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A few days ago II got an e-mail from someone that was entitled Jesus vs. Satan. In the message, Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who was better on his computer. They had been going at it for days, and God was tiered of hearing all the bickering. Finally God said, " cool it. I AM going to set up a test that will take two hours and I will judge who does the better job". So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboard and typed away. They moused. They did spreadsheets. They wrote reports. They sent faxes. They sent out E-mail. They sent out E-mail with attachments. They downloaded. They did some genealogy reports. They made cards. They did every known job. But ten minutes before time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, the rain poured and of course the electricity went off. Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld. Jesus just sighed. The electricity finally came back on and each of them restarted their computers. Satan started searching frantically screaming, "it’s gone it’s all gone! I lost everything when the power went out". Meanwhile Jesus started printing out all of His files from the past two hours. Satan observed this and became even more irate. Wait! He cheated! How did He do it?" God shrugged and said, "Jesus Saves".
This writer to the Hebrews declares to us in the text the simplicity of salvation. We know from reading the Bible, that its entire theme is all about Salvation. Each of the books of the Bible contains a lesson or a message for us to learn. But the Bible It’s self is all about Salvation. The message in Hebrews was to those Jews who had turned to Christianity and to Jesus as their Savior. Most of them were being criticized for forsaking the Altars, the High Priest, and the Sacrifice. It had gotten so bad that they were beginning to think they had lost everything by believing in Jesus. They were taught that Jesus did not destroy, but fulfilled the Law.
Have you heard it said that as Christians we don’t live under the Law, but under grace and truth? What disturbs most believers is they are not aware that the Law has two Parts. The first part is the Moral Law. This is the part known as the Ten Commandments which are found in the Book of Exodus, chapter twenty (20).
The second part of the Law is the Ceremonial Law. This is that portion of the Law is found in the book of Leviticus. Here the life of an animal was sacrificed, and it’s blood used as an atonement for sin. Remember now that the Ten Commandments were the focal point of moral conduct and moral character. Biblical History will confirm that moral character and morality were not the main concerns of the Jews.
David was guilty of breaking at least three of the commandments himself. He was guilty of adultery, murder, and covetousness. The Entire Nation of Israel was guilty of breaking the commandments. They worshipped other gods. They made unto themselves graven images and bowed down to them. Matthew Levi and Zacchaeus were guilty of stealing from the people. Even the Pharisees were guilty of bearing false witness? They were the ones whom used trumped-up charges to send Jesus to the cross.
Morality, my brothers and sisters, is what God expects, but does not have to enforce. The reason is, morality is like planting seeds, whatever you sow, that will you also reap. Because of what Jesus did on Calvary, we no longer need a High Priest or a sacrifice. When He died on the cross, the veil in the Temple was rent from top to bottom. The High Priest is no longer necessary, now we can go to God for ourselves. When Jesus died on the cross, He shed his own blood for our sins. His blood is more excellent than the blood of animals. When He rose from the dead, became our High Priest and presented His blood before His Father as the atonement for our sins.
These Hebrew Christians were being criticized and ridiculed for disconnecting themselves from the ceremonial portion of the Law. For so long It was as much a part of their lives as an arm or a leg would be. So to change can sometimes be intimidating as well as a motive for remorse. What we need to do here is to focus closely on the word save. The word save translates salvation and means to deliver from danger or apprehension. Knowing about deliverance means nothing without a deliverer or one who is able to deliver.
A few years ago a school crossing guard was killed by a speeding auto. After noticing two of the children about to be run down by the same auto, the crossing guard grabbed and threw the two children to safety, and paid the ultimate price. These Hebrews knew about deliverance. They knew the three Hebrew boys had been delivered from the fiery furnace. They also knew that Daniel had been delivered from the Lion’s den. What they needed, was to believe that through Jesus, God is still able to deliver. In a word He is able to save to the uttermost. The writers say with conviction that God is able to save them to the uttermost. When it comes to Worship and religious instructions, God writes all of the rules. You can’t worship Him by your rules. God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Anything short of that is Pseudo worship. Pseudo means it’s false or it’s phony. Believe me when I tell you, the world is full of false and phony religions.
The reason is, somebody has been influenced to focus on themselves, rather than focus on God. Now that’s a dangerous posture for anybody to be in. God has never compromised when it comes to obeying Him. He never has, and He never will. Now the writer of the text doesn’t go into detail about why the Hebrew Christians were apprehensive about continuing with their walk with Jesus. But we do know from reading the Bible, that there is an evil spirit that exists. You have heard about Satan, haven’t you? He was the first to focus on himself, and stop focusing on God. He thought that he could do a better job at running things than God could. It didn’t work. He found out that by focusing on himself he had made a bad decisions. Regard it not lightly, Satan does have power, but not all power. He exits for the purpose of influencing whomever he can to make bad decisions.
Bad decisions are never in your favor. Thus it is termed bad which by interpretation means bad for you. He influenced Eve to make a bad decision, and disobey God’s instructions. He got her to focus on Eve, and not what God said. He tried to influence Jesus to make three bad decisions while tempting Him in the wilderness. If Satan had the nerve to challenge Jesus, what about you and me? He doesn’t care who you are. It’s His Job to get you to focus you. You are important aren’t you? Aren’t you a special someone? You don’t need to get up that early on Sunday Morning and go to Church. Don’t you get up early enough every morning to go to work? So why not take some time to relax. After all you don’t want to wear yourself out. Satan exits for no other reason than to get you to focus your attention on you. The more you focus on you, rather than on God, the easier it becomes to make bad decisions.
One bad decision is to go through this life and die without accepting Jesus as your savior. That decision is irreversible. No savior, no salvation, no cross, no crown, no heaven, too late, too late evidence of a bad decision. If you knew the moment that you were going to die, then you could wait until the last minute to call upon the name of Jesus. Since we don’t know this, let me share this with you. Some years ago a woman had gone to choir rehearsal. When the musician had finished and the benediction had been given. This woman was walking towards the rear door of the Church to go home to her family, when a stray bullet came through the window and hit her right between the eyes. She fell and died right there in that Church.
She left home with all intentions of returning to her family. She didn’t know this would be the last day she would spend in this life. The one point to be made out of this tragedy is that she had Jesus before she left home. So here in the text, the writer pleads with the people to stick with Jesus. He reminds them that the Levitical Priesthood after the order of Aaron was built around the Ceremonial Law, which purged their sins with blood. Every year the High Priest had to perform the life for a life and the shedding of blood ceremony. In chapter 9:22 it says "without shedding of blood is no remission". But in verse 19 of the 7th chapter it says that the Law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did.
The better hope was through Jesus who was the Law giver. He was a better Priest the those of the Levitical lineage. The writer cites an example of a better Priesthood who would rise after the order of Melchisedec. Melchisedec the King of Salem priest of the most High God blessed Abraham. Abraham paid tithes to this man who has no record of a father or a mother. There is no record of his birth, nor is there a record of his death. Verse 3 of this 7th chapter Melchisedec is likened to the Son of God in whom abideth a priest continually. Since the Levitical Priesthood was being changed it became necessary to change the Law. In other words through Jesus, there is a better way to deal with the problem of sin.
When you come to God through Jesus He is able to save you to the uttermost. Uttermost means completely. He is able to save you completely. Come to Jesus just as you are, he’s able to straighten out your life. No matter what you may be going through. If you come to Jesus He’ll wipe the old slate clean and make your life a brand new. Somebody knows that Jesus, is able to deliver completely from evil and from the evil one. He can take old sin and give it a new birth. A new birth means a new life.
A new life means a new attitude. A new attitude will make you love folks who don’t love you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for a friend. Somebody wrote, if you’re talking about Jesus, He’s a friend of mine. What a friend we have in Jesus all of our sins and grief’s to bear, What a privilege it is to carry everything to God in prayer.