people for the Jews. Even that fact reveals a spiritual truth. Only this method, at this time, made it acceptable to approach Israel’s covenant God.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, The Symbol's Impotence

 

Hebrews 9:9 It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience

 

Pause for a moment to focus on the first three words of verse 9. “It was symbolic.” What was symbolic? The tabernacle, and everything that it represented under the Old Testament Judaic dispensation. While it still stood, the symbol, not the substance, was with Israel.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, Indication

 

Hebrews 9:8 the Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing.

 

Pneumatology is the study of the Holy Spirit in Scripture. Many things have been said about God the Holy Spirit, and many Christian sects and pseudo-Christian cults claim that the Holy Spirit is not a person. He is not part of the Trinity, or Godhead.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, Entering The Holiest Of All

 

Hebrews 9:6 Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services. [7] But into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people’s sins committed in ignorance;

 

The writer is addressing the preparation of the tabernacle during the wilderness wandering, when Israel camped for forty years, and only when the tabernacle was thus prepared would the ministry of the priesthood begin, verse 6.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, The Overshadowing Cherub

 

Hebrews 9:5 and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.

 

If the tabernacle was in fact an earthly shadow of the heavenly things, then this depiction of the cherubim is quite telling. The highest of the angelic orders, the cherubim held a position of great glory amidst the ranks of the host of Heaven. Our Lord informs us that the angels are glorious (filled with glory), Luke 9:26. In Jude we read, “Yet in the same way these men, also be dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties,” Jude 8, NASB. “Angelic majesties” in the Greek is literally translated, “glories.” The HCSB renders the term “glorious ones.”

Hebrews Chapter Nine, The Contents Of The Ark

 

External religious formality reigned in Israel as Jeremiah attempted to reason with a people beyond redemption, Jeremiah 7:16, 11:14, 14:11. Like Pharaoh in Moses’ time, they had hardened their hearts beyond recovery, and now destruction awaited them because of their rebellious choices. Idolatry had warped their perspective and lessened their view of their national God; God in turn was stripping them of every vestige of idolatry, including the permanent removal of the ark.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, The Ark Of The Covenant

 

Hebrews 9:4b and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;

 

The epistle now touches upon an item of some small controversy: the Ark of the Covenant. Brought into popular culture by Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, the symbol of the ark has long been a topic of great interest in certain circles of Christianity.

Gospel ABC's

 

To commemorate March 4^th once again, let us reflect on the fundamentals of the Christian faith, and what we have believed to be given the title of Christian. Before that, however, I wanted to relate a conversation I recently had with another professing believer that attends a church here in Duluth. I won’t mention names, but she and I engaged in a conversation about the Bible, Jesus Christ, and salvation, and I was sorrowful to discover that she did not know what the gospel was. Her impression of salvation, derived it seems from her church, was that good acts outweigh the bad, and by this one is saved. In summary, she believed the gospel of works salvation.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, The Prayers Of The Saints

 

Hebrews 9:3 and behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All, [4a] which had the golden censer

 

The first veil permitted the priesthood entrance into the tabernacle to officiate at God’s altar. The second veil was different, however. That veil remained largely untouched but for once a year, which we will delve into in more detail a little later. The first compartment is the holy place or the sanctuary. The inner part of the tabernacle is the Holiest of All: the inner chamber where the famous Ark of the Covenant resided.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, Shedding Light

 

Hebrews 9:1 Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary. [2] For a tabernacle was prepared: the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary;

 

Right away it may be noted that the first covenant (the Sinaitic Law) was divine; it was a divine service and form of worship of Yahweh, Israel’s covenant God. Secondly, the sanctuary in which these ordinances were performed was an earthly sanctuary. God instructs Moses, “And see to it that you make them according to the pattern shown you on the mountain,” Exodus 25:40, see also Exodus 26:30.

Molehills: LGBTQ & The Church, Part Two

 

So we learn from man’s creation several details regarding man and woman. Woman is man’s equivalent or equal; but equality does not mean identicalness, which is a massive fallacy in our current societal thinking. The erasure of gender in a desperate bid to make men akin to women and visa-versa horridly confuses roles in the relationship.