Speaker 1: 0:06

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Pure Faith Podcast, where we discuss all things Bible. I'm Michelle, my brother Mitchell, and we are happy to have you with us.

Speaker 2: 0:16

If you may have noticed, we haven't been around much. What Okay?

Speaker 1: 0:22

so yeah, I noticed You're a little balder, Whoa.

Speaker 2: 0:27

Whoa, shots fired already. It's not even a minute into it.

Speaker 1: 0:31

Anyhow.

Speaker 2: 0:33

But we're going to discuss that in the future. For this episode we are going to well for the next three episodes. Yeah, there's three sermons that I did over the past year that I haven't released, so we hope you enjoy them.

Speaker 1: 0:51

I mean Mitchell gave a great message and we're happy to bring those to you as well.

Speaker 2: 0:55

She doesn't remember. The first two were like over a year ago you had slides, I remember. That was the last one.

Speaker 1: 1:00

Okay, well, I remember it.

Speaker 2: 1:01

But last one, okay, well, I remember it, but yeah, um, so, yes, this first one you're going to see, which is this video you're watching now. Um, these, these next two sermon series that I did. I kind of used them as a format to kind of wrap up hebrews 11 they're working on for so long. I just kind of used them just to do kind of like a brief overview and just kind of put a nice little bow and the end of everything. So, this first one, we go into how Jesus is our mediator and how he is our high priest and how all that kind of works. And then we kind of went through, or I kind of went through, and kind of highlighted each individual, as I call them characters that is mentioned in Hebrews 11, those that we have gone through in depth on this podcast, yeah, and just for the sermon, I kind of just did a brief overview for those who didn't watch all of our podcasts, which I don't blame if they didn't and so that's what this episode is and that's what you're going to be seeing now. So, without further ado, here it is, here it is. So I have an idea what we're talking about today, but that's about the extent of it. We are going to be talking about Hebrews or you. We're going to be talking about Hebrews. We're eventually going to be talking about Hebrews 11.

Speaker 2: 2:29

But I want to do kind of an overview of Hebrews leading up to Hebrews 11. And if you know anything about Hebrews 11, hebrews 11 is known as the faith chapter. It's known as the Hall of Faith, the Hall of Record, the Heroes of Faith. We've got a lot of distractions up here this morning and that's eventually where we're going to get to. But, like I said first, let's work our way up to that, because there's a lot of good information in Hebrews.

Speaker 2: 3:06

If you have never read Hebrews, if you have never done a deep dive Bible study into Hebrews, I highly suggest that you read Hebrews, the main view, or there's a few main points that the author of Hebrews is trying to get across. And I say author because we don't actually know who wrote Hebrews. Hebrews, technically isn't even a book. It's more like a written out sermon that somebody gave at some point in time, and so we don't know who gave the sermon, who wrote this sermon, but that's basically what it is, and in this sermon known as the book of Hebrews, what it is, and in this sermon, known as the book of Hebrews, there are a few main points that the author is trying to get across.

Speaker 2: 3:51

The first and foremost, the biggest one, is that Jesus is our high priest. And that may sound kind of weird for us today, because we don't use the term high priest. We don't look at anybody as a high priest. Yes, we have a pastor here, pastor Kelly, but we don't use the term high priest. We don't look at anybody as a high priest. Yes, we have a pastor here, pastor Kelly, but we don't look at Pastor Kelly as a high priest. He's just our pastor and that's the way it is for most of us.

Speaker 2: 4:14

But if you look at it from a bigger point of view, as in yes, be here today, we are a church family. We come to the same church building, we worship together, we know each other's lives, we share our prayer, requests, prayer concerns or praise. We do this as a family, as a family unit. That's the way we function. But there are a lot of church buildings all over this country and all over the world. Well, they all have their own church families, but if you take us all collectively as one big unit, as a group, anybody who accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, they are a Christian, they are the bridegroom of Christ. So if you love us all together and we are all Christians, then we have one high priest. But again, we don't use that term high priest in today's society and the way we look at things today, we look at it more as a mediator. But you have to remember, whenever you're studying scripture, when you're reading the Bible, you have to view it from the point of view of the original audience the book was written for. In this case this is Hebrew, so this was written to the Hebrew nation, so Israelites. So viewing it from that point of view, you have to kind of put yourself back in that time, that period. You have to look at everything as far as what was going on around them, to kind of put yourself in that right mindset.

Speaker 2: 5:53

Well for them, when they would hear the word high priest, that was very familiar to them because they had a high priest, because they just came from a covenant Prior to Jesus. They were in the covenant of the law and the law, the Levites. One of the Levites was always a high priest. I mean we can even look at the fact that when Jesus was crucified. He went before before he went to punch his pilot. He went before the Sanhedrin and his name slipped my mouth off my head. Anybody, the name of the high priest at that point. I'm forgetting, as you notice, I'm not one with them so Obviously. But whoever that high priest was, he went before Caiaphas. Caiaphas, yeah, so he went before Caiaphas and that was the high priest at that point in time. He was the leader of the Sanhedrin. So that was familiar to them and all throughout history they had a high priest. So whenever the Hebrew author talks about a high priest, again that was very familiar to them, author talks about a high priest, again that was very familiar to them.

Speaker 2: 7:08

But that term has kind of lost its meaning for us, and so we go with more of the word mediator. But you're like well, what does that mean Mediator? Well, jesus stands between us and God. We don't have, we're not, we have too much sin, we are impure, we have a lot of shortcomings that don't allow us to go to God directly. We need to have our sins forgiven. Well, jesus, is that mediator. Through Jesus, our sins have been washed away. Is that mediator? Through Jesus, our sins have been washed away and so therefore, through Jesus, we have direct access to God.

Speaker 2: 7:54

The best way that I like to explain this is if you look at the death of Jesus on the cross. Upon the actual death of Jesus, remember that the earth shook and the veil between the holy place and the most holy place was torn in two. So what was this veil? This veil, back in those days, was literally like a giant curtain, like a screen that blocked your view. It was like a fabric wall between the holy place and the most holy place.

Speaker 2: 8:24

Well, what was the holy place and the most holy place? Well, what was the holy place and the most holy place? The holy place would be like the inner part of a sanctuary, like where we're at right now, like this room that we're in to talk about Jesus. This would be like the holy place. The most holy place would be like the back office, but nobody was allowed to go there. It was blocked off and only one person could go into that room once a year.

Speaker 2: 8:55

But the weird thing is, whenever that one Levite high priest went back there once a year, they tied a rope around him and sent him in. Why? Because, let's say, he did something wrong and he struck down dead. They don't want to go in after him. So they have the rope tied to him so they can pull his body back out, so they don't have to go in there to get him. Because they viewed this room as that holy of a place that nobody was allowed in there. So with that in mind, jesus dies.

Speaker 2: 9:34

The curtain, the veil that is protecting those in this room from seeing what's back there, is just torn in two and falls away. So now all of us have direct access. We can view what is behind that veil. We might not be able to go into it, but we can see it. Well, when that veil was torn, jesus stepped in and stood in between us and what we can now see. But we still can't just walk in there. It is through Jesus that we have access to it.

Speaker 2: 10:13

So we take our prayers. That's like when we pray we say we pray through the name of Jesus or in the name of Jesus. When we pray, it's because we can't pray directly to God. We pray through Jesus to God. That is why we can't pray directly to God. We pray through Jesus to God. That is why we say that, and that is what this Hebrew's author is like. That's one of his main points that he's trying to get across, and he says it in a lot of ways, in a lot of different ways, but that is the main topic. But the other thing that he highlights is not only is Jesus our mediator, not only is he standing between us and God, but he came in the order of Melchizedek. And again, melchizedek is a person a lot of people don't really know much about. He's not really written, there's not a whole lot written about him in the Bible, but he's actually a fascinating character, somebody that I really like to study, but without getting into that rabbit hole, the big thing that the Hebrews author is trying to say whenever he's talking about Jesus coming in the order of Melchizedek.

Speaker 2: 11:29

Melchizedek, well, he lived in the time when we actually have recording of him. He lived at the time of Abraham and he was a priestly king. So he was a priest and a king. Well, whenever the Israelite nation was formed, that became an impossibility, because only Levites could become priests, but Levites could not be king. And if you were any nation besides Levites, you could not be a priest but you could be a king. So they had this separation of church and state. You had Levites priestly, everybody else kingly no intermingling here but Jesus. Jesus didn't come from the Levites, so he technically couldn't be a priest, but he is our high priest. That was one of the big things that we kind of just talked about in an overview was that Jesus is our high priest, our mediator, but he can't be a priest because he's not a Levite. So that's why he is from the order of melchizedek, because he's a king, our great king, the king of kings, and he is our high priest. So he is a priestly king.

Speaker 2: 12:52

That's by law, by the old testament. Law is an impossibility. That's who he is, and so the third thing that the Hebrew author was trying to highlight and trying to instill into his readers is about the law itself, and he says it multiple times that the law was imperfect, that the law was not. You could not be saved through the law, even if you kept every single law to the T. It was pretty much another impossibility. Jesus came and Jesus did it, but Jesus wasn't. I mean, he was man, but he was also God. We as humans, as humankind, we cannot fulfill the law. It's impossible. It was never meant to be fulfilled by us. It was meant to highlight our shortcomings. You know where we need to help to grow, where we fail. It's supposed to help to guide us to become better people, but through the law, it's always going to lead to failure, and that's what it did, and that's why Jesus had to come In order to free us from the law and take us out of the covenant of law into the covenant of grace, and that was the other thing that the Hebrew writer was trying to highlight. And those were the three main things that the Hebrew writer leading up to Hebrews 11, what that Hebrew author was trying to highlight. My app is updating, so, so, anyways. So now we are half is updating, so, so, anyways. So now we are leading into Hebrews 11.

Speaker 2: 14:49

And Hebrews 11 is like I was talking about at the very beginning the faith chapter. Well, you know, he starts out kind of a brief explanation of what faith is, and I want to just kind of keep this short. But what he is doing is he is taking the characters and I say characters loosely, because these characters were actual, real people. They were people who lived in the past and the lives recorded. These were actual people, but I call them characters just because it's easier, so work with me there from the Old Testament and he is explaining what they did as people that their faith showed through. He's explaining how they were examples of how we should live our lives with faith and what faith is and how faith can show itself through our lives. So let's go through and just kind of highlight some of these things. And there's a lot of names, um, my app's done so there's probably like 20 names and we're just going to kind of blow through them.

Speaker 2: 16:18

If you want more in-depth detail as far as where these characters are located in the old testament and stuff like that, we did do a big long series on this on our podcast. You can go there. If you need a link or something, just talk to me and michelle after church we can get that to you. But we didn't. I don't know. 18, 20 episodes Probably a year, pretty close when we just did a deep dive into all these different characters.

Speaker 2: 16:49

But now we're just going to do a quick overview. So I have 12 main ones Main excuse me, main characters listed, and then there's some honorable mentions. So first is Abel. Abel was pointed out as his faith because Abel's offering was more acceptable to God than Cain's, which ultimately led to Abel being killed by Cain. Next was Enoch. Well, enoch was somebody who walked with God. There's not a whole lot written about Enoch, but we know that he walked with God and that he was taken up by God. He did not suffer death. He was one of a few in the Bible who didn't actually die. They were just taken up to heaven, noah. Noah built an ark out in the middle of nowhere, in a land where they didn't know what rain was, and God told him to build an ark, and Noah's, like I don't even know what that is.

Speaker 2: 17:56

But okay, I'll do it. And so he built an ark big enough to hold animals two by two. So that took a lot of faith, abraham. There's so much that we can say about Abraham when it comes to faith, but the biggest one I want to highlight is when God told Abraham to take his son Isaac, take him up to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him. That would take a lot of faith, because Abraham knew that his promise, abraham, was promised to have nations. You know Nation, he said. It's more numerable than the stars and more innumerable than the sands of grain on the seashore. And they were all going to come through Isaac. But now God is telling him to go sacrifice Isaac and Abraham's just like. I trust you, god. If this is what you want, it's what I'll do. It's either you're going to bring him back or you're going to do something, but I trust you, so I'm going to do what you tell me to do. That was extreme faith.

Speaker 2: 19:07

We all know the story, how that story is, so I don't think I need to share that story. But then we also have Sarah, abraham's wife. Sarah was past the age of having children, but God promised that you're going to have a son, which is Isaac. And at first she laughed she's like there's no way. But after thinking about it, she's like God can do whatever he wants. But after thinking about it, she's like God can do whatever he wants. So if God wants me to have a kid, even though I'm physically unable, I'm going to have a kid. And she did. And that was Isaac.

Speaker 2: 19:56

And through Isaac they had all these innumerable descendants Isaac, jacob and Joseph. All three of these are mentioned in Quick Recession and they are all mentioned in regards to future blessings. The one I'll highlight is Joseph, because when Joseph died and this is the Joseph of the Technicolor Dreamcoat who went to Egypt and became second highest only to Pharaoh Well, when he died, he put a blessing out, or he made a statement to the Israelite nation that hey, when you guys go back to Egypt, take my bones with you and bury me with our ancestors, which you're like. Okay, no big deal. The thing is he made that request 400 years before they actually went back to the promised land. So that's the thing that they're talking about. Like Joseph's, like, I know you're going back Because God said you're going back to the promised land. I don't know when, but I know you're going. So when you go, take my bones with you. That's faith.

Speaker 2: 21:17

After that, we have Moses' parents, and if you read Hebrews 11, you can kind of look over this. But the parents of Moses are actually mentioned, and they are mentioned in regards to the fact that the king had an edict out which we all know this the king had an edict that any child, any male child, israelite child, born in Egypt, had to be thrown in the Nile River and killed. Well, whenever Moses' parents had Moses, they were like no, we're not doing that. So they hid him for three months. They were like no, we're not doing that. So they hid him for three months, then eventually put him in a basket and sent him down the Nile, where the daughter of Pharaoh found him and adopted him. So if Moses' parents would have followed the edict that the king set out, there would have been no Moses. But they bucked the system. They're like, no, we're not doing that. We are going to have faith in God, that God is going to take care of whatever he needs to take care of, and we got Moses out.

Speaker 2: 22:36

So now let's talk about Moses, because Moses is mentioned next. What did Moses do? Again, mosesoses. So many things we could talk about, um, but let's just go to the beginning. He, he was called by god to lead the israelite people out of egypt. He didn't want to do it. He was bucking the system. He's like no, I can't talk. Well, me no, talk good.

Speaker 1: 23:05

I don't want to do it. Is that Mexican.

Speaker 2: 23:13

And so that's when his brother got pulled into a big story. But he did it, moses still did it. And Moses ended up again doing all these great things. And even after the Israelite people came out of Egypt after the 10 plagues and Pharaoh was like OK, go leave, get out of here. And Moses led them out, they went and they cornered themselves between mountains and the Red Sea. And the Egyptians see this and they're like, oh wait, they're cornered, we made a mistake, let's go get them back, let's chase them down, let's capture them, bring them back, put them back in slavery. And God tells Moses park the red seat. And so Moses does. Well, then we get into the Israelite people, their fate, because, let's be honest, here You're standing on the edge of a sea and you see a path with a wall of water on the side, Wall of water on that side.

Speaker 2: 24:23

You're being told walk through. That's going to take some faith, Right, yeah, it's going to take some faith. But they do it as the Israelite nation. They walk through. What do the Egyptians do? They try to follow. They did not fare so well, Like at all. They did not do so good. But that's not the only thing the Israelite nation did to show their faith. There's again. If you look at the entire Israelite nation, there's a lot. But the other thing that the Hebrews writer points out is Jericho.

Speaker 2: 25:07

And if you remember the story of Jericho Sorry, I got distracted so if you remember the story of Jericho, God told them and at this point Moses is gone, Joseph took over, or Joshua, sorry. And they're like okay, city of Jericho, walled city. This is what we want you to do. We want you to go to Jericho, Don't make a sound. Walk around it once a day for seven days and then, on the seventh day, walk around it I forget how many times make noise and the walls want to fall down. That's exactly what happened. They conquered the city Jericho without even really doing anything. They followed the command of God. They had faith that, okay, you say just walk around this place once, Just walk around and go home, Do that for seven days, Like okay, well, that's weird, but okay, we'll do that. And on the seventh day we're supposed to make noise. Okay, I guess, just tell us when to yell and then the walls just fall down around the city, you walk in and you conquer it. Like that's if one person would have done something wrong, it probably would have ruined the whole planet. But they were all faithful as a nation. Now, if you skip forward generations, they were not faithful as a nation, but at this point in time they were.

Speaker 2: 26:48

So after that they talk about Rahab. Rahab was a prostitute who lived within the city of Jericho, within the walls of Jericho, but even though she was a part of that community, a part of that society, she chose to turn her back on her people and follow God. So when the spies came to Jericho to spy it out, they went to her and she protected them and she lied for that to her own people to protect them. And because of that, whenever Israel went in to actually conquer Jericho, she was protected. Her and her family, anybody who was within the walls of her house, were protected because of the faith that she showed in God, even though she was not Israelite.

Speaker 2: 27:51

So after that, then we get into the honorable mentions, and the honorable mentions are seen in Hebrews 11, 11.32. And I call these honorable mentions just because they don't give any explanation of them. They just, I mean, he literally says, and basically I don't have time to tell you about these people and these people are Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets. So he spends remember, this is a sermon, so I can relate. He's talking about all these people and explaining, like, oh, what they did and how their faith was so strong. But he's like I'm out of time. So, yeah, let's just talk about these. You know, there's also Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets. They all did great things too, but I just don't have time to tell you about it. And guess what? I don't have time to tell you about it either. So, but there it is, and I think I'm getting close on time.

Speaker 2: 29:01

So this will be a good place to stop, because whenever we come back, because I'm going to be up here again next week, so next week we are going to continue this thought process, continue this on and we are going to take a look at this more in depth and kind of try to take this whole idea of faith and relate it back to our own lives.

Speaker 2: 29:37

Because you know, like I said when we read the about these people of faith, well, the way they lived and the way we live today are not the same. So it's easy for us today to say like yeah, those stories, they were stories of great faith. There's no way I could possibly have faith like that and there's no way I could possibly be in something like the Heroes of Faith chapter or in the Hall of Faith or the Faith Hall of Fame, whatever you want to call it. But the thing is you can, Because next week we're going to look at these characters and realize that they weren't as great as the authors of Hebrews Kind of points them out to be. They were flawed, they were sinful, they were imperfect, just like we are, but even through those imperfections they were great people of faith. So that's what we'll look at next week. I don't think I have anything else for this week.

Speaker 1: 30:46

We hope you enjoyed that episode. It's part one of Mitchell's sermon series, so again, we appreciate you joining us. Go ahead and like and subscribe and we will see you again next time. Have a good day, everybody.