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hello good morning this is taiva times.com and today's labor day i'm hoping that you're gonna have a
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wonderful day and uh this morning i just want to welcome you back to our study of the
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book of uh hebrews and today we're gonna turn our attention to chapter 5 and we're going to look at
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verses 1 and then verses 4 through 6. and those verses uh they teach us how
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jesus ordination is superior to that of aaron and we're going to find the reasons why this is so
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as we dive into the passage but i'm just gonna focus on those verses today because as i looked at chapter five i
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was really struggling to try and figure out how to subdivide it and thank god for a resource that i found it gave me a
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better plan to do it so i'm going to be using that but before we start i kind of wanted to
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give you a synopsis of what we've looked at so far and especially what we've looked at last week
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and last week we looked at chapter 4 and chapter 4 dealt mostly with the rest of
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god and the meaning of the rest of god and we talked about how resting in god
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is basically receiving humbly his offer of salvation which he was
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which was symbolized by the sabbath rest and then once we receive the salvation we continue to surrender our will to god
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and we talked about how the rested person and is a person that has ceased to do
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his own thing or her own thing if you're a woman okay and that person fully relies on god's daily bread for
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sustenance and when i say daily bread i'm not talking about just food i'm talking about
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um this scripture says uh about jesus that he said about his father my food is
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to do the will of him who sent me and the scripture also says that man does not leave by bread alone but by every
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word that proceeds from the mouth of god so the daily surrender and and the
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resting in god is basically saying i'm no longer doing my own thing i'm no longer doing what i want to do but
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everything that i do is a result of the word of god is a result is a result of
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what god is telling me to do it's an active surrender of our plans and our entire lives to god he's basically
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saying i no longer live but the life that i live now i live by faith in the
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son of god who died for me and now is no longer christ it's no longer me who
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lives but it is christ who lives his life through me so basically you die to
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yourself and then the life that you have now is a life that is completely set apart for the plans of god that is
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the daily surrender that is the rested person it is basically saying it is jesus living through me and everything
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that i do it is it's a result of the word of god this is what it means to rest in god
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so and after mentioning the rest of god as we saw the writer goes back to his
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original point that he started in chapter three when he said consider jesus the author and
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of our faith and and and our confession and of the faith that we profess he talks about
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he goes back to that point because in the beginning of chapter 3 he said we should consider jesus carefully because
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of because jesus is greater than moses and we talked about we talked about it and then that's when
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he went into the talking about the children of israel and how they disobeyed
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god in the wilderness and then they they missed the rest of god so his original point was
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calling his audience to fix their eyes and fix everything on jesus so at the
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end of chapter four he goes back to that point and he says to them listen we have a great high priest in jesus and jesus
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is not just another high priest he has passed through the heavens he went
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he filled the entire universe he is not just ministering in an earthly tabernacle
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that's not what he did or a temple on earth but he has passed through the heaven because he's sitting at the right
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hand of god and because of that he he also not only that but he also
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understands the human experience because he took upon himself a human nature and
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as a result he can sympathize with our weaknesses and the writer is telling his readers and us ultimately
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to come to the throne of grace with confidence to receive mercy and grace to
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help in time of need now this is good news because see we as people we don't understand what that
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meant for jewish believers because a lot of their religious practices when they
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wanted to go to the temple they relied on the high priest because the high priest is basically a connection between
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god and man and i kind of wanted to give you a quick um let's see if i can do that
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here now suppose this is the temple right this is the this is the temple
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the moses tabernacle i just want to show you moses and what it looked like so we have the holy of holies
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the holy of holies and then we have the holy place
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and then this is the outer court and you have the altar of offering and
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then the same here where the priest will wash his hand and everything and this is where
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the people enter so the the the high priest ministered
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here he when people brought in their sacrifices they were sacrifices here and
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then the priest went regularly into the to the holy place the high priest but he went into
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the holy of holies only once a year and people regular people like you and i if you were jewish we were not allowed here
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at all we were not allowed here so again this is this is not like i'm not trying
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to go into details about what i want to show you what jesus has done the scripture says that jesus has passed
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through the heavens jesus is not ministering in the earthly tabernacle that's not what he's doing jesus has
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passed through the heavens he is right there at the right hand of the father
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and as a result of that as a result of that we have access to the throne of grace people didn't have
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access to this place they didn't have access in the earthly tabernacle but jesus has given us access into the holy
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of holies into into he's seated at the right hand of god and when we pray
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our prayers are directly going there basically we have a high priest who has
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passed through the heavens he is right there and we are called to
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come to the throne of grace to receive grace and mercy to help in time of need
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and the happiness that we have understands the human experience he understands our weaknesses so we are
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called to lay our burdens upon him because he understands this is what the writer was saying and now in chapter
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five he's going to start and he's going to talk about um the function of a high priest but today we
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are only going to focus on verse 1 and verse 46 we're going to talk about how jesus ordination
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far exceeds that of aaron and that's what i wanted to focus on today so i'm gonna first read uh the entire chapter actually i'm
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gonna read on the entire i'm gonna read from verse one uh through nine but we only gonna focus on verse one 4-6
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but let's read for every high priest chosen from among men
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is appointed to act on behalf of man in relation to god to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins
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he can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward since he himself is beset with
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weakness because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins
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just as he does for those of the people and no one takes this honor for himself
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but only when called by god just as aaron was so also christ did not exalt
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himself to be made a high priest but was appointed by him who said to him
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you are my son today i have begotten you as he says also in another place you are
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a priest forever after the order of melchizedek in the days of his flesh
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jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from
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death and he was heard because of his reverence although he was a son he
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learned obedience through what he suffered and being made perfect he became the
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source of eternal salvation to all who obey him being designated by god a high priest
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after the order of melchizedek and i'm going to stop here and now we're going to focus on
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verse 1 4 and 6. so in verse 1 we read the following for
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every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in
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relation to god to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins so basically this is the function of a
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high priest okay number one uh we need to understand like for believers today for you and i it's easy
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for us to dismiss like the function of a high priest because we don't truly understand what that meant for jewish
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believers like for them that was huge because the high priest was their connection between
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them and god he served as a bridge so for us when we listen to these verses
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they don't really create a sense of wow because we don't understand what it
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means i don't i've never seen a high priest i don't know what his function was like so when i read it i tried to
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put myself in that position to try to see how i would feel when i listened to those words so it's not easy for us to
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do that and so like i said the high priest served as a connection between the people and god
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so jesus isn't just a high priest but the scripture calls him a great high
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priest and we saw why because he passed through the heavens and we we established it in in chapter four when
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we looked at verses 4 verses 14 to 16. now first the high priest was taken from
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among men okay he was taken from among mankind and there's a reason for it for it
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and the reason why is because he could relate to them okay he could identify with their weaknesses you can't just
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take anybody you can't just take uh a dog can become a high priest an angel
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cannot become a high priest we talked about that because angels are spirit and they don't understand the human
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experience so the high priest had to be taken from among man that's because he
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could relate to them he could understand the human experience and this is why
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jesus himself took upon a human nature so that he could be a merciful
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high priest in the service of god we saw that in the in the earlier chapters okay
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so the high priest function is to represent mankind before god and enter seeds for
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mankind before god so he is established mainly to offer
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gifts and sacrifices for the sins of the people okay and and to look at one of the main
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function of the high priest that highlights his main role i want to go to leviticus 16 we're gonna look at what
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happened on uh i don't want to say the wrong word or yon kapoor right is the day of atonement so i just wanted to
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focus on that to see exactly what the high priest would do on that day
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so the day of atonement i don't know if i want to read the entire chapter i guess i shouldn't
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the scripture says the lord spoke to moses after the death of these two sons of aaron when they drew near before the
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lord and died and the lord said to moses tell aaron your brother your brother not
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to come at any time into the holy place inside the veil before the mercy seat that's on the ark
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so that he may not die basically moses has been told by god tell aaron don't
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just come into the holy of holies which i showed you earlier here i showed you the holy of holies on the board let me go back to
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that the holy of holies the priest couldn't just enter this place at any given time it wasn't it's
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only once a year and that's on the day of atonement so the priest was allowed to enter into the holy of holies
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once a year and that's for the day of atonement where he went in
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there and atoned for his own sins and the sins of the entire congregation so he went in there and then there were
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two goats that were involved in the process one for the sin offering and the other one for i guess the sins were
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transferred onto the one of the good ones for azazel or azazel i'm not saying it right so
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basically one was for to satisfy the wrath of god and then the other one was
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uh on which you pressed your hand on the goat and you basically transferred the sins on
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the good so basically that was saying that that was the expiation there was a propitiation and there was the expiation
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the propitiation basically is to satisfy the wrath of god because god is offended and then
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and the next one is god removes the sin from the people and he takes us as far as the east is from the west so we take
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that and you you pressed your hand upon the the whatever animal you brought and and
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i guess it was a sheep or a goat or whatever was brought in the place and then you pressed your hand on it and
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that was taken outside the camp and was sent into perdition basically god was
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removing the sins from the people and he was symbolic and he was pressed upon the animal and the animal was sent away so
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two things had to happen first the wrath of god had to be satisfied and second your sins because
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even though the wrath of god is satisfied there is still guilt okay so you have to be cleansed of your sins
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these things have to be taken away and the day of atonement was for that and people afflicted themselves they came in
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there and they mourned for their sins because they knew that it was many so that's what happened on the day of
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atonement basically i get i just gave you a quick summary of that and the high priest
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was the main player and the key player on that day because he had to go before
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the holy place and there was a whole process involved if you want to read about it go to leviticus 16 which i started to read and
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you can read the entire process it's a long thing and i wanted to read it at first but i think it's better for me to
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just give you a quick summary of what it was and then you guys can go back and just read it all right
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and then the next thing so that's what happened on the day of atonement that was one of the functions of the high priest now the second thing that we also
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need to understand is that high priests were called and appointed by god himself
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no one could assume the role of a high priest on their own and you can't just get up and say well i
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want to be a high priest you can't do that you have to be called by god just
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like being a pastor or being a minister or whatever in an elder i just are
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appointed by i guess the the board of i'm not sure how much churches function
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but we are focused here on the the high priest the high priest was appointed by god and aaron was appointed
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by god he wasn't just saying hey i want to be a high priest that wasn't how he worked and uh
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people that tried to assume the function of a priest were severely chastised and
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sometimes executed by god we see this the the case of saul in first on samuel
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13 when he wanted to uh you offered um he made an unlawful sacrifice which i
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want to read i want to read that to you let's look if you go to first samuel 13 verse 8 to
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15. so samuel the prophet uh told saul to wait
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for him before he offers the sacrifice but listen to what saul did saul waited seven days the time
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appointed by samuel but samuel did not come to gilgal and the people were scattering from him so saul said bring
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the burn offering here to me and the peace offerings and he offered the burned offering as soon as he had
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finished offering the burned offering behold samuel came and saul went out to
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meet him and greet him samuel said what have you done and saul said when i saw that the people
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were scattering from me and that she did not come within the days appointed and that the philistines had mustered at
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mishmash i said now the philistines will come down against me at gilgal and i have not
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sought the favor of the lord so i forced myself and offered the burned offering
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and samuel said to saul you have done foolishly you have not kept the command of the
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lord your god with which he commanded you for then the lord would have established your kingdom for
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over israel forever but now your kingdom shall not continue the lord has sought a man after his own heart and the lord has
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commanded him to be praised over his people because you have not kept what the lord commanded you
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so you see saul tried to be a priest and he was deposed
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from being king by god god removed him because of that and then we read in
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number 16 when korra led a rebellion he wanted to re he
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wanted to challenge moses and as a result uh he and the people that he chose were swallowed up by the earth god
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killed them because they wanted to become high priest and they were not called they hadn't been called by god so
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they challenged moses and aaron and they got killed as a result and then in second chronicles 26 verse 16 to 25 21
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oziah forced himself into the temple to burn incense and was struck with leprosy by
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god you can read about it if you go to second chronicles 26 verse 16 to 21 i'm not going to read it but those are the
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instances in which people trying to assume the role of a priest or a high priest and they were
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chastised by god and others were killed in the process so it was a sacred
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function and priest as we said earlier were only appointed by god and their main role again was to intercede for the
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people in their relation to god offering gifts and sacrifices for sins
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as we saw in leviticus 16 on the day of atonement so god basically created the
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office of the priest to show his grace to the people he made provisions for
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their sins and so they could have an ongoing relationship with him so even in the old testament the grace of god was
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still there so the office of of a priest and a high priest even though it was basically like
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terrifying because i'm sure the priest was terrified every time he entered the temple or the tabernacle he was probably
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like oh man am i gonna survive this but god was establishing that to show his
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grace to say hey i've made provisions for you this is how you come and your sins are covered for
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okay we're going to talk more about the the whole sacrificial system as we go into chapter six and seven and all
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that but right now i'm just giving you a quick uh superficial and quick understanding of what it was
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now in verse 4 uh five to six we read on the following
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again christ himself christ did not exalt himself as the scripture says so also christ
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did not exalt himself to be made a high priest but was appointed by him who said to him you are my son today i have
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begotten you as he says also in another place you are a priest forever
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after the order of melchizedek now so in verse 5 the writer again is quoting psalm 2 7
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which did earlier in in the first on two three chapters okay and uh psalm 2 7 coincide with the
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glory jesus received in his humanity after his resurrection the begetting coincide with the
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resurrection and he proved that jesus is indeed the son of god of the same essence as god and we talked about that
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if you've been following this uh this uh study so and this is one one of the criteria that
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qualifies him as a great high priest god has given jesus the title lord he has so
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he is co-equal with the father now but there's a reason why the writer brings uh this into the argument okay we need
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to find out why it shows that after the resurrection jesus has passed through the heavens as
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we saw in the previous chapter in order to now make intercessions before god on behalf of men because he
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has been glorified in his humanity and as a result he now sits at the right hand of the father to make intercessions
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for those he calls brothers and sisters so you see when the writers quote psalm
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27 when he says that you are my son today i have begotten you that shows that
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jesus christ in his resurrection in his glorified body now he has passed through
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the heavens now he's seated there and now he is in the throne of christ which we saw in verse 14 through 16 in chapter
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four he is seated there and he's there to enter seed for those god has called
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out of this world so basically he has been glorified in his humanity and as a result he sits at the
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right hand of the father to make intercessions for us brothers and sisters in christ this is
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good news okay now when aaron was ordained he offered sacrifices of animals
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but for jesus to become a high priest he offered the sacrifice of himself see
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um aaron had to offer since uh sacrifices for his own sins jesus didn't have to do
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that because he is sinless so jesus died for us and his sacrifice was pleasing to god
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because god was pleased with the sacrifice this is why he was raised back to to life
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because god was pleased with it because the resurrection proved that god was pleased
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so jesus is now seated at the right hand of the father okay and consequently god
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is so pleased that god raised him from the dead when he died when he died when
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he made atonement for our sins he pleased the father this is why the resurrection is such a great uh um proof
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of of the fact that jesus is indeed a great high priest and now he's gonna he's gonna talk about
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mercy and at this one uh here i don't want to go into too many details because later chapters talk
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about it but i want us to go to first let's go to psalm 110 okay so
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jesus before we go there jesus receives from god the father another title and he has been declared a
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high priest in the order of melchizedek so we're gonna find out about melchizedek but before we do that let's
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go to uh psalm 110 like i said let's read this scripture says the lord says to my lord
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sit at my right hand until i make your enemies your footstool the lord sends forth from zion your
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mighty scepter rule in the midst of your enemies your people will offer themselves freely on
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the day of your power in holy garment from the womb of the morning the dew of
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your youth will be yours the lord has sworn and will not change his mind you are a
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priest forever after the order of melchizedek now you see jesus quoted psalm 27 to his
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adversaries the sadducees i think they first wanted to question him about on the resurrection and then he answered
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that question satisfaction um he gave him an answer and then he challenged them he said to them now since you guys
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say that jesus the messiah is the son of david how come david says of the messiah the lord says
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to my lord sit at my right hand until i make your enemies your footstool and they can answer him
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so when the writer quotes uh verse on psalm 110 verse 4 he's applying again that verse to jesus
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basically jesus has been made a high priest after the order of melchizedek
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and we're gonna know we're gonna find out why this is so important okay now melchizedek is mentioned uh the first
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time in genesis 14 verse 17 to 24 and we have to go there and read about mecca
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this is important so this uh merchandise appears when abraham goes
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and and defeats uh chadolimer and the kings were with him so on his way back
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he's met by this this uh mysterious individual mechizedek and we're going to read verse
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17 to 21 scripture says after his return from the defeat of
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jedomer and the kings who were with him the king of sodom went out to meet him
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at the valley of chavez that is the king's valley and melchizedek king of
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salem brought out bread and wine he was priest of god most high
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and he blessed him and said blessed be abraham by what god most high
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possessor of heaven and earth and blessed be god most high who has delivered your enemies into your hand
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and abraham gave him a tenth of everything now i want you to pay attention in verse 18 the scripture says
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that and melchizedek was king of salem now means peace and and the scripture also says that he
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was also priest of god the most high that's important because melchizedek okay
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uh was not only a king but he was also a high priest and we saw earlier that kings are trying to
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assume that the role of a high priest was severely punished and chastised by god but mechizelek he is both king of
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peace and he's also king of righteousness that's why his name means now the old testament priest couldn't
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minister forever because their ministry was cut short by death right but jesus also could have
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never been a high priest on earth because he was not of the tribe of levi he was of the tribe
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of judah so he was of the seed of david which he is from judah
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melchizedek pictures jesus as a heavenly priest whose ministry was endless for his life
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couldn't get interrupted by death so he ministers forever in the heavenly places so jesus has been named after the order
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of melchizedek because if jesus was on earth when he was on earth he couldn't be a high priest because he had to be
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from the tribe of levi but he wasn't so therefore jesus ministry comes from
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the order of melchizedek who is both king of peace and is also king of
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righteousness so jesus ministers in the heavenly because his ministry is forever
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he is now passed through the heavens he rose to die no more so his ordination is an
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ordination that's forever he's not going to die because he's not going to be captured by death he only died once and
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when he rose from the dead he now became the high priest a great high priest after the order of melchizedek so now
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he's seated in the heavens he has passed through the heavens and he ministers there forever so the salvation he offers
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is forever and the help he offers is forever he's always there he intercedes constantly
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for us in the heavenly realms so his ordination far exceeds that of aaron
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aaron was cut short by death and then he has his successor and they also had to die and they also had
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to offer um sacrifices for their own sins jesus didn't have to do that he offered himself for us once and because
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god was pleased he passed through the heavens the king of glory he went in there and now god has glorified him and
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he's now a great high priest after the order of melchizedek he's both king
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because god is going to put everything under his feet and he's also a high priest so he has that to function there
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and he's he is range and he his ordination like i said far exceeds that
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of aaron so this is what we have in jesus so
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like it's it's like i can talk about it but i don't just want to talk about these things i want these to become part of me
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i want these to become something that i actually believe not only head knowledge but it
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transforms me and that's what i'm hoping that it does for you so because jesus not only
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understand the human experience but he has also passed through the heavens and he invites us to come to the throne of
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grace so when the jewish believers were hearing that i think they were struggling they were they were going through trials and in
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that moment the the see the temple at the time was a place where they could see physically
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so whenever they needed help they could go to the temple and go to the pie cruise and the high priest was supposed to be
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they want to to to be merciful to the people and all that so when they were being
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persecuted i don't know if they were persecuted because they became christians so i don't know because i don't have the full background but the
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tendency was a lot of people wanted to go back to the jewish traditions they are early
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going back to the priest and all that kind of stuff so the writer is telling them no no no no let's hold fast our
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confession because the high priest that we have is actually passed through the heavens
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this is you have access into the throne of grace so whatever you're going through he not only understands it but
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he is willing to help you because he was without sin see jesus that actually i was thinking
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about this the other day see i'm i'm a sinner that has been saved by chris so
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when somebody else is sinning like i may be affected by it but because i'm also a sinner like the response
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against that is like my response against is not as deep as he would be if i was a sinless
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creature you see jesus was sinless so he was more affected by sins anymore he was more
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affected by things that he saw so he had true compassion see when i hear about somebody that died
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somewhere about about something that i don't truly know and maybe oh that's sad
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and all that but then do i really have compassion
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you see jesus had true compassion because he was a sinless uh human in his human nature he was
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sinless so he did not know how to sin so he was truly affected so he has true
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compassion because he understand for a sinless uh person to to to to come to have
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compassion is like if alex say that of sinful people like us because we don't have compassion like he did so he
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understand what i'm saying to the lord what i'm struggling with something he understands it and he knows how to help
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he can help we're going to see that in in next week when we talk about how jesus is able to sympathize with our
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weaknesses we're going to talk about that in in depth but right now i just want you to focus on the fact that the happiness that we have in jesus
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has far exceeded uh the levitical priesthood because he's seated in the heavenly realms he has
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passed through the heavens and he's seen there and god was pleased with him and god is still pleased with
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him and he ministers forever so the help that he provides is forever it's not just today and then he dies and
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then somebody else has to come in the place no he is raised to die no more he has been glorified in his humanity and he's
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seated in the heavenly realms at the right hand of the father so that's the hype which we have so let's
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come to the throne of grace with confidence confidence doesn't mean irreverence
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because we're gonna see irreverence won't get you anywhere you're being irreverent you're not gonna get anywhere you might be chastised and maybe
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executed because god does not play we saw that we saw that in chapter three we started in chapter four
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when the people disobeyed god they were chastised so we have to pray do not harden your heart if you hear his voice
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today do not harden your hearts this is the the thing but come to god with
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everything that you have come to him because he's able to sympathize with our weaknesses so i'll leave you with those
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words and i hope that you have a wonderful day today and i'll see you next time