Speaking to you this morning
from the book of Hebrews, chapter 13. Hebrews, chapter 13, and
we'll be dealing with one verse. Verse 13. Hebrews, chapter 13,
verse 13. Now, the truth has always been
in the minority. has always been despised and
rejected by most. From the beginning, those who
believed God, as opposed to popular opinion, were hated and ridiculed
and in the minority. Noah and only seven others believed
God and entered into that ark. And I suppose that most people
don't even believe that story today of Noah and the ark. Israel. You take Israel as an
example. Israel was a small band of people,
relatively small compared to all of the nations round about.
And when Christ and His apostles, Christ and His disciples, were
in a small minority actually, when Christ ascended back to
heaven, there were only 120 disciples in the church at that time. Now,
I know that God has a people as the sand of the seashore and
the stars of the sky, for a number. But that is the sum of all his
people over all time. At any given time, in any given
place, God's people, in the words of Scripture, are few, or as
a scattering of corn, or as it says, a remnant. In our text here in Hebrews 13,
it tells us this, very true, that we are to go forth unto
Christ outside of the camp, or outside of the majority, where
the majority dwell. Look at it here in verse 13 of
Hebrews 13. It says, Let us go forth therefore
unto Him speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, without the camp,
outside of the camp, the general populace, bearing his reproach. Now, Christ said, and this is
a verse that I quote quite often, because this best tells us or
defines what salvation is. Christ said in John 17, verse
3, this is eternal life. He's giving us the definition
of what eternal life or salvation is. He says, "...this is eternal
life, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom Thou hast sent." Scripture speaks much of a false
god or idols or god of men's imagination. And he says that
salvation is to know the only true God. and Jesus Christ. Paul said in another place that
some would come preaching another Jesus, another gospel. So, salvation
is to know the true God and the true Christ. And this is what
Paul is saying in Hebrews 13, we are to go forth therefore
unto Him, the true God, the true Christ. And this is eternal life. This is what salvation is all
about. Coming to a person, becoming acquainted with, falling in love
with, bowing to, being a disciple of a person. Not joining a church,
not making the decision of being baptized, not turning over a
new leaf, but rather knowing, bowing to, loving the Lord Jesus
Christ. Alright? There are three things
I want us to note in this verse. Three things to see in this verse.
Number one, to whom we go. Who is this that we are to go
to? Number two, where he is found. Where we go to reach him. And
number three, how we go to him. Alright, number one, to whom
we go. He says, let us go forth therefore
unto him. Unto him. Now the whole book
of Hebrews, especially the first three or four chapters declares
who this is, who Jesus Christ is. I'm reading from chapter
one in the first three verses. It says, God at sundry or different
times and different manners spake in time past unto the fathers
by the prophets. He spake to men by Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, and so forth. He hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his Son, whom," now he's going to describe or declare
who this Christ is, who Jesus Christ is, God's Son, "...whom
he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom by Christ also
he made the worlds." who, that is, still speaking of Christ,
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." He says he's the express image, or that
is the exact image of God's person. And another passage, it says,
"...in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Since
God is a spirit, Christ was made flesh in order that we might
behold God, see God. Verse 8 in this same chapter
says that God the Father says unto God the Son, Thy throne,
O God, is forever. Who is Jesus Christ? He is God
Almighty. Now, many do not believe that
simply because they don't want to believe it and because they
can't understand it, how God can be Spirit yet dwell in flesh,
how God can be Father yet be Son, how God can be three yet
be one. But because men don't understand
it does not mean it is not so. Because men do not believe it
does not mean that it is not so. Now, this is a fact. God
became a man in order that we might know God. You want to know
God? You must know Christ. Want to
come to God? You must come to Christ. Want
to be with God someday? You must be in Christ by faith. Christ Himself said, He that
hath seen Me hath seen the Father. Pretty plain, isn't it? Christ
said, You believe in God? Believe also in Me. He said,
I and the Father are one. Now listen. There is far too
much talk today of Jesus, and men only reveal their ignorance
of Him, or rather, who He really is. He is God. A man? Yes, He is. But chapter 2, verse
9 says we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the
angels. Why? Why was He in a body of a man? Why was He a little lower than
the angels? That is, bound to this earth. It goes on to say
in verse 9 of chapter 2, for the suffering of death, God became
a man in order to die. God can't die. Man must. Man can. So God became a man. But man can't fulfill God's law. But God can. And so God became
a man. Do you understand that? But he
says, now we see him crowned with glory and honor. Salvation
is to come to know Jesus Christ as He is now, Lord over all,
with the keys of hell and death at His side. Yes, He came once,
meek and lowly, riding on a donkey, but He is coming again high and
lofty, riding on a white horse with a sword at His side. And
to come to Him, to come to the true Christ, is to come to Him
as He is, the Lord, high and lifted up. and to come to Him
for mercy, for pardon, for salvation. To come to Him as your wisdom,
your righteousness, your sanctification and your redemption, as the Lord
of your salvation. Well, the second thing in this
verse I want you to see. Where we must go to find Him,
or rather, where we go, where He is found. It says here in
verse 13 of chapter 13, Let us go forth therefore unto Him without
the camp. without the camp. To come to
Christ is to come to Him outside of organized popular religion,
without the camp. You see, it was religion that
hated Christ, the truth. Christ, too, is the truth. It
was the religious leaders with all their tradition and their
ceremonies and their superstitions and claiming to hold to the law
of Moses They were the ones that killed Christ. And so to come
to Christ, you will generally have to leave the camp of modern
religion with all of its denominational creeds, with all of its traditions,
with all of its ceremonies, with its self-righteous keeping of
the law. And so to come to Christ, you
have to leave modern religion, organized religion. You have
to leave your old profession of faith. with its doctrines,
wrong doctrines and beliefs. You see, the truth is such a
minority today that it seems like strange doctrines. And the
things I'm declaring, or the truth that is, you may never
have heard before because you won't find it in the general
camp, in the large camp. The truth is in the minority.
and seems like strange doctrine." That's what they said of the
Apostle Paul when he came into Mars Hill, to Athens. They said,
let us hear of this strange doctrine. You seem like one that sets forth
a strange God, they said. Well, the true God, the God of
the Bible, is so rarely declared today that He seems like a strange
God to me. I guess a sovereign, electing,
ruling God is strange today. The truth of man being dead and
helpless and in the hands of that sovereign God, well, that's
strange doctrine today. The truth of the sovereign, successful
Christ who came to save His people and did actually that, didn't
make an attempt to save them, but actually did it, finished
the work, Not a frustrated martyr, but a successful Christ. That's
strange doctrine today. The truth of a sovereign, invincible
Holy Spirit who moves where He will, when He will, how He will,
with whom He will, and does what He will sovereignly. Why, that's
strange doctrine today. And so to come to Christ, who
is the truth, you have to leave your preconceived notion, an
old doctrine learned by tradition, learned from a denomination.
And you'll have to submit to the truth. And to come to Christ
without the camp is to leave worldly ordinances, such as touch
not, taste not, handle not, meats and drinks, being taken up with
these things, trying to establish a righteousness or trying to
make oneself acceptable and pleasing to God by abstaining from this
and abstaining from that. You see, Christ said in one place,
the kingdom of God is not in meat and drink. He said, sacrifice
an offering thou wouldest not. Mercy, grace, go and learn what
that means. Or rather, how that we need mercy
and grace in order to be saved. Salvation is all of mercy and
grace and in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ to distribute. And I'll let you in on something.
Here's the secret. Mercy is only for the guilty.
Christ said, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance. Now go and learn what that means.
And lastly in this verse, we see how we come to Christ. It
says, let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp bearing
His reproach. How do we come to Christ? We
come by repentance. And that's a daily thing. because
we need mercy daily. We'll always be sinners. We'll
never be anything other than sinners until we shed this body. So we repent daily, hourly. We come by faith, believing Christ
and Christ only as our hope of salvation. We come daily. Peter
said, to whom coming? Or that is, we keep coming to
Him. It's not an isolated thing of the past, a past profession.
that we keep coming daily to Christ, confessing Him. And it
says, bearing His reproach. The offense of the cross, the
truth. Christ said, they hated Me, they'll hate you. There's
a cost involved in following Christ. And that's His reproach. Nevertheless, this is who we
come to. This is where He is found. And this is how we come to Christ.
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