NXR Podcast - THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - How God Destroyed Judaism In AD 70
Aired: 2025-03-08
Duration: 40:08


=== Why the Old Covenant Is Obsolete (14:33) ===

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[00:00:27]  The entire context of the book of Hebrews is that the Old Covenant is about to come to its final cataclysmic end.
[00:00:33]  End.
[00:00:34]  Now, for us today, this has massive implications.
[00:00:38]  There is no old covenant remaining.
[00:00:40]  There is no priesthood for the old covenant people.
[00:00:44]  There is no temple for them to draw near to.
[00:00:47]  There is no sacrifice for them to perform.
[00:00:50]  That covenant has come to an end, and the only way to have access to the promises that God made is by joining the true Israel, Jesus Christ.
[00:01:02]  Because Christ lives and reigns forever.
[00:01:05]  As king and high priest, because he is high priest of the heavenly temple that can never be destroyed, the old covenant is never coming back.
[00:01:16]  There is now only the new covenant and the new creation.
[00:01:43]  All right, so I'm excited.
[00:01:46]  Welcome back to another episode.
[00:01:47]  I'm excited about this because, um, has you ever watched the Kenan and Kel Goodburger where he's like reading, uh, Kel is reading like, uh, he's like, I know some of these words.
[00:01:59]  Yeah.
[00:02:00]  So here's the beauty of Hebrews.
[00:02:02]  Um, I've, you know, full disclosure, I've read the whole Bible multiple times, but Hebrews, I've preached through.
[00:02:08]  It's one of the books that, you know, I spent, you know, about, uh, just about a year going through Hebrews, and it was recent too.
[00:02:15]  Okay.
[00:02:15]  So it's read here.
[00:02:16]  Yeah.
[00:02:17]  And so it was just, Everything you know in this cold open that we just read, a portion of your book that you're publishing.
[00:02:23]  Um, it's cool because it's just like, man, that was it wasn't just one sermon, no, it was like every text almost every text of Hebrews was a lot of it was the superiority of Christ to the angels, superiority of Christ to Moses, superiority of Christ to the temple, all these.
[00:02:41]  But then there was also this constant sense of uh finality and um, this impending.
[00:02:49]  Doom and all that remains is fire.
[00:02:52]  And it's not just speaking to the fires of hell.
[00:02:54]  It's not just if you go back to Judaism and to the temple sacrifices, the animal priestly sacrificial system, then you're rejecting Christ and not having faith in Him.
[00:03:03]  And therefore, you won't be regenerate and you won't be saved.
[00:03:05]  And nothing awaits you except for the fire of hell.
[00:03:08]  No, it's if you go back to Judaism, that means geographically, you're going back to Jerusalem.
[00:03:13]  And guess what?
[00:03:13]  Not just in the eternal sense are you in danger of hell's fire, but in the temporal sense, the whole city is literally about to be on fire.
[00:03:22]  Yeah.
[00:03:22]  And so the theme of Hebrews is this constant, not just the superiority of Christ, it's like this two pronged argument.
[00:03:31]  Pick Christ, choose Christ, because one, he's better, he's superior.
[00:03:36]  Also, this other option is about to disappear.
[00:03:39]  And not just disappear, it's about to go up in flames.
[00:03:42]  Yeah, and you're going to go with it.
[00:03:43]  And you're going to go with it.
[00:03:44]  Yeah, I think it's helpful to, right, as you approach the book of Hebrews, right, if you out there watching this and listening to this are thinking, maybe I'll read this book of the Bible.
[00:03:57]  The very first thing you should have in the back of your head is that the author of the book, I think it was Paul.
[00:04:02]  I think so too.
[00:04:02]  But the author of Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews, he is writing to a people that are very tempted to return to this place.
[00:04:12]  And there is a big difference.
[00:04:13]  But these are Christians.
[00:04:13]  Yeah, these are Christians.
[00:04:14]  He's writing to Hebraic Christians, Jews who are Christians who have converted, but they're tempted to head to their place.
[00:04:20]  They're facing this pressure.
[00:04:21]  Right.
[00:04:21]  And because you can imagine, I mean, that is now.
[00:04:23]  Why can't we have Christ plus a little bit of love?
[00:04:26]  I mean, even today, we've talked about this in other episodes, but.
[00:04:31]  Like Jewish people that come to Christ, right?
[00:04:33]  They face enormous social pressure from their families and from their friends and from everyone that they've known in their life to reject that.
[00:04:41]  And that's part of the reason I'd like to pick your brain on this.
[00:04:44]  And I know that you're not, you know, an expert and, you know, completely well versed on the topic, but it's never sat well with me the category, the label of Messianic Jew.
[00:04:55]  Yeah.
[00:04:56]  The label that I prefer, and I'd like to hear your thought, is for a Jew who converts to Christianity and puts faith in Jesus.
[00:05:02]  Christian is a really good term.
[00:05:05]  Yeah, I just, no, no, no, I'm not a messianic Jew.
[00:05:08]  Because it implies, you know, what we talked about in the Ephesians episode.
[00:05:10]  It implies that I'm hedging my bets.
[00:05:12]  Yeah.
[00:05:12]  There's still a little bit of, no, no, no, I'm just a Christian.
[00:05:15]  Yeah, that terminology, I think, is a species of the Galatians heresy.
[00:05:19]  I think it is.
[00:05:20]  Yeah.
[00:05:20]  And I think it's actually.
[00:05:22]  You're saying I'm a Christian that's nearer to Jesus than the Gentiles.
[00:05:25]  Right, exactly.
[00:05:26]  I'm a super Christian.
[00:05:27]  I've got the best of both worlds.
[00:05:29]  No, no, there is no best of both worlds because the first world.
[00:05:33]  Has gone away.
[00:05:34]  It's not here anymore.
[00:05:36]  God destroyed it.
[00:05:38]  He destroyed that world.
[00:05:38]  So there is no best, but there's only the best of the Christian world, of Christ, the best of Christ.
[00:05:44]  And so I feel like Messianic Jew, and I'm not saying everybody means this intentionally.
[00:05:48]  No, I don't think so.
[00:05:48]  In a nefarious, sinister way.
[00:05:50]  But I would, in the same way, I'd like to see the oxymoron of Judeo Christianity.
[00:05:56]  I'd like to see that term disappear, right?
[00:06:00]  It's not a good term.
[00:06:01]  I'd like to see that disappear.
[00:06:02]  I'd also like to see Messianic Jew disappear because I think that it may not be by design.
[00:06:09]  It probably is by design.
[00:06:10]  Maybe, maybe not.
[00:06:11]  But it may not be intentional by those who are, you know, every individual who applies it.
[00:06:16]  But an individual messianic Jew may not mean it, what I'm about to say, by holding to that label.
[00:06:22]  But I think that in some capacity, whether intentional or not, it does convey the very thing that Paul, and I believe it was Paul who wrote Hebrews, is warning against to the Hebrews.
[00:06:34]  He's saying, no, no, no, don't go back.
[00:06:36]  No, don't go back.
[00:06:38]  And if you want Christ, here's the condition.
[00:06:42]  He's free and without price, right?
[00:06:46]  But the cost of, one of my friends actually said this great friend, been friends for almost 20 years.
[00:06:55]  I remember one time he said, You know, the cost of going north is that you don't get to go south.
[00:06:59]  Yeah.
[00:07:00]  Simple as that.
[00:07:00]  Yeah.
[00:07:01]  Well, Jesus is free, right?
[00:07:03]  It's by free grace through faith in Christ alone.
[00:07:06]  The gospel is free.
[00:07:07]  You can have Christ for free without price.
[00:07:09]  All who want the living water come to me and drink, you know, milk without price, water without price.
[00:07:15]  But the cost, there is a cost to discipleship.
[00:07:18]  The cost of Jesus is everything else.
[00:07:24]  If you want Christ, that's fine, but you don't get to hedge your bets.
[00:07:28]  You have to bet the house, the whole farm on Christ.
[00:07:33]  And yet, I think that these Hebraic Christians were hedging their bets.
[00:07:38]  So they were denying, not that Christ was even God, but the sufficiency of Christ.
[00:07:43]  And I think the Messianic Jew, at some level, Whether consciously or subconsciously, it's hedging bets.
[00:07:48]  And I think that even within evangelicals, this still carving out some kind of space for a special category for Israel, Zionism, is hedging bets.
[00:08:02]  It keeps the bet hedging on.
[00:08:03]  It keeps the bet hedging on.
[00:08:04]  It keeps the dive by doing that.
[00:08:06]  Right.
[00:08:07]  And yeah, I think when we approach this book, you need to think of it as Paul or whomever wrote Hebrews. Is writing to these Christians who are tempted to return to the Old Covenant, right?
[00:08:22]  He's writing to a people that are going to go back to the city, Jerusalem.
[00:08:25]  There's this big giant nuclear bomb, right, with a clock that's ticking.
[00:08:28]  And he's like, don't go back there.
[00:08:31]  Don't go back to that.
[00:08:32]  You're going to be destroyed with them.
[00:08:34]  Don't do that.
[00:08:35]  That's nuts.
[00:08:35]  That's insane.
[00:08:36]  Why would you want to do that?
[00:08:37]  And yeah, it's a twofold argument.
[00:08:39]  It's that's going away, and this is superior anyway.
[00:08:43]  Right.
[00:08:44]  And so, right, I mean, the verse that seals the deal, right, it's just one verse, right, is Hebrews 8 13.
[00:08:51]  Right, where he says, in speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete.
[00:08:58]  But still, not completely obsolete, right?
[00:09:00]  There's still some hangover.
[00:09:02]  And what is becoming obsolete is growing old, and growing old is ready to vanish away entirely.
[00:09:11]  And here's the beauty of it so, this is an apostolic epistle written to Christians, but in this case, Hebrew Christians who had an immense amount of pressure to.
[00:09:23]  Hedge their bets and come back, and okay, fine, you believe Jesus is the Messiah, but you still need to be in the synagogue.
[00:09:32]  You still need to go to the temple.
[00:09:33]  You go to the temple.
[00:09:34]  Hand washings and sacrifices and rituals and all these kinds of things.
[00:09:38]  And so, Hebraic Christians who have an immense pressure that's on them.
[00:09:45]  But one of the things that you have to keep in mind that helps so much, if you want to interpret the Bible faithfully, this was one little thing that just a little phrase that's been so helpful for me all these years is all scripture is for us, but not all scripture is to us.
[00:10:00]  To us, yeah.
[00:10:01]  Meaning that every single biblical text has an immediate Context.
[00:10:08]  An immediate audience.
[00:10:10]  Right?
[00:10:11]  And so now all scriptures God breathed and useful for all time, all peoples in all times.
[00:10:17]  So all scriptures for us, of course, but it's not all directly in the immediate sense to us.
[00:10:23]  And to know how it's for us, you have to know who it's to and for what purpose.
[00:10:28]  Right.
[00:10:28]  So what was the context to the immediate audience that would have been reading this letter?
[00:10:35]  Well, part of what you need to understand is who's the audience?
[00:10:38]  Yeah.
[00:10:38]  Right?
[00:10:39]  It's Christians, but Hebraic Christians, Hebrews.
[00:10:43]  But then, second, in Jerusalem, right?
[00:10:45]  So, who are they?
[00:10:46]  Where are they in Jerusalem or nearby or tempted to go back to Jerusalem?
[00:10:50]  And then, lastly, who?
[00:10:54]  Who is it?
[00:10:56]  And where are they?
[00:10:58]  But then, another one would be who, where, and when?
[00:11:02]  And that's why I think that the dating of the writing of the book of Hebrews, really all New Testament books of the Bible, but especially the book of Hebrews, Is so vitally important because what he says, what the apostle says under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, this is God's word, what he says is that this old covenant is already obsolete.
[00:11:22]  So it's already done.
[00:11:24]  But then it almost sounds contradictory because it's like it's obsolete.
[00:11:28]  And what is obsolete is about to vanish away.
[00:11:32]  It hasn't yet.
[00:11:33]  So essentially, and so what does that mean?
[00:11:36]  It means that this was written at some point.
[00:11:38]  Now, I think probably really close to 8070, I think like 8065 or something like that, you know.
[00:11:44]  In the 60s at some point.
[00:11:46]  64, maybe.
[00:11:46]  Yeah, something like that.
[00:11:48]  But the big picture is it was written, what we should know is it was written after the life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Christ and Pentecost, outpouring the Spirit.
[00:12:00]  So definitely after that, and definitely before AD 70.
[00:12:04]  Because the vanishing, and this is key in the exegesis, it's already, he's saying the Old Covenant is already obsolete, meaning what?
[00:12:12]  Christ's earthly ministry is already finished.
[00:12:15]  So, it's after Christ's earthly ministry is finished.
[00:12:18]  That's why the Old Covenant is obsolete.
[00:12:20]  But there's also this sense of, but there's still a little bit of hangover.
[00:12:24]  It's obsolete, but there's still a little bit of residue.
[00:12:26]  It's still kind of there.
[00:12:27]  It's about to completely vanish away, which means what?
[00:12:33]  There's still something that's about to happen, the complete vanishing.
[00:12:36]  That means it's pre 8070.
[00:12:38]  The destruction of the temple, the destruction of Jerusalem.
[00:12:41]  Absolutely.
[00:12:41]  And so that is key.
[00:12:45]  And the reason why it's key is for us, again, remembering all scriptures for us.
[00:12:49]  But not all directly in the immediate sense to us.
[00:12:53]  Why does that matter?
[00:12:54]  Well, because the vanishing away being future tense, this hasn't happened yet, but it's going to, the complete vanishing, it means that it was future for the immediate audience.
[00:13:05]  It is no longer future 2,000 years later for us.
[00:13:10]  Not only is the old covenant obsolete because Christ's earthly ministry is finished, but also the old covenant, any of its hangover residue, has also completely vanished away because it's.
[00:13:22]  2024.
[00:13:23]  Yeah.
[00:13:23]  Spoiler.
[00:13:24]  That it's done.
[00:13:25]  Thousands of years passed.
[00:13:27]  Yeah.
[00:13:27]  There's nothing left.
[00:13:28]  Yeah.
[00:13:29]  And within the same vein of the question of for us, right?
[00:13:33]  It's written for us, but who is it to?
[00:13:35]  What is the immediate context?
[00:13:37]  Right?
[00:13:37]  At the beginning of Hebrews, I remember reading this and studying it when I was like 20, 21 years old, you know, a long time ago, and reading the first two chapters and being kind of confused by it, right?
[00:13:52]  Because the first two chapters of Hebrews is all about how Christ is superior to the angels.
[00:13:57]  And I remember thinking that, like, Why is this even the Bible?
[00:13:59]  Of course, it's superior to the angels.
[00:14:01]  He's God.
[00:14:02]  Why does it matter?
[00:14:03]  Yeah.
[00:14:03]  Why?
[00:14:04]  There's only so much Bible here, and you're spending two chapters of the Bible explaining how Jesus is superior to the angels.
[00:14:11]  Why does that argument even need to be made?
[00:14:13]  Right.
[00:14:13]  But if you understand, right, who is it to and why, right, it's to these people that are there.
[00:14:20]  Like you have the old covenant, it's still standing, and the new covenant has come.
[00:14:23]  There's this little bit of overlap, and the new testament is written in that little bit of overlap.
[00:14:28]  Well, during that brief interim period.
[00:14:30]  Of the Old Covenant, and we've talked about this in other episodes.

=== The God Man Governs Finality (05:58) ===

[00:14:33]  The feature of the old Covenant is mediated by, by angels angels and, and the old Covenant world is dominated by the heavenly host right, by the, by the prince of the power of the air, and all by fallen angels.
[00:14:46]  Yeah, the original creation.
[00:14:48]  Right has Adam holding that office.
[00:14:52]  Right, Adam is the sub-regent under God.
[00:14:54]  He's the one that is given reign and dominion over the entire earth.
[00:14:59]  But he loses it.
[00:15:00]  Yeah, he loses it.
[00:15:01]  And who's it picked up by?
[00:15:02]  On the eighth day?
[00:15:03]  Yeah, it didn't last very long.
[00:15:04]  I think so.
[00:15:05]  Yeah, uh, right.
[00:15:07]  Who takes over, right?
[00:15:08]  Well, Satan and the heavenly host, right?
[00:15:10]  This administration in the old covenant is angels and demons, and Adam took that rule, he forfeited it, gave it to Satan, or the lesser Elohim, if you want to use Heiser language.
[00:15:21]  And that's true.
[00:15:21]  I think Heiser is right, he's right about that.
[00:15:23]  He's wrong on Calvinism, yeah.
[00:15:25]  Uh, but he's he's right about that, and he's certainly, I think, a wonderful Christian man.
[00:15:29]  And it's a tragedy, he was, yeah, yeah, his death.
[00:15:31]  Um, but we'll get to see him in a minute, but anyway, but yeah, I think he's right about that, and so Adam.
[00:15:36]  Adam had rule, he forfeited it, gave it to Satan.
[00:15:38]  That becomes this new administration, the angelic administration.
[00:15:42]  Because it was supposed to be, and here's the big thing it was supposed to be a human, an administration run by a man.
[00:15:51]  And so Adam had it, he lost it, then it was forfeited to angels, in this case, fallen angels, Elohim, lowercase g gods.
[00:15:59]  But then the second Adam, who is a man, the God man, he comes and takes it back.
[00:16:04]  Holy God.
[00:16:05]  And now there is a man seated in heaven, administrating.
[00:16:09]  This new covenant.
[00:16:10]  Yeah.
[00:16:11]  And so, right at the get go of Hebrews, it starts out long ago, at many times, in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, the last days, not the end of the world, but the end of that world, the old covenant, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he has appointed the heir of all things.
[00:16:31]  When is he appointed heir of all things?
[00:16:33]  At the ascension.
[00:16:34]  Right.
[00:16:37]  Through whom also he created the world.
[00:16:40]  He's the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint.
[00:16:43]  Of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
[00:16:47]  After making purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.
[00:16:53]  At the ascension, he sits down at the right hand of God, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
[00:17:06]  For to which of the angels did God ever say, You are my son, today I have begotten you?
[00:17:10]  Or again, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.
[00:17:15]  And again, When he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, Let all God's angels worship him.
[00:17:21]  But of the angels, he says, he makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire.
[00:17:26]  But of the sun, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
[00:17:29]  The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.
[00:17:32]  You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.
[00:17:34]  Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.
[00:17:38]  And you, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning.
[00:17:42]  And the heavens are the work of your hands.
[00:17:44]  They will perish, but you remain.
[00:17:46]  They will all wear out like a garment.
[00:17:48]  Like a robe, you will roll them up.
[00:17:50]  Like a garment, they will be changed.
[00:17:52]  But you are the same.
[00:17:53]  And your years will have no end.
[00:17:56]  Right, so right.
[00:17:57]  What's happening to the old creation, the old covenant?
[00:18:00]  Right that, right there in Hebrews 1, it's being rolled up like a garment, and Jesus is the one that is doing it.
[00:18:07]  And it's happening in the ascension right, right and still further right.
[00:18:12]  And to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.
[00:18:23]  Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?
[00:18:30]  And so therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away.
[00:18:36]  For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?
[00:18:48]  So right there is a contrast between the Old Covenant and the New.
[00:18:51]  The Old Covenant, the Mosaic Cross, is the word that is declared by the angels.
[00:18:57]  And that received a just retribution in the old covenant.
[00:19:00]  Yeah, if you broke the old covenant, you were in trouble.
[00:19:03]  The word declared by angels and by the prophets and so forth in the old covenant, there was judgment there.
[00:19:09]  And they knew all about that.
[00:19:11]  They knew the old covenant scriptures.
[00:19:13]  But now he's spoken by his son in the last days at the very end.
[00:19:18]  If we neglect this, we are done.
[00:19:21]  Yep.
[00:19:22]  So it was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard.
[00:19:28]  While God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
[00:19:35]  For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come of which we are speaking.
[00:19:42]  It has been testified somewhere What is man that you are mindful of him, or the Son of man that you care for him?
[00:19:47]  You made him for a little while lower than the angels.
[00:19:51]  You have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.
[00:19:55]  Right?
[00:19:55]  So what happens?
[00:19:56]  Jesus comes.
[00:19:58]  Into the old creation world, into the elementary principles of the world.
[00:20:02]  And he's now lower than the angels.
[00:20:05]  Man is lower than the angels in the old creation world.
[00:20:08]  But what happens?
[00:20:09]  He's crowned with glory and honor, and everything is subject under his feet.
[00:20:17]  That's what's happening in the transition from the old creation to the new creation.
[00:20:22]  That is what is happening.
[00:20:25]  That whole system, that whole paradigm of world, land, sanctuary.

=== Transitioning From Old To New Creation (03:31) ===

[00:20:31]  Is being torn up.
[00:20:33]  We've talked about this when we talked about Ephesians.
[00:20:37]  The people who are near and the people who are far off are brought together in one into the sanctuary in Christ.
[00:20:44]  And those distinctions, that whole world that's being torn up, it's being deconstructed and built up into a new world, a new world, a new order.
[00:20:53]  And it's governed now in its finality by a man, the God man, Jesus Christ.
[00:21:00]  Amen.
[00:21:02]  And so.
[00:21:04]  If we say that the old covenant world is still around in the same way, what are we saying?
[00:21:10]  Well, it's angels that are dominating this world.
[00:21:14]  It's Satan that's dominating this world.
[00:21:15]  Christ is not actually seated at the right hand of the Father, and all things are not in subjection.
[00:21:20]  That Christ has not subjected the principalities to public shame and held them in contempt.
[00:21:27]  You see this in history.
[00:21:29]  I talk about this a lot with folks.
[00:21:34]  Do you know what brought about the worst persecution by the Romans of the church right before Constantine, under Diocletian?
[00:21:45]  Well, Diocletian wants to go to battle.
[00:21:49]  And, right, well, if you want to go to battle and you're a pagan Rome, right, you need to talk to the gods.
[00:21:56]  You need to talk to the gods and you go to the oracles or you do divination with having your priests look at the entrails.
[00:22:03]  And this was like, it's like a magic eight ball, right?
[00:22:08]  And every time they'd sacrifice a bull, right, they'd look at the entrails and it would say, ask again later, right?
[00:22:15]  It'd say nothing.
[00:22:16]  They'd be like, can't see anything.
[00:22:17]  The gods are silent.
[00:22:18]  Well, do another one, another one, and another one, and another one.
[00:22:21]  The gods are not talking to us anymore.
[00:22:24]  Gods are not talking to us.
[00:22:25]  And he rightly concludes it's because of the Christians.
[00:22:30]  It's because there's all of these Christians around now, and they've made the gods angry, and we need to destroy them.
[00:22:36]  We need to drive them out.
[00:22:37]  Well, then, you know, the worst persecution in the church happens.
[00:22:40]  And then what happens after that, right?
[00:22:43]  Constantine, there's civil war.
[00:22:45]  Constantine's at war with Diocletian and the other leaders of Rome in the civil war.
[00:22:51]  And before the big climactic battle, right, what does he see?
[00:22:55]  He sees a sign in the heavens, and it says, By this sign conquer.
[00:23:00]  It's a giant burning cross in the sky.
[00:23:04]  And from that point onward, Rome was Christian.
[00:23:10]  You see this also in third world countries.
[00:23:15]  You see this in Africa.
[00:23:16]  There is a great series of novels.
[00:23:19]  I had to read them in college, my wife had to read them in college.
[00:23:22]  And they're by a Nigerian author, Chinue Echebe, who was a Christian.
[00:23:29]  So, ironically, they're like, oh, you got to, we're going to have all these kids read like this dignified African author because we want diversity.
[00:23:38]  It was all DEI kind of stuff in college.
[00:23:41]  Little did they know or care, I guess, but this guy's a Christian.
[00:23:45]  He's a Christian.
[00:23:45]  And he's describing Africa where the Christian missionaries would come and they'd say, all right, you can set up your church or your clinic or whatever you're doing over there in that space over there.
[00:24:00]  And they wouldn't tell them, right, that's where all the.

=== Christianizing Places With Evil Spirits (10:56) ===

[00:24:03]  the demons are.
[00:24:04]  That's where all the evil spirits are.
[00:24:05]  And the evil spirits are going to torment them.
[00:24:08]  And what happens?
[00:24:11]  They're surprised.
[00:24:12]  Nothing.
[00:24:13]  Nothing happens to them at all.
[00:24:17]  And in fact, they're greatly blessed despite the evil spirits.
[00:24:22]  And the witch doctors all over the place, all the stuff, all their divination, all the things they were doing, all their incantations, those stop working too.
[00:24:32]  The old ways die off.
[00:24:35]  And the only thing that works is faith in Christ right?
[00:24:38]  That's what happens when the new covenant, right?
[00:24:41]  With the new world in Christ invades these the old covenant world, right?
[00:24:47]  The last remnants of this old covenant world, the demons, right?
[00:24:52]  The demon gods that they've been under for millennia, right?
[00:24:56]  Lose their power, right?
[00:24:57]  Completely, and and so, right?
[00:25:00]  Going back to Hebrews, like that's that's what's at play here, right?
[00:25:03]  Christ is reigning, he's superior over the angels, the strong man is bound, and all of his minions, right?
[00:25:09]  When his name is named.
[00:25:11]  They get defeated.
[00:25:12]  They get beaten because Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.
[00:25:16]  Before that, you would have these monstrous pagan empires.
[00:25:21]  Think of just south of here.
[00:25:23]  Think of the Aztec Empire.
[00:25:26]  A totally satanic society.
[00:25:28]  Yeah, human sacrifices.
[00:25:29]  Yeah, they're constantly discovering thousands of mass graves of bodies in these temples that are constructed out of tens of thousands of human skulls and the skulls of children.
[00:25:42]  Well that that stuff is gone now.
[00:25:44]  The Spanish came right, the conquistadors came uh, and just a few of them came.
[00:25:49]  Cortes comes and, you know, destroys the Aztec empire, and you know, Mexico is, it's rough.
[00:25:55]  Uh the, the criminal gangs right, the narco terrorists they, they worship demons.
[00:26:00]  They still do um, but they will never have that same power that they did right um, and and the same is true all all, all over the place right, and when people talk about well, I think we're reverting to paganism, like paganism's going to make a return, And there are some aspects of that, people doing these things.
[00:26:19]  There's lots of occult things in witchcraft now today, like there haven't been in the past.
[00:26:25]  And I think, yeah, well, why is that?
[00:26:27]  It's because the gospel and Christian faithfulness have receded.
[00:26:30]  Right.
[00:26:31]  They have.
[00:26:32]  And what is the answer to that?
[00:26:35]  It's the church growing and preaching more faithfully and expanding and the kingdom growing and putting all of that down.
[00:26:42]  But it doesn't mean that Satan is loosed now and he's deceiving all of the nations all at once, like he once did in the old covenant.
[00:26:49]  Not to the same degree, not even close.
[00:26:52]  But you do have still demonic activity.
[00:26:54]  You still do have degrees of deception.
[00:26:58]  And I think of what Christ himself said in terms of that when a demon is cast out, the person, the house is swept clean and put into order.
[00:27:09]  And the demon then goes into waterless places, arid places.
[00:27:15]  But eventually, we'll come back if the house is swept clean and put in order, but it's not filled.
[00:27:21]  Yeah.
[00:27:21]  You know, and so our house is empty.
[00:27:24]  Right.
[00:27:24]  I think of Christendom.
[00:27:25]  Christendom, you know, went to the four corners of the earth and pushed out the demons.
[00:27:30]  Yeah.
[00:27:30]  Because that old covenant world had ended that really had the strong man and the power, the foothold.
[00:27:37]  But there were still lingering demons.
[00:27:39]  Christendom goes forward, the Christian gospel expels and pushes them out.
[00:27:43]  And then these places are Christianized.
[00:27:45]  The house is not only swept clean and put into order, but Christ comes and resides there.
[00:27:50]  Yeah.
[00:27:51]  But then if these Places choose to apostatize and then later rebel against Christ, as the West is currently doing, then you have a house that is clean and swept and put into order, but the demons come back.
[00:28:03]  And the end of the parable that Jesus tells is not only does the demon come back, but it comes back with seven other friends worse than itself.
[00:28:10]  And so when I think of places that are right now, I really believe, under a real impending threat of demonic activity and demonic oppression.
[00:28:25]  And a return of paganism, not as strong as the old world, like Assyria or Babylon, but as strong as could be in the new world since Christ has come, which is still not nothing.
[00:28:35]  And I think of those places that are most under threat of that happening.
[00:28:40]  I think of the West and its apostasy, places like France and England and Spain.
[00:28:46]  And I think of these United States, America.
[00:28:49]  I think of places that have rejected Christ.
[00:28:52]  But one other place that I think of is Israel.
[00:28:55]  Israel is prime real estate.
[00:28:59]  For demons.
[00:29:00]  Well, and I think you look at the sociological state of Israel.
[00:29:05]  Tel Aviv has the largest gay pride parade in the world.
[00:29:09]  They're very, very pro abortion.
[00:29:11]  They're more than they are here in the United States.
[00:29:13]  I think a lot of evangelical Christians are completely unaware of how left wing and secular Israel actually is.
[00:29:21]  It's like, all right, imagine San Francisco, but it's an entire country.
[00:29:26]  Yes.
[00:29:27]  That's what Israel is.
[00:29:29]  And it makes sense because there are very few churches there.
[00:29:33]  There are very few Christians there.
[00:29:34]  There isn't an obvious Christian culture that is restraining the evil in this place.
[00:29:40]  All they have is religious Judaism, and even that is a minority.
[00:29:46]  Right there, they don't have Christ, right?
[00:29:49]  And so, of course, it would be bad, yeah.
[00:29:53]  Of course, it would be right.
[00:29:56]  And yeah, I think the power of the ancient world and paganism in the ancient world it's interesting because those places were powerful and orderly, right?
[00:30:08]  You have these pagan empires that would have tremendous stability, right?
[00:30:15]  And they have it because of like the Girardian.
[00:30:17]  You know, the function that paganism serves, right?
[00:30:20]  You have this constant scapegoat mechanism which provides stability to a people.
[00:30:25]  And the Christian era is different because we have, right, we have the scapegoat, the true and final one that has paid for all sin.
[00:30:33]  And the city, instead of a city like Cain building on the blood of Abel or a city like Rome built on the blood of Remus, we have a city built on the blood of Christ.
[00:30:46]  And the stability aspect of it's, It's not the same.
[00:30:49]  It's not this fixed, stable thing where it's very powerful and very strong.
[00:30:54]  It often seems very, very weak.
[00:30:56]  But what does Christ do?
[00:31:00]  He gives Christian society strength and power and stability through families and through living in accord with the way that God made the world.
[00:31:10]  And yeah, Israel doesn't have that at all.
[00:31:15]  And so going further into Hebrews, we went along the rabbit trail on this, but the rabbit trail of course, that's always the point.
[00:31:22]  Yeah, that's the point.
[00:31:25]  Going through Hebrews, the writer of this, he's talking about this salvation, and he's showing that in the Old Covenant, it's deficient.
[00:31:35]  You have the system of sacrifice, you have priests, but you don't have a high priest that can complete the system of sacrifice because Christ is sinless.
[00:31:46]  He's the high priest that offers himself.
[00:31:48]  And then he sits down and he's completed his high priestly service.
[00:31:53]  You have a greater and better priest, right?
[00:31:55]  Not in the order of Aaron, but in an order that precedes Aaron in Melchizedek, right?
[00:32:01]  He's from this order.
[00:32:04]  And so it is a, right, in every way, continually, he's saying this is a better covenant.
[00:32:10]  This is better.
[00:32:10]  There are better promises, right?
[00:32:12]  It's from the blood of Christ rather than the blood of bulls and goats that he mediates this.
[00:32:20]  And why would you, right?
[00:32:22]  Why would you go back, right?
[00:32:24]  Why would you go back to this at all?
[00:32:25]  Even there's a better temple.
[00:32:27]  You have this earthly holy place, something made with human hands, but we have a temple that's not made by human hands.
[00:32:35]  It's made by the Spirit that's in the heavenly places and represented on earth in the people of God.
[00:32:41]  And so, in every way, the new covenant is better mediator, better temple.
[00:32:49]  It's better in so many different ways, but one way is I remember as I was preaching through Hebrews, it does not have a geographic center.
[00:33:00]  Yeah.
[00:33:01]  One way that Christ is better and this Christian living temple is better, and this new covenant is better, is that it is not restrained to one geographic locale.
[00:33:16]  And the reason why that's better is because there's now entrance and access to all the peoples of the earth.
[00:33:25]  You don't have to make a great pilgrimage once a year, as Gentiles would, you know, to come and worship in Jerusalem or Jews far away.
[00:33:35]  But now, like Christ is here, and Christ is made himself, he offered himself, made himself available to all peoples, and not once a year at great cost to them, but every week on the Lord's Day at great cost to himself, and every day of the week, of course, in personal Christian practices of personal piety and scripture reading and fasting and prayer, and just the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit,
[00:34:03]  which exudes the ministry of the resurrected.
[00:34:06]  Christ, all those things are always, but in a unique sense, this weekly heavenly Jerusalem that we enter into on the Lord's Day, the Christian Sabbath.
[00:34:17]  So instead of potentially a 5,000 mile trek once a year, it's a five mile trek once a week.
[00:34:27]  Yeah.
[00:34:28]  Yeah.
[00:34:29]  And God's presence, where is the Holy of Holies, where God's presence dwells?
[00:34:34]  Wherever, two or three.
[00:34:35]  It's where his people are, anywhere in the world.
[00:34:39]  Where is Jerusalem?
[00:34:40]  Where is the temple?
[00:34:42]  It is where God's people are all over the planet.
[00:34:46]  That's why it's better and superior.
[00:34:49]  So we don't have to worry about who has possession of the Holy Land.
[00:34:55]  Well, Christians do because the Holy Land is wherever Christians are.
[00:34:58]  Right.

=== Stones Raised As Sons Of Abraham (04:08) ===

[00:34:59]  Amen.
[00:35:01]  Any final thoughts on the Hebrews text?
[00:35:03]  Well, we could talk about it for about five more hours.
[00:35:05]  Well, for sure.
[00:35:08]  Without opening the can of, like, well, I'm just going to quickly exegete seven more chapters.
[00:35:12]  Let's not do that.
[00:35:13]  But any more final thoughts on, I don't know, just the text that you read?
[00:35:17]  Well, yeah, I think it, again, is extremely clear that the old covenant is coming to an end.
[00:35:26]  It's just the point of the entire book.
[00:35:28]  It's already obsolete at the timing of Paul's writing and soon to completely vanish away.
[00:35:34]  Completely go away.
[00:35:35]  Yeah.
[00:35:36]  And so, right, it's hard.
[00:35:39]  I try to get myself into the headspace of someone who thinks, yeah, there still is some remnant or aspect of the old covenant left.
[00:35:47]  Right for this category of people over here, thousands of years later right, holding that position, and then reading this right right, that's really hard yeah, to read this and think, right, all he's doing, all the entire book is trashing right the old covenant and saying how this is so much better and saying it's going to go away soon.
[00:36:09]  Uh, how would I come away after reading this thinking oh, that is that.
[00:36:15]  That's still a thing though, and and even when you read, I mean, it gives you great confidence, and this is This view, I think, actually opens up the Bible, the entire Bible, way more for Christians.
[00:36:27]  When you read Hebrews 11, and it goes through the history of the patriarchs and the men of the Old Covenant, and says that we are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, of those Old Covenant saints, you go back and you read through that, and you realize, wait, that's our history.
[00:36:49]  That isn't a history of a particular, special people.
[00:36:52]  We are the special people.
[00:36:54]  That's our history.
[00:36:57]  I am spiritually descended from David and from Samson and from Abraham and from Jacob.
[00:37:04]  Those are our fathers.
[00:37:06]  We are grafted into this covenant.
[00:37:07]  That's our history.
[00:37:09]  This is our book.
[00:37:10]  This isn't the book of somebody else.
[00:37:13]  This is the book of God's people.
[00:37:14]  And you read Hebrews 11.
[00:37:15]  This is the Christian history.
[00:37:16]  This is us.
[00:37:17]  This is our thing.
[00:37:19]  And then you go back and you read the entire Old Testament and you're like, oh, this is actually about my people.
[00:37:27]  My people are them.
[00:37:29]  That's right.
[00:37:30]  It's a major paradigm shift.
[00:37:32]  That's exactly what Jesus said.
[00:37:33]  I think of John 8, Gospel of John chapter 8, where they pick up stones to stone them.
[00:37:41]  They're angry.
[00:37:44]  Because he says, well, you're not children of God.
[00:37:46]  You're not children of Abraham.
[00:37:48]  You do have a daddy.
[00:37:48]  You're not completely.
[00:37:49]  Your dad is the devil.
[00:37:50]  You're not bastards.
[00:37:51]  I'm not saying you're fatherless.
[00:37:53]  I'm just saying that your daddy is the devil.
[00:37:56]  Jesus being charitable, as always.
[00:38:00]  But in that, Jesus speaks of Abraham, and it's kind of like this debate of history.
[00:38:06]  Like, whose history is it?
[00:38:07]  He says, You're claiming that Abraham, you know, he's your lineage, he's your ancestor, he's your father.
[00:38:13]  He said, But here's the deal he's not.
[00:38:15]  He's not your father.
[00:38:16]  And this is why.
[00:38:17]  Not because I've swabbed the inside of your cheeks and done a DNA test.
[00:38:22]  You know, it's not because of that.
[00:38:24]  No, it's because children always bear a striking resemblance to their fathers, and you bear no resemblance to Abraham.
[00:38:32]  Here's what Abraham looked like.
[00:38:35]  Abraham, through the eyes of faith, in a prophetic sense, he looked forward to my day and saw it with gladness.
[00:38:43]  Abraham saw me and loved me.
[00:38:48]  And you don't.
[00:38:48]  Here I am, and you hate me.
[00:38:50]  And so, who are the true seeds of Abraham?
[00:38:53]  Who can claim Abraham as his father?
[00:38:56]  Father of Abraham had many sons.
[00:38:59]  I'm one of them, and so are you.
[00:39:02]  That's true.
[00:39:03]  It is true.
[00:39:04]  That's a good gospel song right there.

=== Confidence At The Throne Of Grace (01:00) ===

[00:39:08]  Absolutely.
[00:39:08]  That's our history.
[00:39:09]  Yeah, it's ours, right?
[00:39:11]  Do not say that Abraham is your father, right?
[00:39:13]  Your father is Satan.
[00:39:15]  God is able from these stones.
[00:39:16]  From these stones to raise up sons of Abraham.
[00:39:18]  We're the stones, like we are.
[00:39:20]  Yeah.
[00:39:21]  We're the stones.
[00:39:22]  We're the sons of Abraham that have been made out of stones into his son.
[00:39:27]  Because, and it's entirely only via faith that we have the faith of Abraham.
[00:39:34]  So this book.
[00:39:36]  Is for us, right?
[00:39:37]  It's to these particular people in the first century, but it is for us to give us confidence, right?
[00:39:42]  To draw near boldly to the throne of grace.
[00:39:46]  That's right.
[00:39:47]  The book of Hebrews, it was to a particular group, but it's for us today that we might have confidence to come to the throne of grace and that we might not be dispensationalists.
[00:39:59]  Amen.
[00:40:00]  Well, thank you guys for tuning in.
[00:40:02]  God bless you.
[00:40:02]  We've hoped that this episode and the other episodes are a blessing, and we will catch you next time.