Welcome to Day 2254 of Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom Hebrews-12 A Perfect and Permanent Priesthood – Daily Wisdom Putnam Church Message – 07/17/2023 “A Perfect and Permanent PriestHood” Hebrews 7:18-28 We continued our extended series three weeks ago through the book of Hebrews in the New Testament. Our focus compared Melchizedek and Messiah. We saw that the Messiah was a priest and king in the order of Melchizedek. In doing so, we noticed that the Levitical priesthood was replaced by our great High Priest Jesus Christ. This week, the comparison between the Levitical and Melchizedekian priesthood will continue. Jesus Christ established a perfect and permanent priesthood as our Great High Priest. Let’s read Hebrews 7:18-28 on page 1869 of your Pew Bible. 18 The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless 19 (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. 20 And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, 21 but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: ‘You are a priest forever.’”[b] 22 Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant. 23 Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24 but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely[c] those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. 26 Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27 Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.   Sometimes, you can’t tell the actual quality of something without comparing it with something else. A cotton bed sheet with a thread count of 200 may feel like silk to the touch … until you hold a sheet with a thread count of 800 in your other hand. (hold up two pillowcases) A television screen with a medium resolution might seem crisp … until you place it beside a state-of-the-art high-definition screen. And one pair of corrective lenses might make the letters in front of you appear crystal clear … until the optometrist contrasts it with an even better match for your nearsightedness. In all these cases, only by comparing two...