Hebrews chapter two. Beginning in verse five, we looked
at some of these verses last week, but we'll begin there and
then we'll go a little further. For unto the angels hath he not
put in subjection the world to come wherever we speak? But one
in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou
art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou visitest him?
Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, thou crownest
him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works
of thy hands. Thou hast put all things in subjection
under his feet, for in that he put all in subjection under him,
he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not
yet all things put under him. 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. For it became him for whom are
all things and by whom are all things. in bringing many sons
unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth
and they who are sanctified are all of one. For which cause he
is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name
unto my brethren in the midst of the church while I sing praise
unto thee. And again I will put my trust
in him, and again behold I and the children which God hath given
me. For as much then as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself 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. For verily he took not on him
the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be 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 sins of the people. For
in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able also
to succor or relieve them that are tempted. Now, as we've been
looking at this book of Hebrews, and the thing that is quite plain
from the very beginning is that the writer of Hebrews would set
forth to the Hebrews, and of course to us as we come along,
and as Gentiles, but yet gathered in to the church of God, which
is Jew and Gentile alike. there is no difference, for Christ
has broken down the middle wall of partition. And he is a Jew,
not which is one outwardly circumcised in the flesh, but he is a Jew
which is one who is circumcised in the heart. And so it is that
when we think about the Hebrews in the scripture, we are indeed,
though not in a physical sense, having the heritage of Abraham,
we are indeed the sons of Abraham. We are those Jews. We are the
children of Jacob. We are those to whom the promises
of God are given, to whom the oracles of God are committed.
Even a clearer oracle, a clearer message than was given to the
Jews in the old time. Because you see, in their time,
the oracles of God were committed to them, the oracles being the
prophets of God that were sent to them. But we have one who
is the greatest prophet of all who has now come, and there is
not another. And that's what this book of
Hebrews is telling these Hebrew Christians. that Christ is come. God who at sundry times in divers
manners spake in time past unto our fathers by the prophets hath
in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. in the same way. And so there is coming no other
prophet, because this one who has come is the fulfillment of
all prophecy. For the testimony of Jesus is
the spirit of prophecy. As you look at all the prophecies
in the scriptures, Brother Al's been going through this book
of Ruth, and it's quite plain. to those who've been given eyes
to see, that this is a book about the Redeemer that would come. And it's so interwoven, such
a glorious thing, and not get ahead of him. And as he mentioned
there concerning Boaz being the kinsman Redeemer, which was that
Redeemer which had to be of a relation to the one being redeemed. Now
that's important to what we've read here in this scripture.
that it is a kinsman redeemer that Christ did not come into
the world to save those who were strangers to him but he came
into the world to save those whom he knew those who belong
to him those whom he loved according to the good pleasure of his will
and you know that's a glorious thing and of course we know and
understand the particular nature of love You know, men want to,
when they want to speak of love, the love of God as something
that they don't know love to be. Which is that God loves everybody
the same way. Now what kind of love is that?
If you told your wife, I love all the women in the world as
much as I love you, what would she say? I mean, she'd get rid
of you pretty quick, you know, or get you straightened out one
or the other, because that's not what love is. Love is, by
its very nature, particular. And indeed, the Lord's capability
is not in question here. We don't question whether or
not the Lord could love everyone. We just look at the scripture
and see that He has not set forth that His love is of that type,
because that would be no love at all, to love all. He loves
his people. And you know, that's an humbling
thing. Because man would think to have
some hold on God. He thinks he can back God into
a corner. He thinks that God's his God.
Everybody thinks God's his God. Why, you know, you hear people
say, oh, well, you know, the Lord, the Lord knows my heart. The Lord knows me and I know
the Lord. And you know, I don't need to
be around people with the Bible and all that stuff. Me and him,
we just go down to the riverbank and we just have a good time.
Now everybody's got their own God. Everybody's got their own
thought of God. But you see, the God with whom
we have to do has plainly and specifically revealed himself
in the pages of this book. And he has set forth in no uncertain
terms that it is impossible for a man to approach unto God. He
dwells in the light, the scripture says, to which no man can approach. He can't go do it. He may think
he can. He may, in his self, say, well,
you know, everything's all right between me and the Lord. But,
dear brethren, if it's not on the terms that God has set forth,
it can't be true. And it does not make any difference
what men might think about God. It doesn't make any difference
what your idea about God is. See, God is God. And he's how
he is. And it's not for him to get in
line with what you think, but it's on you to come to the place
to see what he is and who he is according to his terms. And
you can't do that. You can't enter into his presence.
It's only in the mercy and grace of Almighty God to give a man
an understanding of the things of God that he might approach
unto the Lord. Because there is no means of
approach unto the Lord except through the blood and the righteousness
of Jesus Christ. That's the only avenue that's
open to men. The only one that the Lord has
set forth. And this is this one whom he
speaks about here. Now he said, And speaking of
men in general, he speaks about man being made in the image of
God in the book of Genesis. And men have taken that and they've
made it into something I believe, which it's not. The scripture
doesn't indicate that it is. They say, well, there's a God-shaped
blank in every man and all that kind of stuff. The Lord said,
when He said He created man in His own image, He said, go and
subdue the earth. He made the world submissive
unto him. He has rule over the creatures
of the earth. This is man's dominion. This
is man's realm. This is the place he put us.
You can't go to another planet or something and reign there.
Now men think they can. They think that all these things,
but there's no place hospitable to men but the place where God
made it, right here. And this is where he put us.
And he said, have dominion over the earth. God made man in his
own image. That's what he says right here.
He says, thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.
But we don't see all things put in subjection under our feet,
do we? And he says this, but now we see not yet all things
put under him. But, but, that's a glorious but. But we see Jesus. Now, you see with the Lord, now
think about this for a minute. Now man has been given an exalted
place and a measure above all the creation of God. But he didn't
give that to the angels. He made man a little lower than
the angels, but he didn't give the angels dominion over the
earth. Now he uses them in his bidding in the earth, but he
didn't make their subjection to them. He didn't give Satan
dominion over the earth, although he does have power in the earth,
as we read about here. He had the power of death. Exhibited that power, did he
not? He brought that fruit to Eve, and he said, you're not
going to die. See, that's the power of death. See, men think they can't die. Now, you know, we touch on this
from time to time, and this is a thing. go through the scripture
and I know there's different various opinions and there's
nothing spelled out in the scripture one way or the other but that's
the whole point there's nothing spelled out in the scripture
that teaches this thing that men by and large believe Eve
believed it Adam believed it but it wasn't true that is that
men cannot die that they cannot cease to exist now You know,
that's heavy stuff, and I don't wanna get off in the weeds here.
But when men speak about having immortality, see, every man thinks
he has immortality. He thinks he's gonna live on
somewhere, does he not? You've heard it said, we're gonna
live on somewhere. Well, according to what the scripture
says, the only way to have immortality is in Christ. And so, you know, if you would
have immortality, you must be in Christ. The only way to have
it, because it's the gift of God. It is that which is eternal
life. 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. He's going to taste the same
death that every man in the face of the earth is going to taste,
for it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this,
the judgment. That is a true statement. You're
not going to escape death, except in this one instance, if the
Lord should come back to receive his purchased possession before
your time, before your death occurs, that's the only way it
will happen. But we are all progressing towards
the grave. It is a natural thing for men
to die. Now all men think that somebody
else is going to die. You know, we ride by the funeral
home and we see somebody in there and we say, well, old so-and-so
died. But we figure somehow or other, at the last minute, we're
going to escape it. We hope it will. Man's got a
natural instinct, a natural desire to live, does he not? The Lord
gave him dominion over the earth. He gave him dominion in this
realm, and he figures he's gonna continue on in it. That's just
the natural thinking of man. But it's not so, because we are
going to die. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
into the world and tasted death for every man." Now, we see Jesus. Now, when it says that the world
was made subject to Him, we know that in the greatest sense of
the word, this is speaking of Christ. But Christ is the representative
of His people. And as a man, He came into the
world took upon himself, the scripture says, we see Jesus
who was made a little lower than the angels. Think of that. He was created in the same state
as men are, lower than the angels. And when I say created, that's
not the proper terminology, but he came into the world and made
himself subject unto the flesh. We see
Jesus who was made a little lower than angels for the suffering
of death. Now if you ever wonder, you know, why did the Lord come
into the world? He came into the world for the
suffering of death, for that purpose. Crowned with glory and honor,
that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man in
the same way. He identified with His people,
for it became Him for whom are all things, He made all things,
just like it said over there in the beginning of this book.
He's the creator. You wonder who the creator is?
It's the same one. We see Jesus. He is that creator. He is that one who made all things
for himself. For himself. Remember that at
all times. Who's the gospel for? Well, men
are the beneficiaries of it, are they not? But the gospel's
for the glory of Christ. See, the only reason we're preaching
the gospel is because we desire for Christ to be exalted. And
it's in the exaltation of Christ that he's pleased to draw sinners
unto himself. But make no mistake about it
that the purpose of preaching the gospel is not to save sinners. The purpose of preaching the
gospel is to bring glory to Christ as he is pleased to save sinners. Now there's a big difference
in how you approach that. You see, if men think that the
gospel is supposed, we're supposed to go out here and just preach
the gospel, we go out here and we come up with all sorts of
ways in which we're gonna preach. Well, we'll go and we'll have
the children's church, we'll have the clown church, we'll
have the cowboy church, we'll have the Indian church, we'll
have all kinds of churches that we can, you know, figure out
a way that we can do all these things. But it's for the glory of Christ. And I'm not saying that the Lord
is not glorified in some of that stuff. I'm not saying that. But
I'm saying that's not our endeavor, dear brethren. It's trying to
come up with some sort of a means or method whereby we might get
folks saved. The Lord's gonna save His people.
And the means through which He's gonna save His people is through
the declaration of the glory of Christ in the gospel of Christ. And as men hear, they shall believe. Now the hands of God are not
tied to do that in any particular way, and He doesn't need a man
to take a Bible and stand up in front of folks and take a
text and expound upon that. That's not necessarily the preaching
that the Lord uses but it is the declaration of the gospel
of Christ whereby men hear it not necessarily through a formal
preaching of it but through the telling of it as the disciples went into the
world preaching the gospel and men heard by the grace of God
and they believe For it became him for whom are all things,
and by whom are all things, and bringing many sons unto glory,
to make the captain of their salvation perfect. Now it pleased
him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, and
bringing many sons unto glory. So we believe, and I believe
this passage of Scripture plainly teaches this, that the Lord created
the world for the purpose of bringing glory to Jesus Christ
and manifesting His grace and mercy to His people. That's why
the world exists. It doesn't exist so men can demonstrate
their greatness and their power and their abilities and all of
these things. Men talk about, oh, the great
creativeness of men and the wondrous inventions that men have made.
And there's many wondrous things that men have done in the earth,
but keep in mind that every one of them, dear brethren, every
one of them, even those things unto the destruction of men,
have come from Almighty God according to His purpose. Now you can chew
on that and you can like it or you can't like it, but he said,
I the Lord do all these things. And he said, I will give unto men that which I please
for them to have. And so dear brethren, we're humbled
before Him. I mean, we can't turn to the
left or to the right. without the grace of God, without
the mercy of God. And so we just, all we can do
is cast ourselves upon his mercy, is it not, and give him praise
that he has sent forth his son in the likeness of sinful flesh
and for sinners. That's a comforting thought to
a sinner. You know, to a man who's convinced that he has nothing
to bring to God, that's a comforting thing to know that Christ died
for sinners. The very ones that don't have
anything to bring to God. He's the one. For it became him
in bringing many sons to glory. He has many children. How many,
I don't know. You know, talk about the comparison
of the wicked and the thing. The scripture does say there
are few that be saved. Now you can make of that what
you will. You know, as you look down through
the scripture and through the ages, there have been millions
upon millions of people in the earth. And how many out of that
number belong to the Lord, I have no way of knowing. It's probably
far greater than I would consider, perhaps from time to time, maybe
less from time to time. I don't know how many it is,
but they belonged to him. And it pleased him in bringing
many sons to glory. Now, not bringing many who he
would, who would make themselves sons, or who would become sons,
but he said bringing many sons, those who already belonged to
him. to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. How can the Lord who was perfect
be made perfect? Well this word means complete.
Now the Lord could have created the world and destroyed the whole
thing in a moment and He'd have been right and good, but it didn't
please Him to do that. It pleased Him to manifest the
glory of His grace. See, His grace and glory would
not be diminished in any way had He not created the world. But He has created the world
and shown us these things that we might give Him praise. And
then bringing many sons to glory to make the captain of their
salvation perfect through sufferings. Now, I can't really comprehend
it. how that Jesus Christ could be
a man and yet be God, be perfect, know all things, and yet the
scripture says he learned obedience by the things which he suffered. I don't claim to be able to explain
that to you. There is an explanation to it,
and I think I understand what the essence of what is being
said is. But this was how the Lord intended
to show men what they are by showing them the weakness of
Christ. Now Christ was led as a lamb
before shearers is done. He was led to the slaughter.
He had the power. Did he not? At any time, he could
have just destroyed the whole bunch. But he didn't. See, he humbled himself. And
he became obedient to the death, the very death that he ordained
for the purpose that he did. He said, I kill and I make a
life. I, the Lord, do all these things.
I've heard men say, the Lord doesn't kill people. The devil's
the one that does it. Well, let me tell you what. The
Lord's gonna kill the devil. And the Lord kills men according
to his good pleasure. He said it. I kill, I make alive,
I the Lord do all these things. And who can escape it? We cannot. But in order to make the captain
of their salvation perfect through sufferings, that he might be
identified with his people, because it says here, for both he that
sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one. For
which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. Now go
back to the kinsman-redeemer that Brother Al's been talking
about here. This is it. He said, he that sanctifieth
and they who are sanctified are all of one. That is, we are his. from the beginning. We came from
Him and we go back to Him. We belong to Him if we're in
Christ. Both He that sanctifies, that
is, He sets them apart. Who maketh thee to differ from
another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if
thou didst receive it, what is thy glory? It is if thou hast
not received it. So see, everything that we have
comes from the Lord. The blessings that we receive
as the children of God, He is not ashamed to call us His brethren
because He identified with us and He set us apart. That's what
sanctification is. You know, sanctification is different
in a lot of people's minds. A lot of people think we're still
being sanctified. Now it is true that the Holy
Spirit does indeed work in the sons of God, both are willing
to do Him His good pleasure. He is presently working in us.
But the sanctification of which He speaks about here doesn't
have anything to do with that working. It has to do with what
He did when He died on Calvary's cross. We are sanctified in Christ. We're set apart. We're made to
be holy, not because as we look at ourselves, we say, holy, how
in the world could I be considered holy? How's that possible? Well, it's only possible one
way, and that is that our holiness is that of Christ. See, he has
given us his holiness. He has sanctified us. He's not
ashamed to call us brethren. He said, saying, I will declare
thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church, will
I sing praise unto thee. And I will put my trust in him.
And again, behold, I and the children which God hath given
me. This is him. He said the Lord,
he said that to the Pharisees, did he not? He said, all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me. and him that cometh to
me all in no wise cast out. What a glorious thing. Now you
often hear, and it's common in most preaching today, for the
last part of that verse to be, that becomes the mantra. Him that cometh to
me all in no wise cast out. How true that is. But see, the onus is not on the
ability of men to come to Him, but they leave out the first
part of the verse. It says, All that the Father giveth me shall
come to me. God's people, those whom the
Lord has loved from the beginning, they will hear His voice. They
will rejoice. They will know themselves to
be sinners and they will cast themselves at his feet. They
will come to him as those whom he said, come unto me all you
that labor and are heavy laden and I'll give you rest. He said, those that labor and
are heavy laden. Now most people in the world
are not laboring and they're heavy laden. Oh, they're weighed
down under the heartaches of the world and all of that stuff.
That's not what he's talking about. He said that man that's
laboring under the weight of sin that has borne him down and
he is in agony day by day knowing himself to be unworthy before
Almighty God. He said, come unto me. All ye
that sow labor, and are heavy laden, and he said, I will give
you rest. And you see, that's what the
preaching of the gospel is. It's bringing comfort to the
people of God. It's saying, come to Christ,
look to Christ. But we see Jesus, who's high
and lifted up. We see Jesus as the Savior, in
whom is no darkness at all. God hath given to the Lord his
people. For as much then as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself 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. Now he gave the devil the power
of death. Now from this people think that
he has the power to kill people. That's not what it said. It says
he has the power of death. It didn't say he had the power
to kill. The devil seeketh whom he may devour. But he can't devour. The Lord said that He would devour even the very
elect. He would deceive even the very elect. But what'd he
say? If it were possible. Now the devil's not our friend.
Though he whispers in our ear, and he quite often presents himself
as our friend. Did he not present himself in
that fashion to Eve? I'm gonna tell you something
that you really need to know. And this is the, I'm not gonna
let God deceive you. He said, this is the truth. See, there are many today who
go about with that, don't believe that old God stuff. I mean, you
know, we know that, I mean, this all can be scientifically explained. I mean, we've got our philosophy.
See, you just need to love yourself. What your problem is, is you
don't love yourself enough. And if you learn to love yourself
enough, then you'll just open up new vistas for you and you'll
gain everything. And all the while, while that
seems so good, it's the whisper of death. Because the devil indeed
has been given the power of death to destroy those whom he may
destroy. And there are many who will listen
to him. There are many who will go to their destruction. Just like Eve. She went to her destruction thinking
what she was doing was correct. But he has not the power, he
has the power of death. in the power of death as the
lord said he delivered them that 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 subject subject to bondage the
fear of death is the whisper of satan it is the fear of death
that he would come and bring unto men but dear brethren By
the grace of God, we have been taught not to be in fear of death. Why? Because Christ is our life. See, we reckon ourselves dead
indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our
Lord. He is our conqueror of death. Death, where is thy sting,
O grave? Where is thy victory? Now only
as the Lord teaches a man that, as he brings him into the awareness
of who Christ is, can he lay hold upon those things. And does
that mean that in the flesh we know not tremble sometimes when
we pass the graveyard and the thought comes into our mind that
surely we too shall go there? Death itself is the last enemy
that shall be destroyed. And the scripture says that death
and the grave, says death and hell shall be cast into the lake
of fire. It's gonna be destroyed. It's
the last enemy. It shall be destroyed. Now the
Lord's already taken its power. See, because it said he destroyed
him that had the power of death. Not for everybody, but for the
sons of God. See, he still goes about as that
roaring lion. He went about and he was sure
that he was gonna get Peter. He was sure he was gonna get
Job, was he not? He said, Satan had desired thee.
Now, I don't know if Satan appeared before the Lord, he said, man,
I want Peter. I don't know exactly what it
was. Maybe he thought he could persuade
the Lord to give him Peter or whatever. Because he knew Peter
was susceptible. Because he'd already been whispering
in Peter's ear, was he not? Did not the Lord say to Peter,
get thee behind me, Satan? When he said, Lord, you're not
going to die on the cross. He said, that's not what you're
going to do. You're going to ride into Jerusalem triumphant
as a king. He says, that's not going to
happen to you. He said, get thee behind me, Satan. Speaking to Peter. And so the devil knew Peter was
quite susceptible to him, was he not? Peter said, Lord, oh,
all men depart from thee, I won't. And he whispered in Peter's ear. When those men asked him, weren't
you with him? And a young girl came to him
and said, I believe you were with him. He said, no. He denied
it with a curse. And Satan said, boy, I've got
him now. I've got him now. But you see,
what did the Lord say? He said, Peter, Satan hath desired
to have thee, to sift thee as wheat. And he would do it. But he said, Peter, I have prayed
for thee that thy faith fail not. And so what happened to
old Peter? Well, he had denied with cursing
that he knew the Lord. And the scripture says the Lord
looked upon him. And what'd he do? He went out
and he wept. Because you see, the Lord would
not allow Satan to have him. Because he's the redeemer. He's
the Redeemer of His people. He'll lose none whom the Father
had given Him, but He will bring them all unto Himself. And He will give my sheep, hear
my voice, I know them, and they follow me. Oh, what a glorious
Savior He is, what a Redeemer. Oh, that those, that the Lord
might give you an ear to hear today, to hear the glorious gospel
of Christ, to come unto Him. to embrace Him, to love Him,
to follow Him. He is the only Redeemer and He
is our Redeemer. May the Lord help us.