our Bibles and turn to Hebrews
3. The passage that I asked Brother Neil to read was mentioned in
this third chapter in the book of Hebrews. And I wanted us all to have an
understanding of what the apostle was saying when he referred to
the passage that was just read in the book of Numbers. This evening we're going to consider
the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. I've entitled this
message, He Who Was Counted Worthy of More Glory. The Apostle Paul, I believe to
be the writer, whoever it was, is speaking to a group of Jews. Jews that considered Moses to
be of great esteem. Moses, the one that the Lord
used to give the law. And the apostle is speaking to
these Jews and setting forth. Moses was a faithful man. But
we will read in a moment The Lord Jesus Christ was counted
worthy of more glory, more honor than Moses. As I was preparing, looking,
searching these scriptures, one of the things that I always must
keep in mind when you're setting forth, when you're getting ready
to preach out of any passage of Scripture, if you do not set
forth the glory, the honor of Almighty God in the person of
the Lord Jesus Christ, what you are saying may be true. It may
be true, but it's not the gospel. If Christ is not honored, it's
not the gospel. Now what we're talking about,
and I want to say in preface, all that I'm going to say here
over the next few minutes so that we understand what's the
foundation that we're building on. We're building upon the faithfulness,
the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the faithfulness
that is set forth, that is to all of God's elect, He was faithful. And let me tell
you the glorious honor that is set forth toward the Lord Jesus
Christ when God's people are faithful people. And I do understand,
I know that We start talking about ourselves, especially if
you're talking about yourself. I know and I can appreciate any
man, any woman that be honest about it and just say, I just
don't see any faithfulness in me. I think that's the most faithful
statement that a man or woman could make and mean it, mean
it. I just don't see any faithfulness. The reason that you see no faithfulness
in yourself is because of a new heart. You're not looking as the world,
the world's religion, you're not looking as the world looks
at themselves. You see, before you were called
out of darkness, before the Lord gave you a new heart, you governed
all of your actions based upon an outward manifestation, and
you saw yourself as being not that bad compared to other men,
women. I'm not that bad. But you see
what happens. Before you were converted, there
was no struggle within. You were fine. There's only one
nature there. And that one nature is completely
satisfied with itself. But after the Lord, imparts life. All of a sudden, that old man,
that old nature, now that hates, resents, is enmity against, struggles
against, strives against that new nature, now there's a battle
going on. The battle was never there before.
And now your faithfulness is not considered in your eyes anymore
outward Maybe outwardly you're not that bad. But inwardly, you
know. Lost of the eyes, pride of life,
evil thoughts. There's where you're struggling
right there. And you strive, you strive after faithfulness
to God Almighty. Herein, the Lord said, is my
Father glorified. that you bring forth much fruit,
love, joy, peace, meekness, long-suffering, gentleness, and kindness. You remember when the Lord Jesus
Christ said, I'm the vine and you're the branches? These branches, you know it's on the branches
that the fruit is actually produced. That's where the fruit is actually
seen. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
My Father is glorified when you bear fruit. Men and women, I'm
talking about frail creatures of the dust that bring forth
fruits, the fruit of righteousness, and they never even remotely
look at themselves in glory in themselves. But faithfulness,
faithfulness. What is the issue when the Scripture
speaks so of faithfulness, consistency? What is it? God Almighty is honored. It's set forth toward Him. Lord,
You've kept us. I am what I am by Your grace.
I am the vine, you are the branches. And in those branches, the fruit
of God's Spirit that is produced. God's honored in that. Why is
it such an issue that men be found faithful? God's honored. All right. Now, knowing the importance,
the necessity of faithfulness Faithfulness, honor, striving. I know you're striving. I know
you're struggling. Every believer struggles. Nobody
is without chastisement. No believer is without an internal
chastisement. If you be without that internal
striving of the heart, that chastisement, as I said a week or so ago, it's
not sickness. Everybody gets sick. Everybody
has money problems. Everybody has Tribular, outward,
everybody has that. But only a believer struggles
and strives with his heart, longing to be faithful and honorable. Why? Because my Lord is honored
in this. Almighty God. Now, the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, the
Scripture sets forth, He was faithful. Verse 2, "...was faithful
to Him that appointed Him." Oh, consider. Father, I have glorified
Thy name on the earth. Lord, You've been honored. Father,
You've been glorified. My meat, my food, my sustenance
is to do the will of Him that sent me. Does it not? Do you not find within your heart
a great longing desire? I mean, I'm talking about a striving
desire, oh, to be found faithful to Him. Lord, help me. I want to be. I want to be honorable. I don't want to dishonor You.
I don't want to be disrespectful. I don't. You that have loved
me with an everlasting love, Lord, though I don't understand
all that I read, though I can't enter into the fullness of it,
Lord, I can enter into it by faith, and I don't want to be
disrespectful. The Lord Jesus Christ, who is faithful to Him
that appointed Him, faithful as a messenger of God, faithful
as the atonement Faithful as the intercessor of his people,
by his faithful substitutionary death, by his stripes, we're healed. You think about
this. His faithfulness is our life. By his stripes, we're healed. Well, this evening we continue
in speaking of the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
I'm going to pick up on that second half. And I just looked
at the first half of verse 2 last time. I'm going to look at that
second half through verse 6 tonight. As also Moses was faithful in
all his house. Who was faithful to him that
appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all of his house. faithfulness of Moses. That's
what Brother Neal just read about over in Numbers. You see, Almighty
God, who is going to bring honor to Himself, who is going to magnify
and honor the Lord Jesus Christ, led, directed, instructed Moses
to marry an Ethiopian woman. And Aaron took him to task over
it. Has God just spoken through you,
Moses, to be married to Moses now? Moses, in that scripture
that Brother Neal read, Moses is a picture of Christ. Jews
that God called out of darkness, but those that the Jews considered
to be dogs. Gentiles. Unworthy. And now, Miriam and Aaron, those
that are haters, despisers of what Almighty God purposed to
do. It was God Almighty that instructed
Moses to do what he did. And Moses was faithful. He was
faithful. And they were going to call Moses
on the carpet. And God called all three of them
together. And He called Aaron and Mary
amount. And He told them, I'm just paraphrasing
what He read here. He said, My servant Moses was
faithful. I spoke. He said, if there's
a prophet, I speak to that prophet in dreams, visions. Dreams in the night, visions
in the day. But he said, I didn't speak to
Moses like that. I spoke to Moses face to face.
Oh, what a beautiful picture of the relationship between the
Father and the Son. He knew exactly what I wanted.
And Almighty God set forth the faithfulness of Moses back in
Numbers chapter 12 because it magnified Christ. It was honoring
to Christ. Beautiful picture. That's just
a quick look at that 12th chapter. And when it was all said and
done, you remember what happened? It was because of Moses' intercession.
that God showed mercy to Miriam and Aaron. Moses, a meek man, bowing to
the will of God. Man, what a beautiful picture.
I may just go preach on that again sometime. Oh, that's good. That's good. But here in this
little last half of this second verse, that's what that whole
last half of that second verse is all about. as also Moses was
faithful in all his house." Now, not Moses' house, his house. That's what the Lord, what Brother
Neal read. Here's the last, that last part, that 6th and 7th verse,
I the Lord. If there's a prophet among you,
I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision. I'll speak
to him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so."
That's not the way I spoke to him is what he said. I spoke
to him face to face. "...who was faithful in all mine
house." So when it says in that last house, it says, Moses was
faithful in all his house, not Moses' house, his house, the
Lord's house. The issue, the message of the
Holy Scriptures, is the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
Moses, who was a faithful man, was but a picture of the faithfulness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we are. God's people
faithful. Faithful unto Him who was faithful. We walked. I had somebody write
me up. email today and asked me a question,
and I gave him an answer as well as I could based upon the Scriptures. And it doesn't matter what the
question was, but here was the issue of the answer. Whatever
the Lord Jesus Christ, whatever the Spirit of God instructs men
to do in Scripture in handling a situation, that is His commandment. If you want to know, what do
you do? Well, what do they do in the Book of Acts? What happened
over in Ephesians? Find the way the Spirit of God
set it forth in Scripture. There's your answer. How did
the Lord do it? What did the Lord tell His disciples?
How? There's His commandment. There's
your answer. Someone said, well, that's just
the way they did it. That's the way the Lord instructed to do
it. That's the way I do it. You're safe. Faithful. Faithful. Moreover, it's required,
1 Corinthians 4, 2 in Stewart's, that a man be found faithful. It's honoring. It's honoring
to the Lord. It magnifies the faithfulness
of Christ. I'm not sitting here trying to
browbeat people into doing things that they don't want to do. What I'm telling you is, God's
people will strive to do what the Spirit of God has taught
them. They will do it. You don't push a dead horse up
a hill. You set forth what the Scripture
says is so concerning faithfulness. God's people are faithful. They
strive after faithfulness. You consider the dignity of the
One who called us. instead of the responsibility,
the trust He's given us. Wherever He's called us, be faithful
there. Wherever He's placed you, be
faithful. I don't think He's called me to
do anything that I can think of right now. I mean, all I know
to do is just come and hear the gospel. Come and hear the gospel. Be
faithful. Faithful in that which He has
called you. He who was faithful to Him that
appointed Him as Moses was faithful in all of His house. Oh, you
think of the faithfulness of Moses. Not only is he outcast,
unworthy. What a beautiful... But think
of the faithfulness of Moses in the deliverance of the law. You know, the law is not the
rule of life for a believer. The law is honorable. The law
is good. But I'm going to tell you something. We don't obey
the law in order to be reconciled to God. Being reconciled to God,
we strive after obedience to the law of God. Does anybody
have a problem here You know, stealing, don't steal. Don't envy. I don't want to do
that. I don't want to covet. But I'm
going to tell you something. I certainly don't think that
my striving after obedience to establish a righteousness, not by works of righteousness,
but by the deeds of the law, no man's going to be. Reconciled
to God, made righteous, justified. But the law of God is holy. Don't
speak evil of the law of God. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
this world to fulfill it, honor it. The law of God is good. It's good. Let me tell you what
the law... I'm talking about Moses who was
faithful in the Lord's house. The deliverance of that law.
That law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that
we might be justified by faith. I don't love because of the frailty
of my flesh the law of God as I ought to, but I desire to.
I don't honor it as I would desire to, but I strive to honor it,
be honorable to Him. Don't speak evil of the law of
God. The law of God is just. That's good. But that law, oh,
what did it do for us? It showed me my inability. Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart and all thy mind and all thy soul. Anything
wrong with that? No. That's a commandment. The only problem is I can't do
it. What did that law do? It brought
me to Christ. It caused me to see my need of
Him. Anything wrong with the law?
No, the problem is here. Not Him. Not His Word. Not His
law. Moses, a picture of God's law,
was faithful in His house. That law that brought His people
to Him. How wonderful that God Almighty
would show me my need of Him. The Lord came into this world
to fulfill that which the law declared as man's need of righteousness. The law declares my need of righteousness. It showed me I don't have one
in myself. Faithful. Faithful. Moses was considered by these
Jews to be of the greatest. And he was faithful. But I'll tell you, Moses' faithfulness
pales in comparison to the Lord Jesus Christ. For this man Verse
3 and 4, "...was counted worthy of more honor than Moses. And
as much as he who hath built the house hath more honor than
the house. For every house is built by some
man, but he that built all things is God." There is a house of God, and it's said to be built. But
you know the question, who built it? Who built it? Did man build it
by his own free will, by his own works of righteousness, by
his own obedience to God's holy law, that law that is just and
good and honorable, but that law that exposes our inability,
that law because we've broken it? That is, without the intercessionary
atoning grace of God, blood of Christ applied to our heart,
That law would condemn us. Who built the house? You know
the answer to that. Almighty God. God built it by
sovereign saving grace. The Father who chose this house
in electing grace. The Son who redeemed this house
by blood atoning grace. The Spirit of God that quickens
this house in regenerating grace. This is God's house. Moses was
a faithful man. He honored Christ. I mean, think of it like this. Moses was a sinner saved by the
grace of God. He was a sinner. I've known some men I held him in high esteem, and
you do too. I would never want to elevate Brother Scott or Brother
Henry or any other faithful man more than I should. But there's
some men that I've known, and you have too, that's worthy of
our respect. But let me ask you this. Who
is worthy of more honor than them, or Moses, or Abraham,
Paul described himself, he said, I'm the chief of sinners. We
said, that's Paul the Apostle. Paul said what he was, knew what
he was. I see in me there's no good thing. This man is counted worthy of
more glory, more esteem, more honor, more praise than Moses. As he who hath builded the house
hath more honor than the house. Moses is just part of the house.
That's us. Lively stones built up to a heavenly,
holy priesthood. But who built it? He did. Verse 5, And Moses verily was
faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of
those things. which were to be spoken after.
Faithful servant in God's house. What an honor. Now there's a epitaph. There's an inscription that could
be placed on a man's tombstone. A servant of the Most High God.
Boy, what else could you put on there More on it. Number one,
tell you what you are. Number two, state who he is. A servant of God. Moses was a
faithful servant. Faithful in God's house for a
testimony of those things which were to be spoken after. Those
things. Beautiful, beautiful. He was
a servant for a testimony of those things which were to be
spoken after. It would be an open revelation
of what Moses in marrying that Ethiopian woman was but a type,
a picture, but what a faithful servant. Aaron and Miriam didn't
see him. Called him on the carpet over
it. Who do you think you are, Moses? And God said, wait a minute. You be quiet. This man is a faithful
man doing just exactly. What honor! You know, we go through
things and eternity may reveal what God was pleased to do. Right
now, strive after honoring Him, faithfulness to Him. Moses, verily verse 5, was faithful
in all his house. as a servant for a testimony
of those things which were to be spoken after, but Christ,"
verse 6, "...as a Son over His own house, whose house we are,
if we hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of the hope firm
unto the end." Moses faithful, but Christ. Considering this one, the Apostle,
the one from God, and the high priest, the one that intercedes
for us before God. Here is the Son who is over His
own house. Here He is, the Governor, the
King, the Savior. He built it. Faithful man in
the establishment of it, in the keeping of it. Paul is telling these Jews, this
one that you so highly esteem, this one that was taken by wicked
hands and crucified, Moses was a servant in his house, and he
is worthy of more honor and more glory than Moses. Though Moses was faithful, the
Son built him. The Son saves it. The Son keeps
it. We are His house, Paul says,
if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope
firm unto the end. Not that our salvation is conditioned
or dependent upon us or our faithfulness. Thanks be unto God for that.
Though we strive, Oh, how we fail every day. But
I'm telling you, that is never an excuse for a believer. They
never excuse. Shall we sin that grace may abound?
You know how some men say, well, you know, I'm just a sinner. And they say that, and really
you can tell when they said it, they said it to justify their
wickedness. A believer is one that strives
after faithfulness before God because it is honoring to the
Lord Jesus Christ. God is glorified. If our salvation
depended upon us in any way, there would be no salvation at
all. The Apostle is saying in closing, if confidence and rejoicing
in Christ, which is the evidence of regeneration, is held firm
to the end, If confidence and rejoicing of the hope firm to
the end is found in any of us, it will be because God Almighty
kept us. Kept us faithful. Kept us rejoicing. Kept us looking. Kept us seeking. Believers hold fast the fact
that salvation is all of grace. They hold that firm to the end. They find no confidence whatsoever
in their flesh. They find no confidence, no rejoicing
in anything. They love God's law. And they look unto Him who honored
it. Thankful. Faithfulness honors Christ. Lord, keep me faithful. For Christ's sake, Amen.