General Articles

Hebrews Lesson 55: Spiritual Conduct as God’s Children Pt. 3 :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: by RR10

Chapter 13: 7-17

7 “Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 9 Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them. 10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp. 12 Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.

13 “Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. 14 For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. 15 Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. 16 But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. 17 Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.”

Last week we talked about spiritual doctrines and disciplines. The Gospel has not changed, and the Lord’s churches are not ‘progressive.’ We are not to tamper with God’s ways and rules; we are to simply make them known, and then people can, of their own free will, decide to obey and submit or defy God.

Today we will look at a part of Christianity that is not very popular; that is being the outcast. We all want to be popular; we all want to fit in and blend in. But if we are to be true to Jesus and His Word, we are most often not going to fit in; we will be at odds with the culture. Today, our society gets further and further from God, calling good evil and vice-versa, and we will be at odds more and more.

  • The Old Testament Pictures of Jesus, verse 11

There were millions of animals sacrificed before Jesus came along to be our one and final sacrifice. The vast majority of these animals, though killed in front of the altar, were actually burned outside the camp in the wilderness and outside of the city once the Temple was built. We find the reference to this in Leviticus 4:12 and Leviticus 4:21.

“all the rest of the bull – he is to bring out to a clean place outside the camp where the ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire; where the ashes are poured out it shall be burned.”

“Then he is to bring out the bull to a place outside the camp and burn it as he burned the first bull; it is the sin offering for the assembly.

There are many other verses that tell us that the bull and other sacrifices were burned outside the camp. This was a picture that Jesus would be killed outside of the city of Jerusalem. Just like the sacrifices, He would be treated the same way. This brings to mind a conversation that Jesus has with the Pharisees, and He says these profound words, John 5: 39:

“You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.”

The Old Testament scriptures testify about Jesus. He is prophesied about and promised from the very first book in Genesis 3:15, all the way to Malachi. Jesus is the story of the Old Testament.

  • The New Testament: see the Fulfillment of the Old, verse 12

Jesus suffered outside the gates to fulfill the pictures shown in the Old Testament. This was not just a picture of the sacrifice, but we are told that this is how we are sanctified. We are sanctified with His own blood that was shed outside the gates. Jesus was hated by His own people; He was hated by family, friends and foes alike.

In verse 13, we are reminded that as a part of the sanctification process, we will have to learn to be hated like Jesus was. We are to bear His ‘reproach.’ We will never fit in here, and if we do, it is because we have compromised the person and the teachings of Jesus. We have chosen others over Jesus. We have chosen to give in to be friends with Jesus’ enemies. The truth of Jesus; the truth of total and utter depravity; the truth of Heaven and Hell; the truth of our need for a Saviour; the truth that Jesus, and ONLY Jesus, is the Way of salvation causes more and more separation than it does unite. If we always feel the need to fit in, we will have to compromise Jesus and His ways to do so. Look at Matthew 10:34-37:

“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

This is the part of the spiritual conduct that hurts — the part that separates friends and relatives, the parts that make us choose Jesus above all. This is not always easily done, and sadly, we all, me included, make a lot of bad choices. God is gracious. But if we are to grow, mature, and become useful in the Kingdom, we must be ready to bare the reproach of Jesus and His Gospel. A Gospel that required Him to be hated, forced out to the hill of the Skulls, and killed for you and me. Let us not be ashamed of Jesus; He will often be all we have in this life.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

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Is Looking for Rapture Date the Right Thing to Look For? :: By Dave Cogburn

Published on: by RR10

RaptureReady.com is a website dedicated to end-time events leading to our blessed rapture. We all would love to know the exact date, and we are thankful and blessed by all the rapture watchers on YouTube and other places who diligently search the scriptures to find clues as to when it could possibly be.

The latest series of many, many videos pointed to the 8th and 9th of Av, July 26-28 on the Jewish calendar as being a high watch time due to it being what they call the wine Pentecost, and even the coincidental date of July 26 as being the numerical date of 7-26 which is the number for Harpazo in Strong’s concordance for the meaning of “rapture.” There is other strong “coincidental” evidence that also points to this time period. But, obviously, it did not occur then.

Jesus tells us that no one can know the exact day and hour. Why? Because Jesus was a Galilean, and they had their own wedding customs that were different from the Arab and other Jewish wedding customs.

We, the church, are the bride of Jesus. Did Jesus ever propose to us? Yes, He did. When you look at the Galilean wedding customs, which Jesus is following to the T, you see that Jesus’ proposal to His bride the church occurred at the Last Supper when Jesus offered His potential bride a cup of wine. Drinking it meant the bride accepts the bridegroom’s proposal according to the Galilean wedding custom. That custom also says the bridegroom says he will not drink from that cup again until in his Father’s house. It also says he will go away to his Father’s house to prepare a place for him and his bride, and she is to wait for him to complete it in order to come get her to take back to her new home.

What makes the Galilean wedding custom different from all other wedding customs is the father of the bridegroom is the “only one” who knew the exact date when his son was to come back for his bride. Once the father told his son to go get his bride, then is when he came back for her and took her to live where with him. She was put on what’s called a “lift,” which is a chair mounted on two poles, and she was lifted up into the air to go to her new home. It was called flying the bride to her new home.

Obviously, it is easy to see that Jesus is following the Galilean wedding customs exactly. We are now waiting for the Father to tell His Son Jesus, ‘Go get your bride, Son,’ and Jesus comes for His bride the church in the AIR, and we are flown to our new eternal home to be with Him in what is called the rapture of the church.

All of this is explained in much more detail in a 2020 movie entitled Before the Wrath. I highly recommend you watch it for all of the amazing details. I’m pretty sure it is available on YouTube, Prime, Netflix, or Tubi. It’s interesting that Jesus says we cannot know the exact day and hour, but He does not say we cannot know the year, month, or even week.

So, what to look for, to narrow things down? We look for signs that the beginning of the 7-year tribulation is near, as described in Daniel 9 when a world leader sets up a 7-year treaty to bring peace to Israel and perhaps to the whole world.

There are many, many videos on YouTube that claim mathematically that Jesus’ 2nd coming should be in the year 2030, which makes logical sense when you examine the evidence for that. When you subtract the 7-year tribulation from 2030, you get 2023, and thus, there is good reason to get more excited about perhaps the soon beginning of the tribulation. And we KNOW that the rapture is in “front” of the beginning of the tribulation.

I do find it interesting that the United Nations has what they call a 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals that began in 2015. It provides a – and I quote – “a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” It ends in 2030. It is now 7 years from their completion date in 2030, and guess when they meet this year? Sep 18-19 on Rosh Hashanah, a very important fall feast date on the Jewish calendar. Many Bible prophecy students watch for the feast of trumpets on “any” Rosh Hashanah, but it appears the signs that the beginning of the tribulation is near is a more important event to look for “timing-wise.”

However, two things have to occur for that event to be the 7 years Daniel 9 is talking about. There “has to be” an antichrist world leader coming onto the scene to be part of it, and the rapture has to have already occurred. The Bible tells us that the antichrist cannot be revealed until the Restrainer, the Holy Spirit-filled church, is removed from the scene – raptured. IF this event is the start of the Daniel 9 covenant, then the rapture must occur in front of it.

When you look at the scriptures, you will see that God always moves His righteous to a “safe place” right before He brings down His wrath, as in the case of Noah, Lot, and Moses’ 10th plague. These involved only 2 families and the Israelites in Egypt in those 3 examples. The 4th example is the HUGE one with God’s righteous being the church located all over the planet, and the only “safe place” for us is in heaven before God brings down His wrath on earth.

This would seem to be saying that “if” the September 18 UNSDG event is the Daniel 9 event, the rapture needs to occur between now and then. Is it possible that a world leader could come onto the scene in such a short time frame? I would say “maybe” when you consider how devastating and quickly an event like the rapture will change the whole world.

Notice how this article is focused on the beginning of the tribulation vs the date of the rapture. 2023 being 7 years before a possible 2030 2nd return of Jesus brings a new level of anticipation that we’ve never had before as we head into the fall. Will this occur this year? We hope and pray it will. We’ll soon know.

Maranatha, Lord Jesus

David Cogburn

davidcogburn80@gmail.com