Bible Study Radio

Hebrews (Program #22) – The Remaining Sabbath Rest (5)

To put any jigsaw puzzle together piece by piece, you need to see the picture on the box.  Today we will see the picture on the box, that is the governing principle, which is the key to understand all the 66 books of the Bible.

We continue on the topic of the Sabbath rest from the book of Hebrew.  This is a major topic in the book as we have seen.  We are going to hear Witness Lee today use the term “the governing principle of the entire Scripture”.  We are going to see some amazing items related to God’s eternal purpose open up today.  What is this governing principle?

Hebrews (Program #21) – The Remaining Sabbath Rest (4)

Hebrews chapter 6 contains a severe and solemn warning. Christians for centuries have struggled with how to apply this word of righteousness and who to apply it to. The revelation of the divine speaking on this portion will be a word you would not want to miss on today’s life study of the Bible.

Another marvelous message today dealing with the matter of Sabbath rest.  To review just a little what we’ve seen regarding the Sabbath; it really is not relate to whether or not we observe this day or another day, but this altogether deals with God being satisfied in His expression.

Jeremiah (Program #12) – God’s Economy with His Dispensing in Jeremiah (1)

The Bible consummates with the revelation of the city of New Jerusalem. This indicates that the New Jerusalem is God’s goal. In fact every book in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is in some way related to the New Jerusalem as God’s goal. And as the ultimate goal of His plan and purpose with man, the New Jerusalem is just too wonderful for us to imagine. So God reveals this matter bit by bit. First by the Bible’s own words and then the stories, types, history, shadows and figures make it more and more clear to us. The Old Testament of Jeremiah is rich in the aspect of God’s economy that are revealed throughout. In Jeremiah, God’s goal of having a group of human beings that have been filled with Him and that bear His image and likeness to become His corporate expression for eternity is very much on display. And this vision unlocks all the riches and treasures in this book.

Hebrews (Program #20) – The Remaining Sabbath Rest (3)

We mustn’t just dream about the oneness that God desires. For Him to have a full Sabbath rest there is much more than just being saved by His grace. There must be some growing believers who could enter into the rest that is spoken of in Hebrews chapter 4. The Sabbath is a rest or satisfaction for God and man. But God can never rest in the heavens nor just with the angels, His resting place is the earth and with man. We will see three stages of the remaining Sabbath rest on today’s life study of the Bible.

Why the initial Sabbath came directly after God created man?   What is the connection between man and the Sabbath? In all of God’s creation man is unique. Man has to do with the earth. All the items of creation up to the creation of man were brought into being by means of His word, that is, calling things not being as being through the Word. In the first five days of His creation work, God did not use any kind of material substance. But with the creation of man, because God’s interest is in the earth, God first had a conference among Himself (among the Godhead) where there was a decision, “…let Us make man”. Then God at this time used a certain material – the dust of the ground – to create man. If man had not been created on the sixth day, God would have been unable to rest on the seventh day. It was not that God was tired after six days of creation, even not because that His work was completed. What caused God to rest was the creation of man. If you read Genesis 1 and 2, you will see that God rested on the seventh day because He attained what He desired. God’s heart was satisfied by having a man on the earth to express and to represent Him. When God has this, He rest, He rested after He obtained this goal.

Jeremiah (Program #11) – A Word concerning Israel’s History

On Mount Sinai, Israel was in the dawning of a divine revelation. God had revealed the law to them as a portrait, a picture of Himself. And opened His heart’s desire to them that He would be everything to them, even a Husband that they would be a people to Him and eventually become even His duplication. But the history of Israel reveals how quickly they have departed from this revelation and this sunrise soon became a sunset, leaving Israel in darkness and under the chastising hand of Jehovah. This was the situation when God had to call a young boy to be a prophet for Him. Jeremiah was raised up by the Lord because Jehovah found no one among His kings, princes or even His priests that would be faithful to Him and speak His word to the people. To see Israel in the sunset of the divine revelation becomes a sober warning to us today – never to forsake Him, the fountain of living waters.

Hebrews (Program #19) – The Remaining Sabbath Rest (2)

After six days of His creating work, God rested. The Sabbath has been a topic of intense interest to some Christians and widely ignored and misunderstood by others. But to see the Sabbath in the clear revelation of God’s purpose is truly marvelous. We’ll focus again today on the real Sabbath rest for God and for man on the life study of the Bible.

What is meant by this term “the corporate Christ”?   In the Gospels, what we see is the individual Christ but this individual Christ, this wonderful Person whom we love, He passed through death and He entered into resurrection. And in resurrection, He produced the Body of Christ. Now, when we talk about the corporate Christ, we’re referring to the Christ that we see in the Epistles after Christ’s resurrection. This Christ is the corporate Christ. In resurrection, He became the Head of the Body. Also the New Testament shows us that Christ is not only the Head of the Body, He is the Body of the Head. 1 Corinthians 12:12 says, “For even as the Body is one and has many members, yet all the members of the Body being many are one Body so also is the Christ”. This verse speaks of the corporate Christ who is the Head and the Body. As the members of the Body, we have Christ’s life and nature, we do not participate in His Godhead. We are not an object of worship but we are organically one with Christ to be the members of His Body and Christ is both Head and the Body. This is the corporate Christ.

Jeremiah (Program #10) – A Word concerning Israel’s History

Many people think the book of Jeremiah is not easy to read nor to understand. Well, it maybe hard to ready because it seems to be full of the failures and degradation of God’s people, Israel. Yet despite page after page of such failures, there are wonderful crystals of God’s economy and of the new covenant and of Christ Himself. It’s hard to understand because much of it is based on the history of God’s people and what has led up to the time when God called a young man, even still in his mother’s womb to be a prophet for Him and speak on His behalf to the rebellious and unfaithful people of Israel. This was the prophet Jeremiah.

Jeremiah (Program #9) – Israel’s Sin against Jehovah, Jehovah’s Punishment upon Israel (2)

During one of the dark hours in Israel’s history, Jehovah poured His heart out to Jeremiah, the prophet that He raised up to speak to Israel on His behalf. Listen to his word and see if you can sense in His speaking the anguish of a distraught husband over the unfaithfulness of a wife to whom He had been faithful to the uttermost. Jeremiah 3:6-9 “Then Jehovah said to me in the days of Josiah the king, Have you seen what Israel the apostate has done? She went up on every high mountain and under every flourishing tree and committed fornication there. And I said, After she has done all these things, she will return to Me; but she did not return…And I saw that because of all the adultery that Israel the apostate committed I divorced her and gave her a certificate of divorce, And because she treated her fornication lightly, she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.”

Hebrews (Program #18) – The Remaining Sabbath Rest (1)

Today we come in Hebrews to the matter of the Sabbath rest. How does a Christian enter in to the Sabbath rest? This is the subject of today’s life study.

Hebrews 4:9 says, “So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” Many Christians debate whether our Sabbath is Saturday or Sunday or some other time period yet in the future. What is the New Testament revelation on this topic and how critical it is for us as Christians?

The New Testament doesn’t say too much about this issue but I guess it’s fitting that it is addressed in this book of Hebrews. There are several different views of the importance or the interpretation of the Sabbath in the New Testament. The Sabbath here in Hebrews has a very particular meaning and interpretation. There is a debate among some Christians whether to keep the Saturday or Sunday as the Sabbath. There are some ardent Sabbath keepers who insist that since it’s one of the commandments you must keep the Sabbath. But this not what we’re talking about today in Hebrews. What we’re talking about is the Sabbath rest for the people of God is related to being faithful, it’s related to holding fast our boldness for Him to the end. So there is a Sabbath rest in several stages that we can enter into that has nothing to do with a certain day of the week and it also is not merely a period of time in the future as some have said that the Sabbath is just refers to a 1000 years period in the future. There is a very contemporary application just like it says in Hebrews today that if we hear His voice, we have to pay attention. So we need to know the Sabbath rest today as our portion as Christians and it’s very wonderful here in the book of Hebrews how it fits to show the whole matter of God’s economy with man, it’s all tied up with this Sabbath rest.

Hebrews (Program #17) – The Good Land for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose

The good land typified in the Old Testament is profoundly related to God’s eternal purpose to have a corporate expression. Hebrews 2:5 says, “For it was not to angels that He subjected the coming inhabited earth concerning which we speak.” Though we may long for heaven, it is the earth, the land, the good land that has occupied God from the ages for His purpose. We will see all this land typified in today’s life study of Bible.

Though we’re in the midst of the life study of Hebrews, today we’re going to touch many points that we first touched in the life study of Genesis for those that were with us at that time. What is the basis or the ground to draw upon the pictures that were presented in Genesis in order to help us with the book of Hebrews?

As we will soon see this particular message connects as the Bible does the matters of the land, Christ and God’s chosen people. In Genesis 1, we have these three matters either stated or implied. The land is obviously signified by the dry land that emerged from the dead waters on the third day. This dry land, the sphere for the living of the human beings created by God typifies Christ in resurrection. Significantly as Genesis 2:7 reveals, humankind was created from the dust of this land. This shows an intrinsic connection between humanity and the earth. Furthermore, this man – this Adam, created with the dust of the ground was made in God’s image. According to the New Testament, for instance in Colossians, the image of God is Christ. So here in Genesis 1 and part of chapter 2, we have the land, we have humanity and we have Christ particularly as the image of God. The crucial matter is that three things are essentially connected. We need to focus on this and emphasize it again and again because it’s so crucial. The earth or the land, man and Christ in the sight of God are essentially connected for the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose. Genesis sows the seed of this, in the book of Hebrews we have quite a rich development of this seed.