In Hebrews 5 and 6 we learn that, among the Hebrew (Israelite) converts to Christianity, there were those who, like their Roman counterparts, could not bring themselves to obey the God Who had supposedly saved them. Like their Roman brethren, these Jews embraced the “only believe” theololgy that continues to reign supreme in today’s Laodicean Church system which walks in the religious footsteps of those written about in Revelation 3:14-20, Romans chapters1 and 3 and Hebrews chapters 5 and 6. Let us now turn to the latter reference and pick up with chapter 5 verse 7.

Here we find the Apostle Paul chastising some Israelite (Hebrew) converts by reminding them that even Jesus Himself had to learn to obey God by overcoming temptations and testings. He reminded them that as a man, Jesus had no advantage over them relative to their “walk” through this life. He pointed out that His prayers were heard on high ONLY because He feared God and therefore refused to disobey Him. He had a commission to fulfill which required true holiness from Him. He knew that if He failed even one time He could not become the Savior of mankind. Note in 5:9 that Jesus “BECAME the author (provider) of salvation, which only those who OBEY HIM” can receive. Since His death, only those who “walked as He walked” (1 Jn. 2:6) on this earth can receive what His sacrifice provides. Read John 8:31; 14:15,23; 15:10/ First John 2:3-5; 3:1-10 and Matthew 19:17. God’s promises are available only IF we do what He commands us to do. Read John 15:13,14 and Matthew 12:46-50.

Beginning with 5:11 Paul begins his chastisement of the Hebrews by telling them that they had not grown in faith and knowledge since their conversions. Notice that, though he had preached God’s truth to them, his message was not getting through because they were “hard of hearing.” I can identify with him, for 99% of those to whom I have spoken and shown God’s Truth suffer from what I call the “Stephen Syndrome” as described in Acts 7:57. So far, no physical stones have come my way. But if thoughts could kill, I would have been gone long ago.

Paul tells the people that by that time in their spiritual walk they should have matured into spiritual adults by having dined on the steady diet of the “strong meat” he had fed them. Instead, they were in need of someone to teach them the basics of Christianity–the “milk of the word” meant only for babes. Because of their rejection of anything but the Lord’s milk, they could not hear His “words of righteousness” that Paul preached. As a result they were not able to grasp the difference between good and evil. As was prophesied about them and their Roman counterparts, they were guilty of “calling good evil and evil good” (Isa. 5:20), as do their modern-day church descendants. This ministry is focused on telling the church what God actually said and pointing out how her various church doctrines are contrary to His Truths. In this sense I serve as a missionary to the Institutional Church which rejects my efforts to shed light on the darkness in which she lives.

In 6:1,2 Paul tells the Hebrews that they must leave the milk of God’s Word and mature into a state of spiritual perfection. They were to grow in holiness until they came to “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). Instead, they were receptive only to sermons about faith and repentance (Scriptural milk). In First Peter 1:15 and 16 God speaks through the apostle, commanding that we be holy AS He is holy. In Leviticus 11:44,45 we are commanded to be holy BECAUSE He is holy.

In 4-6 Paul delves into a series of Truths that are universally rejected by the church, with the exception of God’s true saints, of which there are few (a remnant), as Jesus prophesied would be the case in Matthew 7:13,14; 22:14. In Hebrews 6:4-6 the apostle warns the church that there is a point at which the church sinner “falls away” from Christ (apostasy–read the series using that word as key). Once church people have demonstrated their refusal to stop sinning, they have committed apostacy, making it impossible for them to be renewed again because they have “CRUCIFIED TO THEMSELVES THE SON OF GOD AFRESH (AGAIN WITH EACH SIN) AND PUT HIM TO AN OPEN SHAME.” Their only hope will come following the second resurrection. Read The Three Resurrections. Key word–Three.

It amazes me that church people will listen to, believe and obey what they hear coming from their respective pulpits and podiums, from c.d.s and films, from movies, books, pamphlets as well as the internet. However, THOSE SAME PEOPLE REFUSE TO BELIEVE THE TRUTH OF GOD FOUND IN THEIR OWN BIBLES. INSTEAD, THEY GROW ANGRY AT THE ONE SHOWING THEM HIS TRUTH. AS JESUS SAID IN LUKE 10:16, THEY PROVE THAT THEY DESPISE BOTH HIM AND HIS FATHER. Because of their rejection of His Words, God hates their religiosity. Read Amos 5:21-27. Here God tells the Israelites that He hates their religious activities because they disobeyed Him. Note that what He hates are things He had commanded them to do. Though they were obeying Him by singing, praying, sacrificing, etc., He hated it when they did so. Lesson: GOD HATES PROFESSING CHRISTIANITY’S RELIGIOSITY (congregating, preaching, Bible study, singing, etc.) because they refuse to obey His Ten Commandment Law, thereby making themselves workers of inequity (Lawlessness). Read Matthew 7:21-23; 15:9; 19:17/ John 5:14; 8:11 as well as Luke 6:46.

As did the Jews who saw Christ’s miracles take place and heard Him speak, those in the church accept what He did and what He promises to do. However, they reject what He said they must do in order to receive those promises, including the promise of eternal life. They are like the Jews who, having seen His miracles, “believed on Him.” Then they rejected what He said, even picking up stones to kill Him (Jn. 8:30-59). Because the church embraces His promises but rejects His conditions for receiving those promises, it is obvious that Satan exercises the same level of control over her that he exercised over the Jews of old–TOTAL.

Why? The answer is found in John 10:1-5 where the Lord says that His people do not follow strangers. Religious “strangers” because they do not recognize their voices. Such strangers are false prophets who, like their god who was introduced to us in the Garden of Eden, have a better “truth” than the Truth spoken and written by the Creator of Truth. The Catholic/Protestant Religious System follows her hirelings ever deeper into the religious sewer known Biblically as Mystery, Babylon (Catholicism) and her harlot daughters (Protestantism) as described in Revelation 17:1-5. As a result, both leaders and followers are strangers to the Lord. For this reason Jesus will say to them, “I never kney you” (Mat. 7:21-23). L.J.