We're going to continue in the
book of Hebrews this morning, third in this series. Let me
just give you a refresher on what we learned last time. God
sent the prophets in olden times, before the cross, before Christ
came, and they had a message. That message was given in fragments. It was given in various ways.
Sometimes they would speak directly to the fathers. Sometimes they
would speak in an eventful way. There's many ways that happened.
They might speak through making an offering like Elijah. They
might speak by raising someone from the dead. Or they might
speak directly with a word. And in the old times before Christ
came, God spoke to the people, his people, through the prophets.
And they had a message. And that message was authoritative.
Those who didn't hear the message were lost. Those who did were
saved. God is the one who makes us here.
It's not what we do. It's not any virtue in us. It's
his own saving mercy to us. But they spoke of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That was the message, because
that's the only message that saves. The gospel alone is the
power of God unto salvation. So the other thing that we learned
is that in the Old Testament, God gave the people a law under
a covenant. And in that covenant, there was
an agreement between God and the people. They had to do their
part, and God would do his part. If they failed to do their part,
they suffered the curse of God's law. If they did their part,
they were rewarded with life. The problem is that God's own
testimony from Scripture says that there is none righteous.
The law says what it says in order to prove us all guilty
and helpless in our sinfulness. But that was the Old Testament.
And they were kept, as it says in Galatians, under this system
as a schoolmaster keeps an heir, the child of the Lord of all. He keeps that child as if he's
a servant and makes him obey, just like a servant. And so the
law was our schoolmaster, an authoritative figure assigned
by the father to oversee his son before his son came of age.
But when the Lord Jesus Christ came, Then the message of God
was abundantly clear, and it was complete. God didn't speak
anymore through the prophets. He spoke through the prophet,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And the message of the Old Testament
prophets, which was dim and unclear to them, they searched diligently
what God was saying, the Spirit of Christ was saying when he
spoke of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow,
as it says in 1 Peter 1, 10 and 11. But the Lord Jesus Christ
came with the same message, only the message that he brought was
the complete and perfect message. He himself is that message. He,
who he is, he in his office as our mediator, as Christ, our
prophet, our priest, and our king, and he in his work of saving
his people by his own work on the cross, and his glory. All
those things were part of that message. So when he came, he
didn't direct men away from himself as the prophets of old. He directed
them to himself because that's what God, his father, gave him
to do, to proclaim the message without compromise. And he was hated for that. But
the letter to the Hebrews opens up this way. And then the other
thing we saw last week is that the Hebrews that are mentioned
here in the title of the book, Hebrews, refer not to the physical
descendants of Abraham, but to those who were the spiritual
descendants of Abraham. We are not children of Abraham
by physical birth. although we are in a natural
sense, but there's no one that God considers to be a child of
Abraham except the one who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. And
this is an error in many religions today. A lot of religion today
continue to hold the nation, the physical nation of Israel,
as having a special place with God. They do not. Only those
who are spiritually born of God, and therefore believe on Christ,
are the children of God, and therefore the children of Abraham.
Because like Abraham, they rejoice to see Christ. like we do as
believers, what gives you greater joy as a believer than to know
that in spite of your sins, in spite of your complete unworthiness
and helplessness before God, God found another before the
foundation of the world and laid on Him everything that He required
to bring you to Himself. And He took the initiative and
accomplished the work, not in you, but in His Son. And those
who believe that rejoice in that. They come to God by him. And
those are the true children of Abraham. And there are no other
true children of Abraham in God's estimation. Romans 2 says, he
is not a Jew, which is one outwardly, but he is a Jew, which is one
inwardly. So the whole point here is about
what's going on on the inside, which is a gift of God's grace.
The opening part here is meant to teach us that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the complete and the final revelation from God. And the revelation from God that
he is, is the revelation of God himself in his glory. And so
the first three verses of Hebrews really is a condensation of the
entire gospel and the book itself, the book of Hebrews itself. And
so we're gonna move through these phrases here because it's so
incredible how much information God condenses into just a few
words in these first verses of the book of Hebrews. And so much
information, in fact, that we could really take these three
verses and we could spend literally the rest of our lives teaching
and preaching on these three verses of scripture. But we don't
have that much time. Not today. So we're going to
take it slow. But I want you to remember now,
the message that God has given us is what we are to preach,
what we are to teach, what we are to believe and live upon.
And what is that? It is the faith of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's the truth God has revealed
concerning His Son. Not just His Son as His Son as
God, but as His Son as Christ, the one who was crucified to
save His people from their sins. If you miss that message, you've
missed everything God has to say to sinners. But if you hear
that message, if you understand and believe on Him whom God has
sent, then you have, according to Jesus, everlasting life. And there's nothing that we can
do to attract God's attention to ourselves. God is not waiting
for us to do something to bless us with the blessings that Christ
earned for His people. God, from the beginning, determined
to save His people by His Son. And that is what He has done.
And therefore, He brings that salvation to us and gives it
to us. And the way He gives it to us is by His Spirit creating
life in us and giving us faith in Christ. It's not a decision. It's the result of God's work.
We are His workmanship, Ephesians 2.10, created in Christ Jesus
on two good works. So we preach the transcendent
glory of Christ in His person, and we preach His wondrous saving
work as our high priest, which is what's going to happen here
in these verses. Not only that, but we preach this for the benefit
of God's people. We preach Christ's saving work
and the certainty of it for their comfort and their assurance.
We just sang a song a little bit ago about how not what my
hands have done can save my guilty soul. Not what my toiling flesh
has borne can make my spirit whole. Nothing that I have, no
tears, no sorrows, it can't come from me. It can't depend on me. That's what the old covenant
was meant to teach us, to bring us to the Lord Jesus Christ and
find God's complete salvation in him alone. And therefore,
not to go back to those old things, which we are prone to do. To
teach and preach the benefits that Christ's saving work have
obtained for his people. God wants to convince his people
with great assurance that Christ has done all and obtained all
for their eternal salvation. It is only in believing this
that we can have any assurance before God, any confidence. Everything
else is going to leave us wondering if we have done enough, or if
we have something still yet to do, or if somehow, someday we
can achieve a level of Christianity, or whatever you want to call
it, so that God will accept us and bless us. All of that is
a distortion of the truth. It's a damnable lie, because
we're supposed to look to Christ only, and that's what we'll see
in these verses, these first three verses here. And then the
last thing is that Hebrews teaches us to exhort one another to love
and do good works because of these things. Look to Christ,
my brother, and see in Him all that God requires of you, and
find your all in Him. And so seeing your guilty soul
saved by His grace, bow before Him. and in humility love one
another because of this. This is the message of the gospel.
It has consequences. It humbles us. It bows us low
before God in our heart and therefore before one another. And it causes
us to see we were forgiven an infinite debt for Christ's sake
alone, therefore we can forgive others for Christ's sake alone
and not for something we find in them. So that's a summary
of the first couple of verses. And we went over that last week.
And I want to move on now to this next part. And let's just
read this together, the first three verses. Notice now, when
we read these verses, we want to understand how the flow of
the message is unfolded to us so that we see what is God saying
here, really. Verse 1, God, who at sundry times,
that means different times, and in diverse manners, in various
manners, various ways, spake in time passed on to the fathers
by the prophets, that message that he gave to the fathers then
by the prophets is the same message But now it's clear and full and
final, 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, sat down on
the right hand of the majesty on high. This is speaking about
Christ. It's speaking about who he is.
It's speaking about who he is in God's appointments, who he
is in his person as the son of God, and who he is in the appointment
by God as our mediator, and what God has given to him. the honor
and the possession that he's given to him and inheritance.
And it's also speaking about what he did by himself and where
he is now and why he's there. It's speaking about all these
things. And it says it in such a compact way. But it flows from
the first part. The prophet spoke. And now, God
has spoken in His last days, the final time, in a complete
way, by the final prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, in
those olden days, they trusted in the outward, earthly, temporal,
physical, external things. And unless they saw behind that
the eternal, heavenly, the saving things that those things pointed
to, then they missed the message. They would be going about trying
to do something in order to keep or to obtain God's favor. But
none of that can help us. God has set that aside because
now the true has come. The fulfillment has come. There's
no need to go back. So I want you to see here, first
of all, that what God says about the Lord Jesus Christ places
Him above everyone and everything in this universe. And therefore,
if He is above all things, and He by Himself did what He says
He did here, purged our sins, what does that mean? What does
that mean? He who is the highest stooped
to the lowest and now is exalted again to the highest. You see
the flow? He came from heaven's throne
to Bethlehem's manger to Calvary's cross and ascended again to heaven's
throne. Why did he do this? What did
he accomplish? Why is he there now? What is
he doing there? These questions are answered
here. And the fact that he is revealed here as the one who
is the highest, the son of God, and yet he stooped to bear our
sins, to offer himself, to purge us from our sins, to wash us
from our sins. This is phenomenal. This is amazing. He couldn't fail, could he? He
who is God could not fail. So I want to go through these
things one phrase at a time. It says, in these last days God
has spoken to us by his son whom he hath appointed heir of all
things. Let's just take that first one.
Heir. What is an h-e-i-r? An heir. An heir is someone who inherits
something. In the case of Abraham, remember
he was old, very old, when he and his wife had Isaac, their
son, their first son. Abraham actually had one by the
servant Hagar, first Ishmael. But God said, in Isaac shall
thy seed be called. The promise was not to Ishmael,
but to Isaac. And so when Abraham was about
to die, he gave all that he had to Isaac. And then when God told
Abraham, now I want you to take your son and offer him up. He
didn't just say your son. He said, take now thy son, thine
only son Isaac. Because in God's purpose, Abraham,
in God's purpose of redemption, Abraham had only one son, Isaac,
the son of promise, you see. And this teaches us how God has
chosen his people and blessed his people, and he has not blessed
Ishmael or Esau or those who are not his people. He's given
us a blessing in Christ by promise. But when he says here he's the
heir of all things, Abraham's relationship to Isaac and Isaac
receiving all from his father just teaches us a little bit
about this. What did Abraham have? Well, he was rich. He had
cattle and servants and sheep and oxen and camels and all these
things. and he took it all and he gave
it to Isaac. But let's think more broadly
about this heir. What does God mean when he says
he's the heir of all? Look at Matthew chapter 21 because
Jesus himself gave a parable. And it was a parable to teach
the Pharisees, those that hated him, and of course to teach his
people more directly about his own relationship to God and position
and the purpose of God in this. Matthew chapter 21. In Matthew
21, the Lord Jesus is going to come into Jerusalem. It's before
his death. When he comes in Jerusalem, he's
going to ride on a donkey and he's going to come and the people
are going to spread branches in the way and their clothes
and he's going to ride in as the king. And they're going to
shout something, Hosanna, Hosanna to the king. And the children
are going to sing this. And after this, the Pharisees
and the scribes are going to hear what these people are saying
and they're going to become enraged because they cannot stand the
fact that the children and the people are all giving such praise
to the Lord Jesus Christ. But not just praise, they're
crying out to him in the words Hosanna to save them. And it corresponds to Psalm 118,
where God in the Psalms had predicted that Christ would come into Jerusalem
and do this, and that these would cry out, Oh, save, Lord. Oh, save, which means, which
is what was translated here, Hosanna. So this teaches us that
God's people are waiting and looking for and rejoicing in
Christ because he came to save us. It's not just about Jesus
being an example to us. He didn't die so that we might
think He was a noble person. He died to save us from our sins. We need a Savior. Without a Savior,
we're lost. We can't bring anything to God. God brings everything to us.
What we give to Him, He first gave to us and we give Him nothing
that was not already His. And the thing that we give as
believers is praise to Christ because He is our Savior. And that's what these people
were doing. But at the end of this, in verse 33 of Matthew
21, here another parable, there was a certain householder which
planted a vineyard, and hedged it about, and digged a winepress
in it, and built a tower, and let it out, or rented it out
to husbandmen, and went into a far country." Now the parable
here, the householder, is God himself, God the Father. It says
that, as in the parable, the householder had this land and
he planted a vineyard in it, built a tower in it so that they
could store the wine after the harvest. And he dug a wine press
where they could process the grapes and convert them into
wine. And then he put men in charge
of his vineyard. So Jesus is speaking this parable
to the Pharisees and the scribes. And in the parable, the householder
represents God the Father. Those who the vineyard was rented
out to or led out to, as it says here, and who were put in charge
of that, were the Old Testament men to whom God gave the gospel. And they were to be stewards
over it to the people. The wine was his. The vineyard
was his, was God the Father's. And they were workers in it.
And the fruit of that vineyard was his also. So let's read on. And when the time of the fruit
drew near, after the householder put these men in charge of his
vineyard, when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his
servants to the husbandmen. Now this would have been the
prophets. The messengers in the Old Testament God sent to the
Jews, that they might receive the fruits of it. In other words,
He had given them the gospel. They were to deliver the gospel
to the people. The people themselves were the
fruit, the result of that wine press, where it should be brought
to God. And the people were to be brought
to God. But the husbandmen put over that stewardship did not
do what they were supposed to do. They wanted the blessings
of God for themselves. So rather than teaching and preaching
the gospel, what did they do? They used the people to enrich
them and to bring them praise and honor. Their whole goal was
the honor of the people for themselves, to retain their position of power
over them, and to enrich themselves through these people. In the
Old Testament, the false teachers and the false prophets, this
is what they were consumed with. And this is what the scribes
and Pharisees of Jesus' day were consumed with. And so Jesus is
teaching this in the parable, verse 35. And the husbandmen
took his servants, the husbandmen who were to give the wine to
the master, took his servants that he sent, the prophets, and
they beat one, and they killed another and stoned another. Again,
he sent other servants more than the first, and they did unto
them likewise. But last of all, See, last of
all, he sent unto them, who? His son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was speaking to them this
parable, his son. And this is what God the Father
said. He said, they will reverence my son. They will honor him,
you see. What is it that the householder
expected they would do to his son because he was the son? Honor
him. What did they do? Verse 38, but
when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, this
is the heir, you see, the one who inherits all things. Come,
let us kill him and let us seize on his inheritance. And they
caught him and cast him out of the vineyard and slew him, which
is speaking of the cross. And when the Lord thereof, therefore,
of the vineyard cometh, he asked these Pharisees, what will he
do unto these husbandmen? They didn't realize he was talking
about them, so they answered truthfully. They said, he will
miserably destroy those wicked men and will let out his vineyard
unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in
their season. The truth of the gospel that
had been given in the Old Testament days, but not believed, been
distorted and brought to the people, not for their salvation
and God's glory, but for the personal benefit and enrichment
and honor of those who did it. That gospel was taken from the
Jews, and it was given to the apostles who took it to the Gentiles
and the Jews, and every believer in the world since have benefited
from that, you see. But the point I wanted to bring
your attention to here is that the Son represents Christ, and
He came in the last time. And when He came, those who saw
Him, the scribes and the Pharisees, they recognized that He was the
Son, and therefore what? The heir of all. In other words,
the vineyard was his. The fruit belonged to him. The
gospel was his. The people who believed it were
his. The glory of their salvation was his. It was all his. And
they were supposed to be servants and stewards of his people and
his gospel. They utterly failed. In fact,
they didn't just fail in that, but they didn't believe him.
They didn't honor him. And so the heir of all, it teaches
us here, the heir of all is the one who gets everything and is
the one who is honored. You see, he's honored. Isaac
received everything and there were others who were honored
in this way. Look at Galatians chapter four. I just want you
to get an appreciation for how God himself uses this concept
of an heir, one who inherits. Galatians four, verse one, he
says, now I say, that the heir, as long as he is a child, in
other words, he's immature, he hasn't grown up, he can't handle
the whole thing yet, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing
from a servant, though he be what? Lord of all. So what is the heir? Lord of
all. He's the one God favors, honors,
gives everything to, and is the Lord of all. Now many people
in the Old Testament were used to depict this concept of the
heir, the one who was honored, who was given rule as the Lord
of all, and who was given all things. Now I want you to think
with me back because I'm not going to take time to read all
these from the Old Testament. But remember, highly favored,
highly honored, given rule, and given all things. This is what
God has done for His Son, as the heir of all things. Remember
Pharaoh? God gave a dream to Pharaoh.
Seven fat cows came out of the river, followed by seven skinny
cows. The skinny cows were so skinny,
they ate up the fat cows, and you couldn't even tell they'd
eaten anything. And then the seven good ears of corn, and
then followed by seven thin, blasted, withered ears of corn.
And the seven withered corn ate up the first good ears of corn.
And he goes, I don't know what this is talking about. He asked
all of his magicians and wise men. No one in Egypt could discern
the dream. What did he do? They found Joseph
in the dungeon. They brought him out of the dungeon.
They brought him before Pharaoh. And he stood before Pharaoh and
he said, it's not in me. God will give you an answer.
And he gave the answer. Here we see the Lord Jesus Christ
in Joseph. giving the message, the message
and the messenger. And Joseph told Pharaoh what
to do, how he could avoid the destruction of the entire country
of Egypt and his own household if he would just listen to Joseph.
And Pharaoh listened to Joseph. In fact, he understood that God
had given Joseph wisdom. And so Pharaoh did what to Joseph? He said, put the chain on this
man's neck, put the robe on this man and set him over the entire
land of Egypt. And then when the famine came,
what happened? The people came to Pharaoh and
said, we don't have any food. What did he say to them? Go to
Joseph and you do whatever he says. So Pharaoh highly honored
Joseph because Joseph, by his wisdom, by the message that he
brought, he saved Pharaoh's household and all of the land, the entire
kingdom. Egypt would have been wiped out
had not Pharaoh listened to Joseph and made him the Lord over all
the land and given all power and authority to Joseph. So he
honored him in this place. He gave him rule over his household
and over the whole land. And he told the people, you go
to Joseph. If you want to live, go to him,
do whatever he says. And of course, you know the story.
So there's one example. No one was allowed to even lift
up a hand or foot in Egypt except it was according to Joseph's
will and according to what he wanted to be done, his governing
approval. And so here's another example
of someone who was given a lot because of the favor of the king.
And this is a bad example. Remember Herod? And he took his
brother Philip's wife, Herodias, and that woman's daughter danced
before him. And he was so pleased with her
dancing that he said, whatever you want, ask, and I'll give
you up to half the kingdom. That's a pretty high wage for
dancing, isn't it? But he was taken by this young woman. He
was willing to give half his kingdom to this woman. Why? Because he was pleased with her.
He delighted in her. Now another example. There's
lots of examples. I want to just give you some
of these to draw your attention to them. Remember in the book
of Esther? There was a king whose name was Ahasuerus, and he had
a wife, Vashti. She was unfaithful. She wouldn't
come out and show her beauty as the king required her to do
to all of his princes and nobles. And so the wise men advised him
to seek out another wife. And the wife that he chose was
Esther, who happened to be a Jew. And she had an uncle named Mordecai.
But the king had enemies. And one time, his enemies plotted
to overthrow him and to kill him. Mordecai heard about it
and he told the king's servants who wrote it in a book. And then
the king had a noble servant named Haman, who was a wicked,
wicked man. And Haman hated Mordecai. Mordecai
sat at the king's gate every day. Haman walked through, and
he demanded Mordecai bow to him. And Mordecai said, no, I'm not
going to do that. I won't bow to you. And so Haman hated him
worse. Haman built a gallows 50 cubits
high. That's a huge, huge, tall gallows
to hang Mordecai on. The night before, Ahasuerus had
a dream. He couldn't sleep, so he asked
someone to bring in all these record, the newspapers basically,
of what was written about Mordecai. And they read it to him. And
he goes, what was done to this man? They said nothing was done.
He said, oh, OK. Haman walks in the next day.
Ahasuerus asks Haman, he says, Haman, what should be done to
the man whom the king delights to honor? Haman said, he thought,
who would the king delight to honor more than me? So he said,
this is what you should do. Tell your most noble servant
to array this man that you delight to honor in the king's own majestic
robes, his own splendor, and then set him on the king's own
horse, and then put the king's crown upon his head, and make
that noblest servant of yours, lead him through the streets,
and proclaim and make everyone bow down and say, this is what
shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor. And
King Hazioras said, good idea. Do that right now for Mordecai.
Amazing twist, isn't it? Haman was the king's enemy. Haman
was Mordecai's enemy. Haman wanted to kill all of who?
The Jews in the land of Hazioras' kingdom, the land of Persia.
He was going to kill all the Jews. And so Esther was a Jew,
Mordecai was a Jew, and Haman was not a Jew and wanted to kill
Mordecai. What did the king do? He wanted to honor Mordecai.
He put him on his own horse with his own robes and his own crown,
and he made his most noble prince cry before him. This is our Lord
Jesus Christ, isn't it? God the Father has put all glory
on his son. Why? Because he saved his people
from their sins, who were in that case the Jews. And Esther
and Mordecai had one purpose. It was that the Jews would be
saved and that the kingdom would be upheld in justice and honor
to the king, who was, in their estimation, a good king. God
had put him there. But the point is, is that Hasierus the king
gave Mordecai a charge over his entire kingdom. In fact, he said
this to Mordecai, you and Esther, you write whatever you want and
put my seal upon it in the king's name. And this is exactly what
God has done with his son. He says to his son, do whatever
you want, whatever is in your heart. And he knows that whatever
he does will be his will to the T. There won't be anything left
out. All of his people shall be saved. Not one of them shall
perish, just like it was in the land of King Ahasuerus. And we
could go on and on. Remember Daniel in the book of
Daniel? King Darius made Daniel the chief among all of his presidents. He honored him above them and
he gave him the charge over them. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
is given charge over all of God's kingdom. And so you see this,
the heir of all As it says in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 2,
is given honor, and favor, and blessing, all possessions, the
entire inheritance, everything that is God's is put in His hand. God's will, God's work, God's
glory. If you honor the Son, you honor
the Father. If you do not honor the Son,
you do not honor the Father. These are the words of Christ.
And so we see the importance here of what it means to be heir
of all. But he's not only given honor
and glory to do the will of God, what is he given? What is the
main reason why God the Father has made him heir, has appointed
him to be heir of all things? Look at Psalm chapter 2. It says
in verse 1, Why did the heathen rage? And if you look in Acts
chapter 2, you'll find out that this is a prophecy of when Christ
was crucified. The heathen were, their hair
was on fire when Jesus came. And they hated him so much, they
killed him. Even though he did nothing wrong,
they trumped up charges against him and found false accusers.
They treated him as the worst criminal. They treated him unjustly. Why do the heathen rage? And
the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves
and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against
his anointed. And this is what they say, let
us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from
us. Let's take off all the yoke of their rule and get rid of
it so we can live our lives the way we want to and honor ourselves
from the people and just live it up. Verse four. This is God's
response. He that sits in the heavens shall
laugh, and the Lord shall have them in derision. You see this? This is what happened at the
cross. They did all that they did, but it was according to
the precise, predetermined counsel of God. When they took Christ
and hung Him on the cross, what were they doing? the will of
God. But they were also sinning against
God in their motives and in their intents, because they crucified
Him for unjust reasons. They crucified the Son. They
took the heir of all. They wanted to kill Him to seize
His inheritance. And so the Lord says, I will
speak to them in verse five. He will speak to them in his
wrath and he will vex or trouble them in his sore displeasure.
Verse six, listen. Yet have I set my king upon my
holy hill of Zion. Listen carefully. I will declare
the decree. The Lord has said to me, Thou
art my son. This day have I begotten thee. It doesn't mean that Jesus was
born then. It means that it was made openly clear that the one
God raised from the dead and put on his throne in heaven was
the Son of God. Then it became evident. And then
he goes in verse 8. Listen, this is what I want to
get to. God says to his son, Ask of me, and I shall give thee,
what? The heathen. For what? Thine
inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. What is he saying here? Christ
is the heir of all. But what is he given? The people. How many of the people? Well,
he's given all people over all the earth. But who are given
for his inheritance? He says here, the heathen for
thine inheritance. What is this? This is speaking
about God's people among the Gentiles. Look at John chapter
17. Here we see the same truth. Jesus
is praying to his father just before he goes to the cross,
and he's speaking to his father as our mediator. as our high
priest, and he says in John 17 verse 1, these words spake Jesus
and lifted up his eyes to heaven. And this is what he said, Father,
the hour has come. Glorify thy son. This is the
time. This is the time appointed to
exalt and honor and openly glorify your son. Why? That thy son also
may glorify thee. You see, God is glorified, how?
In his son. Verse 2. Very important verse. It explains Hebrews 1, verse
2. He says here, As thou hast given
him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to
as many as thou hast given him." What did Jesus inherit? He inherited
those God gave to him. And were they everybody in the
world? No. You've given him power over all
flesh in order that he might give eternal life to those you
have given him. When were they given? They were
given to Him when God chose those people before the foundation
of the world in Christ, Ephesians 1.4. He has chosen us in Him
before the foundation of the world. We were chosen, we were
given to Christ, given to Christ to redeem. He made us accepted
in the Beloved. And so, if you look back at Hebrews
chapter 1 now, It's important that we see that God is describing
here the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's also describing
his appointment of him as the mediator to be the one who would
be given all things in order that he might save those people
God had given him to save. And because of this, what is
he given? All honor? All rule? And what are we to
do now? If he's the heir of all, if he
has all things, what should we do as sinners? Where are you
going to find any blessing from God? Remember what Pharaoh told
the people when they were starving in the famine? Go to Joseph. You better go to Christ. He's
the only one who has any blessing from God. Eternal life? Go to
Christ. Look to Him. Seek it from Him. Plead with God to hear Him for
you. This is the only way you'll be
heard. There's no blessing except in Him. There's no life except
in Him. Everything is in Him. And so,
since everything is given to Him, we have to go to Him for
it. If God the Father has so honored
His Son. If God the Father has given everything
and entrusted everything, even His own glory and people, His
eternal purposes, His own name is staked upon His Son, His throne
is upheld by His Son, what should we do? Should we not honor Him? Shouldn't we give everything
to Him, ascribe all credit to Him for our salvation and give
Him all worship and praise? We must. We must go to him. And
I want you to see this. It also means that all that God
has for sinners is where? It's in Christ, isn't it? Remember
Joshua? He brought Israel into the land
of Canaan. How did he get them there? He conquered the enemies
of that land. And what was that land like?
It was a land of plenty. It flowed with milk and honey.
It was enough for everybody and more. Abundance. And what else
was that land considered? A land of rest. A land of their
inheritance. And Joshua divided the land up
by lot and gave it to the different tribes of Israel. This is teaching
us that in Christ, God has put all of his blessings for his
people. What? Let's look at a couple
of those things. Remember Isaiah 45? Isaiah 45
says, look unto me all the ends of the earth and be ye saved
for I am God and there is none else. And then later on it says
in verse 24 and 25, in the Lord have I what? Righteousness and strength. Where? In the Lord. Where is my righteousness? It's in Christ. Where is my strength?
It's in Christ. It's what God thinks of Him that
matters. My salvation is not dependent
upon what I do or what I feel or what I commit to or what I'm
going to do someday. It depends only on what God thinks
of the heir of all and what He's given to Him. My righteousness
and strength is in Him. It says also in Isaiah 45, in
the Lord shall all the house of Israel be justified and shall
glory. He said this, in him is life. He is the way, the truth,
and the life. The way to the Father, the life
from God for his people is in Christ. That's what he said of
himself, I'm the truth, the way, and the life. It is of God the
Father that we are in Him. By being in Him, we have wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. And all the glory
goes to Him because of that. You see, everything has been
given to Christ, especially His people and all of their salvation
and blessing. He's done the work, He's obtained
it, and He's given it to them. This is His glory. This is His
honor. This is His will. And this is how God is glorified
for His people. Can he fail? Can he lie? Can anything of all that is his
be taken from him? Of course not. He's the Lord. He's the Son of God, you see.
He's the heir of all things. And I would like to continue
going on and on about this, but I want to set this alongside
of what follows in verse 3 here so that we can see the significance
of this. Who's on the throne? Who has
all the honor? Who has all things? It's the
son. What does the son have? Well,
who is he? He's the creator of all. See what it says here? By
whom also he made the worlds. Verse two, and then in verse
three, being the brightness of God's glory and the express image
of His person, upholding all things by the word of His power.
Here He is the Son. He's God over all. There's nothing
greater than the Son. No greater honor. All blessings
are His. All power is His. All authority
is His. But look at verse three, the very end of it. What do we
find when He the one who is God, who has all power, who deserves
all praise and all worship, when he had by himself purged our
sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high." The
majesty That's God the Father. On the right hand of God the
Father, in full splendor and majesty of the Father. At his
right hand, the place of honor and all authority, preeminence
over all things. given all things, given his people
to save, given them to be his bride, given them to perfect
and bring to God and reconciled, perfecting them, washing them
from their sins in his own blood. He did this by himself when he
offered himself. He who is in the highest stooped
to the very lowest was numbered among transgressors. took the
punishment as the worst transgressor of all, and then he was lifted
up to the place of the highest honor. And now he has all power
to save those who have no power to save themselves, who are guilty
before God. Did he create the worlds? Did
He call light out of darkness, out of the empty nothingness
of darkness? Can He call for light, the light of salvation,
and to make God known to us? Can He call that out of our own
dark hearts? Can He save us from our sins?
Of course He can. And that's the point here. See
His glory. See His humiliation and His humility
and His work. See that it was Him alone. Can
anyone add anything to the Son of God? then how would we ever
think that we could contribute one thing to our salvation? Or
that we deserved any honor or glory for something we've done
or can be someday? All of it is so blasphemous when
you see it in the light of who Christ is. And it's so comforting
and assuring that if God has accepted His Son and given Him
His people with all things, that without fail God will give all
of His people all things with Him. Remember Romans 8, 32? If
God the Father has delivered up his Son to death for us, how
shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Nothing will
be withheld for those for whom God has given his Son. Did God
give us heaven? Then he gave his Son for us.
Did God give us his Son? Then he will give us heaven.
There's no disconnection. There's no possibility of a break
in God's purpose and work and blessing. Everything is given
to Christ. He's taken possession of it.
He has it now. And His people have it in Him. Righteousness, strength, justification,
eternal glory, life, all of it is in Christ. Let's pray. Lord,
we pray that we might see the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And like Thomas of old, we might
fall on our face and say, my Lord, my God. You, the one who
bear the prints of the nails in your hands and in your feet
and the gore of the thorns in your head and the spear in your
side in order to save me from the enemies of my soul. You,
my Lord and my God. We pray, Lord, that You would
implant this truth in the deepest part of our being. You would
cause us in our conscience and with our mind and our affections
and our heart to run out to Christ and to come to You by Him. And
we would not seek another. We would not even consider ourselves,
we would look only to what the Lord Jesus Christ has done and
accomplished and obtained and that all blessings are in Him
and we would call upon Him and cry out to Him and look to Him
and expect because of Your Word that in Him we also have this
forgiveness of sins and this righteousness which He has obtained
by His own work on the cross. Thank you for this truth that
you've revealed. We never could have imagined
it, never could have understood it. but that you would reveal
it and make it known to us. And so we pray, Lord, remove
the scales of our heart, open our blind eyes, shine the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ into the darkness of our heart,
and cause us with heart and lip and all that we are to give praise
and honor to him who sits on the throne, who has all honor
and blessings and everything at your hand by your purpose
for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.