Alright, let's go back to Hebrews
chapter 1, to that passage. Let me get a taste of this. Is
this Ohio River water? I had well water up there. That's okay. It's wet, anyway. Alright, the book of Hebrews,
chapter 1. I guess other than maybe the
book of Revelation, one of the most difficult books in the New
Testament for most people to understand is the book of Hebrews. Now, to be sure, every bit of
the Word of God is impossible to be understood except by the
Spirit of God's illumination and revelation. The scripture
says, but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God, their foolishness to him. You talk to people quite
often to whom the scriptures and the things of God are foolishness. But there was a time when they
were foolishness to us. And I don't know what background
you came out of. Maybe you came out of a false
religion background, or maybe you weren't in religion at all.
But there was a time when the gospel of grace We're talking
about the message of substitution and satisfaction by the Lord
Jesus, the message of sovereign grace, the message of imputed
righteousness, the message of the death, the burial, and the
resurrection of our Lord Jesus that actually accomplished our
redemption and our salvation. There was a time when that message
was foolishness to us. Somebody maybe tried to tell
us about the absolute sovereignty of God. And we said, you know,
that can't be so. Every man's got a free will.
Every man has a choice. Are you saying we're all puppets?
There are all kinds of things that people say, but the things
of God are by nature to us foolishness. It can't be understood. In fact,
the rest of that scripture says, neither can he know them. Neither
can He know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. Now let's understand something. The Lord Himself has
to reveal the Gospel to us, doesn't He? You know, years ago, and
some of you are old enough to remember this, there was a program
on television called the Hour of Decision. Well, we don't want
this to be an hour of decision. We want this to be an hour of
illumination. An hour in which the Spirit of
God reveals the gospel to us. I don't need to leave you, and
I don't want to leave you, nor to myself, to our own understanding,
to our own perceptions, to our own knowledge. What we want is
for the Spirit of God to take the things of Christ Jesus and
show them unto us. And if He doesn't do that, we're
not going to understand, we're not going to perceive. We preach
the gospel of how God can be just and justify the ungodly. And to the natural man, the idea
that this salvation is solely by the doing and the dying of
another, it's foolishness. But to those of us who are being
saved, we see in this gospel the very wisdom of God and the
power of God. Do we not? We see that God has
opened our minds and God has opened our hearts. He has given
us an understanding of the Scriptures. Our Lord Jesus, when He walked
with those two disciples on the road to Emmaus after His resurrection,
they didn't understand. Why, they said, we thought, we
thought this was the Redeemer. We thought he was the one who
would bring in the kingdom of God. But he's died. And yes, some have said that
he arose again, but we haven't seen him. And the scripture says
that the master spoke to them and he said, O fools and slow
of heart to believe all the things that the prophets have spoken.
And then he opened their understanding. He opened their understanding.
What a sweet thought. He opens our understanding that
we might receive the truth. That we might see Him in His
glory and in His beauty. Later, He appeared to His disciples. He said, do you have anything
to eat? And they gave Him something to eat. And again it says, he
opened their understanding. He took the scriptures, he took
the law, he took the prophets, he took the writings of David
and the Psalms, and he broke it open to them to reveal to
them the things, this is what he said, concerning himself. O God the Spirit, open our understanding
that we might see the beauties of Christ Jesus and the glories
of Christ Jesus, of who He is in His deity and in His humanity
and in His effectual work of redemption. We know He didn't
come down here to try to do something or other. He came down here to
save His people from their sins. After all, that's His name, isn't
it? His name is Jesus. For He shall save His people
from their sin. And the work has been done to
God the Father's full satisfaction. How do we know that? An empty
tomb declares that. The empty tomb is God's declaration,
this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, and with his
work I am well pleased. And the tomb is empty, which
means redemption has been accomplished, our sins have been put away,
everlasting righteousness has been brought in, we've been justified
by his blood forever and ever. Oh God, give me an understanding
of that. Oh God, open my mind and open
my heart. I know the way to the heart is
through the ear gate. Oh God, open my ears. Open my
eyes. The seeing eye and the hearing
ear, God gives them. God gives them. And so it's true
with all the Word of God that God has to reveal the truth to
us, but it's also true specifically with the book of Hebrews. And
you've got to remember that the book of Hebrews was written,
well, let's say about 65, AD 65, something like that. It's
certainly written before the destruction of Jerusalem. And
it was written to the Jews, as is indicated by the fact that
it's the epistle to the Hebrews. And these were people who made
a profession of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, and many
of them indeed did believe Him. But they were suffering. They
were a persecuted people. And there were many people who
said, well, but what about the ceremonies? What about the rituals? Are we just to forsake those?
What about the priesthood? What about the sacrifices? And
there were many who would lead them back into those Old Testament
ceremonies and rituals and sacrifices. And so the writer of the Hebrews,
and we don't know who the writer was for sure. Most believe, tradition
says it was the Apostle Paul, but we don't know that. Some
say it was Barnabas. Some say it was others. I don't
know who wrote it, but I know who gave it. The Spirit of God. I know who the author is. It's
the Spirit of God. That's good enough for me. I
know I was talking to a man just the other day up in Almonte,
and he was telling me that a friend of his did his doctoral dissertation
on who wrote the book of Hebrews. I have no interest in reading
that. Because it's the Spirit of God who gave it to us to show
us the preeminence of our Savior over everybody and everything
else. That's really what the book of
Hebrews is all about. It shows us he's preeminent over
Moses. First of all, he's preeminent
over the angels. He's preeminent over Moses. He's
preeminent over Aaron and all the priesthood. And his sacrifice
is preeminent over all the other sacrifices, all the sacrifices
of the Old Testament. And what the writer of the book
of Hebrews is showing us, what the Spirit of God is saying to
us in the book of Hebrews is, our Lord Jesus Christ is preeminent. He is better than everybody,
and He's better than everything. This is the theme of the book
of Hebrews. Now, as we read through the book,
And as we study the book of Hebrews, we ask God to give us an understanding
and to move upon us that we might really appreciate the things
that are written concerning our Savior. Now when I think of the
book of Hebrews, I mean all 13 chapters, I think of three words. And these words will be the title
of the message. First of all, Christ is supreme. Secondly, Christ is superior. And thirdly, Christ is sufficient. And I actually wrote that right
here over top of chapter 1 in the book of Hebrews because I
want to remember that. He is supreme. He is superior. And He is sufficient. That is,
He is all we need. Jesus Christ is made to me all
I need, all I need. Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. He's all we need. Christ is sufficient. We want nothing more, we'll have
nothing more, we'll hear nothing more than Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. He's all we need. He is supreme. So we're talking about the superiority
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's supreme, He's superior,
and He is sufficient. Let's think about the fact that
He is supreme. In this country, we have the
Supreme Court. In other words, that's the very
highest court in the land. When I say that the Lord Jesus
is supreme, I mean He's the highest. There's nobody higher. There's
nobody higher. Now, he was already supreme by
virtue of his deity. By virtue of who he is. He is
the eternal God. God of every God. He said, before
Abraham was, I am. There's his eternality. And you read through the Old
Testament and the New Testament, we see all of the attributes
of God belong to the Son of God. So He is Himself supreme by virtue
of His deity. He's God over all, blessed forever. He's the Creator. He's the sustainer
of all things, he's the governor of all things, he predestinated
all things, and by his providence he's bringing his predestinated
purposes to pass. He is himself supreme, but he
humbled himself in order to save us. He had to
humble himself and become obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross. You see, God could speak a word
and make the world. God could say, Light be, and
the lights turned on. But God can't save sinners like
that. We studied in the Bible class this morning about the
fall of Adam. We fell into sin, and when man
fell, he didn't just break his spiritual legs, he broke his
spiritual neck and died. We've lost all inability. We have no spiritual abilities
to do anything. We have fallen. Our Lord Himself
has to raise us up. He is the one who brings us back
from death unto life. And our Lord Jesus Himself is
the very highest of the high, who raises us up. Here is Adam
in his fallen state. Who comes to the rescue? Our
God. Our God. Because of our fall, because
of our sinfulness, the Savior had to humble Himself in coming
to the world to save us. He couldn't just speak a word.
He couldn't just say, I'll show mercy to you. Because God will
not show mercy at the expense of his justice. He can't do it. Now, God is merciful. God is
gracious. God is loving. God is kind. And God is holy. And God is righteous. And God is pure. He can't let guilt go by without
punishing it. Well, how are we to be saved?
After all, we're the vessels of mercy appointed unto glory
from before the foundation of the world. So how is God going
to save us? How is He going to lift up the
fallen without marring Himself, without lessening His standards? His standard of perfection and
righteousness and holiness and justice. After all, His law says,
the soul that sinneth, it must die and it shall die. Well, this
One who is superior over all, by virtue of His deity, He humbled
Himself and He came down here. And as we all know, born of a
virgin, lived a life of perfection under the magnifying glass of
the law of God. And finally Pilate, speaking
as though for everybody, said, I find no fault in this man.
He's qualified to be the sacrifice then. And he died in the stead of his
people that God might be just and the justifier of everybody
who believes on Him. This is how God is a just God
and a Savior through our Lord Jesus. Now, He who died arose. I've already talked about that.
And He ascended. And now He has superiority over
all, not only as God, as He was to begin with, but as the God-Man. He is superior over all. There
is a man in glory. Somebody preached that message
here many years ago at a Bible conference. It brought a message
on there is a man in glory, and his name is the Lord Jesus Christ,
and he is superior over all. God has made him Lord. That's what Peter said to those
folks on the day of Pentecost. God has made that same Jesus
whom you crucified both Lord and Christ. He's the Lord. You don't make him Lord. You
don't vote Him in as Lord? You don't have a voice in His
Lordship? God made Him Lord. And by His
grace, we bend the knee and we confess His absolute, total authority
over all things. This Christ Jesus who died for
us, He's Lord over all forever and ever. That's His superiority. You see, he earned the right
to be the Lord by virtue of finishing that work that the Father gave
him to do. What was that work? It was a
work of reconciliation. It was a work of redemption.
It was a work of putting away our sins. It was the work of
bringing in everlasting righteousness. And only one person could do
that work. Not the highest angel, he couldn't do that work. Even
God as the invisible God, unless he takes human nature, he couldn't
do the work. Only the God-man could do the
work. And he did it. And so he says in his high priestly
prayer, Father, I have, what did he say, finished the work
thou gavest me to do. And then when he hung on the
cross, in his dying moments, before he yielded up the ghost,
he said, it is finished. Woo! It's done. The work is done
as God Himself would have it to be done. It's finished. And now He's been exalted. See
His exaltation, first in His resurrection, then in His ascension,
then in His glorious coronation. Lift up the gates, Psalm 24 says. Lift up the gates. Why? The King
is coming in. The triumphant King! Glorious
over all forever! He's coming back! And the father
said, sit at my right hand. Sit at my right hand. I'll make
all your enemies your footstool. This is the superiority of Jesus
Christ and this is what the book of Hebrews is all about. He went back and sat down. As
you know, in that earthly tabernacle, seven pieces of furniture. But
we know what was missing. There wasn't a chair. There wasn't
a chair. There was nowhere to sit down. I guess when the priests got
tired, they just had to go out and sit on a park bench somewhere
outside the tabernacle. There was nowhere to sit down
inside the tabernacle. But this man, This man, oh what
a man. This man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, what did he do? Sit down. Sit
down. Why? The work is done. The work
is accomplished. Now listen to me. Your faith
doesn't add to what he did. Faith believes what he did. Faith
receives the Lord Jesus as prophet, priest, and king. But faith doesn't
add to what He did. The work is done. Repentance.
Is repentance necessary? Yeah, we repent of our dead works.
We repent of our idolatry. But it doesn't add to what Christ
did. The work has been finished. Must we be regenerated? Yes. Must we be given new life? Yes.
But the work of the Spirit of God does not add to what Christ
did. The Spirit of God is revealing
to us, and does reveal to us, that the work is finished by
Christ Jesus. He doesn't add to it. It isn't
that our sins aren't put away until the Spirit of God does
something within us. The Spirit of God does a work
of regeneration within us and He shows us the work was finished
2,000 years ago. And we're made to rejoice. We're
made to be glad. Say, Oh God, thank you for your
Son. Thank you for that glorious redemption. He is supreme. He is supreme. Overall. And then He is superior. The
superiority of Christ. Well, we just moved down here
from Michigan. You know what Michigan has got
around it that others don't have? The Great Lakes. I took Richard
Wormack there. Richard Wormack is preaching
for me a couple of years ago. took him over to Lake Huron,
and he said, is this water salty? It looks like an ocean, but it's
not. It's the largest collection of
fresh water in the world, right there, the Great Lakes. And one
of the Great Lakes is Lake Superior, well-named. It's the largest. It's the largest. It has superiority
over the other four great lakes. Our Lord Jesus is superior over
everyone. That's why when you get to the
book of Hebrews, one of the key words, perhaps the key word,
is the word better. Better. Look here in chapter
one and verse four. Here's one of the usage of the
word better. Hebrews chapter 1 verse 4, speaking
of Christ Jesus, and I'll just read the last phrase of verse
3, 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. He has the most excellent
name of all. His name is superior to every
other name. Neither is there salvation in
any other. For there is none other name
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." This
is the name that is over every name. In fact, God says in the
book of Philippians through the writer, the Apostle Paul, Well,
let me read this to you. Go over to Philippians chapter
2. It bears reading. You've read it before. Look at
it again. Hebrews chapter 2. He has a more excellent name.
This is the greatest name. Philippians chapter 2. Look at
verse 6. who being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself
of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant, and
was made in the likeness of man, and being found in fashion as
a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. Wherefore, God also hath highly
exalted him, giving Him a name which is above every name. There is His superiority. His
name is superior to every other name. That at the name of Jesus,
every knee should bow of things in heaven, things in earth, things
under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He has the superior
name. His name is higher than any name.
Oh Jesus, oh how sweet the name. Jesus evermore the same. Jesus let all saints proclaim
His worthy praise forever. His is the superior name. He's better than the angels.
Go back to Hebrews. He's better than the angels.
In fact, notice down in verse 6. Let me show you this. In fact, I'll read verse 5, back
to chapter 1 of Hebrews, verse 5. For unto which of the angels
said he at any time, Thou art my son? This day have I begotten
thee, and again I will be to him a father, and he shall be
to me a son. And again, when he bringeth in
the first begotten into the world, he saith, Let all of the angels
of God worship him. This is how great he is. The
angels bow the knee to him. The angels veiled their faces
with their wings before Him. Look at verse 7, And of the angels
He saith, who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a
flame of fire. Verse 8, But unto the Son He
saith, Thy throne, O God. How superior is He? God called
Him God. You see that? God called Him
God. And we call Him God, don't we?
Yes, He's man. But He's God. He's not a god. He's not one of many gods. He's
God. Over all, glorious forever. That's
His deity. His deity. Like Thomas said,
my Lord and my God. He's my God. So He's better than
the angels. Look over at Hebrews chapter
8. It says something else in speaking of the superiority of
the Lord Jesus. He is superior. We first of all
said He is supreme. And then He is superior. This is the superiority of our
Lord Jesus. Look in Hebrews chapter 8 and
verse 6. But now hath he obtained a more
excellent ministry, of how much also he is the mediator of a
better covenant. He is. Which was established upon better
promises. His is a better covenant. His
name is better than the angels. He is better than the angels.
And his covenant is better than that old covenant. That old covenant
in the Old Testament, we don't need to go into that, but it
consisted of this. God said to Israel, I will bless
you with earthly blessings, temporal blessings, if it's a conditional
covenant. If you will obey me, you don't
worship any idols, you walk before me perfectly, if you do that, I'll bless you. And Israel said,
they said to Moses, and in effect they shook hands with God. All
that the Lord has said we will do. Shake hands and they are
into a contract. It didn't take them long to break
that, did it? That's a covenant, a conditional covenant, that
all the blessings, and they were temporal blessings, you understand.
All of the blessings, all of the mercies were conditioned
upon man's obedience. And they broke it. They broke
it to pieces. Thank God there's a better covenant. With better promises. Because
this covenant, it's a covenant of grace. It's a covenant of
life. It's a covenant of salvation.
And it's a covenant made between the Father and the Son. The stipulations
of the covenant was something like this. The Father gave to
the Son a people to save. There's divine election. A people
from every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue. And these people
were given to the Son of God, entrusted to Him. We know that
God first trusted Christ with His people. The Son of God, as
our surety, took responsibility for our salvation. You who believe,
you who worship Christ Jesus, you who have been brought by
the Spirit's grace to embrace Him and to look to Him for everything,
to look to His blood and to His righteousness, Remember this. In that covenant
of grace, He stood for you, and He took responsibility for you,
and you have never borne the responsibility for your own salvation
or for your own righteousness. Did you know that? God has never
ever looked to you for anything. He's always looked to your surety.
He has looked to Jesus Christ. You see, the conditions of the
new covenant. Isn't this a better covenant? This is a better covenant. Because
the conditions of the covenant, the stipulations of the covenant,
they are dependent upon the obedience of somebody else. Our surety. Our Savior. Our substitute. And we know He can't fail. And
He didn't fail. to do what was required of Him
in order to save us from our sins. It's a better covenant. In fact, His blood is said to
be in Hebrews chapter 13, the blood of the everlasting covenant. His blood was shed on purpose. He didn't spill His blood. The world didn't take His life.
He said, I have the power to lay down my life and I have the
power to take it again. He gave Himself. He gave Himself. He gave Himself to save us. That was His covenant promise. Father, You can trust Me. And
in Hebrews chapter 2, look at chapter 2 of Hebrews. Look at verses 9 and 10. But
we see Jesus, who was 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, or literally
every one, every one of his elect. For it became him, for whom are
all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons
into glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
sufferings. I'll drop down to verse 13. And
again, I will put my trust in Him. And again, behold, I am
the children which God hath given me. In that everlasting day,
when all of the elect are gathered together, we stand before the
Lord without spot, without wrinkle, or any such thing. The Son of
God, this One who is the Superior One, will say to the Father,
behold, I and the children which thou hast given me. Of all that
you gave me, I've lost not a one of them." Not a one of them. Here they all are, Father. Washed
in my blood, robed in my righteousness. They stand in my beauties, in
my perfections. Our Savior is superior over all. And He accomplished that salvation.
It's a better covenant. And as it says back in this chapter
8 verse 6, better promises. Better promises. There's the
promise of spiritual life and eternal life, full forgiveness
of sins, the promise of righteousness freely imputed, the promise of
the presence of the Lord with us, so that we need not fear
anything or anybody. We don't even fear death. There's
no need for the child of God to fear death. There in that
second chapter, look what he says in verse 14. For as much
then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also likewise
took part of the same. That through death he might destroy
him that had the power of death, that is the devil. and deliver
them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject
to bondage." Listen, child of God, for us, there is no death. We fall asleep in Jesus. He died. He died. We are not going to
die. We fall asleep. And the soul
will never lose consciousness as we are absent from the body
and present with the Lord. with all the other saints who've
gone home to worship Him and see Him face to face. Oh, death,
may we not fear you. You see, death is the messenger
from the Lord that says, the Master's ready for you. It's
time for you to come home. All things are ready for you.
And He's made you ready. Heaven is a prepared place for
prepared people. He prepared heaven for us. He
prepared us for heaven. He's made us meet for the inheritance,
hasn't He? How good you've got to be to
stand before God. You've got to be as good as God.
In Christ we are. We are! Close our eyes in debt. Go to glory. See Him face to
face. Better. Better promises. A better
sacrifice? I'll give these to you real quickly.
In the Old Testament, rivers of blood flowed, but all that
blood couldn't put sins away. In fact, we read in Hebrews 10,
but in those sacrifices there's a remembrance again made of sins
every year. Every year on the Day of Atonement.
A special day to Israel. Aaron took the two goats, cast
lots for them. One was for the Lord, one was
a scapegoat. Bloodshed. Bloodshed. Guess what? Next year, Day of
Atonement, same thing. Same thing. Two goats, one to
die, one to be the scapegoat. The next year, Day of Atonement,
two goats, one for the Lord, one the scapegoat. Every year,
every year, just a constant reminder, sin hadn't really been dealt
with. Sin hadn't been put away. All the sins of Israel, they
hadn't been made an end of. But this man, when he came, he
made an end of sins by the sacrifice of himself. It's a better sacrifice. Because the blood of bulls and
goats can never put away sin. But our Lord Jesus put them away.
You're looking at a man who is free from condemnation because
sin, which merited condemnation, has been dealt with. And before
God, I don't have any sin. Is that right? I don't have any
sin. God looks at me in His Son, Christ Jesus, and He says, well
done thou good and faithful servant. I'm accepted in the Beloved.
I'm not accepted in me, neither are you. And if you think that
somehow or another you can do something or say something or
read something or give something to merit acceptance with God,
you're doing that which is impossible. In fact, you are insulting the
Son of God. Because if you by yourself can
do something to merit eternal life, to merit the presence of
God, then why did Christ Jesus come into this world? You are
now vying for His glory by your self-righteous efforts. Cease
from them! Throw them away! Abandoned them. Do like the Apostle Paul and
all those folks that were on that ship during the storm of
Heraclodon. They threw everything overboard.
You need to do that. Get rid of all of it and say
like old brother Toplady, nothing in my hands I bring. Nothing. Don't bring anything. Christ is all in me. Christ is
all. In Hebrews 7, we read of a better
hope. In Hebrews chapter 11, we read
of a better resurrection. Better. This is the superiority
of Christ. His resurrection is better. You
think about those people that were raised from the dead. Well, just during our Lord's
lifetime, before His resurrection, of course. There's the widow's
son. There is the daughter of Jairus.
There is Lazarus. They were raised. What celebration
and joy in their families. They were resurrected to die
again. I tell you, I want a better resurrection
than that, don't you? And in Christ Jesus we've got
it. We've got a better resurrection.
He who loved us, He who died for us, He arose for us. And
someday though worms devour this body, Job said, in my flesh I
shall see God. In this flesh right here. It's
not much to it. I tell you, one of these days,
one of these days, of course I'll be My body is going to die
one of these days unless the Lord comes back soon. Body is
going to die, soul goes back to the Lord. Body just decays
and goes back dust to dust and ashes to ashes. But someday He
is coming back. And this old body is going to
be resurrected. A big glorious body. Have the likeness of our Lord
resurrected. That's a better resurrection.
Soul and body joined back together. And forever we shall be with
the Lord. Worship Him body and soul. Like
He ought to be worshiped. Oh, I worship this morning. I
love to gather with the people of God. I'm absolutely delighted
to be with you. But I worship It's pretty bad,
pretty feeble, pretty frail. I'm going to go home and weep
over how pitiful this sermon was. And we all know how weak
we are and how sinful we are. At least we have some idea. We
don't know the fullness of it. But we know we're not what we
ought to be and our worship is not what it ought to be. And
our minds wonder, and we might, maybe you've had a rough, rough
last week, or maybe you didn't get much sleep last night, and
you just kind of, every once in a while, you nod off a little
bit. Oh, boy, I hope nobody saw that. That's one thing you can't
do up here. You can't nod off up here. Because
everybody will see it. But we're so feeble, we're so,
and you know that. Come on, you know that, don't
you? Maybe you're already thinking about your work schedule this
week, or your honey do list or whatever it is. You got all these
things and they just kind of creep in like, I'm sorry, I just
introduced those things and now you're thinking about those. But that's the way we are, isn't
it? We're so easily distracted. But one day, we'll never be distracted
again. And we'll see Him as He is. face-to-face with Christ my Savior,
face-to-face to see and know, face-to-face with my Redeemer,
Jesus Christ who loved me so, and we'll join arm-in-arm with
the saints of God. And I like to think of congregations
being together. I don't know if it would be like
that or not. But our friends that we've worshipped with on
earth, And our spouses, our moms and dads, who have been saved
by the grace of God, we all join arm in arm and sing, Hallelujah! Worthy is the Lamb that was slain! Receive power and glory and riches
and honor and blessing forever and ever! Won't that be a glorious
day? That's a better resurrection.
That's a better resurrection right there. And then we're going to have
a better country, too. Hebrews 11, 16 says that. A better
country. I'm thankful for the United States
of America. With all of our faults, a lot. I'm thankful for this nation.
I'm thankful for where I can worship in freedom and in liberty. But this nation, she's got a
lot of problems. This country has got a lot of problems. But
like it says in Hebrews chapter 11, down here we have no continuing
city. We are like Abraham who looked
for a city, whose builder and maker is God. Better country. I am going to
a better country. to a better country. The word better tells us of the
superiority of Christ Jesus. He's superior to the angels,
to Moses, to all the prophets, to Aaron, to the earthly priesthood,
and His sacrifice is superior. Then it brings me to the last
thing. Christ is sufficient. Oh, the sufficiency of Christ.
And by that, I just simply mean He's all we need. His person
is sufficient for He's God and He's man. His work of redemption
is sufficient because He finished the work the Father gave Him
to do. Nothing can be taken away from it. Nothing can be added
to it. He effectually redeemed His people. You say, what do you mean by
effectual, Jim? I mean, He got the job done.
He got the job done. The Spirit of God comes to us
in time and He convinces us the work
has been accomplished to the Father's full satisfaction. He's all we need. Who of God? 1 Corinthians 1,
30 and 31. Speaking of Christ Jesus, who
of God? Who is made unto us. What is
He made unto us to be? Wisdom. Righteousness. Sanctification. That's holiness.
Redemption. That according as it is written,
He that glorieth. Let Him glory in the Lord. What a glorious Savior we have.
What a wonderful salvation this is. This is our Savior. This is our Master. He's supreme. He's superior. He's sufficient. God demands
nothing more than and will accept nothing less than His Son and
His work of redemption. Isn't that right? He can demand
no more. He will accept no less. Oh, glorious
Savior, give me faith to trust You, to embrace You, and enter
into the joy of the work that's finished, the joy of salvation. Amen.