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Good morning brothers and sisters, I used to like that very much, I still do, but at Adelaide this year I tried the boy's greeting when I said to the company, the Lord be with you and they all answered the Lord bless thee and I thought that was nice too. But this time since our theme is the heavenly high priest I thought we might have the high priest's blessing in daily portions of which there are five convenient ones and give a little practice in saying that most beautiful scriptural word amen. So I thought each morning I would recite a portion of that priestly blessing and you might like to respond with the hearty amen that the congregation would have done. That of course was the high priest to his people, from me it will be one person to the other people so we'll make it us instead of you. This morning therefore may the Lord bless us and keep us. Now just listen to the sonorous beauty of the first few verses of Hebrews chapter 1. God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. That's pure poetry even in English. What it would be like in Greek I have not the remotest idea but I'm sure it would have been at least equally poetic. A fit song to be sung to the rhythm of the singing river. And it's that kind of exalted theme which lies before us as we commence our study of our heavenly high priest this week. It's almost frightening when we consider his majesty, who being the brightness of God's glory and the express image of God's person, and of holding all things by the word of God's power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. The evident aim of the writer is to impress us from the very start with the awesome majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ. To set him on high but a step lower than his heavenly Father, and a big step higher than the mightiest of the Father's angels. To reveal to us that all God's power is concentrated in him. To make him so glorious in the revelation that came and comes through him, that anyone who dares to go against that which is done for us through the Lord Jesus Christ is infinitely more guilty than they who transgressed in old testament times. As indeed the second chapter will reveal to us when it says, if they escape not, when the ministry of angels was given to them, how shall not we escape if we neglect so great a salvation. So we meet in the all power hath been given unto me in heaven and in earth. Of whom it is written, God hath given him the name which is above every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and of things in earth, and of things under the earth. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The writer starts his parade of evidence by discussing in the briefest but the most concise terms the way in which God has always spoken when revelations have come from him. God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake unto the fathers by the prophets. The beauty isn't helped but perhaps the clarity is if the revised version of that is read and we have instead God having of all times spoken unto the fathers by the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his son whom he hath appointed heir of all things. If you go back to the prophets including in those Moses and the psalmist and the writers of the former prophets that is the history books. Then you have all kinds of ways in which God made himself known to men at all kinds of times. That simple vision of creation given to Moses in Genesis 1 to chapter 2 verse 3. The possible consultation of ancient records to give the genealogies of the various sons of Adam and then through him down to Abraham and beyond in the these are the generations of the rest of Genesis. The appearing in mighty vision to Moses on Sinai, to Daniel in exile, to Ezekiel in the same, to David when the sweet psalmist of Israel heard spoken words and saw sights which words of his could hardly express and the mind of his could hardly tell. Through to the in the New Testament apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ with their mind guided into all truth by the company whom the Lord sent to do that to them. In diverse portions by dream, by oracle, by seer, at sundry times first according to our recollection in his revelation to Moses concerning the ark, to Abraham concerning his need to move from her of the Chaldees, to Joseph that he might do the mighty things he did in preparing for his people in the land of Egypt, to Jacob as he traveled in his way to the land of Laban, to the prophets when in the still watches of the night it might be dark visions came to them or in ways unknown to us they learned to say the word of the Lord came unto me or hear ye the word of the Lord or thus saith the Lord. It was all great and wonderful and surpassing human imagination. It all conforms to what Peter says when he tells to us that the prophecy came not of old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. But it all almost pales into insignificance compared with what God did through Jesus Christ. In those days the prophet spoke when he had a word to say. When there came to him no word from the Lord he either wisely kept silence or not keeping silence made mistakes. As for example when David expressed the pious wish that he might build a house to God's name and Nathan the prophet being quite sure that God would like that said the Lord be with thee and thy doing of it and then had to receive a message from God that very day and say you've got it wrong Nathan that wasn't what I was going to say if only you'd waited you wouldn't have said that so now go back and tell David that isn't the case and because of being a man of war he will not be allowed to build the temple for me. Some men wanted to speak words in God's name that God did not approve of in any case like Balaam wanting to curse God's people going for money's sake to do it finding himself confronted on the way with the dumb ass speaking with a man's voice and required to speak words with his mouth could not control when God told him what he must say. There the men when they spoke at all were either willing or unwilling unwilling and reluctant like Balaam rebellious indeed unwilling in tribulation like Jeremiah who said I will speak no more in his name but his word was a burning fire in my bones and I was weary with forbearing and I could not say unwilling like Ezekiel who in spite of the bright visions he saw by the river Ulai kept his mouth tight shut lest his people should in their terrors over him make his life too hard for him and so were smitten with dumbness by God so that he couldn't speak at all until the time came when God opened his mouth and then he might speak the oracle and lapse into dumbness again until the next miracle of revelation came but with the Lord Jesus Christ it was all different we might almost have thought that someone so evidently inspired as he was might have said words like he the word of the Lord all the word of the Lord came unto me or thus set the Lord but he never did he simply spoke and taught and they marveled at the words of grace that proceeded out of his mouth he wrote great miracles and they said that none could do such mighty works as these except God were with him and the most he would say to introduce his words to claim that they were right and true and a revelation from God was verily verily I say unto you or verily I say unto you or simply I say unto you he took for granted his inspiration there was no need to make his claims that it was sold there it was pouring from his lips evidently in his own mind and in the mind of those who could receive it directs from God unrestricted uninterrupted continuous a word constantly being spoken so great was he so mighty his revelations that in him there was no presumption in saying think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets I have not come to destroy but to fulfill as though it lay within his power to do either and he chose to do the latter to uphold and defend and strengthen that which he might by rebellious words and actions have destroyed in him all God's promises came to a focus all the promises of God are in him yay and in him amen in his words was the summit of revelation but it wasn't just his words though never man this man the Lord was not merely a speaker as in some sense the prophets have been they were involved in their message they might give counsel to their people in times of trouble and give long distant prophecies of times of blessing they might suffer for what they had to say and in some way illustrate by the lives they lived and the dangers they underwent the greater dangers that the Lord Jesus Christ would suffer during the life he lived in the Lord's service but they were at the best but messengers and in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ but for runners they saw what another would do when Jesus Christ came and spoke he spoke about himself as the fulfillment of all that they had anticipated they said he will come he said here I am they expected him he had arrived a prophet might write the words the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor the opening of the prisons to them that are bound deliverance to the captives and all the other things that the Isaiah chapter mentions but the prophet knew that it was not of himself that he spoke the Lord Jesus Christ could go into the synagogue at Nazareth and open the pages or rather turn up the scroll of that chapter and read those words and then giving the book back to the men who looked after it say this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears I am the one that book was talking about whether by upbringing and Mary would certainly have taught him well or by constant reading in the scriptures and the word of the Lord was constantly in his mouth but also by his knowledge that came direct from the father who begat him the Lord knew who he was knew he was son of man for obvious reasons but knew too for reasons that no one same himself could divine his mother Mary being the next in understanding that he was God's child I speak those things I have seen with my father he said when he saw them how he saw them in what way the Lord could gaze up into God's heaven and see God's things we who are earthlings on both our parents side don't know but he knew more than we do this son of God this priest in preparation and indeed when the lesson to the Hebrews begins to describe the way in which he did the job he did it says nothing about a word he spoke it very rarely does you may read through this letter from end to end and find allusions no doubt the things the Lord Jesus Christ had said but not even something so nearly like a quotation as you would find in say Peter's first letter do you find in this book it's about Jesus as a whole not merely the sound that issued when he opened his lips that Hebrews is concerned it is who he was what he did how he suffered and died and what became of him that he's comprehended in these words hath in these last days spoken unto us in his son whom God appointed heir of all things through whom also he made the worlds who being the intrinsic brightness of his glory shining out with the light that lived within effulgence the revised version says and the very image of God's person the character the character the only occasion where that word is used in all the Bible and upholding all things by the word of God's power when he had made purification of sins sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high having become by so much better than the angels as he hath inherited a more excellent name than they the word of God came through prophets who said the word of the Lord came unto me the word of God was spoken by Jesus certainly but the word of God was later to be written upon his vesture upon his thigh he had a name written the word of God says the book of Revelation and John introducing us to the life of the Lord Jesus Christ with in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God the same was in the beginning with God all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that hath been made sums up his own experience of Jesus life in his first letter by saying that which was from the beginning which we have seen with our eyes which we have gazed upon which our hands have handled and which we have heard of the life that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you Jesus was and is the word of God and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth we know I and you know alike that the Lord Jesus Christ began his conscience existence when he was born so this was interrupted for a moment when he died and was resumed when he rose from the dead now to die no more but we know because we have been and cannot understand because we are so lowly in God's creation that the Lord Jesus Christ saw things that other men did not see new things that others did not know was great beyond our understanding and perceived beyond our perception this is the making of our great high priest and you might say the making with all that involved in him with all his greatness and his power and his knowledge is that not the high priest in his perfection already what is there more to make with such powers as that with such honor and dignity with God as his father and the angels as his servants as to power and dignity there need have been nothing more to make had it pleased God to let the Lord Jesus Christ exercise that power while still walking as a man upon the earth as to his dignity it would have been possible for the Lord to impose that dignity upon those around him in a way that no one could have resisted had he chosen to use all the powers available to him untimely before the day came when he should I can call unto my father and he will presently send me more than 12 legions of angels said the mortal Lord Jesus Christ and when they said to him wilt thou that we call down fire from heaven and consume them as Elijah did there was no suggestion in his mind that he couldn't have done it only they wouldn't have been right to do it not them at least if ever ye know not what spirit ye are of for the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives but to save them he who could turn five barley loaves and two fish into abundant food for 5,000 people with 12 basketfuls taken up afterwards he who could still the waters of a very curable affliction make two blind men see successively raised three dead people from death one but recently died one being carried to his grave one four days dead already he who could do so many mighty works was not lacking in any of the powers that God had given to him using the he should at the time when it was right holding back the others to the time should be right for those and so if knowledge and understanding and power were all that our high priest needed he had them from the start could have exercised them as soon as he was grown but they were not all that he needed and had he used them before their time he would never have been our high priest at all his greatness by inheritance his greatness in the power that God gave to him would all have been frittered away and wasted and explosively destroyed if the Lord had used his powers before the time came something different from this was needed something which changes utterly the beautiful one-sided picture we have in Hebrews chapter one and which is put right and brought to balance again by Hebrews chapter two in the first place we learn only of the continuous nature of God's revelation through him of the power that was exercised and the glory that now is his of the subordination of the angels to him of the fact that in the very creation of the world God had him in mind all that leads to that fearsome suggestion in chapter two that were we to ignore or despise him the fault and the punishment would justly be ours therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that were heard lest happily we drift away from them for if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast and every transgression and disobedience received the recompense of reward how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which having at the first been spoken through the Lord was confirmed unto us by them that heard God bearing witness with them both by signs and wonders and by manifold powers and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his own will and as though to emphasize to rub in the responsibility that all who consider the life of the Lord Jesus Christ have to render to him their obedience and their allegiance the writer is not content merely to tell us of the greatness of the Lord in chapter one but to point out that the very greatness itself was communicated to men on the day of Pentecost so that what the Lord did was infallibly made plain to all others it was first spoken by the Lord that's the thing which Luke describes as the things that Jesus formally began both to do and to teach but then having been spoken by the Lord was confirmed by them that heard him who were so obviously his inspired messengers that God bore witness with them with signs and wonders and manifold powers and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his own will there's a thundering crescendo of evidence says the writer that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one that you and I was in our proper place made to realize how deep is our responsibility to conform as obedient creatures to what God has done through Jesus Christ we're in a mood perhaps to proceed to the next stage of what the writer says to us which begins by seeming to continue the parade of might of the Lord Jesus Christ but gradually changes in such a way that almost without perceiving it we see a different facet of our Lord verse five fall unto angels did he not subject the world to come whereof we speak but one has somewhere testified saying what is man that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that thou visitest him thou made us him a little lower than the angels thou crownest him with glory and honor and did set him over the work of thy hands thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet for him that he subjected all things under him he left nothing that is not yet subject to him in which the smallness of mankind as a whole what is man that thou art mindful of him seems to be contrasted with thou has put all things under his feet words which are elsewhere spoken of the Lord Jesus Christ both of now and of the time to come for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet as paul puts it in the 15th chapter of his first letter to the corinthians yet the tone has changed psalm eight was not originally written in order to exalt any one of mankind but to make mankind see how small he is when i survey the heavens the work of thy hands the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained what is man that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that thou visitest him thou made us him a little lower than the angels thou hast crowned him with glory and honor thou has put all things under his feet all sheep and oxen gay and every beast of the field the psalm is quoting genesis one as it would have been fulfilled had there been no fall of man picturing the words that God spoke when he said let us make man in our image and after our likeness placing man where he truly belongs lower than God much higher than the rest of the creation an intermediate being with God-like understanding and with a beast-like way of life somehow lying between the unthinking creatures and the all-knowing God that is how God made him let us make man in our image and after our likeness and let him have dominion and you see a chain of authority with God in overall control with the angels doing God's will in their immortal power with man male and female lying below them but above all the rest of created things and into their hands all power over those things is given but for so short a time let them have dominion so the psalm says what is man but thou art man full of him thou hast made him over all the works of thy hands but the psalmist knew that it wasn't the case in practice and hebrews says so we see not yet all things put under him it didn't happen man was not allowed for more than a short time to exercise the dominion which got a destined for him because he proved himself unfit for it all would have been well had the man of his life been content to say these things will obey me because I will obey my God then the chain would have been complete God's mind would be in the man and the man's mind would be upon his God and whatever he said to the rest of creation it must do would have been done right to God's honor and glory mankind as a whole would have been like that Roman ruler who in a faith which the Lord said exceeded all he could find in Israel came to the Lord Jesus and said I am not worthy that thou shouldest come unto my roof but speak the word only and thy servant shall be healed for I am a man set under authority I say to this man go and he go and there's another man do this and he doeth it and to a third come and he comes the Roman ruler knew his place he said I am Caesar's man I do Caesar's work I pass on to those beneath me Caesar's commands and they do them because I say so because Caesar said so there is the man placed under authority and exercising it that's how it should have been in the earliest days make man in our image let him exercise our law over the rest of creation and it never came about for more than a short time for the woman saw that the tree was good for food and the fruit thereof to be desired to make one wise and she took and did eat and gave to her husband and he did eat and they knew that they were naked and in their open-eyed understanding of their shame they were loosely clad with the things that God provided to cover their nakedness on a temporary basis until the time should come so far ahead when God would clothe mankind with glory and honor so we don't see it yet says the rest of the Hebrews what do we see we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man you can read that in two ways as though it said we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor as though his lowerness than the angels consisted in his being mortal or you can see it like this we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor that he by the grace of God should suffer death for every man and that seems to be the best way of looking at it Jesus was made in the condition of a mortal man indeed but it was because he suffered death that he could be crowned with glory and honor because he tasted death for every man that he should be made the lord of all creation and so the message of the psalm is completed in the thought God said treated in the thought God said he would put all things in control of man whom he had made we don't see it happened we do see something quite different that in one man alone rising above the fall of others because of the suffering of death he is now raised to God's glory and honor and one man has authority over all creation and that will be passed on to others that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man for it became him for whom are all things and through whom are all things in bringing many sons unto glory to fulfill psalm eight to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings for both he that sanctify and they that are sanctified are all of one and the frightening picture of chapter one with the lord in glory and honor commanding obedience and the warning lesson of chapter two in its beginning that if it was so dangerous to forget the message of angels how much more dangerous is it to forget the message of the son of God fades into the he'd like us he is our fellow he is not ashamed to call us brothers in tasting death for every man he has joined us on our level been through the experiences that are ours and done it for our sake it was right for God in bringing many sons unto glory to make the of our salvation perfect through his sufferings and then the lord Jesus Christ looks down upon all his obedient brothers and says I am the brethren who the lord hath given me he is not ashamed to call us brethren he is not ashamed to call them brethren brother Jesus brother Alfred brother Fred sister Ellen is that right no it is not right we are never invited to call him brother Jesus he is not ashamed to call us brethren that is his privilege of condescension I and the children whom the lord hath given me go and tell my brethren we we followed the example of his own half brothers and call ourselves his slaves we call him the lord Jesus Christ we bring him no lower than that it is a marvel that the lord Jesus Christ will come to us and dropping to our level to call us brothers and sisters behold what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God it would be presumption infantile precociousness for us to go to the lord Jesus Christ and link hands with him and say hi brother we don't do that ye call me master and lord and you say well for so I am says our lord directing our way of approach to him and there is not an apostle to be found there is no faithful person in all the New Testament scriptures who dares go beyond that recognition that the lord is great supreme above us all let us rejoice in our name by all means let us be called and be known as brothers and sisters in Christ but let us interpret that to mean that we are brothers and sisters of each other in the family of God because we are in Christ of whom the whole fatherhood in heaven and in earth named so if there is a stepping down of the lord to our level in this chapter and if we see him made a little lower than the angels we see him in a guise in which God made him in a position he chose and accepted to adopt but we see him even in his weakness as our lord it is greatness as doubly our lord and if we are invited as we are more than once invited in this book to approach with boldness before the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and grace to help in time of need he is upon a throne and we do go before him enthroned we are best to go before him on our knees and recognize how great this one is even though he will raise his hand place it on the head of our kneeling figure and bid us rise my brothers he says to us your slaves we say to him and as lord we address him it is true that the lord assumed the meekest of postures as we are taught when we are invited in paul's second chapter of his letter to the philippians let this mind be in you which was in christ jesus who being in the form of god counted it not a prize to be on an equality with god but emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a slave and was made in the likeness of men and being found in passion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the of the cross but it is true that in consequence of that god has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name that of the name of jesus every niche of bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth and every tongue confess that jesus christ is more to the glory of god the father and that is not restricted only to those subjugated knees that will bow before him because they will have been conquered when the lord comes back to his earth it is true of ourselves too when we say at the name of jesus every knee should bow we bow in prayer before thy throne oh god we say to his father and through the lord jesus christ himself our priest of whom we are learning we make that supplication to the eternal god but for the moment we see the lord in his weakness made like unto his brothers in every point it's not easy to accept that in every point like unto his brothers if you carry it too far you become a unitarian and don't believe that god is his father at all because in every point he's like us if you don't carry it far enough you make him the eternal god who in no respect is that appearance is like us and between the two there lies the statement here that being the express character of god person yet notwithstanding and in addition to that he is made in all points like unto his brothers when they looked upon the lord jesus christ they saw someone so very like us that they were offended when he in any way deviated from the normal pattern of human behavior is not this the carpenter's son they said and his brothers and his sisters james and joses and judas and simon and the rest are they not just like us why is this man out of the normal run of things and they were offended at him and their failure to understand him arose from the fact that this was not the carpenter's son that mary's son he was indeed but joses he was not and the therefore the mighty works that the children sells in him arose from a different origin yet how can one at the same time be son of god able to make multitudes satisfied with food and raise the dead and heal the sick and do all the other things that jesus did and speak inspired word wherever he opened his mouth how can one at one and the same time be that and the one who is made in all points like unto his brethren tempted in all points like as we are and all we can say to that is that it was so that this is the high priest whom we celebrate in the making preparing to become our priest that all the powers he possessed made his humanity no less that all the knowledge he had made his temptations no weaker that all the understanding he had of the ways of god made the pursuit of the way of righteousness no easier and the fifth chapter goes on to tell us how true that is when it cuts away the ground from all who would make the lord in some way different in his suffering from other men because god was his father by saying though he were a son yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered and being made perfect he became the author of eternal salvation perhaps no word sums it up better than that word perfect it's commonly used in the letters of the hebraeus it is only once outside that that it used about the lord jesus christ but when it is then so used the lord says go tell herod i do cures today and tomorrow and the third day i shall be perfected as those who say i haven't got there yet that time is yet awaited and during the period in which the lord awaited that he would say to the rich young man who came to him why call us thou me good there is none good but one that is god yet wasn't he good as we look upon him yes we could echo the words of the rich young man the good master did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth no wrong word no wrong deed no evil thought took root in his mind everything the lord did was good yet he said why call us thou me good none is good but one that is god well wasn't he good and if he wasn't in what respect was he not the lord himself points the way when he says the third day i shall be perfected and hebrews takes up the road when it says it became god in bringing many sons unto glory to make the captain of our salvation perfect to perfect him through his sufferings it takes it further when it says and being made perfect he became the author of eternal salvation having learned obedience by the things that he suffered and it takes it to its conclusion when in chapter seven it says the work of god makes jesus christ our high priest perfected forever more consecrated says the king james version but perfected it is forever more so between the lord as they saw him upon the earth and the lord as he ascended into the heavens there lies that process called being made perfect being perfected he had not achieved that while he lived it was there in his fullness when he rose and ascended to heaven it came about when he died so god made the captain of our salvation perfect through his sufferings he learned obedience by his sufferings and became perfect the law of god makes jesus our high priest perfected forever more and in that perfecting our high priest is born in that transition between his mortal life and his resurrection glory the lord passes from being a savior in the making to a savior made and complete and now untouchable by sin fitted to be our great high priest as our chapter ends verse 17 chapter 2 wherefore it behold him in all things we made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to god to make reconciliation for the things of the people for the sins of the people for him that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succor them that are tempted so therein lies the perfecting between the life he lived and the resurrection life he now lives lies the death that made him perfect it didn't look like it to those around here was a criminal being executed here was a blasphemer dying in his shame here was one who would rebel against rome suffering the proper penalty of a treason monger that was how they saw him here lies the man who was failed in his mission that was how his disciple must have seen him we thought this was he which should have redeemed israel now till their eyes were opened we can think so no longer what then counted his worst failure and the most dismal tragedy of his life was for those who saw him in faith and for those who now see him in faith the triumph that made a sinless man into a perfected high priest as moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life and so for reasons we shall explore because you and I are the people we are it was needful that our priest in the making should be just like us with respect to sufferings and temptation and affliction in all points like unto his brethren and for as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood jesus also himself likewise took part of the same that by death he might destroy him that hath the power of death that is the devil and deliver all those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage that as we shall see is what our great high priest did in becoming priest that's what the man who walked the courts of the earth did when he entered in through the veil by his own blood into god's most holy place and of that we shall learn more as we proceed if god be willing with our heads in prayer oh gracious god our heavenly father who has looked down upon thy creatures in their affliction and provided a way who wondered that there was no arm to save and no eye to pity and hath by their own eye pitied and by their own arm brought salvation now we bow before thee to thank thee for thy blessings brought to us in thy love in sending jesus christ by his righteousness to declare thy ways and by his death to open unto us the way the truth and the life into thy presence and now within thy courts we thank thee and seek thy face through him through whom thou hast loved us and washed us from our sins in his blood through jesus christ our lord amen you

Transcript

It became him, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the capture of our salvation perfect through suffering. For as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, Jesus also himself likewise took part of the same, that by death he might destroy him that hath the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetimes subject to bondage. It could not have been done otherwise. There's something almost mathematical about the precision of what is said there. Because you and I have a flesh and blood nature, it was needful that the one who was to redeem us to God himself should have the identical nature. He must also himself likewise, with threefold repetition, also himself likewise take part of the same, in order that his death might destroy the devil for us, and deliver all those who through fear of death were all their lifetimes subject to bondage. Granted our own fleshly nature, then the only way in which that fleshly nature could have its weaknesses overcome, and its separation from God healed, was that our Savior himself should have that same fleshly nature. And granted that equation, the only way in which our Savior having that same fleshly nature could bring about the salvation which we need, was by death, that by that death he might destroy him that hath the power of death, that is the devil. So we see God sending his own Son in the likeness of sin's flesh, and as an offering for sin, condemning sin where it lives, in the flesh, as Paul put it in the eighth chapter of his lesson to the Romans. Observe the course of this man as soon as we meet him. As a child we know little of him, save at the age of twelve. And there we find him disputing at the temple in Jerusalem with the scribes and the learned men, both hearing them and asking them questions. And when he is mildly rebuked for that by Joseph and his mother, answering by saying, How is it that ye sought me? Did ye not know that I must be in my father's house, or about my father's business? He knew it, and even at that early age had decided that he would do it. His father's will should be his law. There is nothing automatic about the Lord's obedience. We have already said from the letter we are studying that though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered. He had the same potential for being disobedient that any other child of Adam had. His temptations were real temptations. When each of them came to him he could say yes or no, but to the temptations he always said no. And to the calls of duty he always said yes, but never without the struggle that must take place in the mind of anyone when choosing his path, for or against. His first encounter with temptation is presented to us picturesquely in the Bible as a man-to-man encounter between the Lord and the devil. Immediately after his baptism, itself a temptation, the Lord was caught away into the wilderness. The temptation in the baptism consisted, no doubt, of knowing and understanding and then repelling the insinuation implied in John's sincerely humble words, Master, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me. For John, in a sense, had right on his side. Of the two, the Lord was infinitely the greater. Even the unborn John had seen that when he leapt in his mother's womb, when Mary carrying Jesus came into the house of Elisabeth, the adult John, even though at that time God had not disclosed to him that this one coming for baptism was in fact the Lord Jesus Christ, had with the same intuition seen that this one before him was greater than he, greater and more righteous. It was all very well for John to baptize harlots and publicans, and should they present themselves for it, even soldiers, for these men were palpably sinners, with sins to confess and to forsake, with bodies to be cleansed from their former sinning, but with Jesus it was otherwise. Put John and Jesus side by side, and there is no doubt who was the greater and who was the holier, and John saw it, even though it was only after the Holy Spirit coming down in the shape of a dove from heaven had descended upon Jesus that John knew that this was he who would baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire. How easy then it would have been for the thought to enter and take root in the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ that John was right, that he was the baptizer and John the subject, that those whom John was baptizing were sinners anyway and he was not. So yes, why not leave the baptism alone? But instead the answer came, suffer it to be so now, for thus it becomeeth us to fulfill all righteousness. So the Lord received his baptism, so the Lord commended it to us. He went down into the water, not saying privately as a person apart, thus it becomeeth me to fulfill all righteousness, but publicly as a person joining himself with the sinners, thus it becomeeth us to fulfill all righteousness. He went down into the waters as it were, soiled with the flesh of those who had grievously sinned, and accepted the gesture of humility, which was called for from them who needed it so much. He went down and incorporated within his act of obedience all who were already obeying and all who stand at the crossroads of obedience now, and there was never more eloquent call to any considering obeying the Gospel than to look at the manner in which the Lord Jesus Christ received his baptism and hear him say to us, thus it becomeeth us to fulfill all righteousness. And if he the Lord would go down into their water and accept what they needed, how much more should we be glad and honored and dignified to go down into his and hear him say to us as we are baptized, thus it becomeeth us, you and me, for he is not ashamed to call us brethren, to fulfill all righteousness. But as I say, he was caught away into the wilderness, driven by the Spirit of God to endure what forty days fasting could bring upon him, confronted with stones that looked like little loaves and could so easily by his power be made into them, confronted by the knowledge that he would shortly meet a multitude that might go with him or against him, and with the knowledge that there lay within him powers which could be used to gain him popularity, and confronted with the knowledge that that which was within him could lead him on the tide of popular approval to kingship if he would take it, without the need for the suffering of the cross, he could bypass all the afflictions and become a great king quickly and at once. So, if thou be the Son of God, command these stones that they may be made bread. If thou be the Son of God, cast this up down from hence, for it is written, he will give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou shouldst dash thy foot against a stone. And all these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. But the Lord had learned, and must now put into practice, that the sonship of God was there not to glorify the Son of Man, but to provide service for the Father, that the powers were his not to minister to his appetites, but to show forth the glory of him who had sent him, that the angels were there not to be the platings of his whims, but to provide the means of needed sustenance when he would go on his way to the cross that would seal his work. And so, it is written, he said, Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. It was in the wilderness they had been taught that lesson. He was in his own wilderness now. There God had rained down manna from heaven upon them, and Moses had said, The Lord your God did feed you with manna in the wilderness, that ye might know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of God's mouth. And it seems that this is what they were being taught. When they made bread, if they were in a country where it was possible for them to do so, they sowed seed, and wheat grew up, and a sickle was applied, and the harvest was reaped, and the ears were cut off, and then winnowed from their chaff, then ground into flour, then leavened if it was appropriate to leaven them, and then baked into bread, and then they ate. It was a long, many-stage process to make bread. But when God fed them with manna in the wilderness, He revealed at once that all those stages could be cut out, and straight from asking to bread they were. Manna came down from heaven, and the fine thing like a coriander seed was there for the eating, or the baking, or the seeding. All in one operation. And Moses said that was there to teach them not just that God could short-circuit the process from sowing seed to making bread into one single divinely miraculous operation, but also that God could, if He wanted, feed them just by words. Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth after the mouth of God. And He said to His temptation, God can keep me alive by any means He chooses. I don't need even to open my mouth. He will feed me and make me live. And the refusal to use the powers of the Son of God to gratify the appetite of the Son of Man bore its own fruits in due course when, He said to His disciples who came back bearing their viands from the market place, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work. And then when the multitude having been fed one day, five thousand of them besides women and children, with the fruits of five loaves and two fish, the Lord could dismiss them the next day with no more food and say, Labor not for the meat that perishes, but for that which endureth unto eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you. And they had no comeback, such as, You fed yourself fat with barley loaves in the wilderness, didn't you? When you made stones into bread, why do you deny us our second meal? For He had not done so. And His conscience was clear, and He could lead them to that which would sustain Him, the word which endures unto eternal life. It was the same with refusing to cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple. Had He performed that spectacle, they might have clustered round Him in their multitudes, for the wrong reasons. And then He might have been tempted to work that kind of acrobatic circus wonder, time after time, again and again, to gain their approval. It would not have been successful, of course. Multitudes are fickle and tired. Even Israel and the wilderness are tired of the manner. They want more and more, and different and more varied bread and circuses, and their demands would increase as their boredom with the things they had grew greater. And though at that time, and this was His third temptation, they would have come and taken Him by force and made Him a king, they would not for very long have been pleased with a king who gave them barley bread each day and fish. They would have wanted a change. It might have been quails or whatever it could be. And the Lord would have been not their king, but their slave. And not the slave of redeemed persons brought to glory, but the slave of persons unredeemed, as sinful as they ever were. No, kingship was not to be gained that way. The Lord paced His temptations not for Himself alone, but for all of us, in overcoming them and setting a pattern as to what righteousness was, and leading men to know that that was the righteousness they must desire, as they labored not for the meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth unto everlasting life. Those were His keenest first temptations. And at last, disciples said, call down fire from heaven in vengeance. And He answered, you know not what spirit ye are of. Ruler said, get thee hence, the head will kill thee. And the Lord stood His ground. Peter stood in His way as He paced southwards from Caesarea Philippi, on His way to Jerusalem, and said, Lord, this shall not be unto thee, and must be shown His place with, get thee behind me, Satan. Thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. And in His own private thoughts, the Lord would pace His greatest temptations, when He reasoned with Himself and said, now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. The voice of the flesh saying, get out while there's time. Father, save me from this hour. And the voice of the Spirit replied, but you do know that's what you're here for, don't you? And the Lord waved the two, without allowing the thought that would have been sin to take root in His mind, opted for the other one and said, Father, glorify Thy name. And the voice came saying, though they thought it thundered, I have both glorified it, and I will glorify it again. And so He went His way, till they arrested Him in the garden. And as though to emphasize that this was no superior might triumphing over the weakness of one man left alone, when the Lord paced them and said, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. The Lord's simple answer, I am He, either in itself or by some unrevealed exercise of His power, so prostrated them that they went backwards and fell to the ground. And then, by the Lord's grace, they were allowed to get up again and tie Him and lead Him to the place of what they were pleased to call judgment. And there, God having no doubt caused the confusion of Babel to descend upon their bribed witnesses, so that their testimony agreed not together. There the Lord stood trial for His life, and all the false charges failed and fell away. And it was only when the High Priest said, I adjure thee by the living God that thou tellest, art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed, that the Lord, giving the simple answer, thou sayest, was condemned as a blasphemer. There was blasphemy, I thought, certainly. But they would have been wiser had they decided to investigate whether perhaps His claim was true. Well, if it was false, He would indeed have blasphemed her. If it was true, they were. And they brought the guilt upon themselves by condemning Him. You have heard the blasphemy, and unlawfully rending His robes, the High Priest said, what need we further witness? And they all condemned Him to be worthy of death. So the Lord was condemned before a Jewish court for speaking the truth about His office. It was the same before a reluctant pilot. For then the charge, since the Romans were not concerned with the charge of blasphemy against Israel's God, then the charge was altered till He said He was a King. And the men who were determined to have Him destroyed demeaned themselves and humiliated their own claims by saying, we have no King but Caesar, to get their Christ killed. And so when Pilate said, art thou a King then, again there is not so much a plea of guilty as an announcement of the truth. Thou sayest that I am a King. To this end was I born, and for this purpose came I into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth, and every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. So they decided that they were not of the truth. And at least for the time being judged themselves unworthy of eternal life, these Jews who accused Him before their Roman oppressors. And we have no King but Caesar, cause their own King, born King of the Jews, to be led away to the place where they would erect over His cross the proclamation, this is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. And the horrors of that day the Lord endured, until at the last from the great darkness, as He bore accepting that which was a curse to men who had committed capital crimes. The Lord for all of us bore our sins in His body up onto the tree, and died as a criminal might die, and God left Him as He might leave a criminal, and from the darkness the Lord groped out to say, when His tongue was loosed by the sop they gave Him, Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit, as though to say, You are there God, though I can't now see and feel You, I know it and You will keep my life in Your care, till I take it to me again. And so the Lord died. He had never sinned. When temptation came to Him, each one separately was met, and reasoned out, and rebuffed. But of course the next day's temptations were yet to come, and the next, and the next, and all of them day by day, and week by week, and year by year, until the time came, which God had appointed and said, on that day I wish you to die. And the Lord consented when He was not compelled, chose to fulfill the things written of Him, and died of His own free will. Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. There would never be another temptation. Never again would thought center into the Lord's immortal mind saying, do this against God's will. He would never need to fight it down once more. It had all been done. The Lord could now be safely granted the blessing of endless life, because He would never misuse any powers that might be given to Him. All power hath been given unto me in heaven and in earth, the Lord could cry, and the Father who gave it to Him would lose nothing in the giving. He could give everything to Jesus and keep it to Himself just the same. And the nature of the risen Christ in relation to His Father was never better brought out than by the passage I have already quoted yesterday, I think. Wherefore, because He became obedient to death, even the death of the cross, wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father, so that whatever praise reach the Lord Jesus Christ, it would through the transparent selflessness of His immortal nature go through and reach His Father to whom it belonged. And so with that total devotion to His Father's will, which He nurtured during the days of His temptation, which was sealed in Him by His death, which is permanent in Him, in His raised and glorified form, the Lord will one day reach the point where, not abdicating, but giving where it is due, He will fulfill His total mission and take everything He has made ready for His God and give it to Him. And then shall the Son also be subject unto the Father, that God may be all and in all. And that will not be the Lord's abdication, it will be the Lord's greatest triumph. That is one thing the Lord's death did for Him, sealed in Him the sinlessness which He had chosen, so that now being made perfect, He could discharge the offices that are set to Him. It was not all. For He who had resisted the urge of those around to take Him by force and make Him a King, because it was not time that He should be a King. They were not the right subjects and He was not in the right position to be the King who would rule in righteousness securely and forever. He could now be made a King and be certain of ruling in the fear of God, with the love of God, for the name of God, with the honor of God as His goal. When Jesus became a King, there would be no temporary imperfect righteousness like that of David, say, or Hezekiah or Josiah. There could be no abandonment to evil like that had been with, say, Jeroboam the son of Nebat or except for his last days, Manasseh. With the Lord as King there would be perfection, justice, discernment, all that a King needs and the power to carry out his edicts. Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness and princes shall rule in judgment. But more than that, for our present purpose, what was sealed in the Lord Jesus Christ by His dying was that care and concern He had had for all His fellows during His living. I have compassion on the multitude. They are a sheep not having a shepherd. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. And the man who, knowing what he would do and who might to a mind without imagination seem to be under the necessity of doing so, who could stand by a grave with a stone sealed before it and behold the sorrow of those who wept and weep with them, was one who, when he rose from the dead, did not lose his compassion, nor cease to care, nor become the mere trembling giant of might which all power in heaven and earth might give him. He was the one in whom there was also sealed. That care and concern, that love for His fellows, which He had shown in the days of His weakness, may we sing together, Hymn 165. Hymn 165, Loving Shepherd of Thy Sheep. Loving Shepherd of Thy Sheep, coaster of seniority, tribe of thy count. Loving Savior, thou didst give, I owe my blood, flame, I live, and love at last best to bless, may the cruel world yield in praise. Loving Shepherd, ever near, He's proud and my voice to hear, Some would want less, less to pray, From lost great and narrow ways. And so by a route much longer than the writer has taken, we have arrived at our Lord in heaven now with that compassion which our High Priest is able to show and exercise on our behalf. And so we read in the closing verses of Hebrews chapter 2, Wherefore it beholds Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make proficiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted. Or at the end of chapter 4 verse 14, Having then a great High Priest who hath passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God let us hold fast our compassion. For we have not a High Priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and may find grace to help in time of need. And the scene was set for that all-powerful compassion of the Lord, of which Paul writes in Romans chapter 8, where we read Romans chapter 8, What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He that spared not His only Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justify us? Who is He that shall condemn? It is Christ Jesus that died, yet rather that was raised from the dead. Who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We are in danger of making two mistakes about the program of the Heavenly Father in our weakness, dying and being raised and descending and coming back again to reigning glory, missing out the middle. For we are in the middle and our present lives are that intermediate phase of lives and the Lord is not absent during that period, but present in another way. I am with you always, He said. The Lord is not absent during that period. For he who said, let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many abiding places, I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also, was not in those words, though often enough he did so elsewhere, talking about his second coming in future. He was talking about one opening the door of a house, going in and making ready and then coming back to the door and beckoning in his disciples saying, come in. Going in and making ready and then coming back to the door and beckoning in his disciples saying, come in. For in the same chapter, if any man love me my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abiding place, the very same word and it's only other occurrence, and make our abiding place with him, so that the Lord beckons the disciples within the Father's temple, not to go somewhere up above when they die, but to be in the heavenly places in Christ while they live. The believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, because his Lord is where he is, is one who walks with his feet on the ground and his head in the clouds. He is with the Lord Jesus in the abiding places of the Father's heavenly house. The Lord has passed through the heavens to the highest place where God dwells and we are told, let us therefore approach boldly unto the throne of grace. And that is the mercy seat of the Lord God with the Lord Jesus Christ there. We have sung a hymn yesterday in which we spoke of the Lord standing at the Father's right hand. It's the one misfortune in that particular beautiful hymn that we speak of him standing. For the only occasion where the Lord is reported as standing at the Father's right hand since his ascension is when he did so in the anguish accompanying the death of Stephen, where Stephen said, I saw the Lord the heavens opened and the Lord standing at the right hand of God, but for the rest the lamb took the book and sat down. The high priest could only be a pilgrim in the most holy place. He went in, stayed a short while and came out again, but not the Lord Jesus. He has gone in and he stays there permanently until he returned again and even then at his Father's right hand. The Lord sat down when he had by one offering purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high and God welcoming him says, sit thou at my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool. There is the permanent dwelling of the Lord in his own house with his Father, the Builder, there to greet him. And so our merciful, our compassionate high priest is there and he can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He can be sad when we are sad, sadder still when we are unfaithful, can be hurt when his disciples are hurt, can shiver when his disciples are naked, can feel the annoying pains when his disciples are hungry. So that at the last judgment he will say to his enemies, I was in prison and you came not unto me. I was naked and you gave me no clothing. I was sick and you did not visit me. And when they inquire how that could be, we'll answer, inasmuch as ye did it not and to one of the least of these my brethren ye did it not to me. And greet his blessing in the contrary terms to those who have been faithful in that way. In so much as ye did it to one of the least of these my brethren ye did it unto me. The Lord felt the stones when they stoned Stephen. Saul, Saul why persecutes thou me? And the Lord as a later chapter will tell us, can be deeply grieved if his disciples turn away from him. The letters of the Hebrews is a letter of alternating moods. Sometimes as in chapter one having expressed to us the glory and the majesty of Jesus, it warns us against not receiving him chapter two. Sometimes as chapter two proceeds it brings this glorified Jesus back to our level and says he beholds him to be made in all points like us so we can boldly go before God. And sometimes as in chapter three it can say now that's your privilege how dare you forsake it and become severe again. Hebrews chapter three verse one. Were four holy brethren partakers of the heavenly calling consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession Christ Jesus who was faithful to him that appointed him as also Moses was faithful in all God's house for this man was appointed worthy of more glory than Moses inasmuch as he who hath built the house hath more honor than the house for every house is built by some man but he that built all things is God and Moses verily was faithful in all God's house as a servant for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after but Christ as a son over God's house not his own house a son over God's house whose house are we if we hope past the confidence of our rejoicing and hope firm unto the end wherefore as the Holy Spirit said today if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the day of provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness when your fathers tempted me proved me and saw my works forty years wherefore I was grieved with that generation and said they do are in their heart and they have not known my ways so I swear in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest take heed the writer says lest what happened to them should happen to you and the severe notice back in the picture again how does it read then why does he need to remind them that Moses was lesser than the Lord why must he say that Moses was faithful in God's house as a servant while the Lord Jesus Christ was faithful in God's house as a son the ruler over the house that God had made why does he find it needful to remind those to whom he writes that they are members of God's house in Christ that they are his household his family and his temple as against yes as against what as against the other temple which had not yet been destroyed which was still there in Jerusalem which had its prevailing glitter and glory into which the high priest in his splendid robes would go into which once a year he would go to the great most holy place on the day of atonement and come out with his blessing why did they need to be told that because they were in danger of provoking their God again because they were in danger of emulating what Israel had done before because this could be the next step in the apostasy of the people of God what had gone wrong before then well many things and repeatedly they had moment when they came out of Egypt they had moment when they ran short of food they had moment for water when they were thirsty they had made themselves an idol when Moses was too long for their taste in the mountain they had refused to enter the promised land because of the giants there and then when they got it under Joshua they had no better then and in the days of the kings it was needful for David to write in the psalm here quoted today if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation in the wilderness when your father tempted me and saw my works 40 years they were always doing it generation after generation and so God swore in his wrath they shall not enter into my rest well they did enter into the land Joshua led them there there they might have found rest but they rebelled again so the long period of subservience and division under the judges played them into the power of their enemies time after time they who could have settled down in the land flowing with milk and honey instead of that turn to the idols around them and were denied the rest that they had been promised they never got that rest these people of God they wandered in the wilderness they wandered in the land of promise and says the writer in effect they are wandering yet and so he says what are you going to do fellow believers are you going to go back and join them in their wandering are you going to reject another today are you as they did when David penned the words today if you will hear his voice going to say I will not hear and seal yet further your disobedience against God are you going to turn back to that which they have never left going back into their temple following their high priest renewing their sacrifices and rejecting the one sacrifice for all to bring remission of sins is that what you will do if you do beware so God spoke through David of another today and said to the Hebrews of the first century and says to Israel of the 20th today if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation in the wilderness when your fathers tempted me and saw my work 40 years with whom I was grieved and swearing my wrath they shall not enter into my rest in a strange intermingling of figures in this third and in the fourth chapters the writer brings together two ways of describing God's rest one is the land into which Joshua led them where they might have rested with the peace of God upon them but didn't because of their unfaithfulness the other is a rest of a different kind which is spoken of in Genesis chapter 2 where one in a certain place has testified says chapter 4 of our record here and God did rest the seventh day from all his labors so there's a place of rest and there's a day of rest there is spiritually somewhere to go in order to rest and some day of rest where one can cease from one's labors and the two are mingled together in these words starting from chapter 4 verse 4 for he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise and God did rest the seventh day from all his works and in this place meaning the psalm again if they shall enter into my rest the day of rest in chapter in verse 4 the place of rest in verse 5 seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein and they to whom it was first pretended not in because of unbelief which is really disobedience again he limited the certain day saying in David today after so long a time as it is said today if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts for if one bearing our Savior's name Jesus Joshua had given them rest then would he not afterwards have spoken of another rest but Joshua didn't so there is another there remaineth therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God and that rest is the Sabbath rest it is sabbathismos the only occurrence in Scripture of that word and again the writer has moved away from the place of rest into which Joshua would have led them had they been the right kind of people into the day of rest which remaineth for the people of God and here it is today and is he not saying today is the day of rest let us not be obsessed with any such notion as that there being six days of work for God and his day of rest to follow Genesis chapters 1 & 2 there are six thousand years of work with a thousand years of rest to follow it is not that that the writer is talking about his rest is not a millennium of rest it is a day of rest starting now today if you hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation there remaineth therefore there is available therefore this Sabbath rest for the people of God so he that hath entered into his rest has ceased from his own works as God from his let us labor therefore to enter into that rest lest any man fall after the same example of disobedience for the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight but all things are naked and open under the eyes of him with whom we have to do so this is the call that comes to the disciple of God God worked for six days and on the seventh entered into a rest and having regard to the fact that the record in Genesis tells us of each of the first six days but not of the seventh and there was evening and there was morning one two three four five six days but at the seventh merely says that God rested then knowing therefore that no end is mentioned of that seventh day can we not say that the rest remaineth that God's rest continues to those who come to his rest that they get it when they receive him in Christ work and rest toil and recreation are our own natural sequence work and rest are postulated of God that that rest of his might be offered to us and work and trust are placed as opposites he that hath entered into his rest has ceased from his own works as God did from his and we that believe do enter into rest so again with the precision of this letter put together those things those who believe into the rest those who went to the rest cease from their works those who believe ceased from their works and faith and works stand in contrast once more we trust in our God and we do not trust in our works we don't labor for what we can achieve though we work the works of faith having shown the faith we seek to enter into that rest where trust in God assures us that works done in that faithful labor to follow offered in Galatians and Romans and not denied in James is the message that stands out here and will be abundantly illustrated by many examples in chapter 11 when by faith Abel did becomes the pattern of how men show their trust in their God and now we are taught work to enter God's rest and in that rest work the works of God what are the works of God this is the work of God that you believe on him who we have sent says the Lord Jesus Christ and to us he says come unto me all you that labor and a heavy laden and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light let us bow in prayer Oh Lord our Heavenly Father whose works in thy purpose were finished from the foundation of the world and whose rest is offered to all those who will put their trust in thee help us to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him that he may give us our hearts desire and trusting in thee through the Lord Jesus Christ find that peace of mind which passeth all understanding this we ask in his name

Transcript

Hebrews chapter four, verse nine. There remaineth therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest hath himself also rested from his works, as God did from his. Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest that no man fall after the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Though for the sake of finishing yesterday's class upon the right kind of devotional note, we moved from the picture of God's rest straight into the presence of our heavenly high priest through whom we have boldness to approach before God, to obtain grace, to help in time of need. Yet there were those verses of solemn warning, which I have just read to you now, that did need attention before we leave chapter four. The statement, the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, is a statement which flows rather easily from our Christadelphian lips. And is usually understood to mean that the Bible is a very penetrating book, that it contains information about ourselves and our nature and our motives and our sins, which is so frank and revealing, so inescapable. The way we read that book, our sins are open before our eyes and our weaknesses are exposed and our needs are declared. And then the ability of God to cope with those sins and those weaknesses and those needs is made plain to us so that in this written word we can find comfort and strength as well as rebuke. And of course all that is true. The question which is before us though at this moment is, is it that truth which is contained in these words? The word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And though perhaps in that verse we might be disposed to answer, yes, it could still be so, neither in its context nor in the verse that follows can we limit the meaning of this verse to that written word of God contained in the Bible. For when we read, neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and opened under the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Are we talking about our examining ourselves in the light of what we read in the scriptures? Or are we talking about God examining us and knowing what kind of people we are? To which there can be but one answer, we are talking about the latter and not about the former. There is no creature which is not plain and open before God that God knows all about it. There is nothing over which we can put the thickest skin or the deepest coat of whitewash which can be concealed from the gaze of him with whom we have to do. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes. He knows it all. He knows our inward thoughts. He knows all about us. And in the context, that must surely be what we are talking about. We have been told that Israel was rejected time and time again because they would not hear his voice, because they persisted in hardening their hearts as in the provocation in the wilderness when they tested God and saw his works for 40 years. They, the Hebrews, and we in retrospect, are being warned of the same danger which confronts us so that today is said urgently to us that we may follow during the day that is, the opportunity is laid open before us and not be guilty of the same transgression and disobedience of which they were guilty. For, says the writer, God knows all about us. If we were in our hearts to cherish that same folly which Israel cherished, then God would know. He can penetrate deep inside us. He can divide the indivisible. Just see what he can do with this sharp, quick, and two-edged sword. He can distinguish soul and spirit. Can you? I can't. He can separate joints and marrow, which is the finest piece of anatomical surgery anybody can imagine being done. God can do it through his word. We can't. He can make a fine distinction between thoughts and intents lying in our hearts. In other words, God can sever synonyms. So keen, so acute, so razor sharp is the penetration of the word of God. And so, notwithstanding all that we say, and I would say, too, about the Bible being the word of God, and I would diminish no wit from that, yet it is not that that the writer here is talking about. He is saying the word of God is quick, and he is not talking about our reading the book. He is talking about God reading us. You remember when God wrote in the Old Testament through the prophet Isaiah, he said, As the rain floweth down upon the earth and giveth seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that proceedeth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that whereunto I have sent it. As though the word of God is something active, going from him, reaching the earth, doing a job, coming back and reporting before the throne of grace and saying, Mission accomplished. The word of God is living, goes from him, does its work and comes back. By the word of God the heavens were of old. By faith we understand that the words were made. By the word of God, God said and it was done. Our words are so different from God's words. If I tell you something which I want you to believe, I may be right, you may believe me, and you may be improved by what I have said. But then I may be right and you may not believe me, then you would not be improved by what I have said. Or I may be wrong and you believe me, in which case you may be grievously misled by my word, and when I make a promise I may make it sincerely and be able to accomplish it. Or make it sincerely and lack the power to accomplish it. Or make it insincerely and not intend to accomplish it. With God's words it's not like that. If he speaks it is as good as done. If he promises unconditionally then it will not fail when he tells something to happen. It happens. We know not how, but with God, word and action are harder to be distinguished. And so in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. God's word, his power, his spirit, his presence, his plan, all these are one and the same to him. That is why we can say when Jesus was born, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And that is why John in his letter can describe Jesus as the word of life. And the book of Revelation can picture him bearing the name, the word of God. So if we were to read in these verses, for the Lord Jesus Christ, with the sharp two-edged sword proceeding out of his mouth, is living and powerful, that he can penetrate even to the dividing asunder of our soul and our spirit, our joints and our marrow, our thoughts and our intents, we would not be grievously misreading the passage. That is the kind of thing we are talking about. We are being told that in all our perversity, God knows it. In all our needs, God and his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, are aware of it. In all our rebellions, the Lord has it noted down in his records. And in all our surrenders, the Lord is willing to respond. And that is why we have a high priest who, being touched with the feeling of our infirmities, is able to procure for us mercy when we have sinned, and grace to help when we are in need. May we sing together, Anthem 36? Anthem 36, search me, O God, and know my heart. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my heart. And lead me in the way of everlasting. And lead me in the way, in the way everlasting. Amen. In fact, let a man examine himself, and so do all that we do in the sight of God. Let us in that spirit approach boldly before the throne of grace, and find mercy and grace to help in time of need. The throne of grace is in God's most holy place. And there there is no inanimate mercy seat, and no occasional manifestation of the indwelling glory. Now there is the Lord Jesus Christ, seated at the Father's right hand in the antitypical tabernacle. Now, as we learn later in the book, there is no barrier to separate those who once get into the tabernacle precincts at all from going right into the presence of the Father and the Son themselves. For that veil which separated holy from most holy has been torn down. It was rent from top to bottom when the Lord was crucified. We go through the veil. By the way, the truth and the life which the Lord provided for us, by his flesh, when he said, No man cometh unto the Father but by me. And having gone through, there we find our priest prepared for us. He did not come as priest. He came as son of God and son of man. He died to become priest. When he rose in the figure, by his own blood, he went into the most holy place there to obtain eternal redemption. And the heavenly tabernacle we can picture only in terms of the tent that Moses built, its reality being beyond our comprehension, save that we may go there, be there, and stay there. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. But of course, if you go into that most holy place and you find Christ there as priest, then if you go into anything else calling itself the most holy place, assuming you are allowed to do so, then when you get inside there, you'll find either no priest at all or an imposter, a priest who has ceased to have any function, who calls himself priest but isn't. The true believer needed to realize that in the first century and it was not easy to realize. In the very earliest days of preaching the gospel, in the time of Pentecostal and for some little time beyond, the temple courts, though not of course its private places, were open to believers as well as to unconverted Jews. There they would preach, there the lame man would be healed, there they would be with one accord in Solomon's porch and make known the gospel. And if they were later not welcomed there, it was because the Jews now perceived the inward working of the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ and knew that that and Mosaic ordinances could not live side by side. It had to be the one or the other and they had chosen the one and they stepped to their high priest. When the Lord did not return, when Jerusalem was not immediately destroyed, when his temple retained its ancient splendor and its decking with marvelous stones, and when the priest appeared in his beautiful raiment, when the sacrifices were there as visible ordinances, then the mockers said, where is your priest? He's gone, but you can't see him, can you? Where are your sacrifices? Where is your temple? And they were tempted to go back. It was only the firm and steadfast believer who knew that things were otherwise. It was only the man who knew the inward working of God's secret purposes, who could stunt to be judged by Ananias, who called himself the high priest. And when that man caused him to be smitten upon the mouth and say, nothing anger, but in perceptual, God shall smite, bleed our whited wall. And then say, I wished not, brethren, that he was the high priest. Of course, he called himself high priest. But I am persuaded that this man who had such access to the inspiring spirit of God was not merely bandying words as in argument and quarrel with that man, when he said, I wished not that he was the high priest. He was saying, that? The high priest? The high priest doesn't live here anymore. We have our own high priest who dwells in heaven. Ananias was an outdated imposter, sustaining shadows, holding ashes in his hand, clinging to bygone things. The believers themselves were in danger of doing so. Those who lived in Jerusalem and Judea, those who were under the constant pressures of the majority of unbelieving Jews, they needed to learn better, to relearn better. And so the writer here continues his analysis of the Lord Jesus Christ in relation to the powers and the ordinances that are. He has established him as the angel's superior. He has shown him to be our fellow in his temptations. He has declared him to us as the conqueror of our sins in his death. He has shown him to be exalted to God's right hand on high. They're able to intercede for us, but that will all be in vain if people nevertheless, having read the letter, go back into the temple and honor the high priest who is there. So let us, he said, think a little more about that high priest. He had his qualities. There were things about the old high priest which will bear comparison with the things about the new high priest. He might, as chapter 5 said, do these things. For every priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins, who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way, for he himself also is compassed with infirmity. And by reason thereof he ought, asked for the people, so also for himself to offer for sins. And in allowing that the high priest has something in common with the Lord Jesus Christ, who in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, is able to succor them that are tempted, he nevertheless emphasizes, with no small degree of irony, that one of the reasons why the high priest can be so compassionate with the feeling of other men is that he needs somebody to be compassionate with him. He himself is compassed with infirmities. He needs to offer for sins and can do so with the greater zeal and diligence, because his own sins must come into the picture. And indeed the ordinances of the Lord Moses provided that, when a priest or a prince committed a sin, a larger offering should be made on his account, because his sin was the more grievous, having regard to the responsibility he exercised. So certainly high priests could offer sins and sacrifices with considerable sincerity and urgency for the sins of others, knowing their own sins. There was no small element in the offering made by the old high priest of the, you scratch my back and I will scratch yours, we are all sinners together, we will be compassionate with each other in our sinning. Which had the many dangers that in those circumstances, the priest might be no better than his people, and the people see no incentive in their priest, that all alike would be sinners and each would be content for him in and from the same dead level of human sinning. Which came to its worst when the priests abused their office, as Hofmeyer and Finnehas had done in the days of Eli. So certainly the high priest, even though appointed by God for things concerning mankind and his worship and his needs, could do what he had to do with considerable sincerity, if he were sincere, but it reached nowhere. He was a sinner, and a sinner cannot conquer sin. So there had to be a change. But when the change took place, it must be as divinely ordained as had been the original ordinance. Aaron did not say, I will be priest, as the record says. No man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, even as was Aaron. And if Aaron did not presume upon an appointment with the Adoniger-like spirit, I will be king, as though to say, I will be priest, then even less must the new high priest take the office upon himself without divine sanction. Especially since God had promised to the house of Aaron, though they would continue, that Aaron and his son, and his son's son, with some deviations caused by the iniquity of particular generations, should go on in constant succession. God having provided that if there were to be a change, it could only be by specific divine commandment. Verse five. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made a high priest, but he that said unto him, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee, as he said also in another place, thou art a priest forever, after the order of Melchisedec. The name springs out of the blue. We have in the Letters to the Hebrews not heard of Melchisedec before. We have in the whole New Testament not heard of Melchisedec before. We have in the whole much longer Old Testament only heard of him twice. And one of those two is quoted in this verse. Before we reach it though, we must go through the reasoning and the course of preparation that the writer did. Who first pursuing his theme that Christ did not glorify himself to be made high priest, speaks of the obedience he learned by the things that he suffered. And with the nearest approach to an actual reference to the living experiences of the Lord Jesus Christ, takes us into the garden of Gethsemane, shows us the Lord upon his face in the garden, sweating as it were great drops of blood and crying with tears, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done, and tells us that with strong crying and tears, he called to him that was able to save him out of death, and was heard in that he feared. And so shows the Lord Jesus Christ becoming priest, not by presumption, not in arrogance, not pursuing ambition, but by completing the surrender of himself before God, that he might so surrendered have nothing that could stand between him and the divine appointment that God would give him. And knowing that God was able to save him out of death, could go to the place of great darkness, and there call out into thy hands, I commend my spirit, and be heard in that he feared, learning obedience by the things that he suffered, and then having been made perfect, becoming the priest he was intended to be, called by God, and the name comes before us again, and high priest after the order of Melchizedek. This is perhaps the moment to interpolate something that could even with better advantage have been said at an earlier time. And that's just to think a little bit about words like priest, tabernacle or temple, holy and most holy places, sacrifice, shedding of blood, atonement, and many others. And consider that place in our thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ and his work, and our own benefit from it. You see, you can read the relationship between the ordinances of the book of Moses, and the life and death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ in either of two distinct ways. You can say, the law of Moses demanded a sacrifice of blood. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission, Hebrew says that anyway. It is the blood that maketh the atonement for the life, as the law itself says. Therefore, you can say, when the sacrifice that was to make an end of all sacrifices was to come, that too must be associated with the shedding of blood. You see, what we've done, we've taken what the law says and made that the principle, and say, to that principle Christ must conform. We can say that a priest is needed as a mediator between man and God. Such a priest was appointed by God as a person of Aaron and his successors. That principle has not been changed. A mediator who is a priest is also required. Therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ needed to be a priest. You see what we're saying? A principle of priestly mediation is provided in the Old Testament. To that principle the Lord Jesus Christ must conform. You can say the ancient high priest could only enter into the most holy place by way of blood. And so with the blood of bullets upon his hands he went into the most holy place and would have been disallowed or even condemned to death. Perhaps put to death on the spot, as they who offered a strange fire in the Old Testament had been, had he presumed to go into the holy place without blood, or at any other time than the appointed time. So, we say, in going into the antitypical most holy place it was needful that the Lord Jesus Christ should go in with blood, his own blood, to fulfill the time. And you see what we're saying? That blood must be taken before one could go into God's most holy place and the prescribed ordinances must be followed so it must be with the Lord Jesus Christ because he must fulfill the principles laid down. And so we could go on. And that is one way which I have elaborated of looking at the relationship between the Lord Jesus Christ and the law. Let me suggest that there is another. When we learn that Jesus Christ verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world. When we are told you are not redeemed with the corruptible things as of silver and of gold, but with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ as of a lamb without spot and without blemish, and we can couple those words of Peter with those of the Lord himself that he is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. We are being told that back of all the sacrifices is the plan of God that Christ should come. That antedating all these things is the intention that Jesus should be our Savior. That the fundamental thing is that which was foreseen by God before the human race began, and that was that when it sins, sin would ultimately be made an end of by the coming of the Lord Jesus. In whom all the promises of God are gay, and in whom are men. And when you say that, you are saying the fundamental thing was the coming of Christ. The basic thing was his conquest of sin by a sinless life and by dying. The ground of our hope is his resurrection and his ascension to be with God in heaven. And those are the eternal verities brought into existence and achieved by his life and death and resurrection. To that, all the ordinances of the Old Testament pointed. Jesus did not have to be a priest because Aaron was. Aaron was made to be a priest to point forward to what Christ would be. Jesus did not have to offer himself as an animal is offered for slaughter because animals were offered for slaughter. But it was needful that Jesus should be exposed to a public death and to point to that God provided the sacrifices of animals. Jesus did not have to shed his blood for redemption because blood is needed for redemption. Blood was laid down as being needed for redemption because God knew that one day the Lord Jesus Christ would come and successfully shed his blood. And you see we are seeing the whole story in a quite different way if we look at it like that. And the second way is the right way. When then we ask questions like, did the Lord Jesus Christ need to make atonement for himself? Which has been a vexed problem throughout the ages of our Christadelphian life. It's the wrong question to ask. It's not the right way to put it. The right way to put it is that the Lord Jesus Christ had a nature which was full of the same tendencies as our own is. And they could not be dealt with save by resisting them during his lifetime and expunging them by his death. And so of course the Lord could not do anything to achieve glory for himself saved by dying. And if you want to say that that means the Lord made atonement for himself, well do so. But it's not the best way of looking at it. The best way of looking at it is the Lord could not have profited from being here at all unless his life and his death had been lived out to the full. The death was the thing that put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. This was really what the Hebrews needed to learn. And it's quite evident from time to time that it's something that we need to bear constantly in mind that fundamentally God's purpose is his Christ. Ancillary to that, indispensable perhaps, but quite ancillary and secondary are the means whereby God pointed forward to the coming of his Christ and prepared men's minds to receive it when it came. The sacrifices were means to an end. And there is perhaps no better place to find how they stand in the parable of God's purposes than this book which for all its deep rooted respect for the things of the law of Moses nevertheless when it compares them with Christ puts them quite distinctly in the place they ought to occupy. Would you and I for example have dared to look upon the law of Moses and all its ordinances and say that had to be wiped away because of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof? I don't think we would, but Hebrews does. Would you and I wanted to have used language about the ordinances of the Old Covenant as that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away? I don't think we would, but Hebrews does. And without showing any disrespect whatsoever to the divinely provided ordinances whereby the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ was declared to us the writer of the letter to the Hebrews makes it very plain that compared with the reality all these are but shadows and now in their once fleshly solid reality turns to ashes vanishing away in the face of the truth that has come in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Hebrews needed to be told don't turn again to the shadows, don't go back into darkness look upon the bright light you have received and glory in that don't let them tell you that because you have no visible high priest you have no priest at all don't let them tell you that because you take no part in the visible temple then you have no temple don't let them tell you because you are not daily witnessing sacrifices nor taking part in annual feasts then there is for you no sacrifice and there is for you no feast there is for you a sacrifice to end all sacrifices that which the Lord has done has been done once and for all it's brought out in many ways, some of which we'll see again but let that be plain before our minds when we think about the position of the Lord Jesus Christ in relation to the purposes of God now I've almost in a way done what the letter does mentioned the name of Melchizedek and left it on one side for he said in verse 11 of whom, that is of Melchizedek, we have many things to say and hard to be uttered seeing you are dull of hearing for when for reason of time you ought to be teachers you have need that someone teach you which be the first principles of the oracles of God and I've become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat for everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness for he is a babe but strong meat belongs to those that are of full age even to those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil please don't misunderstand me I am not standing before you as the writer of this letter Paul he may be, Paul's spirit behind it I have no doubt is there I am not standing before you wearing the robes of Paul and turning you off as he told the Hebrews how mistaken they were I'm just letting him speak through my voice to all of us just in case we have become dull of hearing just in case when by reason of the time we ought to be teachers we do have need that one teach us again which be the first principles of the oracles of God just in case we have relapsed into the situation where we have need of milk and can't tolerate strong meat just in case it is possible that we are amongst those who using milk are unskillful in the word of righteousness being babes and just so that we can if any of those things are true take or retake or retrace the steps which are needed that we might enjoy the strong meat that belongeth to them that are of full age even to those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil so we must pursue a little further the course that the writer pursues and leaving Melchizedek's name echoing in our minds let him wait for a moment until we pursue some of the things set out for us in chapter 6 wherefore, 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 of the doctrine of baptisms and of laying on of hands and of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment and this we will do, that is, we will go on if God permit now that foundation of which he speaks there have been those who with some show of evidence have suggested to us that that foundation is really what the Lord was saying that we should take something in the teaching of the Lord Moses that speaks of repentance, faith, baptism, laying on of hands resurrection and judgment and it is not to be denied that the hints of those things can be found in the Old Covenant and yet they relate so closely to basic things in the Gospel that it seems to me we must relate them to what the Hebrews had been taught by the apostles and their other teachers from the days of Peter onwards and what we have been taught too and just look about the foundation laid for our Christian life in these words there are six articles, are there not? repentance from dead works faith toward God the doctrine of baptisms the laying on of hands the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment and it is no mean summary of what does lie at the background of our faith and trust in God we start off by recognizing ourselves for what we are people who have sins to repent of works which are imperfect trusted ourselves which is untrustworthy and who need therefore to repent of our sins and as chapters 3 and 4 have told us turn to a better way which is item 2 show our trust in God place our faith in Him and it needs perhaps just a moment for us to point out that faith as the Bible uses the word is something more than a statement of faith that is not said against statements of faith we do need a formulation of our doctrinal truths it is said against supposing that faith consists of bare bones that you can desiccate faith and store it dry because you can't faith is the living reality not just believing that certain things are true nor knowing that certain facts are right but believing trusting faith towards God means placing one's trust in Him if there is one single word that could be used as a living synonym for faith it is that word trust trusting the trustworthy committing ourselves to Him repenting from the things that are not worthy of trust and placing ourselves in the hands of Him who is so those are the first two items of faith laid down here the doctrine of baptisms I suppose we all know that this is not the usual word for baptism it is the masculine word baptismos rather than the usual neuter word baptismos it is used of washings under the law it was used of the washing of cups and platters which the Lord condemned in the Pharisees in Mark chapter 7 it is used no doubt in this context so that the writer can tell us that the old washings are to give place to a Christian washing which is in fact the same as baptism and he says therefore you stop trusting in yourself you place your trust in God and you wash away that which was untrustworthy which in the letters of the Romans becomes burying that which is untrustworthy the old man with his deeds the fourth item is difficult the laying on of hands it is the one which together with the washings most easily conforms to Old Testament pictures like laying the hands on the head of the beast to be sacrificed which may well be part of its meaning but there is a New Testament practice if there isn't a New Testament doctrine of the laying on of hands too I suppose it starts when they bring little children to Jesus and ask him to bless them and the disciples would have them out of the way because they are a nuisance to the master but the Lord says suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of heaven and he lays his hands on them it no doubt continues in certain exercises of the apostles life when for example the seven deacons who were appointed to look after the problem of the unsatisfied widows in Acts chapter 6 came before the apostles and they laid their hands on them and they were appointed to the work it is found amongst others in the case where Paul and Barnabas being separated by the Spirit of God to the work whereunto he hath called them were sent out by the elders of the church in Antioch and as they sent them out they laid their hands on them and sent them away it is found in certain cases as in the letters to Timothy where Paul speaks of the gift which is in him by the laying on of his hands or the appointing of an audience as an elder by the laying on of the hands or the action of doing something for appointed believers by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery where it seems that the whole body of elders, just for whoever is concerned what the elders of Antioch did for Barnabas and Saul it is probably implied in the words of Paul about the apostles recognition of his ministry when he said when they perceived that the God was mighty to me through me and Barnabas to the Gentiles, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship which links up with our practice in a way that I hope that it would for we have an audience of the right hand of fellowship, don't we? when those have shown repentance towards God from their dead works when they have shown faith towards God, when they have been baptised they come to us one Sunday morning, the first morning of their breaking of bread and if your practice is like ours as I think it is then the president for the day extends his hand to them and shakes their hand and in the name of the brotherhood throughout the world receives them into fellowship with the community a beautiful custom, I wouldn't like to see it abolished but rather insecurely based in Bible practice for the only occasion where the right hand of fellowship is there referred to is when Paul says they gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship and at least one missionary journey was behind him when he said that they had been in the faith a long time as God's appointed men but it gives us the clue perhaps when they gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship what they were doing, Paul seems to say is recognising that we were their fellows in the work of God it was an act of fellowship, even though it wasn't an initiating one when they laid their hands on Paul and Barnabas in Antioch and sent them forth, it was again an act of fellowship though Paul and Barnabas had been in the truth a long time before them Barnabas in particular it was my way of saying you're going out to do the work our spirit goes with you, go with our blessing and our fellowship again it was an act of fellowship when the Lord Jesus Christ laid his hands upon the young children though in a lesser degree and with a future in mind it was no doubt there too the Lord's way of saying little children ought to come to me they ought to be received by me the child is the father of the man if you do that then the man will be received by me too if he is willing and so of such is the kingdom of heaven and again it was a gesture of willingness to receive and I think there may well have been in the early church a practice whereby once repentance had been accepted and faith had been shown and baptism had been received then the elders of the church could have laid their hands upon the converts and received them into the faith at all means the practice is in the right order isn't it you repent, you trust, you wash away and you join the company of the believers it's a word about corporate life it's not just you are baptised unto yourself and you live your private life let all who think they can be baptised and enjoy their private selfish Christian life in isolation from their others and think nothing about their fellowship with their brothers and sisters abandon that thought in the way of these words for the apostle Paul later when he speaks of the breaking of bread and the drinking of the cup says the bread which we break is it not the fellowship of the body of Christ and the cup of blessing that we bless is it not the fellowship of the blood of Christ we being many are one loaf, one body he said if these words are therefore intended to tell us that amongst the first principles of the gospel of Christ are that we are together that we labour together that we bear one another's burdens that we forsake not the assembling of ourselves together which is said later in this letter then the doctrine of the laying on of hands becomes a very important thing not merely the exercise of it but the thing it implies about the fellowship that exists amongst believers and the resurrection of the dead that's the next one he has incorporated all our Christian life in the laying on of hands and from that he goes on to the future when we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ having been raised from the dead if we have died standing then to be accepted or rejected receiving the fruits of the last item the everlasting judgment and he puts them in that order not only because it is the natural chronological order which it is but also that that word judgment might be ringing in the Hebrew's ears and ours too as he goes on to his next point which is verse four for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame for the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed receiveth blessing from God for that which beareth thorns and briars is rejected and is nigh unto cursing whose end is to be burned he is telling those Hebrews that if they go against the divinely attested revelation they have received then when eternal judgment comes then for those who have crucified to themselves the Son of God afresh there can be nothing but the parallel to the burning of the unfruitful briar a message which is repeated in chapter ten and we might take out of context here Hebrews chapter ten verse twenty-six for if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth there mayeth no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries he that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God that hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despise unto the Spirit of grace just dwell very briefly upon what the apostle says is the crime of those who are being enlightened as to the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ willfully and irreversibly turn back from it and don't repent and come back during their mortal lifetime they have crucified to themselves the Son of God afresh just imagine brother or sister that any of us could leave the table of the Lord slam the door of his house behind us and march out into the streets of Jerusalem climb the hill of Golgotha and join the mockers where the Lord Jesus Christ is being crucified again for that is what this verse says the willful rejecter is doing just imagine brother or sister that any one of us having said farewell to the place of our assembling together should go to the place where they have taken down the Son of God from the cross and have laid him on the ground and should grind our heel into his face trampling under foot the Son of God just imagine us going to the foot of the cross where the blood of the sinless one has streamed upon the ground and paddling it with our feet into the ground like a child with a toy that is the dreadful picture which the writer paints to us of the iniquity of those who turn aside wantonly from the high calling to which they have been called that's the warning he gave to Hebrews turning back the only thing we can say to each other in the face of that possibility is what he said to them when he said but I am persuaded better things of you you wouldn't do a thing like that would you and while we have been waiting following the Hebrews as it were in toying with going back to Aaron and his minions our high priest after the order of Melchizedek has been waiting in the wings I'm sorry we've only got as far as exit Aaron we'll bring Melchizedek in tomorrow if God be willing just a word of prayer O Lord our heavenly Father who did so love the world that thou gavest thine only begotten Son whose concern for the glory of thy name and the salvation of penitent creatures was such that it was by the blood of thine own that thou didst redeem us unto thee who were involved to the full in the agony of thy son in the garden and on the cross we come before thee now to thank thee for thy blessings in giving him to gaze upon his devotion with wonder and with shame and with humility and to ask thee to renew with us that spirit of repentance from our own dead works of trust in thee of being washed from our sins of being joined together in one in him and help us to remember too now and when the next occasion to celebrate it comes that with the loaf of the Lord's bread of heaven in our hands we being many are one loaf, one body through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Transcript

The Hebrews had been going the other way. They had been forsaking the invisible route to the heavenly tabernacle and taking the hard high road to the doomed temple. They had gone back to the worship of their fathers, or were in grave danger of doing so, were causing disaster like the branch that is withered, whose end was only to be burned, and were narrowly brought back from the flames by the counsel of the apostle here to look once more to Jesus, who, the appointed heir of Abraham, was now by God's promise by himself, the one who had gone not merely into an earthly tabernacle where high priests go for short periods once a year for the short length of their lifetime, but into the heavenly tabernacle there to sit down on the right hand of God. So with the assurance that he has done that, which by implication means with the assurance of an unchallengeable resurrection, those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ must look once more unto him, not merely to the impenetrable veil of the patched up curtain of the temple where they had once again resumed their worship after Jesus died, but through the clear blue skies of heaven into the place where Jesus sits at the right hand of God, where now they may approach unto the throne of grace for their mercy. So now Melchizedek, of whom the Lord Jesus Christ is said to be a high priest forever after his order, he is mentioned but in three places in scripture, in the 14th chapter of Genesis, in the 110th Psalm, and in the 5th, 6th, and 7th chapters of the letter to the Hebrews. It's an extraordinary story really, you start off with a man who appears out of the blue in Genesis chapter 14 and disappears into the blue and we never hear from him again for what must it be, a thousand years, 800 years at least. Then he appears fleetingly, momentarily, as a single occurrence in the 110th Psalm from the pen of David, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, and again he disappears for a thousand years, and then once more emerges from the obscurity into which he has been lost in the most elaborate reference yet in the 5th, 6th, and 7th chapters of Hebrews. And each one seems to be strangely, out of its context, surprising, totally unexpected and almost unnatural, and yet I think one of the most eloquent witnesses to the inspiration of the word of God that we could have. Let's pursue the references one by one, first Genesis chapter 14. To introduce the background of this chapter you will remember that when Abraham and Lot went out together from Ur of the Chaldees into the land of Canaan, they parted their ways because of the strifes of their herdsmen, and Lot chose the Vale of Sodom which was then well watered everywhere, and Abraham was sent by God into the land of Israel itself, and they encountered each other but once more, and that was when Abraham rescued his nephew with his 318 trained servants and his two allies from the hands of the eastern kings who had taken Sodom. When the rescued Lot was brought back together with the spoil of the aggressive kings, they were met as in this way in chapter 14 verse 17. And the king of Sodom went out to meet Abraham after he had returned from the slaughter of Kedah Leomur and of the kings that were with him at the Valley of Shaveh which is at the Kingsdale. And Melchizedek king of Sodom brought forth bread and wine, and he was the priest of the Most High God, and he, Melchizedek, blessed him, Abraham, and said, Blessed be Abraham of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be the Most High God which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all. And that's where Melchizedek comes and goes. We learn about him that his name is Melchizedek, which is my king is righteous or the righteous king or king of righteousness, and he is king of Salem which is the same as Shalom and means peace and is an abbreviated term for what was later elaborated into Jerusalem. So he is king of peace, he is king of Jerusalem, he is king of righteousness, and he meets Abraham as a priest also bringing forth bread and wine, no doubt they eat together, and Abraham surrenders to him a tenth of all the spoil that has been taken from the capture of the kings. He blesses Abraham and we lose him. Keeping that in mind, now turn to the second reference which is the 110th Psalm which I'd like to read as a whole, it's very brief. Psalm 110. The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion, rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth. The Lord hath sworn and will not repent, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath, he shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies, he shall wound the heads over many countries, he shall drink of the brook in the way, therefore shall he lift up the head. Now that Psalm, although it contains the name of Melchizedek but once, is itself used in the New Testament Scriptures several times. When the Lord asks the enemies amongst his people, what think ye of Christ, whose son is he, they answer, David's son, and the Lord in reply to them says, why then did David by the Holy Spirit call him Lord, saying, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. In other words, Jesus Christ says to the rulers of the people, it is true that Christ is David's son, it is also true that that fact alone is quite inadequate to explain the honor in which David held him. Parents don't call their children Lord. If David did call the Christ who was to come Lord, it must be for a very special reason which means that David's son alone he is not, that he is but more he must be, and what more they were expected to understand required their answer, he is also son of God. Why then did David in spirit call him Lord? Answer because he was to be David's Lord, because the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and that holy thing that was born of her was called the son of God. So already we have the Lord Jesus Christ set out in this psalm and declared by the Lord Jesus and in Hebrews chapter 1 re-declared as being the one who is David's Lord and therefore son of God. He is one who is going to rule out of Mount Zion, the psalm verse 2. He is one whose people do not accept him readily, the psalm verse 3, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, but will one day be compelled to do so. He is one who by an oath which God cannot break is constituted a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, the psalm verse 4, and who will one day do what Abraham did to inherit Melchizedek's blessing, being both priest and king in his own right, and will strike through the kings in the day of his wrath and will judge among the heathen. As Abraham had done so will the Christ do when he returns to the earth we now know. So that's our second reference. Suddenly, unannounced, and leading nowhere, apparently, we are told the Lord hath sworn and will not repent that the Messiah, David's Lord, is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And there's a link established there between the house of David, which is from the tribe of Judah, and the priest after the order of Melchizedek. Something is being done to prepare our way for what we find in Hebrews 5, 6 and 7. Now what we will read in Hebrews is just an extract of part of chapter 7, Hebrews 7, commencing at verse 1. For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, this Melchizedek being first by interpretation king of righteousness, that's the Melchizedek, and after that also king of Salem, which is king of peace, that's the Salem is shalom, is peace, without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth the priest continually. Now that introduces us to what is the basic problem about Melchizedek. Are we being told that Melchizedek didn't have a father, that he didn't have a mother, that he was eternally existent without having been born, that he went on living forever beyond the time when other men would normally have died? Are we being told that he, Melchizedek, abides the priest forever? And to answer the last one is to answer the rest. To the last one, are we being told that Melchizedek abides the priest forever? The answer is no. And the reason why the answer must be no is that if that were so he would not need a successor. And we are being told that he is going to have a successor. The Lord has sworn and will not repent thou, the Messiah, the one to whom David said, the Lord said unto my Lord, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. So Melchizedek's priesthood comes to an end sometime and is replaced by that priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which will not need to come to an end as long as the existing order of things persists. So we've answered one of our questions. Melchizedek is not permanently a priest. Now for the others, are we told he is not one who had a father or a mother or a normal birth or who would not experience the normal death? And on the same basis the answer must also be no. What we're being told is that there are some things we don't know about Melchizedek. He springs, as it were, full grown into the record of Genesis chapter 14. We are not told who his father was. We have no information about his mother. We don't know when he was born. We've no idea how old he was at the time when Abraham met him. And he goes back into his temple or whatever he had in Salem and disappears from view. And as it were, in the scenery of the event he's there still. It is as though we're beholding something presented before our eyes. The stage is there for our gaze. There is Abraham with the spoils of war and from the wings, as we said yesterday, from the wings on the left, say, there enters Melchizedek. Abraham bows in obeisances before him, counts out for him the best tenth of the spoil. By the way, it is the tenth from the top of the spoil that the word means, as though Abraham gives him the very chief of the things that he has captured. Abraham gives him the tenth of all, shares a meal with him of bread and wine and then Melchizedek, having blessed Abraham, goes out of the scene and disappears once again into the place from which he came. No doubt in the drama he'd go off through the other wing, but he's going back to the home he has behind the scenes. And that's all we see of Melchizedek. We're told nothing more. And may I stress this, we are not invited to ask anything more. Repeatedly one comes across the speculation, who do you think Melchizedek was? Do you think he might have been Shem? A man must always be, I don't know who he was and I don't want to know. I'm not going to ask. I know nothing about his ancestry. I know nothing about his fate. All I know is that there he is, out of the blue, coming full grown into our sight and in that form we leave him. That's the way we ought to think of him all the time. The argument in Hebrews would be destroyed if we knew who he was. The statement without father and mother, without beginning and end of days, abiding a priest continually would be ruined if we found out who he was. So let's restrain our curiosity, shall we? Scripture tells us about Melchizedek, don't ask. Just have him there because God put him there. Appointed by God as a priest, having nothing to do with the tribe of Aaron, and leave it at that and be content to accept the wonder of that when you get to the rest of the Hebrews. Who says? As Melchizedek, so Jesus. Jesus comes right out of God's direct appointment. In a sense, there is a kind of eternity behind him, of course, because he is the son of the eternal God, and one of whom it is written in the prophecy of Micah, and thou Bethlehem Ephrata, though thou be little amongst the tribes of Judah, the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. And though we do not believe that the Lord Jesus personally was in that condition before he was born, it is evident that that prophecy about Jesus relates him to eternal things and says he comes to us from the eternity of God, being born as the new creature, the Lord Jesus Christ, when Mary gives birth to her firstborn son. So as Melchizedek springs to view, not because he is the son of a priest we know about, but because he has been appointed, so does the Lord Jesus Christ spring to view, not because he is the son of any priest of the house of Aaron, but because he has been appointed. God puts him there. The beginning of his days rests in the eternity of God's purpose. The end of his days will never be, because he is passionate after the power of an endless life. He comes to us, he becomes the priest, and he stays the priest. He is the one then who becomes us. All the titles of Melchizedek become him. He is to be King of Righteousness. He is already King of Righteousness. He was born King of the Jews. His righteousness was made perfect in him by his life and by his death. It is sealed in him subsequent to his resurrection, and although he does not yet reign over the earth, King he is. We have another King, one Jesus. The name is written upon his vesture and upon his thigh, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Art thou a King then, said Pilate? Thou sayest that I am a King. To this end was I born, and for this purpose came I into the world, that I might bear witness of the truth, and every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. We have another King, one Jesus. Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel, said the faithful Nathanael to him. He is the King, awaiting his day to reign. For the Lord hath said to him, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool. There he is, awaiting the assumption of the power which already by right belongs to him. The assumption of the power that will compel a disobedient nation to bow their knee before him. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Yes, King of Righteousness he is. King of Peace too. Peace is a much misused word. We might from the security of this room say that the world is at peace now, but it isn't. There's no warfare going on in this room, I hope. Though there could be. There could be things going on in the hearts of every one of us. It's been token, a defective peace. But at least in this room there's no one actively engaged in fisticuffs or shooting at his brother, or engaging in any other form of violence. Outside, well in the immediate neighborhood too, you wouldn't really say there was a war on, but go far enough and there is. In the countries to the south of here, in countries to east and west, throughout the world, there are petty wars going on, which mean this is not a world of peace. In any case what the world means by peace is usually the period of licking your wounds between one war and the next. It's not really peace that we talk about. The peace that we're describing here is quite different. As the Apostle Paul puts it in his letter to the Ephesians, he is our peace, who has made both one that has broken down the middle wall of petition that was between us and has brought us forth before our God in one body in Christ, and there he's referring to the peace between believing Jews and believing Gentiles, who used to be races apart and are now members of one body being called by God to the one hope in Abraham, the father of us all. There's another sense to him which is our peace, because he says to his disciples, in the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world, in me you shall have peace. And the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ are conscious of a peace that belongs to him because being brought close by him they have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The world is at war even when it is licking its wounds because it is at war with its God. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. Even believers would be at war if they didn't fulfill their belief and trust in their Maker because from whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lust, at war in your members? Ye lust and desire to have and cannot attain because ye ask not? Ye ask and receive not because ye ask and miss, if you may consume it upon your lusts. And the only peace there is in this present phase of the world's life as we owe our allegiance to the Prince of Peace, as he was called, is that peace that belongs to those who think upon what shall have our good, pure, honorable, and of good report. And in spite of, brother boy, I haven't put those in the right order. But nevertheless, all those things do belong to our peace and then if we think upon these things the peace of God which passeth all understanding can fill our hearts and our minds through Christ Jesus our Lord. Yes, Prince of Peace he is. Of course he will be Prince of Peace in a greater way than this, at least a more pervading way, for there is no greater. When he comes back and subdues the nations and conquers the earth and the work of righteousness he'll be peace and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever in the Kingdom of God in its final phase at least. So King of Peace is right for him. King of Jerusalem he will be too in the other sense of the term because did he not say to his disciples, swear not by Jerusalem for it is the city of the great King? There he will reign. Now in order to establish this supreme authority of the Lord Jesus Christ as priest as compared with any priest they might have known before or any priest they might be disposed to turn back to now the apostle goes back to something else in the experience of Melchizedek that paying of the tithes that I mentioned. And he says what might seem to be a rather difficult thing about that tithe in Hebrews chapter 7 again, verse 4. Now consider how great this man was, that's Melchizedek, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils. For verily they that are of the sons of Levi who received the office of the priesthood have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law. That is their brethren though they come out of the loins of Abraham. But he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham and blessed him that had the promises. And without any contradiction the less is blessed of the better. And here men that die receive tithes, but there he receiveth them of whom it is written that he liveth. And as I may so say, or if you like summing it up in a phrase, Levi also who received tithes paid tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him. Now the line of reasoning sounds a little academic at first, almost legalistic. And it reads something like this. Levi received tithes from the people who thereby acknowledged the authority of Levi's priesthood. But Levi was the great grandson of Abraham. And Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek, thereby acknowledging the authority of his Melchizedek's priesthood. Therefore the people gave allegiance to the priests of the tribe of Levi. And Levi is the great grandson and therefore the underling of Abraham the founder of the race. And Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek thereby acknowledging his authority. And so by that chain of ascent or descent the people are subjects of Levi, are subjects of Abraham, are subjects of Melchizedek. And so Melchizedek's priesthood is vastly superior either to Levi or to the people who trust in Levi. Well it's right in spite of its involvement and in spite of its appearance of being legalistic. For Abraham did acknowledge that Melchizedek was priest to whom he should pay his allegiance and his tithes. And Abraham was the one who gave the origins to his great grandson Levi. And Levi did take tithes of the people and therefore the Levitical priesthood is in some sense subordinate to that of Melchizedek. But of course this is an oblique way of saying that what God has done in appointing a priest and can do again in appointing another priest is that which makes the one who is so appointed by God superior to all those others whom God has called to his kingdom and glory. Therefore the Lord Jesus Christ being called by God a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek is called by God the one who has the same kind of authority as Melchizedek had. And if Melchizedek could claim power over Abraham so can the Lord Jesus Christ claim power over the children of Abraham. It's a straight one for one parallel between Melchizedek in relation to Abraham and the Lord Jesus Christ in relation to his people. So that is what the Lord is inviting us to do to accept that the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ supersedes and was always in principle superior to that of Levi and Aaron and the priest descended from Aaron. Chapter 7 verse 11 If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood for under it the people received the law what further need was there that another priest should arise after the order of Melchizedek and not be called after the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed there of necessity is made a change also of the law. For here whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe of which no man gave attendance at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood. And it is yet far more evident for after the similitude of Melchizedek there ariseth another priest who is made not after the law of a carnal commandment but after the power of an endless life. For he testified thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. So having made the comparison which establishes the Lord's authority we now stress the fact that it will be endless that no other priest will ever be needed. That the Lord having entered upon the office of the priest he will continue in that office for as long as priests and mediation are required. And that the Lord is able to do much better because he is priest than any heir of Abraham through Levi ever could have done. The writer stresses again what has been mentioned before and what will be mentioned again in the letter whether we ourselves are able to repeat it or not. The writer mentions once more that there was no perfection by the Levitical priesthood. And adds very reasonably that if there had been God would never have changed it. If it had been possible to reach the goal through the priests of the tribe of Aaron then that goal would have been reached through them and God would never have invented another. But it wasn't. We've already learned in part why it wasn't. We will briefly review now why in other respects it wasn't too. First, those priests were infirm. They were the sinners on their own account. They could never bring in perfection. Second, their offerings were only the offerings of beasts and merely to offer a beast did nothing to make the conscience perfect which is brought out later. Third, the priests only remained priests for a short time and had to be succeeded by other priests. So they never achieved their objective during the lifetime of any one of them. Fourth, their access into God's presence was strictly limited and controlled. They might go into the most holy place once a year only and then only for a short time. And then they needed to do it again next year. And then when the priest had died, the next priest must do the same thing. And the writer very plainly tells us that in those sacrifices there's a remembrance made of sins every year. It is as though to say you are taught every year that you are a sinner. Every year you are shown a glimpse of hope that one day this will be dealt with when the priest goes for an instant into God's presence in the most holy place. But every year he comes out again. And though he pronounces his blessing you continue in the same way of life as you did before. Not improved, not better, just waiting. And next year he must go again. He is made very plainly a man under authority because it would be presentious of him to try to go at any other time. It would be wrong of him to try to go without the blood upon his hands that signifies that sacrifices for sin are still needed. When he gets there he can't remain there. The Lord reveals plainly, the writer says, that the way into the holiest of all has not yet been made manifest. He goes alone, too. Nobody else goes. Not even the other priests and certainly not the people. They remain behind the veil and see nothing either of holy place or most holy place. Their way is doubly barred into the presence of God. Better things than that are needed. And better things than that are provided by a priest who goes in and stays and doesn't come out again. Who is in God's presence all the time and need not say farewell to him. Who has once gone into his company and will live forevermore. And who, moreover, has not retired behind a veil. But, as we read in the chapter which you had before us, we go in through the veil into the presence of God. There is no veil anymore. The disciple is in God's most holy place in the person of his priest and stays there. Yet, this does not bring the perfection for Israel that they had hoped for. The saints of God are amongst those who have access into God's presence as we have now. But the people who receive the promise is one of them. Chapter 8, verse 1. Now of the things which we are saying, this is the sum. We have such a high priest who is set down on the right hand of the throne of the majesty of the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched to not man. For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices, wherefore it is of necessity that this man also have somewhat to offer. If he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, seeing that there are those priests who offer the gifts according to the law, who serve that which is a copy and the shadow of the heavenly things. Even as Moses is warned of God when he is about to make the tabernacle, for see, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee in the mount. We need to weigh up how we stand in relation to the things which are seen and the things which are not seen. We in this room see pillars holding up the ceiling. We see chairs on which we sit. We see people whom we can touch. We see books which we can read. And these are the real things to us. If we were denied them and confined in some place from which we could not emerge and these visible things would not be seen, the visible sight of our companionship and our hope and the solid realities of life would be denied to us. They and Jerusalem had their temple and their priests and their sacrifices. And the reality of those things they stressed, these are the real things of life. They are the real things of life to other forms of idolaters too. Everything which the world looks for is that which is seen, touched, handled, enjoyed, experienced. It is the sensual things of life which mark its realities to the world around us. To us it shouldn't be quite the same. There are more real things which are not seen than those things which are seen. The temple which they enjoyed in Jerusalem, which is totally ignored in this letter in favor of the much more fleeting tabernacle which preceded it, was a real thing to them. They could put it together. They could trample its courts. They could see their priests go into its secret places. They could weave the materials that were used for the tabernacle. They could assemble its structure. And although they were under the instructions to make all things according to the prescriptions that God had given to Moses in the mount, it was there when it had been made. Visible, seen, obvious to the eyes. They had a real tabernacle. But already in his second letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul has told us about the distinction between things seen and things unseen. And he says about our own earthly lives that we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle would be dissolved, we have a house with God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal. The things which are not seen are eternal. And if that's true of our present mortal bodies, which must one day be swallowed up of immortality, it is also true of our present corruptible tabernacles, which must one day be replaced by that city, the New Jerusalem, in which the saints of God will dwell. And for all its reality, they will say, I saw no temple therein. If there be things around us which we can touch and handle and clutch upon and find our assurance in, being able to take some kind of comfort from the fact that it's there and we can feel it and hold it and hold on to it. There is that which cannot be seen and known, which is yet more real in the rising and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom we learn that hope in him. Even though he has gone into the place behind the veil, we have an anchor for our soul, both sure and steadfast. As you look through the pages of this letter, and particularly in that list of faithful men in chapter 11, you will find repeatedly the reference to those who, being persuaded of things not seen as yet, built an ark for the saving of his soul, or he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, one who esteemed the reproach of Christ whom he couldn't see, greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt, who looked beyond the present things and had respect unto the future as yet unseen recompense of the reward, and regarded that as the reality. The city which hath foundations, the ground of Abraham's confidence, when, as we are told in this chapter, he received the promise, though he has not yet received the inheritance, was, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad. However, that which should appeal to the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ did not, unhappily, appeal to the nation of Israel to whom he came. Their people were not willing in the days of his weakness, even though they will be compelled to willingness in the days of his power. And when the Lord promises for them a better covenant, they themselves, by their own action, repudiate their right to it. Verse 6. But now hath Jesus obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then would no place have been sought for a second. For finding fault with them, he saith, behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. Now, leaving aside for the moment the nature of this new covenant, do you notice there that in those words, the people to whom it is offered are natural Israel. I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. I will replace the covenant I gave to their fathers, when I led them out of the land of Egypt, with a covenant now offered to them, written in their hearts. Now, you might have looked in your margins and discovered where those verses come from. You might have known already without needing to look. But they do in fact come from the 31st chapter of the prophecy of Jeremiah. They begin in verse 31 of that chapter. But the striking thing about this chapter is that it doesn't appear to be talking about that kind of circumstance at all. It is talking about the regathering of Israel. It is in those days and that time when I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel, that I will lead them into their land, and then I will make the new covenant with them. Verse 27 of Jeremiah 31. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass that like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down, and to throw down and to destroy and to afflict, so will I watch over them to build and to plant, saith the Lord. In those days they shall say no more. The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge, but every one shall die for his own iniquity. Every man that eateth a sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and then we have the passage about the new covenant, which we have just quoted from the letter to the Hebrews. If you read Jeremiah 31 as a whole, you'll find the case very strongly established that it is talking about the return of the people to the land, that it is talking about the time when they will dwell safely once more, that it is a kingdom picture we have there. And yet the apostle takes those very words, relates it to his own age, and says, Behold, the days come when I will make a new covenant better than the old covenant, replacing it and causing it to vanish, and that is the covenant now offered to you. So which are we talking about? About two and a half thousand years after Jeremiah's day, and not yet come, when the Lord Jesus Christ will return? Or are we talking about the days that the apostle writes about when this covenant is now replacing the old one that Israel had, when the law of grace replaces the law of works and ordinances? Which is it? Or we might perhaps be in a better frame of mind to discover after we've sung together Hymn 250. Hymn 250 Hymn 250, and although Strict's canation requires that we say Abraham, he's changed it to his covenant name, so can we say, Great God of Abraham? It needs a little bit of compression, but it's the right way to say it. So, Hymn 250, Great God of Abraham, hear our prayer. Great God of Abraham, hear our prayer. Let Abraham see thy mercy shed. O may they now at length return, And look on him they pierced and mourn. Remember Jacob's flock of old, Bring home thy wonders to thy fold. Remember, too, thy promised word, Israel at last shall seek the Lord. Though outcast and still estranged from thee, Cut off from their own olive tree, Lest them no longer such remain, O thou canst graft them in again. God, push thy love within their hearts, And rise it in their infant births. The veil of darkness rending to Please hide, Messiah, from their view. O haste the day foretold so long, When Jew and Greek are glorious throng. One house shall see, one prayer shall call, And one Redeemer shall adore. Once at one of our youth weekends at Swanwick in England, I took a hymn of this kind and invited the young people who were present to find out how many scriptural allusions they could trace in the hymn. This is an ideally suited hymn for the purpose. I've not done it with this hymn, but there must be at least 12 of them, I would think. We've certainly met Jeremiah 31. We've certainly met Romans 9, 10, and 11. And certainly Hebrews 8 and the later chapters that refer to the same passage. And the whole picture of the Lord Jesus Christ being veiled from their view by the darkness that shrouds Messiah from their gaze is one that comes out very prominently in scripture as well as in this hymn. You notice a rather striking thing that appears in the second letter to the Corinthians. It describes the occasion when Moses, having gone up into the mountain, came down with a shining face and put a veil upon his face so that they might not see the end of the glory that he had got. And we sometimes think, now Moses put the veil on his face so that they shouldn't see the glory. And that's not true. It was Moses put a veil upon his face so that they shouldn't see the glory passing. The last thing they would see of Moses' face as it were on that occasion would be that it was glorious. Then he would cover his face up and they would have the memory of the glory and not the fading of the glory. That's what it was to be like. Then the chapter goes on to say, but now in the days when the Lord Jesus Christ has come they're still basking in that image. They're still seeing the glory on the face of Moses, the glory that lives within his law, and they don't know that it's passed away. Because they won't look, as it were, through the veil that hides it to see that it's dark behind there now. And they won't look and see the light that comes in the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, the writer seems to be saying this. They take the veil that covers the Lord Moses, which hides the fact that there's no glory there anymore, and they strip it off and put it over their own heads. Now they're over their own heads, they can't see Jesus. So the glory that's gone they don't know, and the glory that's there they won't look at. That's the kind of way in which it was with the people in the days of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that no doubt is what the hymn had in mind when it said, the veil of darkness rend in two that hides Messiah from their view. Now, going back then to the question that we posed before the hymn was sung, is Jeremiah 31 talking about the time not yet come when the Lord Jesus Christ will return to the earth and the stony heart will be taken out of Israel's flesh and they will, if they repent, be given a heart of flesh with God's law written upon it? Or is it talking about the days when the letter to the Hebrews was written and our own time too, when the way of grace with the law written in our hearts is available to men now? Which is it? In the future or any time from 2,000 years ago onwards? And the answer is that it could have been either. For those who believe, it's now. For those who have postponed their belief, it can be never or not for 2,000 years. Israel brought upon themselves their own two millennia of darkness when they rejected Christ. It touches that problem that we can't solve as to what it would have been like had things been otherwise. You know, the hypothetical case, suppose Adam hadn't sinned, suppose Israel hadn't crucified Christ, and things of that kind to which we can never give an answer. And we have to bear in mind that the providence of God knew, as it were, how people were going to behave in working out his program. You get things like this from the writing of Paul. They that dwell at Jerusalem, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of their prophets, which are read over his Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him. Because they didn't understand and wouldn't listen to what their prophets were really saying, they brought about the fulfillment of the prophets' words by doing as the prophets said they would in crucifying their Christ. Things would have gone wrong if they'd known too much, as it were, but God knew they weren't going to know too much and he arranged it accordingly. Again, we speak the hidden things of God in a mystery, which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. So God's providence brought about the crucifixion of Christ because he knew that the peoples of the world would largely be oblivious to what was the meaning of the thing that they were doing. Sometimes, of course, they could know not what they were doing and then repent and do the right thing afterwards, as when the Lord Jesus Christ cried upon the cross, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And Peter said, I know that in ignorance you did it, as did also your rulers, repent ye therefore and be converted. And so, though the deed was done in the providence of God, even those who had connived that it's being done could repent of what they had taken part in and come back to the way of grace by repenting, when they were pricked in their hearts and said, men and brethren, what shall we do? So it is then with this promise of Jeremiah that in those days I will write my law in their hearts and I will make a new covenant with them, not according to the old covenant that I made with them in Sinai. That offer was made open when the Lord Jesus Christ came the first time. Then life and immortality were brought to light by the Gospel. Then the Lord said, I am come to give you life, but ye will not come to me that ye might have life. Then the nation made its decision, no. And for the nation postponed for 2,000 years the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy. They, the nation, will not receive the grace which is here prophesied until the Lord Jesus Christ comes back, until they shall look on Him they pierced and mourn as our hymn said, until they will consent to the excision of the heart of stone from their flesh and its replacement by the heart of flesh, until they will come in penniless before their God and admit the folly of their forefathers' deeds. That's the roots for natural Israel considered as a nation. And that means that Jeremiah's prophecy for them is not fulfilled yet and will not be till God sends Jesus Christ back. But for those Jews in the first century who did repent, for those who did accept the grace offered to them from Pentecost onwards and were baptized and did continue steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in the breaking of bread and the prayers, and for any of Israel who would join them subsequently, even now, then that covenant is there, alive, open, available for men to come and accept it and join the company of those who believe in God and are the subjects now of His grace. One of the things which is revealed in these verses is not easy for us to apprehend and not always sincere for us to claim to have experienced, and that is that the law is outward in all that it offers. You see things that you can touch. You behold a high priest offering a sacrifice. You see him offering prophecies of better things to come. But all the law could do is reveal the reality of sin, secure perhaps the penitence of sinners, but not do anything for their inward parts. But in this promise of grace given in Jeremiah 31, we learn, verse 10 of Hebrews chapter 8, For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be to them a god, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more. In that he saith a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. Now in addition to pronouncing the death knell of the old covenant as the prophecy of the way of grace, because the new and living way has now been opened up through the Lord Jesus Christ, the letter also tells us that for those who accept this message of grace, God will write his law in their inward parts, that it will not be needful for every man to teach his neighbor, saying, Know the Lord, that all shall know him from the least unto the greatest. And while that by no means removes from us the need to learn from our teachers, and they from their scriptures, the things that God has to tell us about his dealings with men, yet it does say that there is an approach to God which no longer requires the mediation of men, which does not go to a priest and have to ask him, does not ask him to make an offering, does not watch him disappear into the invisible as he goes into the most holy place. What it does say now is that those who trust in the Lord God through the Lord Jesus Christ have an high priest who is active for them all, who is in God's presence on account of each one of us, through whom each of us one by one with no other mediation may go into the presence of the Father, and by whose grace, if we will submit ourselves to him, his law can be written in our hearts, written not with ink, but in the fleshiest tables of the heart, as the Apostle Paul puts it in the chapter we have already quoted. The law, the Apostle says, can never, as affecting the conscience, make men perfect, but the Lord Jesus Christ, he adds, can do that. So having reminded ourselves of those words quoted the other day, about the word of God being quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, and knowing the Lord sees deep within us what our needs are, and our sins too, then if we confess our sins and admit our needs, we are told that the Lord's mediation with the Father can be effective in strengthening, in purifying, and in leading us from within, as it were, on the way of life. Let us pray. O Lord God, our heavenly Father, through our high priest Jesus Christ, our Lord, we do ask thee to lift up thy countenance upon us, to see us in our hopes, in our penitence, in our weakness and our need, and having received us into the calling of our most holy faith, by allowing us to be baptized into the dying of Christ our Lord, and having caused us to sit in fellowship with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, though to open and guide and lead and direct our hearts into the ways everlasting, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Transcript

I think we'll have the whole blessing today, shall we? So through our heavenly high priest, may the Lord bless us and keep us. May the Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon us and give us peace. When you read the opening words of Hebrews chapter 9, at least when you read them with my eyes, you get quite a shock. Let me try it on you and see if it works the same way. Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service and a worldly sanctuary, for there was a tabernacle made, the first wherein was the candlestick and the table and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary, and after the second veil the tabernacle which is called the holiest of all, which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant, and over at the cherubim of glory shadowing the mercy seat, of which we cannot now speak particularly. And that sums up all that the letter has to say about the construction and the detailed inward equipment of the tabernacle. That there was one, that it had a holy place containing the seven branch candlestick, that it had an altar of incense leading the way into the most holy place, that in the most holy place there was the ark of the covenant with the mercy seat upon it, and with the cherubim of glory overshadowing, and then, quite suddenly, and we've got no time to talk about that, and that's all. In fact, the letter to the Hebrews is not an exposition of the law of Moses, and very clearly was never intended to be so. It brings out certain elements of that law, but just so with the utmost brevity, and throughout has one principal object, and that is to show that, great though that law was, undoubtedly though it was given by the ordinance of God, rigid though were the instructions governing its application, see that thou make all things according to the pattern showed thee in the mount, yet for all that it was but a shadow. It had served its time, and its time had gone. There was no longer any room for the worship of the Mosaic tabernacle, its day had finished. There was no longer, and this is by implication, any place for the temple which had been built in the days when Haggai and Zechariah returned with the Jews from the land of Persia, and which had been richly ornamented and practically rebuilt under King Herod the Great. Yet this too had passed, the temple was empty, God did not live in that temple now. In fact it's the most remarkable thing which I only mentioned casually I think at an earlier stage of these discussions, that although the writer must have been perfectly well aware of the existence of the temple, though he must have known about the goodly stones and the precious gifts through which it was adorned, he must be aware of the vast structure of the stones that were built into it, he must have been able to describe it in detail had he required to do so, he doesn't so much as mention it, not once, never is there any reference to the temple. It's a kind of echo of Stephen's speech, not in words but in spirit. For when Stephen was on his defence before the hastily summoned council in Jerusalem, he reminded the people that God had chosen Abraham, that Abraham had worshipped him in the promised land, that the people had gone into exile in the days of Abraham's great grandson Joseph, that in exile they had been able to worship God there, that they'd had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, that it had wandered from place to place and ultimately but quite briefly but Solomon built him a house. And although Stephen only goes as far as Solomon's house, even that is mentioned with the utmost brevity, to be followed only by, how be it, the most high dwelleth not in temples made with hands, Solomon's house was there and it came and it went. It's been replaced by another which Stephen has given no opportunity to mention, but the only thing he says about all such temples is, God doesn't dwell in places like that. It had of course a double meaning, not that God never did honour the tabernacle with his presence, which of course he did, not that God's glory was not revealed from time to time in the most holy place, which it certainly was, not that the people had any right to perform their formal worship anywhere else, which they certainly had not, but that these things were but even in their day a mere nucleus of the reality of God. The heaven, even the heaven of heavens cannot contain these, said Solomon, how much less the house that I have built. It was always so, yet Israel had sought to confine God within that temple. That place of worship was the one where alone God could be found. Gentile nations, even Samaritans, the dogs outside, had no place there, and if you didn't honour that temple then you had no true religion according to these people. Of course the temple was honoured more in word than in fact. When they went inside that temple it was frequently with black mischief in their hearts. When they went into its courts it was often to conspire against the very things and men of God themselves. They even slew some of their prophets between the temple and the altar. And when they sold the birds and beasts for sacrifice, they had one eye upon the things of God, and both eyes if that's possible, upon the things of gain. They greeted the people who came in, and they looked at their beasts for sacrifice, and they said those won't do, they've got faults in them. And so the people must buy new ones at high cost. So they got out their money to buy with, and they looked at the money and said that won't do, it's Roman. So they exchanged it for temple currency at a high rate of exchange, and then they might buy their beasts. And that was why in readings we've had, for example this morning, the Lord Jesus would come to such a place and would say, it is written, my house is made a house of prayer for all nations, but ye have made it a den of robbers. And perhaps we sometimes miss the fact that the Lord is there making two quotations from the scriptures. The first from the 57th of Isaiah, where my house shall be a house of prayer for all nations is mentioned, and he is referring to the aspiration of all faithful Jews that at one day the temple of God in Jerusalem might be the place to which all nations would stream, paying due honor of course to the chosen people as they did so. But the other, ye have made it a den of robbers, referred them back to the prophecy of Jeremiah. Chapter 7, where the prophet complains against their constant and repeated and calculated breaches of the law of Moses, and then says, is this house which is called by my name become a den of robbers in your eyes? And then threatens it with the doom which had already overtaken Shiloh, and tells them that the temple must be destroyed for their wickedness. So the whole atmosphere of the Lord's teaching about the temple is that it is but for a time, and its time has nearly come and gone. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. In its own way, the letter to the Hebrews is doing the same thing. But not for quite the same reasons. In the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, the temple is to be destroyed because unworthy people are peopling its courts. It will be destroyed because they are crucifying the Son of God. It will be torn down stone by stone until not one stone is left upon another for their wickedness of the people. But there is another reason conspiring together with that one too why the temple would need to go, and that was, as I have said, that its day had come, that its purpose had been fulfilled, that shortly there would be no need for the things the temple sub-signified and for which it stood. And so the writer here gives a brief description of the contents of the Tabernacle. Takes us forth to the vale beyond which we might not pass in times past. Bids us follow the Lord Jesus Christ through the torn down vale into the most holy place and lays the entire Tabernacle bare with no vale to be found in it anymore. And then, as it were, sees the curtains and the hangings and the gold and the silver and the wood and all the rest gradually evaporate into thin air and displace towards the Tabernacle of God in heaven. And says, that's the real Tabernacle now. We won't spend time in talking about the things which are gone. It is not our purpose, Hebrews, to tell you about the glories and the significance and the types of the things that used to exist and used to be important in their types when types were needed. For now the reality has come. The shadows are passing away. The other things have decayed and waxed old. So, these things, verse 6. Having been thus prepared, the priests went always into the first Tabernacle, that's the holy place, accomplishing the service of God, but into the second went the high priest alone, once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the errors of the people. For himself, notice, and for the errors of the people. The priest was involved in his sins in going into that place, as well as the people in their sins. The Holy Spirit, this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest while as the first Tabernacle was yet standing. So you see what he is saying. That veil was an obstacle. It made the ordinary people aware that they couldn't go any further. It made the ordinary priests aware that they couldn't go any further. The people hadn't even got as far as that. And, says the writer, we are now tearing that veil down. Now the way into the most holy place is made manifest. That was a parable for the time then present, but now, after the end of the offering, both of gifts and sacrifices, which could never make him that made the sacrifice perfect as containing to the conscience, when there were only meats and drinks and divers washings, when there were fleshly ordinances imposed into the time of reformation, now that time of reformation has come. So, dismissing the Tabernacle, destroying the veil, taking away the earthly structure, he described something better and more permanent in verse 11. But Christ, being come a high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building, neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once, or once for all as the revised version says, into the holy place, which is the most holy, the place the most holy, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctified to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God? This is the second time we have met that contrast, between what the law could do as concerning the flesh, and what the law could do as concerning the conscience. Everything was external in the law. You killed a beast, you sprinkled its blood upon the altar, you sprinkled the people themselves with the blood, so that there should be a token of the need for blood to bring atonement, but inside the law could only get as deep as the recipient would let it. And now the apostle turning aside from the actual sacrifices, bidding them concentrate upon the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, draws the sharp contrast between himself as the offering, and all the beasts that have been offered before. Before, sinful priests offered animals. Men with a defiled conscience took beasts that didn't know what it was all about, and they killed them, and they spilled their blood. Now the great high priest comes. He is the Lord Jesus Christ in fleshly form. He is made in all points like as we are. When he dies, he dies of purpose. When they crucify him, it is because he consents to be crucified. His death is the end of a life lived without sin. Throughout every course of his life, he has faced temptation, weighed the good and the ill, and thrown away the ill, and embraced the good. And at every stage he has done that which was pleasing in his father's sight. His conscience was good. His way was deliberately chosen. He was void of offense in all that he did, and then in a good conscience he died. This was no mere taking mechanically of a beast that had not such a thing as a conscience, and putting it to death against its will. This was the taking of a Lord Jesus Christ whose conscience was kept clear before his God, and himself choosing to die, though the hands of wicked men brought it about. And when he died, it was a willing offering of himself before his God. He had denied his father nothing. He had spent all his days in his father's service. He went to the cross to do his father's will. Not my will, but thine be done. And the one therefore who awoke from the dead that resurrection morning was one who could look back upon a past in which with all good conscience he had served his God. And as the writer directs the attention of those who read him, away from the beasts and the temple and the fallible priests, to the Lord Jesus Christ and the heavenly tabernacle, and the now immortal and infallible Lord, he says he got there by following the dictates of an enlightened conscience. He is our priest because he overcame the emotions of sin in his members. And when you come to him, you do so not merely as fulfilling a right. You do so as bidding him look inside and cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. You don't merely go through motions of outward observances. You seek to have your inside put right in his sight. You remember the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, how he said, Out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts, and then a list of the evil deeds to which those evil thoughts give rise. There's something about that episode which deserves just a little further attention. It was in the seventh chapter of Mark that we are told that when the Lord and his disciples came in from some journey outside, the Pharisees marvelled that the disciples had not first washed their hands before supper. And the Lord tells the Pharisees that they on their part are denying the word of God by their traditions. They lay such stress upon the washing of hands and cups and pots and platters, and the rest that they forget the inward things which are needed. And the Lord says to them in effect, rub you your hands never so wisely, scrub you them with the fist from fingertips to elbows. The fact is that inside you are just the same as you were unless something quite different is done. No matter how well you wash, though you take you niter and much soap, you are no better inside from your washing, you never become righteous that way. That was not their tradition. Their washings, the same word as is used in Hebrews chapter 6, were designed to make things seem right. They were intended by the Lord to make one see the need for purification inside as well, but they had not seen them in that way. They saw their washings as that which made you as good as being good. They would not have said in modern Proverbs that cleanliness is next to godliness. They would have said they are the same thing, aren't they? Once you have cleaned the outside, then nobody sees any difference, so there is no need to look any deeper. And that was why they were white as sepulchres. And that was why within they were full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. To the Lord and to the Apostle the cleansing has to be otherwise. You look at the fountain of where the evils come from and you deal with that, and knowing that through within, out of the heart of man, evil thoughts proceed, and you say the heart has got to be put right. And you remember the day is coming when I will make a new covenant with my people, not with the old covenant that I made with their fathers, but I will give them a new heart. And so the Apostle directs attention not merely to the desirability of avoiding further involvement with Judaic sacrifices, but also to the need to look inside, to cleanse one's heart, to be pure before one's God. Now at this point the letter gets to a matter which is not at all easy to resolve. If we read verse 15 of this chapter and onwards we shall see what it is. For this cause Jesus is a mediator of a New Testament, that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the First Testament, they which are called back receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is a force after men are dead. Otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. Whereupon neither the First Testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, and water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people saying, this is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry, and I might almost say that by the law all things are purged with blood, and apart from the shedding of blood there is no remission. Now I diligently read the word testament on each occasion there, because that's what the King James Version puts. Just as it has the Lord Jesus Christ at the Last Supper taking the cup and saying, this cup is the New Testament in my blood, or this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. It's clearly words of that kind which led to the first 39 books of the Bible being called in our language the Old Testament, and the next 27 books being called the New Testament. And yet the word itself is not easy to follow. I don't know whether in this country when someone is preparing for the disposal of his goods after his death, the document which contains that information is called the Last Will and Testament of the person concerned, I gather it is, well it certainly is in my country, and so testament there when we think about it has something to do with a will, that in which you bequeath the property for which you have no further use, seeing that it is disposed in the way that you would most wish. Now are we talking about that kind of testament here? Some would say not at all, others would say yes, and somewhere in between there are those who would say yes but only in part. Now let's look at the conditions of the matter. A testament is that whereby you bequeath your property for which, and I use the words advisedly, you have no further use because you won't be there to enjoy them anymore. We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out. So that can hardly apply to the case of the Lord Jesus Christ in that form because although he died he didn't stay dead, and what he bequeaths, if that is the right word, what he donates to mankind, is that which he shares with them in his resurrection, so you can't in that sense describe it as being a testament or a will. The Lord Jesus Christ died indeed but lives in greater glory than when he lived, so he hasn't passed on what he no longer needs or can no longer use. On the other hand you take words like, where a testament is there most of necessity be the death of a testator, for it is of no force at all while the testator liveth, and I can't make any sense of those words unless it means a will, for read that, where a will is there has to be the necessity, of necessity the death of the one making the will, because you don't proceed to distribute the goods of the person who's made a will while he's still alive, and it's quite true, you don't, and that makes perfectly good and sound common sense. On the other hand, my blood of the testament is my blood of the covenant. There is an old covenant in the law of Moses, there's a new covenant in the Lord Jesus Christ, Chapter 8 brought this out and we all agree, King James Version and all, in translating the word by covenant there, so again, which is it? Well, you can try to get round the question of testament and the testator dying by saying, where there is a covenant there must of necessity be the death of the covenant victim, for it is of no force at all while the covenant victim liveth, and that seems to me to be a very convoluted kind of reasoning that doesn't really carry much weight nor bring much conviction with it. So the conclusion I come to is this, the word diatheke, which can mean both covenant and testament, does mean both covenant and testament. In its context. That in Chapter 9 we are indeed talking in an important sense about both. That although we are replacing the old covenant of the Mosaic ordinances with the new inward covenant of the law of Christ, and covenant is the right word there, we are also, and I think the word inheritance is not too strong a word, inheriting something which has come to us by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was really a testament, in the most significant sense of the term, that the Lord died to give it to us. That we wouldn't have had it without his death, and that we wouldn't have had it unless the Lord quite significantly gave it up, though he were rich, yet for our sakes he became poor during his lifetime. I beseech you, brethren, to let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, and took upon himself the form of a slave, found in the fashion of men, and being found in the fashion of men, he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. The Lord gave up everything he had in dying. The Lord did it all for our sakes. His death was to bring to us the benefits we enjoy. And even though it's quite true that the Lord in the ultimate lost nothing and gained everything by the doing of it, it is because he gave it up and was content to lose this life for the time being that we inherit the blessings which are ours. They would not have been ours unless he died. So for my part I'm content to accept the ambiguity of this word, and whereas in chapter 8 it means a covenant, in chapter 9 it means at least in part the last will and testament of the mortal Lord Jesus Christ, dying to give this to ourselves. Verse 23. Now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy place, that's the most holy place, every year with blood of others. For then must Jesus often have suffered since the foundation of the world. But now once in the end of the world hath he appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation. So we picture the Lord Jesus Christ as doing something which has its parallel with what the high priest did, but totally transcends that parallel. Then a mortal man went on supperance once a year with blood into the most holy place and came out again. He did it year by year for all his priestly life, and then his son did it in his stead. And he came out the same man as he went in, just a year older each time, until he died. But now the Lord Jesus Christ having gone into God's presence by the blood of his offering, now permanently ascends there until the fulfillment of the times which God has predestined, will also come out from his most holy place. He also will return to his people, but he returns now not as somebody coming out to go again and come out to go again, but as someone bringing salvation with him, bringing the day of judgment to those men to whom it is appointed once to die, and after that the judgment, and singling out from those whom he judges, those who look for him, those who look and wait for him, now see their high priest coming back and bringing their lives with him. I called this theme of today the New Jerusalem or the Heavenly Jerusalem, because we want to dwell a little bit now upon the comparison between the Old Jerusalem and the New. That was a city built upon hills. It contained an earthly temple, a worldly sanctuary, the apostle calls it. There they offered their sacrifices, there they met in worship, there, if they were the right kind of people, they rejoiced before the Lord, and thence they departed when the period of sacrifice was over. This Jerusalem became, in the days of the Lord Jesus Christ, a symbol not of liberty and joy and deliverance and triumph, but a bondage, so that when the apostle writes his letter to the Galatians, he draws a comparison between two mountains, and the one is Sinai, and the other is the spiritual Zion. And Sinai is where they got the law. The spiritual Zion is that from which their issue is the grace. Sinai is that which answers to Hagar. The spiritual Zion is that which answers to Sarai. Sinai is linked with bondage, for Hagar was a bondwoman. The spiritual Zion is linked with Sarai, for Sarai bore this uncalled laughter of the grace of God, by God's miracle. And so this Zion of the letter to the Galatians is not the place in Jerusalem where the literal temple was. The literal Jerusalem where the temple was answers to Sinai, says Galatians chapter 5, chapter 4. The true Jerusalem is that which belongs to the heavenly places, into which the Lord Jesus Christ has gone, and from which his grace proceeds. That's the true Jerusalem. And so the letter to the Hebrews brings out the same message. And if we turn over to chapter 12, we learn this in verse 18. For ye are not coming to the mount that might be touched and that burned with fire, and unto blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more, for they could not endure that which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. Ye are not come there, the writer says. Ye are not returning to Mount Sinai. And ye are not returning to what in effect is the literal Jerusalem, because that is where they were going back. And he too then is making the same comparisons as Galatians made. This Jerusalem is like the place of bondage, where you went and you stood in fear and you wanted to get away from it, and you didn't like to hear the terrible voice of God. But where are we come? Verse 22. But ye are coming to Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel. And the comparison is the same as that in Galatians. The reasoning is not quite the same, the provocation is not quite the same. In Galatians the apostle was writing to a a gentile or largely gentile community, lying outside the promised land and nowhere within reach of the temple. The temptations of the Galatians were not to go back to Jerusalem and offer sacrifice, but to go back to the law and accept circumcision. But it was the same thing in spirit. You went back to a law of works. You went back to a law of types and shadows. You were not now trusting in the law of Jesus Christ. So to the Galatians he said, Don't let them beguile you into the bondage of circumcision and the obedience of the letter of the law, which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear. To the Hebrews the retige is, Don't let them beguile you back into the temple and its worship so that you now no longer trust in the unique sacrifice of your Saviour, but begin once again to hark to shadows and place your confidence in the blood of beasts. But in both cases it is, forsake the place of bondage, leave the city of shadows, accept the place of liberty, and join the community of those who dwell in the heavenly temple of God. Sometimes because we are understandably and properly apprehensive about accepting into our teaching anything that corresponds to the idea that dead saints go to heaven, we tend to write down the heavenly associations of the living saints. And we shouldn't. They are so abundant in Scripture anyway that we can't faithfully do it. And the evidence that we are associated with heavenly things is too strong to be resisted. Beginning with, say, Set not your affection on things on earth, where moth and rust do corrupt, and thieves break through in steel. But set your affection on things above, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, nor thieves break through in steel. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. If then ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. God hath and blessed be he, made us to sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. When we were dead in trespasses and sins, we have been quickened, or made alive, and taken into that dwelling place, in my father's house or many abiding places. If it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go, I will come and receive you, receive you in unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. So the picture of the heavenly dwelling of the Lord Jesus Christ as being the heavenly dwelling of his saints, now in this life, not later when we die, but now in this life, is a picture which is constantly presented before us in scripture, in Hebrews as well as, or almost better than, anywhere else. So, our citizenship is in heaven, says the letter to the Philippians. Taking that Roman colony in the northeastern corner of Greece, in Macedonia, and saying, you are proud of being a colony of Rome. We, the believers, are not proud exactly, but grateful for being a colony of God. Our outpost, nevertheless, places us in the metropolitan Rome of God. We are in God's heaven, citizens of God's Jerusalem, now, while we live. So, this teaching of the letter takes us away from any confined, confined and cribbed place where God is supposed to be contained within 40 cubits by 40 or 20 by 20. Bids us introduce ourselves to God's wide and limitless universe. Takes us to the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of God and says, that's where you are, dwelling with Christ at the right hand of God. There were adumbrations of this in the Old Testament. You take those words of the latter, that God says, I dwell in the high and holy place with him that is of the humble and the contrite heart. Take words like those of the New Testament in James and Peter. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that God may lift you up. I know it says exalt you, but exalt and lift up are the same thing. We tend, don't we, to use classical words to denote figurative things and modern words to denote real things. So if you say lift up, you mean that. If you say exalt, you get an exalted feeling. And you stay just where you are. But they're both there and they're both true. And there's a lovely picture, if you can take it, from Peter's letter where he says, humble yourselves, this by the way, my right hand is yourselves, and this denotes the mighty hand of God. He says, humble yourselves to underneath the mighty hand of God, that he may lift you up. And that's what the metaphor means. We should place ourselves under God's hand in all humility, and then God exalts us to dwell in his high and holy place. And that's what the letter is saying. May we sing hymn 141? Hymn 141, Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see our God. The secret of the Lord is theirs, Their heart is Christ's abode. Thus on whom God hath given Our life and peace to bring, To dwell in lowliness with men Their pattern and their king. Still to the lowly soul He doth himself impart, And for God's dwelling place alone Blesseth the pure in heart. Lord, we thy presence seek, May ours this blessing be. May ours, a pure and lowly heart, Our temple meet for thee. The very simple word, better, occurs about 17 times in the Bible, in the New Testament. Of those, 13 are found in the letters of the Hebrews. And it's a useful little survey of the evidence of the meaning of this book. To go through those examples, they come along and just see where they take us. So we'd like to follow me in these references. First of all, chapter 1, verses 3 and 4. Jesus, being the brightness of God's glory and the express image of God's person, And upholding all things by the word of God's power, When he had by himself purged our sins, Sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high, Being made so much better than the angels, As he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. The Lord is greater and more powerful than the angels are, And his revelation more full and complete than any that they have mediated. That's the first case. Chapter 6. Having described the folly and the futility of turning aside from the ways of God, And the end to be burned, which is that of the unfruitful branches, In verses up to verse 8, he goes on and says, But beloved, compared with that evil faith, We are persuaded better things of you, And the things that accompany salvation. We believe that if you listen to these words carefully, You won't go back to the empty things of the Jewish ritual life, But you will choose the better things of the freely given sacrifice of the Lord, That salvation may be your reward. Chapter 7, verse 6. He whose descent is not counted from Levi, Received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises, And without contradiction the less is blessed of the better. So the great priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ, Which is after the order of Melchizedek, Is incomparably superior to that now discarded priesthood That belongs to the tribe of Levi and the house of Aaron. The same chapter, verse 19. For the law made nothing perfect, But the bringing in of a better hope did, By the which we now draw nigh unto God. The law simply emphasized imperfection, And pointed to a perfection that would come in another way. Now we've got there. Life and immortality have been brought to light by the Gospel. We can really approach close to God, Instead of being hindered by a holy place, And then by a veil. The same chapter, verse 22. By so much also was Jesus made the surety of a better covenant. The Lord Jesus Christ sees the assurance through his priesthood, Of a better and more intimate access to God. Chapter 8, verse 6. But now hath Jesus obtained a more excellent ministry, By which also is the immediate of a better covenant, Which was established upon better promises. And so what the Lord gives, Surpasses all that might have been promised, but not given, By the Lord Moses. The promises are now in the course of their realization. Chapter 9, which we have just read, verse 23. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens, Should be purified with these, But the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. You have to do a token purification of the earthly ordinances, By sprinkling blood upon them, But the real thing demanded the real death of a real servant of God, And that made clean those who might come into the very presence of God themselves. That was the better way. Chapter 10, we'll read from verse 32. But call to remembrance the former days, In which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions, Partly whilst ye were made a gazing stop, both by reproaches and afflictions, And partly while ye became companions of them that were so used. For ye had compassion on me in my bonds, And took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, Knowing that ye yourselves have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. I'd like to pause on that one for a moment or two. First of all, it invites those to whom the writer addresses this letter, To look back upon an earlier time. This has called to remembrance the former days, In which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions, Partly while ye were made a gazing stop, both by reproaches and afflictions, And partly while ye became companions of them that were so used. What was he referring to? Well, it's the Hebrews in Judea, And particularly centered in Jerusalem upon which the whole message is centered, And in some former days they had been badly treated. They had endured a great fight of afflictions, And they were companions with others that had been treated the same way. Don't we have to go back to the days of Stephen, When he was martyred for the faith? When Saul stood by and watched after the garments of those who had stoned Stephen to death, And then, breathing out threatenings and slaughter, Caused a great persecution to arise against the church in Jerusalem, Isn't it this that he's talking back to? And if it is, it's one of many hints that we could have drawn out Between this book and the events of those days, And the defense of that man for the spirit of Stephen's defense Is strongly the letter to the Hebrews. So I think the writer is saying, do you remember the time when Paul caused a great persecution to arise, And you were scattered and suffered grievously? Do you remember how he entered into houses and hailed men and women And committed them to prison? Do you remember how you forfeit the loss of all your goods? Do you remember why the church in Jerusalem was so poor And was constantly needing help from outside? It was all because of that early persecution in the former days Which you withstood so well. And while I've said so little about this during this week, I wonder whether this isn't a penitent man saying, Do you remember the time when I brought all this about? When I caused you to suffer in this way by the persecution that I initiated? Do you remember the evil I brought upon you, and how well you withstood me then? Well, now I'm on your side. But do go back to the steadfastness you then showed, Resist your present persecutors just as you resisted me, And try to retain your faith as you did then. Verse 34, which says in the King James Version, Ye had compassion of me in my bonds, Should certainly read, Ye had compassion on them that were in bonds, And had nothing to do with Paul being in bonds at that stage. And then goes on, And ye took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions, Which is exactly what happened. Then he goes on, Cast not away therefore your boldness, Which hath great recompense of reward, For ye have need of patience, That having done the will of God ye may receive the promise. So there the writer is actually going back, Or might we not really say Paul is going back, To something he had known in past times, And reminding them of the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, And I wonder if he might have heard Jesus say so. He says, Ye took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, Knowing that ye have in heaven a better and a more abiding substance, And what is that but putting all your affection on things on earth, Where moth and rust do corrupt and thieves and persecutors and everybody, Breaks through and steals, But set your affection on things above, Knowing that ye have in heaven a more abiding substance. I've said already there aren't many direct quotations from the words and work Of the Lord Jesus Christ in this book, but if there are any then surely that is one, And the apostle is inviting them to show their steadfastness In terms of the very ways in which the Lord Jesus Christ himself had spoken to them. This is not the place to try to develop it, But there's a considerable amount of evidence I think, That Saul, as Saul of Tarsus, might well have been around in Jerusalem and elsewhere, At the time when the Lord Jesus Christ was doing his preaching. And so apart from the Spirit bringing all things to his knowledge and remembrance, He might have heard these words spoken to the disciples, Or heard somebody who told him about them, Set not your affection on things on earth, Where moth and rust do corrupt and thieves break through and steal, But let your affection be in heaven. So ye have in heaven a greater and more perfect, a better and more perfect substance. Going on with the betters, we come to chapter 11. Verse 13. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, But having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, And embraced them, and confessed that they were stranger than pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country, And truly if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, They might have had opportunity to have returned, But now they desire a better country, that is, unheavenly. Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, For he hath prepared for them a city. And the betterness of that passage takes the pilgrim life Of strangers and pilgrims in the earth of an old time, And compares it with a well-established city, Upon a rock foundation, prepared by God, Already existing in God's mind, and ready to be given to them, Like the Abraham, who looked for a city which hath foundations, Whose builder and maker is God. And are we not bidden in that, ourselves too, far from Hebraic times, To note the difference between setting up a house on a foundation of sand, And building a house upon the rock of the Lord Jesus Christ, Looking for a city which hath foundations? And do we not learn again, Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, And doeth them not? I will liken him unto a foolish man that builds his house upon the sand, And the wind and the waves and the rain came, and the house fell. And whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man that builds his house upon the rock, And the wind and the waves and the rain came, and the house fell not. For it was founded upon a rock. And the rock is, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Upon this rock I will build my church. And we come to Jesus Christ as unto a living stone, And as living stones are built up into God's heavenly house. Chapter 11 still, verse 33. We should read verse 32. And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me, As it has failed me, I must say, brethren and sisters, For the time would fail me if I tell of, all these other things that ought to be talked about, Of Barak and of Samson and of Jephthah, Of David and Samuel and of the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, Wrought righteousness, obtained promises, Stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, Escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, Waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead, raised to life again, And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, That they might obtain a better resurrection. I have to pause on that one too, but for a moment only. Hebrews 11 is a long catalogue of men and women of faith, And for the most part of men and women of faith who profited greatly by their faith, Which was rewarded immediately, not always, but often. Abel died for his faith, but nowhere escaped in his ark. Abraham lived a life of pilgrimage, but some women received their dead, raised to life again. There are both kinds, those who must endure because of their faith, And those who achieved the benefits, stopped the mouths of lions, out of weakness were made strong. But there's a sudden and unannounced, an almost unnoticed change, As you read the closing verses of this chapter, from one kind of fruit of faith to the other. Let me read it to you again. I'll start at verse 33. Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, Stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, Escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, Waxed valiant in pite, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, Women received their dead, raised to life again. What a marvellous catalogue of success. And then in the middle of the verse, With only a semicolon to separate them in our ordinary version, And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, That they might obtain a better resurrection. And others at trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, Yay moreover of bonds and imprisonment, They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, Were tempted, were slain with the sword, They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, Being destitute, afflicted, tormented, Of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth, And these all, having received a good report through faith, Received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, That there without us should not be made perfect. And although that was continued to the end to bring in that betterness Of everything that God will give in the future As compared with the fleeting things of this life, The reason for reading the entire passage was to bring to Possibly your pained attention as it is to mine, The fact that the writer can suddenly change without a moment's notice From those who were delivered to those who weren't, To those who were saved to those who were not saved, To those who obtained peace and joy in this life, To those who endured the worst things that life could have met out to them, And he doesn't attempt to distinguish, He doesn't tell us we are doomed for the one thing or the other, He doesn't promise us safety, He bids us take note that faith could lead either this way or that, And listen and wait and seek for strength and be ready for whatever comes, And in days when the time of the end is drawing quite close to us as we all believe, And when there seems to be a gathering together of the forces of evil That can make life very hard for the saints of God as I believe, Though I wish I did not, Then the need to bear in mind this contrast between those who were temporarily Saved by their faith like the three children in the furnace, Those who were not like the ones described here and not accepting deliverance, Should be clear before our eyes and we should seek before God for strength to be ready for either, For there's a better thing that comes at the end if we do. We are come, verse 23, to the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, Which are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, And to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the Mediator of a new covenant, And to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel. And we remember what seems to be another recollection of the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, When he told the Jews whose temple was to be destroyed because of it, That the blood of all the righteous men which have been shed from the foundation of the world, From the blood of Abel, here we have him, To the blood of Zacharias the son of Barakaius whom they slew between the temple of the altar, Might be required of this generation. And a long line of guilty men gather together as the shedders of righteous blood, From Abel's day onwards and culminated in the death of the Lord, And that is their doom. And a long line of faithful men, the spirits of just men made perfect, Enrolled before the world began, or rather enrolled throughout the ages in the book of life, Stand before us now as being those whose blood was shed, Or those who in spirit were prepared to have their blood shed, And culminates in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, Who filling up the iniquity of his murderers, Fills up the salvation of those who come to God through him. And we stand in an evil world with the two earliest descendants of our first parents, Side by side before us, And there is Cain and there is Abel, And Abel offers an excellent sacrifice to God and dies because of it, And Cain kills him of his jealousy and self-will, And we are asked to choose which of those two patterns we will follow. Israel made its choice, they killed the Prince of Life, And desired a murderer to be granted unto them, they said not Abel but Cain, Not this man but Barabbas. We stand with the same choice before us, And we remember that the world is like Cain who slew his brother, And wherefore slew he him, as John puts it in his first letter, Because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous, And now we have the same choice and we must say must we not, Not Barabbas but this man, Not Cain but Abel, And by the anti-type of Abel enter as the Lord entered, Without needing again to go out into the most holy place of God's tabernacle, And obtain grace to help and mercy in time of need. A final prayer. Our heavenly Father, for all thy blessings we thank thee, And for bringing us close into the presence of thy Son, And we ask thee now that thou would give us the mind that seeks to go no more out, But rejoices in his company, is glad in his fellowship, And is strengthened by his mediation, That in the age to come as it is appointed unto men once to die, But after this the judgment we may be there to greet him with gladness, Looking for him when he appears the second time unto salvation, In whose name we ask this. Amen.