Amen. Thank you, Brother Charlie. We'll be starting the book of Hebrews tonight. Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 12, actually we'll start out, this is kind of our key verse, Hebrews chapter 12. Now my mic's on. Thank you. Hebrews chapter 12. And verses 1 and 2 are some familiar verses. Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. Wherefore, seeing we are encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight of the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank You for Your Word tonight. And Father, I do thank You that You lead us. Father, You take us by the hand. You look to us and guide us as we look to You. as we look to your blessed son. And God, I pray for the filling of your spirit tonight to help me ministering the word to your church. Pray for my dear wife and the deaf ladies tonight, but live with your spirit, teaching them those lessons there. And Father, be with those here tonight, those with us online. And God, our eyes are on you to, once again, by your spirit, by your word, For the glory of your Son, Father, speak to our hearts and draw us closer to you. Lord, may we love You more. May we be more faithful to You. Father, may we just grow in the grace and knowledge, dear God, of Your blessed Son. And I thank You for each one here. I thank You for the privilege that we have to be laborers together with God, according to as Paul wrote in Corinthians. Father, help us to realize the blessing that we have in that. Father, we pray for those that can't be here tonight. Be with them each one, those who may be on the way. Father, watch over them, keep them. And Father, we pray and ask these things in Jesus' name for His glory. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Well, we didn't do that, did we? Don't need it. All right. Continuing with Christ. Hebrews. And it's obvious that it was Hebrews as written to a group of Jewish Christians, and that, of course, they were facing great persecutions and pressures in their spiritual lives. And so the writer is challenged then to recognize Christ as the climax of God's program. of salvation and to live with that truth clearly in view. This would give them hope and strength to stand as Christians. Hebrews is all about the better covenant. Everything is better, the promises, the mediator, all that God has done for us in this new covenant. is certainly better than the old covenant. And it is, too, the topic of Lesson 1 will be that we focus on Christ. He wants them to focus on Him. Obviously, there's a lot of voices trying to call them back to Judaism, trying them to add to grace. And so, the writer of Hebrews warns about all that. And we want to make progress as we learn these lessons on focusing on Christ in specific areas in our life perhaps where needed, and maybe some areas where we need to focus on Him more that we might do that, and just getting focused on those things. My wife likes, she has the rice cakes kind of things that she eats. She likes those. They're very low calorie. And often people that are on diets and such, they carry those around. So they'll have those in case they get tempted with something, you know, that they don't really want to eat. Well, then they'll have those rice cakes handy there and helps them not get off the path, not get strayed. from, you know, from the diet. And we think about that. And with that in mind, we might think about what would Christians who need to keep focused on Christ in this very distracting world learn from this practice. Anybody? You might not have a rice cake in your... Yeah, Sister Joanie? There we go. Memorize the scripture. You're going to have a scripture in your pocket. Amen? And hopefully in a pocket up here. And amen. And when those temptations come and, you know, we remember those, you know, and the Spirit will help us with those, especially that we need personally in our lives. struggle with different things, perhaps. And the devil's not omniscient like our Father is, but he does learn by our actions and by our words, I think. He has demons everywhere. So he, in a sense, learns us. He learns our weaknesses in that way. But we can count on God because he's no match for God. Amen? And we keep our eyes on God, you know, we don't have to worry about all else. He's our keeper and defender, and He will help us through whatever comes our way, whatever the devil might throw at us. Nothing comes in the life of a Christian, but it comes by the desk of our Savior, amen? And has to have His approval, that is, that He can use it for His glory. And so he guards over all those things. So we need to be learning. And, you know, David wrote, or rather, Psalm 119, Thy word have I hidden in mine heart, what? That I might not sin against thee. So we need to be hiding that word in our hearts. So we need to focus on Christ. Question 1 in your book asks, what does it mean to focus on Christ? Anybody? Obviously, we can't see Him. So what does it mean to focus on Christ? Sister Lynn? To make Him the center of our attention. Ah, that's good, make Him the center of our attention. Yes, Sister Michelle? Not looking at other things. Not looking at other things, yeah. That's a good point, yeah, Brother Dan. Yeah. Amen. We're learning all about Him. This Word reveals Him. And the Spirit... Christ revealed to us the Father, and the Spirit through the Word reveals to us Christ. Amen? And through knowing Christ, we know the Father. Amen? And so, yes, focusing on Christ, to follow His commands. to grow in his likeness, to learn and focus on what he's called us to do, and to be like him. as we follow Him, to rely on the resources and strength that He will give us," what? By His Spirit and by the Word of God. He's given us all that we need. We've been learning that oftentimes, and we have all that we need in this Word. And we have that. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God as possible for doctrine and proof. And for correction, for instruction, righteousness what? That the man of God may be perfect, mature, frually furnished unto all good works. Completely furnished, hiding those things in our hearts. We can get strayed by so many things. And we have to be focused on the Lord. There's some things that we can cause us to pray. Matthew 6, verse 33, "...seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you." What? what we'll eat, what we'll drink, we could say where we live and what will our needs be met, you know, that we can focus on Christ and on serving Him and He will provide those things. And He calls us, He gives us, you know, He directs us. Matthew 10, 25, it is enough for the disciple that what? He be as his master. and the servant as his lord. If they had called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more should they call them of his household? So what should I be striving for in each one of us? To be like him. It's enough if a servant be like him. That seems a little louder. I don't know. Does that seem loud to you, anybody? Okay. All right. Maybe turn us down a little bit. Thank you, Brother Evan. John 14, 21, He that hath my commands and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me, and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him. John 14.21, 2 Peter 3.18, "...but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory, both now and forever. Amen." 1 Corinthians 11.1, "...be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ," Paul writes. Boy, oh, that we ought to strive to want to be able to write that. We ought to, you know, want to have others to be able to follow us as we follow Christ. Amen. And by the way, there are people following us. And that's why it's important to follow Christ, because there are people following us, whether we're following him or not. Amen. And if we're not walking a good path, then, of course, that does not become a good thing. Question two asks, what kinds of distractions or obstacles do we encounter in our spiritual lives that urge us to take our focus off of Christ? Anybody? Sister Lynn said a lot. How about Charlie? Yeah, health issues, financial issues, work, family, relationships, just the daily grind of life. Of course, the temptations of the flesh and the love of the world, you know, oh, just, you know, eat, drink, and be merry, you know, and all those temptations. And I put a note, and I put persecutions, I put in parentheses, we have very little of that here. But persecution certainly would tempt some to not maybe walk with the Lord as we should. We're having more temptations here now to speak out the truth. You know, they have this thing where people get to pick their own pronouns now. And so, you know, so we have the choice whether we want to lie about whether someone's a man or a woman. And we are to bear witness, what, to the truth. Jesus put us here to bear witness to the truth. So we don't need to be playing that game. Amen. We're not doing anybody any favors by helping them believe a lie. And so it is getting harder here with what's going on in our country right now. But Jesus encouraged us, therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, and that thought is anxious care is what that's talking about, not talking about don't plan and don't prepare. No, we're commanded to do those things. Take no thought for your life, what you eat shall eat, what you shall drink, nor yet for your body what you shall put on. It's not the life more than me and the body than Raymond, and he continues in Matthew 6.31. Therefore, take no thought." Again, so multiple times, he says, take no thought. Don't take anxious care for those things. We plan for them, and we leave it to God. Amen? The farmer who doesn't go out and sow is not going to have a crop, okay? But he can't be worrying about what all the weather is going to do. He can't control the weather, right? And so we do what we can, and we leave the rest to God. Amen? And that's our agreement. You know, we do what we can do, God, and we need to look to you to do what, you know, those things, obviously, that we cannot do. The whole book of Hebrews is an exhortation written to these Jewish Christians, encouraging them to keep strong in their commitment to Christ, Because He is superior to all else, especially religious constructs, including Judaism. Hebrews 13.22, I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation. That whole thing is a preaching to those early Christian Jews. I have written a letter unto you in few words. So these Jews could be discouraged. The discouragement that they were feeling threatened to detour them in their spiritual lives. And so the writing of Hebrews is challenging them to be focused on the superiority of Christ above all else, including Judaism. And he uses the example we know in Hebrews chapter 11, the hall of faith of multiple ones who served our God by faith. By the way, even before the law of Moses and all those things, even before there was a temple, there were those that were serving by faith. And by the way, that's what we're called to do is serve by grace through faith. And just like we got saved and we continue in that. So we talk about the author of Hebrews. Of course, unlike many other letters of the Bible, the writer of Hebrews does not reveal himself in the letter, thus leaving the writer anonymous. There have been multiple suggestions from the earliest years as to who has penned this letter. Some say Paul, because of certain reasons, and we might trace some of those. They would cite 2 Peter 3. and verse 15. So to show that perhaps Paul has written this, we'll look at this and trace this down and see where they get that. 2 Peter 3, verse 14. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, He just talked about the end of the world coming and everything melting down and the day of God and all that. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation. Why hasn't the Lord returned yet? Well, because he wants some more to be saved. 2 Peter 3.15 continuing, "...even as our beloved brother Paul, also according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you." So apparently Paul has written unto these whom Peter is writing to. He also continues in verse 16, As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned at unstable rest, or twist, as they do also the other scriptures, So Peter here has put Paul's writings on par with the other scriptures. I heard a Bible teacher say on the radio the other day that there is no inference in the New Testament that the New Testament scriptures were inspired 2 Timothy 3.16 is obviously talking about the Old Testament scriptures as well as 1 Peter. They are referring to the Old Testament scriptures. But here is one where Peter is putting the writings of Paul on power. He says, In all his epistles, verse 6, that's Paul's epistles. Speaking of them, of these things, in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned rest, they're twisting Paul's epistles, as they do also the other scriptures. You see that? So they're put on line with the scriptures. That Bible teacher, I believe, is an error. Unto their own, they twist them unto their own destruction. So, Paul says, even as, verse 15, also according to the wisdom given unto him which hath written unto you, our beloved brother Paul. So the question is, who is Paul writing to in this second epistle since he says that Paul also wrote to them? Well, he is writing to the same people he wrote his first epistle to. That's as far as we would be able to trace it in 2 Peter. If you look at 2 Peter 3.1, this second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you. So he's writing the second one the same as he wrote the first one, okay? In both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. So, who would he have written that first epistle to? Well, let's consider, first of all, in Galatians 2, verses 7 and 8, we find Peter to be set apart as the apostle to the circumcision, or to the Jews. Galatians 2, 7 and 8, Paul was talking about when he visited Jerusalem and he says, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, that's Paul to the Gentiles, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter." That's Peter taking the gospel to the Gentiles. He says, Peter taking the apostle rather to the Jews, 2nd Galatians 2.8, "...for he that wrought affectionately in Peter to the apostle of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles." That's Paul writing there obviously, getting my murds all wixed up here. So Paul is writing, he's to the apostle to the Gentiles, Peter the apostle to the Jews. And so we're finding out who Peter wrote to in his first epistle. Look at 1 Peter 1.1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. To the strangers scattered, when I was a young Christian, I remember for a while I thought that that was referring to Gentiles because Peter's a Jew and he says, to the strangers scattered. But we started the Bible and the context is we look at that word strangers there in 1 Peter 1. And it's peripademos, if I'm pronouncing that right, and it means a pilgrim or a soldier in a strange place. So what has happened here, Peter, who are these strangers that Peter is writing to in 1st Peter? Well, look on down in 1st Peter 1 and 2, they are elect according to the foreknowledge of God. What's that mean? They're saved. And so, through the sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood, and he talks about Jesus Christ. He continues in verse 8, talking about these people that he's writing to, whom having not seen, ye love. in whom though now you see him not, yet believing you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. So these are sojourners, they are pilgrims that are saved. How have they become pilgrims wandering through strange lands? They have been scattered from Jerusalem by the persecution. So that's who Peter is writing to. The Jews, the early church was what? The church in Jerusalem was mostly made up of Jews, Hebrews. And so Peter is writing to them. Read about that scattering, Acts chapter 7 verse 1. Paul hadn't been saved yet and Saul was consenting unto his death, that would be Stephen, they just stoned him. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea, Samaria, except the apostles. And verse 4 of Acts 7, Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. So these Jews that saved you have been scattered now have become pilgrims or sojourners in the land where they've been scattered to. That's who Peter is writing to when he writes 1st Peter. And in 2nd Peter, he says that Paul wrote to them also. So that could be an indication where people are saying, see, so Paul wrote to the Jews. And they indicate that would be referring perhaps to this book of Hebrews. And Paul says that they twist the scriptures even as they do all his epistles, talking about Paul. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that all of Paul's epistles are written. That may just refer to all of Paul's epistles written at that time. And so we see that. So some look at that as reasons why Paul would be considered. Another reason is that Timothy is mentioned in Hebrews 13.23, "...know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty, with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you." So Timothy was imprisoned at some time for something. We don't know exactly when that was. It probably would have had to been probably in the interval when Paul was in between his imprisonments. And we don't know any more details about that. So those are some reasons why people think that Paul may have written it. And we're going to end there. And we'll pick it up there, look at some other possibilities that people think may have written it. Either way, regardless, we know it's inspired, amen? So we may not know whose fingers held the pen, but we know whose spirit was moving the hearts, amen? It was inspired by the Holy Spirit as we are learning. It is the perfect and inspired Word of God for us. Heavenly Father, I thank You for Your blessings on us. I thank You that we have so much, dear God. This translation is actually better than the originals, Father, because we have 66 letters all in one book. Dear God, and what a blessing it is to have this, Father, and this Word preserved for us. And so, Father, we thank You and praise You for that. But You've also said, to whom much is given, much is required. Dear God, we have Your Spirit indwelling our hearts for all eternity, the very author and teacher of this Word. We have Your blessed Son as our advocate at Your right hand, and we have this inspired living Word. to know and to apply to our hearts and lives. And so we are, in a sense, more accountable than so many before us. Help us to be faithful in applying and using all you've given us, dear God, for your honor and glory. And help us to be careful to thank you and praise you.