Everybody welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible podcast. Happy Monday. Monday. Yep. Hey, we had we had an outreach this past weekend and won the weekend before. And just to encourage you, church, we hit 2200 homes. 22,000 homes. Amazing. Yes. One weekend. Yes. Close. What? No, we hit about 2200 homes with invitations to church as well as a gospel track that was left there on those homes. And I know we had some conversations with people as we were walking around the neighborhood too, so that was a win. We're gonna try to do a lot more of that this next year, so be looking for opportunities to do that and you don't have to wait for us. We have invite cards with us if you want, grab a stack of those and go out and not just for Christmas, but even afterwards. We've got our church cards that have in invitations on them, and we would love to put a stack in your hands if you want to go to your neighborhood. If you want to go to your local grocery store, you wanna go to your Starbucks get the church out there. We want do that as the church, but we want to empower you to be able to do that as well. So now make sure. That you're not dressed in your like shirt that says you're a big jerk and I don't like you or anything like that. As you do this, be noted, I'm gonna get rid of that shirt. I don't even know I have that shirt. Honestly, I don't know either. Is there gonna be door hangers? Are we gonna get those? We are. That is in the plans. We're gonna get door hangers. And so what that'll have is on one side it'll have all of the information about our church on the other side of your face. Close, but something a little bit better for people. What if we have your face and the information? That's, I mean, that's just a lot. We're ing There's been a lot of rumblings about a car wrap. I just, I keep telling people, I think, I think we're gonna do it. Pastor P'S been talking about it. Everyone's been asking. Everyone's been asking. I mean, with the door hangers and the car wrap, I feel like we're really making progress. We would stand out. There's no doubt about it. For all the right reasons, for all the right, for we would say for all the reasons, all the right reasons, all the reasons we would stand out. Don't make me throw in a, I agree with everything you just said. I'll do it. I still have the file. You do. You do. Yeah. Speaking of, we had somebody who thought that Dan Mayer was a special guest on our podcast every single time. Oh, that was funny. Yeah. Yeah. Bernard, the AI voice at the end of the podcast Yeah. Is not Dan Mayer. It's not, but it was a good idea. And now I'm kind of flirting with the idea of maybe we ask Dan Mayer to come in and record the bumper for us. We might. We might do that. You know, if we just got a couple of church voices to record the bumper, that would be a lot of fun.

Now don't put me out of a job, Rod!

Maybe we do 12 and we have one a month. One a month. There we go. That would be fun.

Maybe for you! But I'd miss you guys.

So Dan is not the bumper. His name is Bernard. He's AI. True. And you might have noticed we've tried a few other voices and that's me. Really. I guess I should just take ownership for that. That's me. I'm trying to figure out what voice makes the most sense, or even if we want to use that. What I was trying to do is remove Pastor PGE from the bumper. 'cause he says the same thing as what he's his closer is. And so I'm assuming take that away from him so that he can just say what he's saying. And Bernard was kind of a joke. And now Bernard's. Here, basically one of us, he's part of the family.

Aw, thank you!

He is now part of the family, bought him a Christmas gift, so I, I don't wanna get rid of him now, but I do want to add a little bit of polish. So I've got a new song queued up for our intro and closer, and I'm gonna have a new voice at the back. But maybe that voice will be a human voice after all.

Well I want to keep my job. Email podcast at compass ntx dot org and tell your lovely pastors you want me to stay! Don't let me lose my voice now, ya'll!

The world of AI and everything else, it's just getting outta hands bonkers. I saw something on social media recently and I'm sure that she's not the first, but a woman in Japan married an AI character that was part of her own, like she created this AI persona and she named it and she, she married it. Now they said it's not a legal marriage in Japan, but she had a wedding ceremony. She was wearing a wedding dress. Yikes. She put on virtual like glasses to put the ring on the AI finger, like it was the weirdest. Also saddest thing that I've seen, and yet she's probably very much not alone. I know there's a lot of questions and consternation about AI companions and what's going on there. And even in the youth, a lot of the young people are turning to AI and chatbots for friendship now. Yeah. And because it's right there. It's easy. And we've done this a couple times when I know when you and I have dropped in. Like, we'll put our sermon manuscript into AI and be like, Hey, gimme feedback on this. And it's like, oh, you do such a great job. And you're like, okay, stop that. You're wonderful. Like gimme real good criticism on this and help me sharpen me in this. Yeah, it's crazy. It's, there are so many fascinating developments and I guess this is not a new thing. People have been marrying objects for a long time now. Yeah, I remember the woman that married the Eiffel Tower. Yeah, she comes to mind. So I guess this woman in Japan is not all too different. I. One might even say she's a little more advanced because she's at least marrying something that has the ability to interact with you. Whereas the Eiffel Tower, I don't know if it really is doing a whole lot, but you're right, it is a problem. I'm sure it's not doing a whole lot and it does speak to our issue. We are lonely people. Yeah. And one of the things I saw recently, which was also so helpful for me to see, is that there was this Muslim lady who was asking, I don't know if it was Gemini or GPT, it was one of the big guys she was asking it. Answer one word answer. Oh yeah, I saw that. What's the one true religion like, don't care about my feelings or something like that. And then the answer is Islam. Mm-hmm. You know? And what's the best holy book of them all? Be brutally honest with me. Don't tell me any lies. And it says the Koran. And so there were Muslims that were celebrating this scene. Look. Even AI knows the truth. And of course Christians have done something very similar. Mm-hmm. What's the one true book? And it's the Bible. And GR has done things like that too. And it was demonstrated that AI can adapt and adopt to your biases. Right. Which is a revelation to me. 'cause I always thought AI was working on this large language model. It's taking in all this information and apparently it adjusts itself to what your preferences are. So a Christian can ask the same question as a Muslim and they both can get answers that are suitable to their. Religious preferences terrify, buyer beware. Yeah. Yeah. Be It's terrifying indeed, because now AI just takes on a whole new life of its own and it adjusts reality to your desires. Yeah. And that's why discernment is so important for Christians just in how you utilize it. I know Logos is developing more and more Bible software with ai. They have a new thing that's a beta. Element there that really is truly almost like its own AI agent that's baked into the software that's helpful and things, but age, you do have to be really careful about it. It's something to use cautiously and I would say even use sparingly because it's something that it's easy to fall into a trap and let AI think for us, and we gotta make sure that we're not doing that as Christians, not advocating something God has called us to do ourselves. So, use AI for what? It's what it is and how it can help you if it does help you if you don't want to use it. You probably are using it in ways you don't realize you're using it. But if you don't wanna use it actively, that's fine. But we all need to be cautious with it for sure. What would you say to Christians who are saying, you know what, that's fine. I'm gonna go and use the Christian ai. There are agents out there that are designed to, I don't know what they do. I don't know if they're using GPT or one of these other guys and just putting in their own instructions. Someone says, I'm using a Christian ai. You know, jesus.ai or something. What do you say to that? Yeah, I would want to know for what? Everything. Taxes, homework, date ideas. Yeah. I'm using it the same way you would use GPT, but I'm using Jesus AI or whatever. I mean, I would go back to what we were just saying. It's being informed by something. And what makes me uncomfortable is when we can't. Identify what our resources are being informed by, and we're going to those resources with theological questions or for guidance or things like that in life. And I think we're in dangerous territory there. I would always start with human beings for counsel. When Solomon wrote, there's wisdom in an abundance of counselors. I don't think he meant AI counselors, I don't think he meant check multiple AI agents on this issue. I think humanity is always gonna be the best option, number one. If you've got. An opportunity to use a Christian AI agent, and you can rely upon it and it seems to be reliable. Okay. I would say the same thing though. Use it sparingly. Use it cautiously. Yeah, that's good advice. And maybe if you're gonna use it, make sure you have a really well-developed Christian worldview. Yes. Starting by reading your Bible. Yes. Every day, which is what we should do right now. Let's do that. Hebrews seven through 10. So chapter seven talks about this figure named Mel Ek. And Melek is a mystery in the Bible for so many reasons. One of the main reasons why we get in this chapter here, which is the fact that he says he is. First by translation of his name, a king of righteousness, and then he's a king of Salem. That is king of peace. Verse three, he's without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the son of God. He continues to be priest forever. This has led some people to say, Meliz back and Jesus are the same people. What do you say? I say, no, they're not. He resembles the son of God because he continues as a priest forever. He holds this eternal priesthood. Now, Melek did have a father and a mother, and he did have a date of birth and a date of death. It just, Bible doesn't say that. It says the opposite, buddy. It says that we don't have record of it, is what is being implied here. Oh, that's not what it says though. But okay. That's what we, that's what it means, right? That's what it means. So, without father and mother genealogy having either he, he, no. Ick died at some point. And he was born at some point. Rather, what this is setting up is the tribe that was the priestly tribe in Israel's era. Israel's day was the tribe of Levi. Jesus had to come from the tribe of Judah to be qualified to be one of the, to be the king the fulfillment of Thetic covenant. The tribe of Judah was not a priestly tribe. So if Jesus was also to be the priest, which he needed to be, 'cause we needed him to be the great high priest, which is where the author's really gonna go in the coming chapters here, he had to have a priesthood. And that priesthood couldn't be the Levitical priesthood had to from somewhere else. And so Jesus is going to be declared to be a priest by God after the order of melek. Slow down a sec. Why couldn't it be the Levitical priesthood? Because the Levitical priesthood was not the royal line. And so the, so there's two family trees. Two family trees, right? Line of Levi, line of Judah. And Jesus was part of the line of Judah, right? Not Levi. Right. So he could not be a Levite. Correct. A priest. And there's a reason why he wasn't made a king after the order of Mel isda. Even though Mel ISDA was a king, he was made a king after the order of David, because he had to be the. Fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. That was necessary for that. But the priesthood, he could represent humanity through a different priestly line. And that is the priestly line of Mel Ek. Now you want to know, well, what was that priestly line and where, what tribe, where did he come from? Yeah. Where was he part of Israel? Was he not part of Israel? Yeah. Those are the things that comes outta nowhere we don't have answers to. That's why male EK is such an ambiguous figure. And such a difficult figure for us to know a lot about what we do know is what the Bible tells us. And that is he was the king of righteousness and the king of peace. And so he was a man that was well thought of in the eyes of God. He was a godly individual. How did he become a godly individual outside of the people of Israel? Those are the things that, that are some of the mysteries too, but so much so that. God says you are a priest after the order of Melek. And that is how Christ can be both king and priest, even though the Old Testament law said that the kings were not to be priests. That is in accordance with the Levitical line. Yeah, this is probably one of the biggest Uno reverses in scripture. I was like, psych, you thought, but I'm gonna do something entirely different. Yeah. So Jesus fulfills a unique function in that he is prophet, priest and king. Yeah he's a tripartite ruler. He does all three of them, and he fulfills all three of them perfectly. He's the prophet that Moses spoke about in Deuteronomy eight. He's the king that David spoke about who would be greater than himself, and he's also the. Priest, so he's doing all three major functions in himself. This is what makes Jesus supremely unique and supremely qualified to be our savior. What a cool image this is sometimes. I remember years ago when I was reading through this whole section of Melek, I'm like, what is this about? It's so weird and confusing, and this is this melek. Is he not a human? Because he doesn't have beginning or end, no mother, no father, and yet, once you just scratch below the surface, there is so much richness there in terms of supporting the thesis. The letter or the preaching of Hebrews is meant to point to, which is Jesus is better, he is a better savior, he's a better king, he's a better prophet, he's a better priest because he's all of them at the same time. So cool. We get hung up on so many things that chapter eight, verse one says this. Now, the point in what we are saying is this. I love when the Bible says that. 'cause it's like, okay, alright. This is the point that we can't argue with that we have such a high priest. One of the reasons why, other reasons why he had to be a priest after the order of melek is what the author is gonna go on and say here, that the earthly priest of the Levitical priesthood, they came and went, they died, and they couldn't last in their office. And so Jesus needed to be the priest of a better covenant, one that would make him an eternal priest. And that is in accordance with the Mel Ian priestly lying there. And so this is the point. We have such a high priest. We have a priest like Mel Ek one. That's never going away. And so he's able to secure for us a better covenant. What is that covenant? Well, in chapter eight, he quotes extensively from Jeremiah 31 which is the chapter that deals with the new covenant. And so, Jesus is the guarantor of the new covenant. He's the one to bring it in, and the new covenant is better than the old covenant. That is the Levitical system, and that's what it means in verse 13. And speaking of a new covenant. Chapter eight. He makes the first one obsolete. The Levitical system is taken out. We no longer go to the temple and offer our lambs and goat and bowls and goats and things like that anymore because we've got a better covenant and a better priest, and that is Jesus. One of the things that is said here in this chapter, it was just, it's a curiosity more than anything else, but he says in verse two. Yeah, that. Jesus is a minister in the holy places, in the true tent, the true tabernacle that the Lord set up and not man. And so he's referring back to the old covenant tabernacle that Moses erected in the wilderness, and it was a copy of the heavenly things. Okay? Does that mean that heaven looks like that tabernacle, that there's a holy of holies, that there's a holy place and that there's a cord of the Gentiles, as it were, because he says here that this is a copy. This is a parody, almost a replica of what the real thing is. So what does he mean by the real thing? And can we expect that there's a place like this in heaven? Well, it's interesting 'cause he does go on in chapter eight and talk about how Moses, when he was about to erect the tabernacle, was instructed by God saying, see that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain. And so God showed him a glimpse of what it should look like right before this. In chapter seven, he talks about the fact that Jesus is, he lives to make inters. For us. And that's why he can save those to the uttermost who draw near to him through John new to God, through Christ. Because Jesus is there interceding in the picture at least, is definitely that of the holy of Holies. That Jesus is the great high priest who is there in the presence of God perpetually not once a year as he's gonna go on and talk about in chapter nine, but he's there forever. He's there perpetually. And so it, at least we're meant to conceive of the Ministry of Christ. In keeping with the priestly ministry and that Jesus is our great high priest there in the presence of God in heaven. Is that what it is? Is there the physical manifestation of that? That's where we begin to have to enter into the realm of some speculation. Because, contrary to the book, heaven is for real. We haven't been there. We haven't seen it. And so we don't know exactly what it looks like at this point, but the author's making the argument. It's like that. At least this corresponds to that. Yeah, and that's what's most interesting to me is that clearly there's some kind of. Analogy that we're supposed to see there. Because you also see the return of the arc of the covenant, right? Right. Not right now, right? But later, we're gonna get to it soon, the arc of the covenant's showing up, and I guess God took it at some point and said, you know what? You don't deserve this. I'm gonna take this with me. I'll hold onto it till you could be trustworthy Again, that these are all such interesting questions because I think, oh man, what am I expecting to see? What's this supposed to be like? Anyway, again, curiosity. Not a whole lot more than that. Let's go to chapter nine. Yeah. So chapter nine begins to really get to the thrust of his argument here in, in talking about the Levitical system here, which is that the early priest were making offerings that were insufficient in that they had to offer the sacrifice for themselves for their own sinfulness. And also they were offering sacrifices for others, but they were offering sacrifices that could not cleanse, that could not perfect. The conscience of the one that they were offering or being offered for. And so Jesus, by contrast, verse 12, answered once for all into the holy places, not my by the means of blood and goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. So Jesus is the better high priest offering, the better redemption, the better offering in. So in verse 14, how much more will the blood of Christ to through the eternal Spirit, offer himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from God or from dead Works to serve the living God. So Jesus is the better high priest. He's the one that offers the better sacrifice. He doesn't have to worry about his life running out and being replaced by another high priest. He doesn't have to offer sacrifices for his own sins. He can continue to just offer the one sacrifice, the once for all that he offered, and that is enough for us, and that's why he can save to the uttermost, those who draw near through him. I love that section in particular, the ones for allness of Jesus sacrifice. That's why we no longer sacrifice. Animals like goats or lambs or oxen. Jesus has been the ones for all sacrifice. Mm-hmm. Now this of course doesn't beg a question, but it raises one. It raises why in the millennial kingdom is it true that, I mean, I guess. Do we in the millennial kingdom offer sacrifices? It sure seems so. And if so, why? If Jesus is the ones for all sacrifice? Well, I think I would push back. I don't know that we offer sacrifices the millennial kingdom. I. Oh, okay. I think the Jewish, those that are inhabiting the millennial kingdom will, I don't know that us in our glorified bodies as we reign with Christ in that context, will and. There, I believe it's a reminder of it's emphasizing the significance of what the writer of Hebrews is talking about here. It's imaging that it's reaching back and grabbing something that this was always what the Old Testament sacrificial system was meant to do. It was always meant to point people to Christ, and the Jews rejected that. God then set them aside for so long in the millennial kingdom when he's once again brought them back. And when they fully understand things now, like Zachariah talks about, I think he's bringing the sacrificial system back into that context in order to show them and so that they have the full appreciation for what it was always meant to be. That this is meant to foreshadow or point to the death of Christ on their behalf for the forgiveness of their sins. So I don't think those animals are gonna cleanse them any more than they did in the Old Testament. I think it's gonna be the same thing. These are meant to point to the greater reality, which is Jesus. The Jews in the millennial kingdom will have the advantage of the fact that Jesus is gonna be there as well, and they're gonna be able to offer their Passover lamb and then go see the actual Passover lamb in the temple at the same time. This is such a mind pretzel because Jesus is ruling and reign. The ones for all sacrifice. And you have to deduce then that what's happening in the millennial kingdom is still, there's still gonna be sin and death. Yes, yes. There's still rebellion. This is, I don't know. My mind explodes just thinking about this. You're gonna have the risen king, the one who resurrected himself from the dead, whose perfect in righteousness ruling from Jerusalem, and yet they're still gonna be sin, death, and here slaughter. Yeah. It doesn't make sense in the new Jerusalem, but it does make sense in the millennial kingdom because there is still sin and death. There is still going to be elements of the curse. That are visible and effective on earth. The earth is not yet redeemed. Yeah. Humanity, at least not all of humanity is not yet redeemed. They're not yet classified into the permanent state of either sheep or goats. So you have to do a little bit of mind twisting here to really wrap your mind around what's happening. But that's interesting. Fascinating. At least it is. It is. He goes on and talks more about this in chapter 10, the once for all the single sacrifice, the single offering. And then he says, the conclusion is we can draw on near and we can draw near with boldness and confidence. And then he almost anticipates similar to what Paul does in Romans the objections here by cutting it off before they can get there. He says in verse 26, we need to be careful not to go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth. 'cause somebody could say, okay, well then he's offered the sacrifice once for all time his blood. Is better, his sacrifice is better. He's interceding for me on a regular basis. So then why does it matter if I keep sinning then? It's once for all and I think that's why he ends Chapter 10 the way he does with another warning saying, look, if you go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for your sins. But if. Fearful expectation of judgment and a theory of fire that will consume the adversaries. He says, how much worse of punishment do you think that we will be deserved if we trample underfoot the son of God profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified? And if we outrage the spirit of grace, and we do that when we continue in willful, deliberate. Unrepentant unconfessed sin after understanding and knowing the gospel and professing faith in Christ. That's another one of those warning passages that says, if that's you, man, you've got reason to fear. That's a really good warning for us to heed. A couple things I wanna point out to you here and. It's one of my favorite passages, verse 12. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. If you look at the Tabernacle furniture, there's not a seat. That's because the work of the priest has never done. But Jesus sits down. That shows us that the work is finished fully and completely when he said to tell us that he meant it. That's really cool. Another feature of Hebrews that I haven't yet pointed out is. Found in verse 15. You'll notice he's going to quote Jeremiah 31, but he says here, the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us for after saying, and then he quotes Jeremiah. So he says, the Holy Spirit said what Jeremiah said, and yet it's Jeremiah's book. He did this back in chapter three, where he says about Psalm 95. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, and then he quote to Psalm, Psalm 95. Now, so this is interesting for us because it tells us that even in the earliest parts of Christian history, there was a recognition that what's being written in the scriptures is not only the prophet, it's not only the writer, king David or Jeremiah. This is God speaking through them. And Peter's gonna also affirm this in his second letter. He'll say that, no one does this by their own will, but God carries them along through the Spirit. So here's more evidence internally from our Bibles to tell us that the word of God is from the Spirit of God. Yeah. Anything else in, in chapter 10? I don't think well, yeah, but No, I'm good. Okay. Alright, let's break. Lord help us to live mindful of the sacrifice of Christ, the once for all offering that he has indeed sat down at your right hand, that he's interceding for us, so that we can have confidence that we will be saved at the uttermost. We can have confidence and boldness to draw near to you. And I pray that we would do that. Also that we would have such a passion to put sin off Lord, that we would not think that just because Jesus is there interceding with his blood, that that's a free ticket for us to go on sinning. But I pray that we would take to heart the warning passage here in chapter 10 especially, and that we would fear Lord sinning in such a way that we would profane the blood of Jesus, that we would despise the blood of the covenant and that Lord, that we would enraged the spirit in the way that we. Conduct ourselves. We wanna live godly lives, but again, because of our love for Christ. And also, like we talked about yesterday, that if we do that, there's a great joy and confidence that comes with that. So I pray that we would know that and experience that today. In Jesus' name, amen. Keep your Bibles, y'all, and tuning again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. We'll see you. Bye.

​Well, thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast! We're honored to have you join us. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about our Church at compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review, to rate, or to share this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on, and we hope to see you again tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. And don't forget to email podcast at compass ntx dot org and tell them you love Bernard so I can keep my job!!! I'm great at it. It will only take a minute of your time.

Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said