Sermon Tone Analysis

Steve,

 

Pour yourself a glass of port and ponder the following:

 

Read this passage and tell me what you think:

 

Rev.

1-3 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.

He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

3 Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, */because the time is near./*

*Do you think that he was talking about 2,008 years later as being “near?”

Hello, please, God is not that scattered!*

* *

How about this; John says in Revelation 22:12 “Behold I am coming soon…” and in vss.

17 he says;

 

17 The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!”

And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.”

Then in verse 20 he says;

 

*20 **He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”

*“He says “Yes!!!!!!!!!!!, I-I-I-I-I-I-I am */coming soon/*” Does that mean 2008 years later (If Christ died at age 33 then it would be 1,975 *if* Christ was 33 when he died.

He said: (Red letter edition), (Ha-ha) *“Yes, I am coming soon.”*

My brother Steve, I am coming to see you soon in Vernon, CT.

What do you think?

Will that be tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or maybe 2000 years down the road?

What do you think?

Go to: www.preterist.org and order their periodical “Fulfilled Magazine.”

A great periodical and it will open your eyes to truth you never thought possible.

Why?

Because the truth has a way of penetrating your soul as it is a God transformation taking place in your heart, TRANSFORMING you into His vessel.

\\ Also, visit www.AmericanVision.org

and request the publication “Biblical Worldview Magazine.”

You will love both of these periodicals immensely.

God is so wonderful and He has laid it all out for us.

The problems are that we interpret through our own ideologies and the contaminated concepts we build along life’s highway through the “Chruch.”

God’s Word is ALWAYS right and never wrong.

The problem is our limited ability to think and enter the spiritual dynamics of God’s realm and the fact that we have to fight through all the debris to determine, prayerfully what is of Gop and what is not of Him..

 

Hos 4.6 says: “ my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.”

 

1 Tim.2:15 says “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”

Heb.

3:1-6 says:

*/Jesus Greater Than Moses/*/ /

*3              *Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.

2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house.

3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.

4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.

5 Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be said in the future.

*6 **But Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house.*

*And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.*

Here we need a little exposition on this passage:

 

*Heb.

3:1.*

The readers were now addressed as *holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling.

*This form of address gathered up the strands of truth which the author dealt with in chapter 2. They were indeed “brothers” (cf.

3:12; 10:19), not only with one another but with their Captain (2:11-12), and they were “holy” because He had made them so (2:11).

They did “share in the heavenly calling” because God was “bringing” them “to glory” (2:10).

The words “who share” are rendered “companions” in 1:9 (/metochoi; /this Greek word is also used in this epistle in 3:14; 6:4; 12:8).

The author was thinking especially of their high privilege of being invited to participate in the future dominion and joy of God’s King-Son.

It was as such people that they were to focus their thinking on the One who is both *the Apostle and High Priest *of their Christian profession.

The first of these titles probably points to the Lord Jesus as the One sent forth by God as the supreme Revealer of the Father (cf.

1:1-2), while the second picks up the role just mentioned in 2:17-18.

*3:2.*

The NIV disjoins this verse from the previous one by making it a separate sentence.

But connecting it as in the original with verse 1, the statement may read: “Contemplate Jesus . . .

being faithful to the One who appointed Him.”

Taken in this way, the readers, you and I, are urged to fix our gaze on the person of Christ who is even now *faithful *to God.

Thus they would find a model for our own fidelity.

The faithfulness of Christ, moreover, has an Old Testament prototype in Moses.

This is truly cool.

The reference to *Moses *being *faithful in all God’s house (You & me) *was drawn from Numbers 12:7 in which the tabernacle furnished the backdrop.

Hence God’s “house” in the Old Testament situation would be the tabernacle itself which Moses had constructed in strict obedience to the divine directions.

It was a prophetic testimony “to what would be said in the future” (Heb.

3:5) *(You & me)*.

*3:3-6a.*

But *Jesus *as a *Builder *excels *Moses *in *honor *since Moses was simply a servant carrying out instructions.

But what Jesus has built is, in fact, *everything, *for *God is the Builder of */“everything.”/

Implicit here is the Son’s role in Creation (cf.

1:2, 10) and indeed His identification as God (cf.

1:8).

But beyond this is the thought that *God’s house *in which *Moses was faithful *was a kind of miniature representation of “everything,” that is, of the greater *house *over which the Son presides at God’s right hand in heaven (cf.

1:3 with 4:14).

The “holy of holies” in *His *earthly *house *was but a shadow of heaven itself where Christ has now gone “to appear for us in God’s presence” (9:24).

Moses’ fidelity consisted in erecting that shadow house, the tabernacle; so that it could properly prefigure the future order of priestly activity which now has the universe itself as its proper sphere.

This is the sphere where the exalted *Christ *sits *faithful *in all His current ministrations as well as past ones, functioning *as a Son over God’s house* (3:6a).

And where do you think Christ ends up?

At the Father’s table with His feet where????? Just for Steve and John.

*3:6b.*

Getting a little deeper we considerer that by a natural semantic shift to which the Greek word for *house *naturally lends itself, the writer moved from the thought of the house as the sphere where priestly activities transpired to the thought of the “house” as consisting of the people who engaged in these activities*/.

His readers, he affirmed, comprise His (the Son’s) “house” contingent, however, on one important consideration: if they hold on to their courage (/**/parrēsian, /**/used four times in Heb., here and in 4:16; 10:19, 35) and the hope of which they boast./

*As in the earlier warning passage (2:1-4), the writer used “we” and thus included himself within the scope of his admonition.

As he will shortly state (3:12), he was concerned that there might be in*/ some/* of his Christian “brothers” an “unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.”

Should any of his readers *do this, they would forfeit their roles in the Son’s priestly house,* *which is only maintained by holding firmly to their Christian profession (cf.

also v. 14 and 10:23-25, 35-36).

*The author did not mean, of course, that his readers could forfeit their eternal salvation; it is an error to identify the word “house” with the body of Christ, the true universal church.

As the context and the Old Testament background show, the author was thinking in *priestly terms.*

He was also thinking *functionally*.

The exalted Son presides over a priestly apparatus which is an operational reality.

As long as the circulation held firmly to their Christian commitment, they also functioned within this religious arrangement.

But just as one who was a true Levite by birth could withdraw from participation in the tabernacle of Moses’ day, so too one who is truly a Christian by new birth may remove from his priestly role within the functioning household.

Ouch!!

This could be you and me.

It was precisely *this danger* which concerned the writer, in the present warning passage as well as in later ones.

I don’t mean to overload you with this but I can perhaps be more gentile as we move along.

I learned Greek and Hebrew in seminary and am grateful for it.

However it does cause me difficulties when teaching.

Barbara always tells me, “John bring it down to our level, I don’t mean to confuse as I only want the audience to understand the complexities of the issue at hand.

Oh well guess I better close for now.

I just love studying the Word of God.