Good morning. What a mercy it is to have that revealed to our hearts in the volume of the book. It is written of me. These are they which testify of me. Such an appropriate him for us to sing this morning in light of the scripture I want us to look at, if you'll open your Bibles with me, to the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 1. As the Lord enables, we will use this first hour on Sunday mornings for however long we're able to look at the revelation of Christ made to his church in the book of Hebrews.

Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for the revelation of Christ that you've given to the hearts of your people in your word. Lord, we know that beginning with Moses and the Psalms and the prophets. All these scriptures are given in order to reveal the one who came in the full power of the spirit of God, the anointed one, the Christ, the Messiah, thy only begotten son, our savior. to redeem us, to deliver us, to save our lives and our souls. Lord, we pray for your Holy Spirit this morning to enlighten the eyes of our understanding. We pray that you would open the scriptures to us and that you would reveal to us more of the glory of Christ that we might find in him all of our salvation. For it's in his name we ask it. Amen.

Hebrews. I want to begin this time in the book of Hebrews by briefly considering the penman of this epistle. I don't know how it is in your Bible, but the translators, those who compiled the original text into the books that we have, wrote in my Bible the epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews. The epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews. The penman, and I emphasize the word penman because we know that the author of the book of Hebrews is the same one who authored all of God's word.

It is none other than the Holy Spirit. Holy men of God moved by the Holy Spirit wrote. They recorded the things that God gave to them. This is God's word. And we know that. And most of the books in the Bible, the penman that God used is identified. And we hold those men in very high esteem as the ones that God gave the revelation of the gospel to for our profit and for our salvation. Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the word of God. What a blessing it is to have a word from God. That having been said, there's something very special, very wonderful about the penman of the book of Hebrews.

An argument could be made from scripture, and I could make it very clearly, that the Apostle Paul, in fact, is not the one that penned the book of Hebrews. But we'll not go there, lest we lose sight of the very point that I want to make. Books have been written. Most of the commentaries that you might pick up on the book of Hebrews will begin with pages, even chapters, speculating on who may have been the penman to the book of Hebrews.

At the end of all of that, it is just that, nothing more than speculation. We don't know. The scripture says that the secret things belong to the Lord, our God, and those things that have been revealed belong to us and to our children. The Lord has kept the penman of Hebrews secret. And it is only a testimony to our own vanity that we would spend our time trying to figure out who it is. thinking that we can uncover something that God has not revealed. That having been said, the wonderful thing about the penman of Hebrews that in my heart holds him in even higher esteem, though we know not who he was, we hold him in even higher esteem than the other men that God used. You say, why is that?

Well, I don't know much of the language of Hebrews other than what I'm able to look up. I mean, of Greek other than what I'm able to look up. I don't know much about Hebrews either, Hebrew. I know a little bit of Greek. I understand from what I've read that the language and the structure of the book of Hebrews in the original Greek is impeccable. And so whoever this penman was, he had obviously a very good understanding of the language.

There is no book in the Bible that reveals the glory of Christ more comprehensively and more clearly from the Old Testament into the new than the book of Hebrews. This is a book of Christ, as we just sang. And there's no other epistle that is more revealing as to the types and shadows of the Lord Jesus in the Old Testament than we have in the book of Hebrews. This penman of this book, whoever he may have been, obviously not only had a very good understanding of the of the Greek language, but he had an extraordinary understanding of the scriptures of the Old Testament. And yet, had I written the book of Hebrews, I'd have put my name at the beginning and the end, just to make sure everybody knew who did it. And I confess that as a testimony of my own vanity.

Turn with me to Matthew chapter 6. Verse 1, take heed, take heed, be on guard. This is something we have to be consciously aware of because we will draw attention to ourselves as often as we can. We're proud, sinful men. Take heed. that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogue and in the streets, that they may have the glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward, But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms might be in secret, and that thy father, which seeth in secret himself, shall reward thee openly. Let us draw this lesson from the fact that the very gifted, extraordinary man that wrote the book of Hebrews, that penned the book of Hebrews, did not reveal himself as the one who wrote it. disregard any efforts made on men's part to speculate as to who it is, lest we rob this humble brother of his reward.

He looked to his heavenly father for his reward. The scriptures tell us, do what you do as unto the Lord and not as unto men. What a good lesson that we can all heed for ourselves. Second thing I want us to consider before we embark on this wonderful epistle is who exactly it was being written to. The audience of this epistle originally were Jewish believers. They were Hebrew believers. They were people that grew up in Judaism and had learned the scriptures from a child.

And as a result of them believing the gospel, they were suffering. They had been exiled. from their homeland, they have been exiled out of their home, out of their families, from their jobs. These were believers that were suffering greatly as a result of their profession of faith in Christ. And some of them may have been tempted even to to wonder whether or not they should continue.

And the book of Hebrews is written to them as an encouragement to not give up. How those fears and those doubts creep into every believer's heart. and how necessary and profitable it is for us to be encouraged to persevere. Perseverance, that's the message of this book. I mean, the message is Christ, but it is written in such a way as to exhort these Jewish believers to continue We see that.

Turn with me, if you will, to chapter 12. In chapter 11, the Lord gives an example of so many Old Testament saints who suffered in like manner as a result of the faith that they had. And so the Lord is saying to these New Testament believers, don't forget the the conflicts and the persecutions that your forefathers experienced. You know their stories. You know what they went through. And he reminds them one by one of these things.

And in chapter 12, he says, wherefore, wherefore, in light of These examples of Hebrews chapter 11, wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

Now, what is the sin that doth so easily beset every one of us? Surely, Each person has their own weakness in the flesh. And most people would say, well, the sin that doth so easily beset you may be different from the sin that doth so easily beset me. But even those temptations and those sins are rooted in one common sin that we all experience. And that is the sin of unbelief. The sin of unbelief. That is the That is the fountain, the polluted fountain, if you will, from which every sin flows.

And so the encouragement is, let us lay aside the weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Now, what the Lord is saying to us is, yes, your brothers and sisters who have believed the gospel have suffered in this world in the same way that you're suffering. And you are able to draw some encouragement from that. But your ultimate example is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. The joy that was set before him. He was the one who endured the cross. despising the shame, not allowing the shame of the cross to keep him from the cross. That's what that means. And is now, he is now set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

This is our hope in all the, all the struggles of this world and the struggles of our flesh and all the sin and sorrow that we experience in this life. Our hope always is that we set our affections on things above, not on the things of the earth. That's where our Lord was looking always, looking to his heavenly father, looking to his heavenly reward. That's where this penman of scripture of Hebrews was looking. He was looking for the reward that his father would give him, not glory in the reward that he might get from men.

Verse three, for consider him that endured such contradiction of centers against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds. You've not yet resisted unto blood, striving with sin. The real strife that the child of God suffers in this world is not the persecution of the world, not the temptations of the world. It's that sin that doth so easily beset him, that would cause him to be affected by the persecutions of the world or by the temptations of the world. It's not our circumstances. It's not our circumstances. It's our sin.

Now, let's go back to the beginning of this wonderful, wonderful letter. that I trust the Lord will make eternally profitable to our souls as we go through it. Notice in verse one, the very first word. It's the only book in all the Bible that begins with God, no other book.

Usually when you are developing a thought or establishing a case for something, you would begin by giving grounds of evidence before going to your point. Sermons are generally developed that way. Arguments are developed that way. You begin by making clear what it is you're not saying. You begin by discounting whatever arguments may be made against your point, and then having established that ground, you make your point.

The book of Hebrews, the penman of Hebrews, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit on this dear brother's heart is just the opposite. The first three verses of this glorious letter, he establishes his goal. And then he spends the rest of the letter proving why it is so.

God, who at sundry times, that word sundry means just in different times, beginning in the garden, when the Lord told Adam and Eve that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. The very first prophecy of the promise of a Messiah that would come and destroy Satan and establish righteousness on behalf of God's people.

The lamb that was slain in the garden and the blood that was shed in order cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve because the fig leaves were not sufficient. The story of Cain bringing the fruits of his labor of his hands and not being acceptable to God and Abel on the other hand bringing a blood sacrifice. He learned that lesson from his father Adam. He knew that God would not be satisfied without the shedding of blood.

And all throughout the Old Testament, that blood sacrifice made over and over and over again, all the way up to the book of Malachi, at sundry times, at different times, and in divers' manners, in many different ways, many types, many pictures, many shadows, Many things that revealed and yet revealed in a veiled fashion the fullness of what God would do when he came in the flesh. God who in many times and in many different ways spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets.

Turn with me to Revelation 19. Revelation 19. An angel is speaking to John. John is caught up into the heavens. And in verse 10, John says, I fell at his feet to worship him, and he said unto me, see thou do it not. I am thy fellow servant and thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. The testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ is the spirit of prophecy. all the prophets of the Old Testament, all the type.

One of the things we're gonna see in the book of Hebrews is there were three anointed places, positions of leadership in the Old Testament covenant with Israel, was the prophet, the priest, and the king. And the Lord Jesus Christ now comes in fulfillment of all three of those offices. In Old Testament Israel, no one person could possess all three offices. David was king and prophet, but he had to have a priest. And Aaron was a priest, but he could not be king. Moses was king, in a sense, and prophet, and yet he had to have Aaron.

The Lord Jesus comes in the fulfillment. All three of those were anointed of God. They all had the anointing of the spirit placed on them. And now the Lord Jesus Christ comes as the anointed one. They were anointed in part. The Lord Jesus, the scripture says, was anointed with the joy of gladness above his fellows. His fellows are the prophets, priests, and kings of the Old Testament. They were anointed in part. His fellows, we could say, are the believers today. We have an anointing of the Holy Spirit, in part.

The Lord Jesus came in the full anointing of the Spirit of God to fulfill everything that the prophet, priest, and king pointed to. The prophet, the one who brings down from heaven the Word of God, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He is the fulfillment of all the prophets.

The priest, the one who made sacrifice to God and interceded on behalf of the people to God, the Lord Jesus Christ made himself a sacrifice, an offering, to his heavenly father to satisfy God's divine justice and put away the sins of his people. He didn't make himself an offering to us to be accepted or rejected by man. He offered himself to his father, and his heavenly father saw the travail of his soul, and his heavenly father said, I'm satisfied. We now have the Lord Jesus seated at the right hand of God, making intercession for us as our high priest.

King, the one who sat upon the throne and reigned with sovereign authority. Oh, the Lord Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. King of kings and Lord of lords, the one who established the law of God and the one who fulfilled the law of God. And this dear brother, I don't know how else to refer to him, just a dear, humble saint of God used to pin these words.

He reminds us God, who at sundry times and in divers manners 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 Lord Jesus Christ, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholdeth all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sin, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. The father said to him, sit thou here at my right hand until I make all thine enemies thy footstool.

The Holy Spirit gives us in these first three verses the substance of the whole letter. The rest of it now is given to us in order to substantiate, if you will, to prove this very thing. Notice in verse four, We're going to take just a couple of minutes and go through the betters in this book. We bought some paint recently and noticed at the paint store that the paint was categorized as good, better, and best. And you had a choice whether you wanted good paint, better paint, or the best paint.

Now in the Old Testament, when God gave his people the law, he said to them, you bring the best of your sheep. You bring the best of your oil. You bring the best of your offering. You bring the first fruit. And God would not settle for anything but the best that they had to give.

Now we get to the book of Hebrews. And it's not good, better, best. It's good, best, better. Because what the Lord is telling us in the book of Hebrews is that Christ is better than your best. That's the message of this whole book. The Lord Jesus Christ is better than your best. And we find this word better several places in the book of Hebrews. We'll look at them briefly. Here's the first one, verse four, being made so much better than the angels. And we just read in Revelation chapter 19 that John, tried to worship an angel.

When you look through the Old Testament, you'll find that, well, there was one time, I forgot, 185,000 Assyrians, 185,000 Assyrians were slaughtered by one angel. Anytime a son of Adam encountered an angel, It gripped the heart of that mortal man with great fear. Oh, this creation of these pudgy little cherubs that men come up with to picture an angel. No, no. No, no. That's not what angels are at all.

No, the angels in heaven had their swords drawn and were waiting breathless at the portal of heaven, ready to come and destroy this entire world when they observed their Lord hanging on Calvary's cross. And they would have come. Could I have not called 12 legions of angels? They were on ready to come and no one would have survived for them to deliver their Lord.

Angels are glorious, powerful beings. And yet the Lord begins this letter by saying, as good and best as they are, Christ is better. And here's the glorious truth. He's the creator of those angels. He's Lord over those angels. We don't worship angels. We don't fear angels. We worship God.

Here's the mystery of mysteries. Here's something that's, Very difficult for me to comprehend. But these angels, as glorious and great and powerful as they are, right now, are serving God's people as ministering spirits. I don't know what that means.

But I know that there are angels that are ministering the gospel and ministering, however that works, I don't know. I don't know, I'm just telling you what scripture says. That these angels, as glorious as they are, for those who are found in Christ, those angels become their ministers. And here's something, when we get to glory, the scripture says that those angels will be serving us and that we will be standing in authority and judgment over them. How can that be? Only in Christ. He's the one who's better than the angels. And the only way that we can be in such a state is to be found in him.

Turn with me to chapter 6, verse 9. Now, chapter 6 speaks of how impossible it is to fall away if you've been truly converted. You remember these Hebrew believers were We're struggling and having fears and doubts. And the Lord is telling us, if you've been converted, if you've been born of the spirit of God, it's impossible for you to fall away. There's no more sacrifice for sin. The sacrifice for sin has been made in Christ. And if it were possible for you to fall away, there'd be no way, there'd be no way to be converted.

And then he says in verse nine, but beloved, we are persuaded, we are persuaded of better things of you and things that accompany salvation, though we speak. For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and your labor of love, which you have showed toward his name, and that you have ministered to the saints and do minister. And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence in the full assurance of hope until the end. We're persuaded that you're not gonna fall away. We're persuaded of it. We're persuaded that God's gonna keep you from falling, that he will be faithful to his promises to present you faultless. Remain, remain diligent to the full assurance of hope to the end.

The means Well, I've already quoted it once, I've quoted it oftentimes, faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word of God. That's not just true in hearing the gospel for the first time, but that's true throughout our walk of faith. We walk by faith, not by sight. And the means by which the Lord keeps us is to admonish us to remain. to remain looking to Christ, to remain believing. It's his word that continues. We're persuaded of better things to view. Look at chapter seven. Now, chapter seven, the Lord is bringing up Melchizedek.

When Abraham came back from the slaughter of the kings, there was a man there who was without father, without mother, without descent, which tells us very clearly that this man who was king and priest of Salem was none other than the pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus himself. That's who Melchizedek was. And Abraham, pays tithes to Melchizedek. Now, the Jews would have considered Abraham to be the best. He's the father of the faithful. He's the one that God began the whole work of faith through the Jewish nation in.

And the Lord is telling them, there's one better than the best. It's not good, better, best. It's good, best, better. There's one better than the best. Look what he says in verse seven. And without contradiction, the less is blessed by the better. Not only did Abraham give tithes to Melchizedek, which shows his subservient to Melchizedek, but Melchizedek blessed Abraham. And without controversy and without contradiction, the lesser is always blessed by the better. That's what we need. We need to be blessed by the better. We hear The words bless God, worship God.

Blessing God and worshiping God adds nothing to God. He cannot be added to. God cannot be added to. He's not improved in any way by our worship. He doesn't need our worship. He doesn't need our blessings. We are the ones who are blessed by worshiping God. We are the ones that are blessed by ascribing blessing and glory and grace to our God. What a blessing it is that he would allow us to come into his presence and to offer him blessing and worship and glory because all the benefits of that come back to us. They all come back to us.

The less is blessed by the better. Look at verse 19 in this same chapter. For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did. 12, I just counted them, I hadn't counted them before. It's important, it's significant I think that there are 12 betters in the book of Hebrews. 12 is the number of perfection, it's the number of completeness. So here we have the fourth of the 12 betters.

The law never perfected anything. The purpose of the law is to make sin utterly sinful. The purpose of the law is to show how imperfect we are. No one was ever perfected by the law. The law is holy, the law is just, and the law is good, but the law has never made anyone holy. The law has never justified anyone before God, and the law has never added an ounce of goodness to anyone's life. The purpose of the law is to show us how far short of the glory of God we fall in every part of our lives.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. We have no hope in the law. Our hope is in the one who fulfilled the law. He said, I did not come to destroy the law. I came to fulfill it. I came to keep it. I came to magnify the law and everything about him.

Heart, mind, and soul. Here's the summary of it all. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and all of your mind and all of your soul. And implied in that is all of the time. And the truth is, you and I have never loved God with all of our heart or all of our soul or all of our mind any time. The Lord Jesus did. He did. He fulfilled the law.

We have a better hope. Our hope is not in our law keeping. Our hope is in the one who kept the law. Look at verse 22. For so much was Jesus made a surety of a better Testament. Now surety is one who provides everything necessary in order for that Testament or for that covenant to be fulfilled. Testament is a covenant. It's a promise.

God's making a promise. Now the promise of the free will gospel is, if you will believe, God will save you. If you will repent, God will forgive you. If you will serve God, God will bless you. That is the covenant of the law. Here's the better covenant. I have saved you. and you will believe. I have forgiven you and you will repent. I have blessed you and you will serve me. What a difference.

Oh, how much better is that? It's a better testament. Look at, Look at verse six in chapter eight. But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. The law says, if you will, then I will. The better promise is, Father, I will bring them back to you. I will save them. I will redeem them. And I'll be a surety for them. And if I don't, you hold it to my account.

Is it possible that God the Father would hold to the Lord Jesus Christ account a failure in redeeming and being a surety for his people? You see, our salvation is not based on our promise to God. It's based on the promise that the Lord Jesus made to his heavenly Father. It's a better promise, better in every way. Look at verse 23 in chapter nine. I said, there's 12 of these. We'll try to, verse 23 in chapter nine.

It was therefore necessary that the patterns of the things in heaven should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with a better sacrifice than these. The tabernacle, the instruments of worship were all cleansed or set aside, sanctified, made holy by the sprinkling of animal blood in the old covenant. When the Lord Jesus Christ died on Calvary's cross, he put his blood on the mercy seat that is in heaven. And now all has been set apart by him.

Look at chapter 10, verse 34. For you had compassion on me and my bonds. and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods. He's reminding these Jews what they suffered when they first confessed Christ. They lost their jobs, they were kicked out of their homes, they lost their families, they lost everything. And they rejoiced.

Kind of like Job. The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. And in all these things, Job sinned not against God with his mouth. He accused God of no wrongdoing. That was at the beginning. But as the sufferings were prolonged, Job began to doubt and question and accuse. Can you identify? Things first happen. We know it's the Lord. But when suffering is prolonged, sometimes doubt creeps in and fears take hold of our hearts. And so the Lord is reminding us, you remember the spoiling of your goods?

You took those joyfully in yourselves that you have heaven, a better and more enduring substance. Why did you suffer the loss of your material wealth? Because you knew that you had heavenly substance. These temporal things of this world were just that, temporary. That the substance that you have in heaven is eternal.

Look at verse 16 of chapter 11, but now, They desire a better country. That is a heavenly, where for God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared them a city. Oh, the things that we have in this life cannot be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in heaven. Look at chapter 11, verse 35.

Women receive their They're dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and not accepted deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. He's talking about those Old Testament saints that were martyred for their faith. And they did it, that they might receive a better resurrection.

Look at chapter 11, verse 40. God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. Now we're getting to God who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke to our fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son, who is better, better.

And the last one is found in chapter 12, Verse 24, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel. The blood sacrifice that Abel made, not counting the one in the garden where Adam was clothed with the skin of an animal. The first real blood sacrifice made on an altar, sacrificed up to God for sin. The first of many that would go all the way throughout the Old Testament. The sacrifice that Christ made on Calvary's cross is better. Better. His better. far exceeds our best. Good, best, better, better. All right, let's take a break. Oh wow.