I always like to point out that secular archaeology proves these events. You know, Christ was crucified in about 29 AD. Paul begins his ministry, I always maintain around 40 AD. And so here you have these Jews who had come out of Christ's earthly ministry still under the Law. Remember I am always emphasizing that during Christ's earthly ministry they were still keeping the Jewish Law. They had Saturday Synagogue, they kept their food kosher. I mean everything was still under the Law.


Then, of course, when we come into Paul's ministry, the first thing that Paul makes so plain is "you're not under the Law, you're under Grace!" But you see, like the Book of Hebrews is telling us, a lot of these Jews had not yet made the break from Judaism and embraced Jesus as the Messiah - putting that behind them and moving into Paul's doctrines of Grace. Faith plus nothing, as we see in I Corinthians 15:1-4.


Alright, secular archaeology has pretty much proven that there were Jews up until about the end of the first century, who were showing in their potsherds, the clay particles that archaeologists find, that in the same little piece of clay, there would be a symbol of the menorah -- the seven candled candle stick, and the fish. You know, the mark of Jesus of Nazareth, or Christianity, later on.


Now what does that show you? That these Jews were still practicing both sides. They were still involved in the legalism of Judaism but they also had embraced Jesus of Nazareth. And for that reason, of course, they had been scattered out of Jerusalem because of Paul's persecution. And so one of the cities of the Decapolis, I think, was Pella. And that's probably where a lot of those Jerusalem Jews fled to - the area of Pella up there just east of Galilee that the archaeologists have found so much evidence of just this very thing. That they must have been practicing both aspects. They had Judaism and yet they were followers of Jesus of Nazareth.


See, this is what Paul is dealing with and I think it was to a congregation maybe in a city like Pella that the Book of Hebrews was written. We don't know, but that's just my own idea. He has now been telling them that they've got to grow up spiritually. They've got to get off the milk-bottle of the simple things and get on into the deeper things of Paul's revelations of the mysteries and what we call the Age of Grace. But, oh, they were having a problem.


And that's understandable because we run into it all the time where people may come out of a cult, or what we certainly feel is a totally false religion and it's a struggle. It is a struggle to just simply cut the ties of that old religion and step out here in Grace. Like a gentleman called me again just the other day. And he said, "Les it must be part of the human nature to want to do something." And I said, "That's what I'm always saying."


Remember, human nature says, "I've got to do something," and that appeals to people. And when I come along and say, you step out by faith and faith alone. Well, it's just like telling somebody to step out in the street without any clothes on. And I've used that analogy because you do, you step out naked before God. With nothing else to enhance eternal life. It's Faith plus Nothing! Alright so now then, Paul is saying:


Hebrews 6:1-2

"Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, 2. Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment."