INTRODUCTION:

1. We left off last week at verse 8 -- "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever."
2. AB Simpson wrote a great Gospel song based on that verse:

             "Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus is the same.
             All may change, but Jesus never! Glory to His Name!"

3. "All may change, but Jesus never!"  Men are always changing.  Men who used to believe the Bible and obey the Bible now questioning the Bible and disobeying the Bible.
4. There is a contrast here between Hebrews 13:8 and 9.  Man is always changing but the Lord Jesus Christ is immutable.
5. There is a warning about getting "carried about with divers and strange doctrines" (13:9).  A few recent examples:

• Peter Ruckman says the KJV is "advanced revelation." He says, “The A.V. 1611 reading, here, is superior to any Greek text” (The Christian’s Handbook of Manuscript Evidence, Pensacola Bible Press, 1970, p. 118). And, “Mistakes in the A.V. 1611 are advanced revelation!” (Manuscript Evidence, p. 126).
• In 1990, a preacher named Marvin Rosenthal came out with a new variation of the mid-trib rapture, which he entitled the "Pre-Wrath Rapture theory" (The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church, Marvin Rosenthal, Thomas Nelson Publisher, 1990).
• Harold Camping has been teaching strange doctrines for many years. His latest is his claim that the church age is over, and that the Lord is coming back on May 21, 2011 at 6 PM.
• A strange doctrine called "preterism" is gaining popularity here in the USA, and in other countries as well. Preterists teach that the second coming of Christ book place in AD 70!
• Benny Hinn is a false teacher with a big following. Hinn blows on people and they fall backwards. He claims that he and Jesus talk all the time. He said that in one particular conversation he asked Jesus, "Lord, how long will I live?" He claims Jesus answered and said, "Sixty-nine. If you take care of yourself, seventy-three." Hinn says that revelation from the Lord prompted him to want to go out and buy a treadmill.
• If people really believe this conversation actually took place, they must be either very gullible or crazy.
• John Hagee is the pastor of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. Like Hinn, and many other false teachers, he is an adulterer too. He is seen and heard on more than 160 television stations and 50 radio stations across America. He is the author of at least 10 books. He teaches that Jews can go to heaven without believing in Jesus. In his latest book, In Defense of Israel, Hagee says that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah.
• The past couple of months, a pastor named Rob Bell has gotten a lot of attention over his "strange doctrines," particularly his promotion of "Universalism." His new book, Love Wins, denies the existence of hell.

6. These are just a few of the many "divers and strange doctrines" being taught today.  To these we could add the many errors of Romanism, Seventh-Day Adventism, Mormonism, and the Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.
7. We need to be very careful in avoiding false doctrine and false teachers, and we should be warning others about them.

 

I. LET OUR HEARTS BE ESTABLISHED (13:9)

1. Hebrews 13:9 says, "For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats..."
2. This epistle was written to Hebrew Christians. "Meats" refers to the ritualism of the Jewish ceremonial law.
3. There is a tendency in the human heart towards ritualism and formalism (RCC and much of Protestantism).  F.B. Meyer said, "In many cases these things are revivals of ancient Babylonish customs, passed into the professing Church in the worst and darkest days of its history... But 'meats' can never establish the inner life. The most ardent ritualist must confess to the sense of inward dissatisfaction and unrest" (The Way into the Holiest).
4. This is why Hebrews 13:9 says "meats" have not profited them that have been occupied therein.

 

II. LET US BEAR HIS REPROACH (13:13).

1. The Hebrew Christians were being pressured to return to Judaism.  There are several warnings in this epistle about the danger of going back into Judaism (cf. 3:12; 6:4-6; 10:29; 12:25).
2. The unsaved Jews opposed Christianity, and said that Christians had no temple, no sacrifice, no priesthood, and no altar.  So Hebrews 13:10 says, "We have an altar..."
3. In contrast with the altar in the temple in Jerusalem, which would be destroyed a few years after this epistle was written, our altar is up yonder in heaven (cf. Rev. 6:9; 8:3, 5; 9:13; 14:18; 16:7).
4. This is another comparison between what Israel had under the old covenant in contrast to the better things of the new.
5. HA Ironside said, "We have an altar, he tells us, of which they who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat; that is, our altar and our service are all of a heavenly character.  Since Christ has died there is no altar on earth; but in Heaven, that of which the golden altar was a type, abides, where Christ makes intercession for us.  To talk of any other altar, as is done in Romanism for instance, and some sects of Protestantism, is to deny the truth of the finished work of Christ" (Hebrews).
6. Hebrews 13:11 refers to the Old Testament priests who were instructed to eat the meat offering (cf. Lev. 6:16, 26). But on the Day of Atonement the bodies of animals, offered by the high priest for a sin offering, were not to be eaten (Lev. 6:30).
7. These bodies were to be taken outside the camp of Israel (cf. Lev. 4:12, 21).
8. The Scofield Study Bible says, "The 'camp' was Judaism-- a religion of forms and ceremonies. 'Jesus, also, that He might sanctify (separate, or set apart for God) the people with or 'through' His own blood, suffered without the gate' (temple gate, city gate, i.e. Judaism civil and religious); Hebrews 13:12. But how does this sanctify, or set apart, a people?  'Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp (Judaism then, Judaized Christianity now -- anything religious which denies Him as our sin-offering) bearing His reproach" (Hebrews 13:13). The sin- offering, 'burned without the camp,' typifies this aspect of the death of Christ. The cross becomes a new altar, in a new place, where, without the smallest merit in themselves, the redeemed gather to offer, as believer-priests, spiritual sacrifices (Hebrews 13:15; I Peter 2:5). The bodies of the sin-offering beasts were not burned without the camp, as some have fancied, because 'saturated with sin,' and unfit for a holy camp. Rather, an unholy camp was an unfit place for a holy sin-offering. The dead body of our Lord was not 'saturated with sin,' though in it our sins had been borne (I Peter 2:24)."
9. Only the blood was taken into the sanctuary and sprinkled on the mercy seat by the high priest (Heb. 13:11).
10. The key phrase here is "without the camp" (13:11, 13).  What the camp was to the Israelites in the wilderness, Jerusalem was to the Jews at the time this epistle was written.
11. In fulfillment of Old Testament types, our Lord was slain outside the city gate (13:12).  "Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach" (13:13).
12. The application: the Hebrew Christians are exhorted to leave the empty rituals and unscriptural traditions of Judaism and go "outside the camp" to Christ -- "bearing His reproach" (13:13).
13. This can also apply to believers who are in unscriptural churches.  They need to take their stand and leave.
14. In an epistle full of contrasts, here is another: the earthly city of Jerusalem and the heavenly new Jerusalem (13:14; cf. 12:22; 11:10, 16).
15. Revelation 21:2 says, "And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."
16. In Daniel 9:26, Daniel predicted that Jerusalem would be destroyed.   Our Lord said the same thing in Matthew 22:7; 24:1, 2; and Luke 21:24.  These prophecies were fulfilled in AD 70, a few years after this epistle was written.
17. In contrast, the new Jerusalem will never be invaded or destroyed.

 

III. LET US SERVE GOD CONTINUALLY (13:15-17).

1. According to I Peter 2:5 and 9, New Testament believers are priests.  Our sacrifices are "the sacrifice of praise to God," which we are to offer "continually" (13:15).
2. "Communicate" means to share, to give generously (13:16).   "God is well pleased" with sacrificial giving (13:16).
3. Galatians 6:6 says, "Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things."
4. Hebrews 13:17 deals with obedience to pastors (cf. 13:7, 24).

 

CONCLUSION:

The concluding remarks sound Pauline, including a request for prayer (13:18), a reference to Timothy (13:23), and an "apostolic benediction" (13:25).

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