Alright, well, let's bow and
have a word of prayer and then we'll turn over to the book of
Hebrews. We'll be looking at a few verses
in Hebrews and on as the Lord directs and as time permits,
we'll see where we get. Turn to Hebrews. And we're going
to start in Hebrews 1. You could read all of Hebrews
and it would fit in the topic that we're talking about in God's
particular redemption. But we'll try to confine ourselves
to a few verses and draw out some points that it makes there. Hebrews chapter 1, let's bow
and have a word of prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, we
thank You today for this beautiful day that You've given to us.
We thank You for the rain that You've provided, Lord. The heat
this week has been pretty good and the rain is so refreshing
this morning. And Father, we know that it must
be good because You sent it. And we know that everything that
You do is good. Father, we just thank You so
much for the brethren that are gathered here today. And we just
thank You for this time that we have to gather together in
corporate worship. As a congregation before You,
we lift our praises and honor and exaltation because not only
do You deserve it, but Father, because we truly have been given
a love for You, a love that is foreign to us that You have shed
abroad in our heart, the capacity to love God And Father, we're
grateful for that, but we do lift our voices to You this morning.
We lift our hearts to You, and even now, Father, I lift the
Word of God up, and I pray that You might preach these messages,
that You might share these things, Lord, that Mike Smith might not
be heard, that my thoughts, my understanding might not be heard,
but the wisdom of God would be heard. Father, we don't need
man's words. We don't need man's traditions.
We don't need the things and thoughts of men. We don't need
uplifting anecdotes. Self-help, we need You. And Father,
we need You today to help us not only in our worship, but
to receive anything from what is being said today and ministered
today by the Spirit. And so, Lord, we just pray that
You would precede even now and just give us understanding. Lord,
I just thank You again for all that You do for us. We thank
You for Your mercy and grace and we thank You for the blood
of Jesus Christ, the blood of that everlasting covenant. And
by its blood, we have been imputed with the righteousness of God.
We've been given divine nature. We've been given life that is
eternal. And by that blood, Father, we
will be able to stand in Your presence one day. And we look
for the soon return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And
may it come quickly. And it's in His name that we
pray, Amen. Continuing on in our messages
on particular redemption, efficacious atonement, vicarious substitution,
what's another name for it? Limited atonement. Several different
names that you can put to this, but we'll use particular redemption
for now. Overwhelming the verses the Bible
has in it that points if you've been given eyes to see and ears
to hear. I remember before the Lord had
given me eyes to see and ears to hear that I couldn't find
it anywhere. The only thing that I could find
is I found that this doctrine was appalling. When God gave me eyes to see
and ears to hear, I began to see, and especially
whenever I started going through with my little highlighter design. I'm trying to remember now the
color that I had designated for atonement. When I started going through
marking every place that it showed atonement for a specific group,
atonement for a specific people, or an atonement that actually
did something, I just become overwhelmed, just
overwhelmed. How in the world could I miss
this? And that old saying was just
a little twist to it, there are none so blind as those who cannot
see. And that is true. That is true. But we look through
the Scriptures all over the place and we've kind of been going
through and catching the Scriptures as they come to us, but we come
to Hebrews. And brethren, what a beautiful
book Hebrews is of our great High Priest, Jesus Christ. Of
His work in the everlasting covenant. Of His blood that has been the
foundation for our redemption, the foundation for our justification,
the foundation for our righteousness. And whenever you look at that
and you see the preciousness of that, we see, you know, what
can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
You know, we see that not of work that I have done, It's all about the blood of Jesus
and you see how precious that is. And whenever you see the
greatness of what His blood did, how appalling now it is to think
that He shed His blood and that blood does not get that for which
it was shed for. to think that Jesus' blood would
be shed in vain, that even one drop of that blood that was shed
would come up empty in what it was shed for. To look and to
think that Christ died for every man and every woman, and every
man and every woman isn't redeemed. It's just, to me, is so offensive
to the very nature of the atonement. That substitution. He loved us
that He would substitute. He loved us that He would die. He loved us that He would take
on human flesh. The God who the heavens of heavens
cannot contain took on mortal flesh, human flesh, and dwelt
among His own creatures, was subject to thirst and to hunger
and to tiredness, was subject to those things, was subject
to ridicule, subject to vanity around Him, But yet to think that God in the flesh
shed blood and that all for whom He died are substituted for is
not going to count. God's not going to count it.
I know you died for them, but I'm not going to count it. And
that just to me has become more appalling than I was appalled
before when I didn't know any better. And so, Hebrews is a
beautiful, beautiful book of Christ's finished work, what
He did, what He has secured, what He has vicariously done,
and what He has efficaciously done. And what a beautiful thing
it is. Hebrews 1. And let's look at
the first few verses here. It says, God, who at sundry times
and in divers' manners... For you kids, that divers' manners
means many ways. Who in sundry times, different
times, and in many ways spake in times 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, Remember, this is an epistle
to the Hebrews. To the believing Hebrews, this
letter has been written. Now, I tend to kind of lean towards
a writing by Paul, but that's neither here nor there, and that's
for another day's discussion. I believe that this was a letter
that Paul did write to the Hebrews, although most of his writings
was to the Greek churches. He wrote here to the Hebrews.
And he was still using the language as he does in every book that
he does. He talks about the brethren.
He's talking about us. This letter is not addressed
to the world. It was sent to believers. And so the believers
are the context in which the reading would be. Matter of fact,
a lot of those letters that Paul wrote and would send to churches,
the pastors of those churches would get up and they would read
the letter from the apostle to that church. And so whenever
he would say, us, whenever he would say, brethren, whenever
he would say, you, he was talking about them and us as believers. And so it's nothing different
here. He says, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His
Son, who being the brightness of His
glory and the expressed image of His person and upholding all
things by the word of His power, when He had Himself purged our
sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." Now,
one thing I want us to look at here and point out is that number
one, it was He purged our sins. He didn't purge all sins of everyone. He purged our sins. But notice
the finality of it. Notice the finality of it. He
said whenever He had purged our sins, He sat down at the right
hand of God. Meaning that all things are done. That He came, The atonement was
for a purpose. He fulfilled that purpose and
He went and sat down. As a matter of fact, as you go
through the Scriptures here in Hebrews, you'll find out that
there are a lot of places, and of course in the Old Testament
you can see this perfectly, that the priest's job was never done. Night and day, year after year,
sacrifices were being made. They never rested. That's why
they had a whole order of priests and they had several priests
and they took turns on their duties and all they did was sacrifice. All they did was sacrifice. All
they did was sacrifice. All they did was sacrifice. But
this man was different. This sacrifice was different.
When he had made a sacrifice once for all time, he sat down. Because not only was the sacrificing
done, but the accomplishment for why the sacrifice was being
made was fulfilled. He fulfilled it. The sacrifice
was to take away the sins of His people. You shall call His
name Jesus, for He shall save His people from Their sins. Whose sins? His people's sins. Again, we see a limited scope
in who this is for. We see not only a limited scope,
but we see an efficaciousness to it. A completedness to it. Jesus said, right before He bowed
His head and He gave up the ghost, He said, it is finished. Well, what is finished? the very
basis for which all the everlasting covenant was based upon and all
of what it would secure in that covenant, all the promises fulfilled
right there. It is finished. With the shedding
of blood and the dying of the sacrifice, all was done. The wrath of God was appeased. The wrath of God was poured out.
The forgiveness of sin was given, but the guilt of sin was taken. All of these things, all of the
positive things, all of the negative things, all culminated together
in one place on one sacrifice at one time for all time and
it was finished And whenever it was finished, He sat down. No more sacrifices. The Catholics
go on and on in their math to crucify Christ over and over
and over again in all their sacraments. It's to continue to sacrifice
Christ. I'll never forget. Of course,
we've taught our kids growing up about crosses and pictures
of Jesus and things like that. I have a lot of patience with
people that the Lord hasn't shown that to. I'm not dogmatic as
far as I'm going to run them down and not talk to them or
chew them out or something like that. But we've taught that to
our kids and a lot of people we fellowship with have those
same sentiments. They see those things that the
Bible talks about, making graven images of things in heaven and
things under the earth and then putting up a cross and something
to worship. I mean, it's just horrible. But
I'll never forget, while we were going through all of our struggles
of me losing my job, us moving here, the thing at our church
and our family, all that stuff going on, and just all that stress
that we were under and persecution that we were under and all this
stuff, Kaylin come down with a sickness and we didn't know
what it was. We didn't know if she was going
to die or what. And for like several days, almost a week,
she was in the hospital. And nobody could figure out what
she had. She was running like a 108, 110 temperature. And had
this rash that had broken out all over her body. And even the
dermatologist said, we've never seen a rash like this. We didn't
know what was going to happen. And anyway, she come out, I think
it was that time, it might have been another time, but I know
it was Kaylin that did it. She come up out of her wooziness
and looked up, and of course, it was in a hospital, it was
a Catholic hospital, and they had that crucifix on the wall.
She woke up and said, I need to take that down. And why? Well, number one is because it
is finished. Christ isn't on the cross no
more. It's done. The reason Catholics continue
to look at that, to worship that, and in their sacraments crucify
Christ all over again is because the atonement of Christ was not
enough. I don't know all the ins and outs of Roman Catholicism
and all their thinking and everything like that, but I know one thing,
that they know that it is grace infused with works. And that
in that works thing, there are things that we also do that fill
up the sacrifice of Christ. They misinterpret those verses
that Paul said that he makes more perfect that sacrifice or
he fills up the stripes and the stuff that Jesus took. That's
not what he means by those things. Jesus said it was finished. It
is done. Here we see that He purged our
sins and sat down. It didn't say He made our sins
possible to be purged. It said He purged them. So for
everyone that He substituted for, everyone that He spoke to
and spoke about in that everlasting covenant, and in that crucifixion,
everyone that He went to the cross for, He purged their sins. That's where the efficaciousness
comes from. But we see here it was for our
sins. For the sins of the believers.
And I know that the Armenians are going to say, well, yeah,
we say that too. Yeah, anyone who believes is
going to receive that. No, no, no, no. Remember, They
believe because they already have received the great and precious
promises. They believe because they've
already been given all spiritual blessings in heavenly places.
They believed because they were ordained to eternal life. They weren't given those things
because they believed. So yes, while they may use that
language and say, yeah, we believe that all the benefits of the
atonement are for believers only, Remember, their mindset is that
they do not get those benefits unless they believe. It's only
if they believe, and they can believe if they choose to believe,
that they get that. So it is a possibility that can
either be rejected or accepted. For the child of grace, there
is no possible way that it will be ultimately rejected. They
will be brought to faith in Jesus Christ. Those special blessings,
those promises will be given to them. Whenever the writer
here says that He Himself purged our sins, it wasn't Himself and
somebody else. It wasn't Himself and the Pope.
It wasn't Himself and a preacher. It wasn't Himself and a deacon.
It wasn't Himself and a baptistry or a church or anything like
that. No, when He Himself purged, we all know what the word purge
means, right? Purged our sins means to clear them out. clean them out, take them away,
do away with them. Sometimes I have to, whenever
I go to work on a piece of x-ray equipment, the old style that
uses chemicals, the chemicals will become depleted and I have
to purge out the old chemicals and put in fresh chemicals. Well, whenever I purge those
chemicals out, I suck them all out and take them away and it's
left empty having no chemicals. Jesus purged us of our sins. He took them all away. He took
them out so that there is no sins. No sins. Can you imagine that?
Mike Smith has many sins. I know that I have many sins. But what a blessed thought to
know there is no sins. Of course, our big word, biblical
word for that is justified. He purged our sins by His blood. And He sat down. Not to get up
again. He doesn't have to come down
and say, oh, they messed up. Let me come down here and do
it again. No. It's once for all. Why in the world would we seek? And the Scriptures is right.
If you don't find your comfort, if faith isn't reaching out and
taking that alone, there is no more sacrifice for sins left.
There's nothing else that He's going to do. I mean, there's no other way
He's going to do it. And there is no more that He's going to
do. That's it. There is no more sacrifice of
sin. That's not saying that if you mess up and come back, that
there's no more hope for you. That's not what that's saying.
That's saying if you don't look to that, if that's not what you've
been given hope in, if that's not what your faith that you
have, and if you're not, then you don't have the faith of Christ
because the faith of Christ receives that and only that. The faith of Christ receives
only what He did. I look at this. We have faith,
the faith of Christ, right? That faith is a gift of the Spirit. So it's the Spirit in us that
the fruit of that Spirit is faith, the faith of Christ. Well, we
also know that we receive the things of God by the Spirit that
is in us. Remember, ain't that what 1 Corinthians
says? That if we don't have the Spirit, we can't receive the
things of the Spirit because they're spiritually discerned?
So the faith of Christ reaches out. But another thing that the
Spirit does, the Spirit only testifies to Christ in what He
done. See, that's why I have a hard
time saying that anybody that lives and dies and never comes
to trust fully in the true Gospel never had the faith of Christ. And I know that's not easy to
say. I know that's even denied and rejected even among a lot
of sovereign grace believing people. But brethren, there is
only one kind of faith That is a faith that is part of salvation
and that's the faith of Christ. And there's only one thing that
the faith of Christ receives and that's what Christ did alone
according to the Scriptures. That He died for His people and
that He efficaciously made it all for them and that there is
nothing else that they need to do for righteousness. Nothing
else. Whether it be positionally or
practically, there's nothing else that they need to do for
righteousness. Now that does produce a zeal
for good works. We read that Scripture. We're
going to read it actually here in a little bit also. As a matter
of fact, I think it was the last one we read last week. Yeah,
Titus. "...who gave himself force that he might redeem us from
all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous
of good works." We're going to want to do good works. But he
said in the atonement was a purification of all his people. Now, can you
say that you're purified? Well, not in the flesh, but in
the Spirit you are. In the Spirit, you're purified.
Positionally and practically, in the Spirit, you are purified. And so we see that that is not
an up-for-grabs type thing. The Spirit of God grasped out
and takes that Now do we understand all the things fully right off
the bat? No. But God teaches His people. They shall all be taught of God.
Well, what is He going to teach them? He's going to teach them
all these things. That's why I say they may not
grasp everything about it right off the bat, but as He teaches
them, they come to this knowledge that it's Christ alone Not Christ
alone who made it possible. Christ alone. No works for me. No free will for me. No decision
by me. And no law keeping by me for
righteousness. That's what He did in the atonement. He gave us that. He purged our
sins. And in purging our sins, He sat
down because it's finished and there's nothing else that we
need to do. Look with me, if you would, down to chapter 2. And I'm going to start reading I'm really trying to find a good
place to start reading here. I'm just going to start reading
verse 1, but I want to read down a few verses because I want you
to see the context here. It says, Therefore, we ought
to give more earnest heed to the things which we have heard,
lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken
by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience
received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if
we neglect so great salvation? Which at the first began to be
spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him.
God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders,
and with diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according
to His own will. For unto the angels hath he not
put in subjection the world to come whereof 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 visiteth him?
Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, thou crownest
him with glory and honor, and didst set over him 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 is 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." Now let's not get hung up on that right
there because the context again bears out what that is saying. for it became Him for whom are
all things and by whom are all things in bringing," here it
is, "...many sons to glory to make the captain of their salvation."
So it's the sons that are being brought. Now remember, we read
in election that there are children of God that are scattered all
over the world that have not yet been brought in. There are
sheep that were not of the fold of Israel. There are others out
there that He too must bring. So God had sheep. God had children
before they knew they were sheep and children. They were sheep
before they believed. They were sons before they believed. They were sons before the Spirit
came in. Remember? I've sent My Spirit... Because
you're sons, I've sent My Spirit into you. Okay? So it's not vice versa. That's
how we've been trained and learned growing up in false doctrine
is that we become sons, we become sheep, we get these because we
reach out with our hand and accept the gift of salvation. No, no,
no. We find here that it was Him
who by the grace of God tasted death for every man. Now who
is every man? It's the many sons that are being
brought to glory. every one of them to make the captain of their salvation. So Jesus is the captain of only
their salvation. That's a particular group. That's
a limited scope of people. 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
suffering. For both He that sanctifieth
and they who are sanctified are all of one." Now let's think
about that a minute. Doesn't Ephesians tell us that
we are one in Christ Jesus and that was before the foundation
of the world? So this scope or this group of people was set
out or marked out before the foundation of the world. Because the one who sanctified
or was set apart for them and those who are being set apart
are all one. We're the seed of Christ. We
are in Him. He is the seed and in Him is
all the seeds that ever will come from Him. He is of the Spirit
and from Him His spiritual seed comes. says, for both he that sanctifies
and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he
is not ashamed to call them brethren." There again is that term, brethren.
That doesn't speak of everybody. That term speaks of only those
who are brothers, sisters, children of God, the family of God. It's talking about the family
of God. That's who our brethren is. We
can't say that this person out here who is an unbeliever is
our brethren. Why? Because they do not believe
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, there are a lot of preachers
and teachers, even amongst our grace out there, running around
saying, oh, well, we can call the Armenians our brothers because
at least they're acknowledging Jesus died, was buried, and was
resurrected. Again, brethren, according to
the Scriptures. If so, and I ask this question
to these guys all the time. I don't mean to get off on this
tangent, but I ask this question all the time to these brothers
that want to continue to say the Arminians are our brothers.
I'm not saying that they're not elect. There may be some that
are elect that have yet to come to this thought. I was an Arminian
for many years, and here I are. Okay? But what I'm saying is while
they are still yet in unbelief, we can't say they're brothers.
Because the only ones that we can call brother is those who
believe the Gospel. And I ask these friends of mine
who don't hold that view, I say, well, do you believe that Arminianism
is a false Gospel? They say, yes, absolutely. Do
you believe that those who preach that Gospel are false teachers? Yes. Then how can you say that
anybody who believes, holds to, defends, and confesses that Gospel
to be a believer? In what way are they believing
the Gospel? The Gospel that you say is true
while they're holding the Gospel that you say is false. To be
a preacher of the true Gospel is to be a Gospel preacher. To
be a preacher of a false Gospel is to be a false preacher. And I say the same thing about
churches. If they're a church that holds
to a false gospel, they are a false church. If you get baptized professing
a false gospel in that baptism, that's not a biblical baptism. Not that water saves anybody,
not that a church saves anybody, not that a preacher saves anybody.
That's just part of the things that Christ has commanded of
us. But again, we don't have no problem saying that, but somehow
our heart strings get tugged and we say, well, yeah, I say
all that, but he's a really good guy. He does a lot for Jesus.
He goes to church all the time. He gives to the ministry all
the time. They love each other. All these things they do, Brethren,
I'm not denying those things, but I'm just saying, the Scripture
says if they come not and have not the doctrine of Christ, we're not to have anything to
do with that. That was my rant for the morning,
I guess. He says here, I will declare
thy name unto my brethren. So Christ is only declaring His
name to the brethren. You remember whenever Jesus was
preaching, some rejected what He was saying, some received
what He was saying, and He lifted up His eyes to heaven and He
said, Father, I thank You that You have hid these things from
the wise and the prudent. And You have declared it unto
babes. Revealed it unto babes. Remember in John 17 when Jesus
said, I have declared Your name to those that Thou hast given
Me. Okay, here again, Paul is reiterating that here. He has
declared His name to the brethren. To the children of God. To the
sons He is bringing to glory. That's who He has declared His
name to. He says, I will declare Thy name unto My brethren in
the midst of the church or the congregation will I sing praise
unto Thee. That's why we gather here today. That's why we become a gathered
assembly. Of all the brethren, we come together to assemble
so that we might lift and honor Him. We might sing His praises,
but whenever we do so, it's only because He's met with us. Remember
in Matthew 28, He said that He would be with us. Whenever we
gather, He would be with us. And whenever He meets with us,
He enables us by His Spirit to worship, to exalt. That's why
we pray, Lord, come and be with us now. Meet with us. Help us. Help us to sing Your praises.
Help us to preach Your Word. Help us to hear. Help us to be
edified. We need Him to do those things.
And what does He do? He declares His name not only
in the initial bringing us to the knowledge of who He is and
who we are, but continually as we gather corporately, He brings
that through the preaching, through the teaching, through the singing,
through the fellowship times together as we come together.
What does He do? He continually declares His name.
That's why Paul said, I don't preach anything but Christ and
Him crucified. Why? Because we're declaring His name.
We're declaring not only who He is, His name, but we're declaring
His power and His strength and what He did. That also is the
name Whenever we talk about the name of God, we're talking about
not only who He is in character, but we're talking about who He
is in power. Remember, God revealed His name unto Moses and showed
His power in Pharaoh, right? So declaring His name not only
was a name, not only was His glory, but He also showed His
power which was part of who God is. So part of showing the name
or declaring the name is also to declare the power of God.
We declare the power of Jesus Christ and His efficacious blood. We declare the power of Jesus
Christ in His atonement, that power. We sing that song, there's
power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb. There's power, power, wonder-working
power in the precious blood of the Lamb. There's power there. He's declaring His name to His
brethren. He says, again, I will put my
trust in Him, and again, behold, I, and here's the word again,
the children which God hath given Me. There's the context of the
everyman in verse 9. There's the context of the many
sons to glory in verse 10. the there in v. 10. There's the
context of those who are the sanctified in v. 11. There's
the context of those who are the brethren in v. 11. There's the context of those
who are the brethren in v. 12. There is the context of those
who are the church or the congregation gathered there in v. 12. The
children which God hath given me. And we go back and we see
Jesus made very clear who it was that God had given Him. 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. That's another
efficacious work of Christ's atonement. Did you know that?
It wasn't just towards His people there, but it was also the efficacious
work was He destroyed the power of the devil that He had over
death. But it says here, "...and deliver
them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject
to bondage." Brethren, we've been subject to bondage. The
Bible says in the Old Testament that we were made subject to
vanity. unwillingly. Now, if that doesn't
speak of God's sovereignty, we were made subject to vanity.
If you look that word out, that word vanity, it talks about sin. We were made subject to sinfulness. We were made subject to sin and
fallenness. We were made subject to that,
sin and death, unwillingly. Who was it that put us into subjection?
Everyone's gonna scream, Adam put us into subjection. No, it
wasn't Adam. The context bears out it was
God who put us in subjection. It was God. God subjected us
to bondage so that we might be redeemed from that, that He might
be glorified in that. And again, that's what Romans
9 specifies. What if God willing made vessels
of wrath and vessels of glory? And He did that for the
purpose of showing glory here in what He does with these and
glory here for what He does in these. a specific group of people
marked out before the foundation of the world, elect and reprobate
before anybody had ever fallen in Adam. He subjects the whole
creation to vanity by Adam whom He had chose before the foundation
of the world to be the instrument by which sin and death would
enter the world. And by sin and death, all men,
all women, all children would become fallen. Meaning that they
would be sinners and dying. And out of that, He would show
His glory. In some, He would show His glory
in their judgment and destruction. In others, He would show in His
mercy, His grace, and their being given all things. Now, brethren, I agree with a lot of men that
say whenever you begin to see one in all these doctrines of
grace, all the rest fall into place, especially if you see
depravity. If you see depravity, everything
else kind of falls into place. But brethren, if you see the
Scripture teaches over and over and over again, our depravity
and God's unconditional election, you can't say anything else.
But we don't have to have a doctrine based upon assumption because
of two other doctrines. Because here, it is plainly clear
He says, "...I will put my trust in Him, and again, behold, I
am 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 power of death, that is, the devil." and deliver
them who through the fear of death were all their lifetime
subject to bondage. For verily He took not on Him
the nature of angels..." And that Him the nature of angels
is in italics. It would read, "...for verily
He took not on angels, but He took on the seed of Abraham."
See, he didn't die for Satan. Remember we had our little discussion
a while back about election and elect angels and non-elect angels? It never was intended for angels.
That's why whenever he died, it didn't have nothing to do
with the devil or any of his angels. He didn't take upon the
sin of Satan and all of his angels. He took upon him Look what it
says there. The seed of Abraham. Now, he's not talking about Israel
in the flesh. He's talking about Israel in
the Spirit. The seed of Abraham. Paul later on in Galatians tells
us who the seed is. It's a spiritual seed. He tells
us in Romans, it's not the children of the flesh that are counted
for the promise, it's those of the promise, those of the Spirit,
those who are children according to the faith of Abraham. The
faith of Abraham is the faith of Christ. But we see here that He took
on the seed of Abraham. Now, I've heard a lot of people
say, well, He's talking about His flesh. Wait a minute, wait a
minute. He says He took not on angels. He didn't take on the angels,
but He took on the seed of Abraham. Why would He designate the seed
of Abraham if He's just talking about flesh? because those who
are not of the seed of Abraham also had flesh. We also see in
other places up here, he says that he took on flesh and blood, but maybe there was something
different that he was meaning here. I think that he's talking
about taking on the sin. That he's taking on the sin here.
Again, he's going through here talking about all the works that
he is doing in putting in subjection all things, that He is tasting
death for every man, bringing sons to glory, being the One
who sanctifies, declaring His name among the brethren." He's
talking about the work of atonement here. He didn't take on the angels
in the atonement. And He didn't take on every man,
only the children that God gave Him, also known as 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." There's
the efficacious thing. He made reconciliation. So if
He made reconciliation for the people that He died for, or the
ones that God gave to Him, or the children, or the brethren,
or us, or there, whatever, all these words that we've been seeing
in here, if He made reconciliation for the sins of the people, then
what else is there left to reconcile to them? We preach reconciliation. We teach reconciliation. Why?
Because those who are given ears to hear have not heard reconciliation
has been made. They want to hear. I've been
reconciled to God. Reconciliation was made by Christ.
Wonderful! I need reconciled. And so whenever
Paul says that we preach as ambassadors for Christ, be reconciled to
God, he's not saying you've not been reconciled to God on God's
end. He's saying you've not been reconciled
to God on your end. You still are enemies of God.
You need to be reconciled to God. And those who have been
given ears to hear spiritual understanding, when they hear
that, know their sin and hear that, and they say we've been
reconciled through the blood of Jesus Christ, Well, praise
God, I'm no longer an enemy. And we run. Feverishly, we run
to Christ. See, nothing is left in man's
hand. Not even to be reconciled back
to God or to reconcile someone to God. Preachers don't reconcile
people to God. They preach reconciliation to
God. But the reconciliation right
here is plainly said. It was done by Christ. He reconciled. For in that he himself has suffered
being tempted, that he is able to succor them that are tempted."
Is the reprobate tempted? I mean, we know the reprobate
sins, but is the reprobate really tempted? Are they drawn away by their
lusts? Or is that talking about something else? Are they being
tested? For in that He Himself has suffered
being tempted, was Christ tempted with lustful things to be drawn
away or was He tested as to the validity of who He said He was?
See, that's what Christ's temptations was in the desert through His
whole entire life. The tempting wasn't to, now,
on Satan's part, On anybody else's part, it was probably to get
him to sin. But God, in tempting Christ, wasn't trying to get
him to sin, it was to test him. And you'll notice that in the
scriptures, that word tempted has two meanings. It means tempted
as in enticing to sin, or it also means to test the validity
of what something is. Christ was tested as to the validity
and what did it prove. He said, Jesus said, they found
nothing in me. There's nothing in me to be tempted.
So the testing of Christ shown that there was nothing to be
tempted. That He was who He said He was. He is the Son of God.
He cannot be swayed. He cannot be moved. He cannot
be enticed and drawn away. Why? Because there are no lusts
in Him. And He says, for in that He Himself has suffered being
tempted, He is able to succor them that are also tempted. not those that are being enticed
to be drawn away, those who are also being tested to the validity
of who they are. Brethren, whenever we are the
children of God, we are going to be tested as to the validity
of who we are. Don't preach about the imputed
righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. Don't preach about reprobation. Don't preach about election.
Don't preach about atonement. There's going to come a day when
the government is going to tell us don't preach at all. But yet,
He is able to sucker them who also will be tested as to the
validity. And guess what? I believe that
He will keep us, hold us, preserve us. He who began a good work
in you will carry it out to the day of completion. He'll keep
us from falling. That's what the Bible says. Does
that mean we're not going to have bouts of doubt and times
of rejection like Peter did? Absolutely. But He's doing that
for His people. He's doing that for His people.
He's not a suffering high priest to everybody, suckering everybody,
but He is for His people. Alright, let's pause there. I've
got a glare on the clock and I just now got in a position
where I can see it's past break time. We'll pause right there,
take a quick break, and we'll come back in and look at a couple
more verses here.