Attending school in Atlanta,
Georgia. The railroad for his job. But
I spoke with him Sunday. And he was sitting on the porch
at Brother Terry Worthen's house. He went over there. to worship,
and my pastor was there preaching, and they had just eaten a big
dinner. Now, I've eaten many a dinner at the Worthings' house,
and they put on a spread, and they've got a porch on the back
of their house. It's just one of the most pleasant places I've
ever sat in my life. And so I was kind of envious
of Stan, and he said they were getting ready to take a nap. So he was hanging around until
the service that evening. So that's where Stan is, in case
you didn't know. But he misses us, and we him. All right, let's go back to Hebrews. Back to Hebrews chapter 1. Now,
Scripture says a great deal about faith. A great deal about faith, mentioned
quite a few times. That's why this book is written,
actually. This book is written to give
faith. Faith cometh by hearing the Word
of God. God wrote this book. This is
the word of his power to give faith. Faith is belief. Faith is trust. Faith is confidence
in God, in Christ. That's what faith is. Believe,
trust, and have confidence in God. Like you read in Psalm 62,
he said, I heard it once and I've heard it twice now that
power belongs to God. God is God. This faith is belief,
trust, confidence in Him that our God reigns. Faith is from
the heart. With the heart man believes.
With the heart. We're going to see in this study
on faith how real faith responds and how it does. Faith from the
heart. And faith is not something that
we just come up with. It's a gift of God. Faith is
a gift of God, and faith comes by what we're doing right now,
by hearing the Word of God preached. Listen to all these scriptures
that talk about faith. Faith justifies, or justified
by faith. Faith is what we live by. The just
shall live by faith. You couldn't make it in this
world. You couldn't live except by faith. And you'll not live, well, there's
just no making it. We live by faith and we stand. By faith you stand. He won't
fall, and Scripture says we have access to God by faith. Scripture says we're children
of God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, and on and on I could
go with that, but the purpose of my preaching this message
is that God, hopefully, if he's pleased, will give faith to somebody
that doesn't have it. Now everybody doesn't have faith.
Scripture says that. All men have not faith. And none
of us have it by nature. But God is pleased to give it
supernaturally this way. And the purpose is to strengthen
those that do have faith. To build you up on this most
holy faith. All right? I told you that tonight's
message is the object of faith. Faith is in someone. This faith. Now, this book, Hebrew,
begins where the whole Bible begins. It begins where everything
begins, with God. Look at it. Verse 1, God. That's
where it starts. That's where we have to start.
Everything starts with God. God, the living. If I just read
everything I've written here tonight, we will profit. I've gotten in the habit of highlighting
scripture verses in red, and that's about all I do. You see that? If all I do is read, what I've written down, all these
verses of Scripture, we will profit. I'll just make a few
comments, perhaps. But God, it begins with God. God, the living and true God.
Scripture says our God is the living and true God. It means
he's not a little idol, can't do anything. He's the living
God. You and I are living, aren't
we? We speak, we act, we move, we purpose things, we do things,
we walk, and so forth. Our God is the living God, and
the scripture says in him we live and move and have our being. The living and true God, meaning
our God is God. I'm on your favorite subject
right now. I'm on the object of your faith. God, Creator,
Ruler, Sovereign, God, in whose hands our breath is. I just stopped
the other day, Roy, and thought about breath, that we live—these
bodies, all mammals live by breathing. Have you ever thought how mysterious
that is? We're breathing something we
can't see, and these lungs keep filling, just all the time. All
the time, don't they? That's strange, isn't it? It's
a miracle. Where did that come from? In
the garden, when God created man, Scripture says, he made
him out of the dust of the earth, and then, got you now. breathed into him, and he breathes. The God in whose hands our breath
is. And someday, that's it. Takes it away. And we die. That's what Job 14 says. We die. He takes our breath. We die.
The God in whose hands our breath is in all our ways. Oh, my God. God who upholds all
things by the word of his power. God, I heard it once, I heard
it twice, and I want to say it again. Do God belong with power? This is our God, and this is
written in all that your faith might be in God. God who upholds,
God, in verse 1 says, at sundry times, sundry means various times,
throughout time, and in divers or different manners, ways. It's fake. God's fake. Let's stop right there. God spoke. I said he's a living and true.
I didn't say it. He said it. He's a living and
true God. God spoke. You and I speak, don't
we? That's how we communicate. That's
how we convey our thoughts, isn't it? That's how we reveal ourselves
and so forth to others, isn't it? God spoke. God spoke, how? God spoke, read
on, God spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets. Who are the fathers? This book
is called the book of Hebrews. OK? The book of Hebrews. You
remember that, don't you? Eber came from Shem. Anyway,
sons of Abraham, God spoke unto Abraham and his posterity. Not
all human race. No, no, no, no. God chose this
man named Abraham. Didn't he? That's his prerogative. That's his right. He's God. We're
talking about God here. And he chose Abraham. Abraham
and his posterity to reveal himself. to him and all of his posterity,
sons of Abraham, Jews. And he spoke unto the father,
that is, these Jewish fathers, by the prophets. God only spoke
out loud to the prophet. God never spoke out loud to all
men. Never. He never did. Never did. He always spoke unto the prophets. He spoke to Moses. Now, why are
we saying all that? That's just what it says here.
That's the way it is. And the whole world argues against
this. They say, if God just speak,
I'll listen to him. Well, he has. He has. But the fact of the matter is,
he only reveals it to who he chooses. And we know God speaks to us
through the prophet Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Elijah, Isaiah, Ezekiel.
God spoke to and through those men, all right, who then spoke
to the people. Moses came down from the mountain,
didn't he, and spoke to the people. This is what God said. And then
he wrote a book. God said, you write it down.
You write down everything I told you to write. And he wrote five
books. And then other ones wrote books.
That's what Peter said. He said no prophecy as of any
private interpretation. No man just sat down and said,
I'm just going to write a book about God. No, no. But holy men
spake as God spoke to them. See, do we need to know this?
We say this is God's Word, don't we? Of course we do. We need to know this. We need
to believe this. It is God's work. And those men wrote books. They wrote books. Well, what
did God say? God spoke. God spake in time past. What did he say? What did he
tell the prophets to say? Well, through Moses, in the beginning. God told the story of creation. See, the heavens declare his
glory, the firmament showeth his hand to work. God is our
creator. God has spoken once, yea, twice,
but men perceive it not. The book of creation is so glorious,
isn't it? The Genesis is so glorious. People
read it, but they reject it, don't they? There's no Bible
explanation for this planet except Genesis 1 and 2. Is there? The rest of it is a pack of foolishness.
It takes a whole lot more faith to believe what they're saying
about this world than it does to just read what God's saying.
It makes perfect sense. If God is God, And he is. And he created all things. Now
I know why they are like they are. So glorious, so mysterious,
so wonderful. Don't you? You read it. It's
wonderful, isn't it? God's story of creation. Well, through Moses, he told
this story of creation. Man. Man wasn't created a monkey
or a worm. He became one. But he wasn't
created that way. Man started out upright in the
image of God. Now he's down on all fours. Now he's a worm. He's not in
the image of God anymore. But God created man in his own
image, and he told the story of the fall. In Genesis 3, God
Almighty told the story of the fall, and it was just rebellion. Man rebelled against his Creator.
The only man who ever had a free will was Adam. Adam and Eve had
free will. What did they choose? Satan enticed
them, you know, and said, we want our will. And they rebelled, shook their
fist in God's face. And then that plundered by one
man's sin. This is what God said, and this
is the only way that you can understand why this world is
like it is. By one man's sin, It plunged
the whole human race into this cesspool called wickedness. And it's just a mass of corruption
now. Sin and sorrow. I was reading the account again
today of Adam and Eve in the fall. And God told, this is one
thing he told Eve and Adam. After that after they say he
told that woman he said I shall greatly multiply that sorrow. In conception and that's our
role. And childbirth raising children
and he said to the man. He said, I'm going to, he said,
sorrow. You're going to have sorrow now. That's what sin causes in this
world. This sorrow. Everything dies,
doesn't it? That's the sorrow. Everything
dies. See, by one man's sin, death
passed upon all sin. That's what God said. And I believe
it and I see it and I know it so. Don't you? I know it by experience. And our God told Adam, he said
in the garden, he said, dying. He said, in the day you eat thereof,
you shall surely die. And the margin says, dying, you
shall die. You've read that, haven't you?
Dying, you shall die. So all human beings are born
dead. It's not just a doctrine. This is a horrible thing that
we're born. Our children come out speaking
lies. The scripture says that foolishness
is bound up in their hearts. They don't grow up good little
kids. They just grow up sons of Adam. And if God doesn't do
something for them, they're hell bound. They're little hellions. That's so. That's the way we were. And they're
born dead and waiting to die. That's sad, isn't it? Sorrow.
That's what sin brought. God told us that through Moses.
Because God is holy, because God must and will punish sin,
there's no other way to explain all of this thing called death
except sin. Huh? There's no other way to
explain it. Everything dies. It's the chief
cause of all the sorrow on planet Earth. It dies. And then what? No other way to explain it. So
by one man's sin, death passed upon all men but God. Scripture says it is rich in
mercy, and love, and grace, and great grace, and great pardon,
delights to show mercy, delights to pardon. God, through Moses,
told this story. God said, one man plunged this
race into misery, and sorrow, and sin. One man, another man,
I'm sending another man, he's going to pull them out of it.
This is the story. Starting in chapter, well, yeah,
chapter three. God said, I'm sending another
man, and he's going to pull men out of there. He's got another
man who's going to save the human race from extinction. He's going to save the human
race. Not all, but many, according to God's choice. And God, through
all the prophets, listen to me, God, through all the prophets,
began to write a great book. This is the greatest story ever
told. This is the greatest book. This proves man's depravity and
man's foolishness. This is the greatest story ever
told, the wisest, most glorious, most mysterious, most marvelous,
most complex, beautiful prose, poetry, wisdom from above, and
yet man just rejects it. Most of them hadn't read it,
and yet rejected it anyway. But God wrote a book, a great
book, a great book, great book. And Scripture says in the volume
of the book. Let's just say, you know, the
rest of that low in the volume of the book, it is written what?
Of me, Christ said. Starting in Genesis three. God
began to tell a story, and what a story, the story of redemption,
the story of the Son, the Son of God, the woman seed. Oh, you've
been through those stories with me. Would you like to go back
through Genesis again? The Passover lamb, the scapegoat. Did you enjoy that? The scapegoat,
the deliverer. And the prophet, the priest,
the king, the kinsman, the redeemer, the Messiah, the high priest,
this whole book of Hebrew. These three messages we're going
to do is we're going to stay in Hebrew the whole time. This
book of Hebrew is a summary of the whole Old Testament. That's
what it is. A summary. And a high priest,
he goes, about five chapters he talks about the high priest.
He said, now, we need to consider our high priest. Men like to
have a priest and always like to have a priest. Always thought they needed a
priest. Somebody that could talk to God. Somebody that could go
to God. Somebody that they could go to and confess to. Somebody
that could absolve them of their guilt and so forth. Somebody
that could tell them some answers and all that. Don't they? People
like to have priests. Go and confess to them. Well,
we have one. A great high priest. He's really
the only one there is. A great high priest. We've got one. A great high priest,
a mediator. Is there anybody that can talk
to God through us and come back and tell us what God says? Yes,
there is. There's one. A mediator. One mediator between God and
man. The man, Christ Jesus. The Lord, the Savior, Jesus the
Christ, the Son of the Most High God. God manifest in the flesh. Now, Scripture, God talks about,
you see, a day is a thousand years to God. God's not subject
to time, and time is known unto God are all his works from the
beginning. It's already, I'm speaking things too wonderful
for me. But God is not a creature of time. We are. That's why he said, and this
is a mystery, he said, I am. Not I was, not I shall be, I
am. Ever thought about that? We can
never say that. We're always changing. The minute
we say I am, you cease to be. You cease to be what you are,
you're changing. Try that sometime. Go to your neighbor and say I
am. And he'll ask you, you are what? Right? You are what? You have to qualify,
you have to clarify, you have to say, I am a man, or I am a
this, I am a that. God says, I am that I am. What? I am. Past finding out. Always ever,
always the same, never changing. Oh my, that's the mystery of
it. I am. A day is a thousand years. A
thousand years is a day. And God, in four thousand years,
the whole Old Testament is written. Four days. Four days. OK? And he says here in our text,
hath in these last days. God hath in these last days.
And that's four thousand years. And that's four days. Now, about 2000 years have gone
by that six days. These are the last days, right? God created the heavens and earth
in six days. On the seventh day, he rested.
Remember that? God hadn't changed. This one
thing Peter said. Be not forgetful of this one
thing. God hadn't changed. If you study
God's word, you'll know how he is and how he does that. All
right. And in these last days, it says here in verse two, hath
spoken unto us my son. You notice the word his is in
italic? God speaks in a language, the
language of scripture. You and I speak in English, or
kind of a perverted form of it. Right? Franklin Hill Billy English
is what we speak. Right? language. People in Germany
speak German. France speak French. God speaks
sun. That's right. That's the language
of this book. In the volume of the book, it's
written of me. They or they which testify of
me, Christ said. God bearing witness of me, Christ
said. Of me. Sun language. Sun language. God has spoken.
Look at verse two. I'm talking about the object
of our faith. I just read an article by my pastor and he said
we don't need anything. We don't need to do anything
but declare Christ. And hope and pray that God Almighty
will open men's eyes to see. That's it. That's all I'm doing
tonight. Now it says in verse 2, God hath
in these last days spoken by his Son, by son, whom he hath
appointed heir of all things. Now I have one child, one daughter,
and she's going to get all our earthly belongings. After she pays off all the debts,
she'll probably just end up with Charlie. Anyway, I have one, and she gets
it all. She gets it all. Heir of all
things. God has one son. One forgotten
son. And he's the heir of all things.
He's given him all things. Scripture says God has given
him the universe, the world, all that inhabit the earth is
the Lord, the fullness thereof, the world, and the inhabitants
thereof. It's all the Lord. To this end, Christ both died
and rose again, that he might be Lord. He purchased that right,
heir of all things. John the Baptist said this, the
Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things in his hand.
I love this girl, this young lady. I told Gabe the other day,
I said, as long as I'm alive, if she has any needs, I'll sell
all of my earthly belongings to meet those needs, won't I?
I'll do without. keep her from it. That's the
way it is with those you love. The Father loveth the Son, and
hath given all things into his hands. He said that in Psalm
2, didn't he? Ask me, I'll give you the heathen
for your inheritance. Verse 2, it says, he went on
to say, by whom also he made the world. All things created
by him and for him. Paul writes, and John wrote,
without him was not anything made that was made. Who are we
talking about? Verse 3, he's the brightness
of God's glory. Moses asked God, way back when,
way back when, thousands of years ago, Moses said, show me your
glory. Remember that? In Exodus 33? Remember that? And Moses had
seen, you know, many things, glorious things. He said, I want
to know you. I want to see you. God said,
OK. There's a place by me in the
rock. I'm going to put you in the cleft
of the rock. And I'm going to pass by. I'm
going to make my goodness pass by here before you. My goodness. See, all the goodness that is
God in him. Christ dwelleth, all the fullness
of the Godhead in a body. God passed by. Thirty-three years
is all he spent here. Oh, what happened? in thirty-three
years. Oh, God's glory, the brightness
of his glory, the brightness, Nancy. These apostles, one day,
the Lord, this man, took them up on a mountain. He chose three
of them to show them something. What was he going to show them?
His glory. Everybody says, just Jesus. Ask
John. Ask James, ask Peter. Peter said
we were there. We beheld his glory. We were
there. Christ took this man, took these
three up on the mountain one day and he had this, just a man,
a David. They really didn't know who he
was until he showed him his glory. God who dwells in life that no
man could approach unto. When God peeled back that veil
of flesh, they couldn't. They hit the dust. They hit the dust. the brightness
of God's glory. And God had shined in our hearts
to reveal the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in who? In
what? In the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Look at this, verse 3. The expressed
image of his person. God in the beginning said, Let
us make man. I like that, don't you? Let us,
God said. In the beginning, God. God said,
Let us. Now, here's a mystery for you.
Great is this mystery. Here, O Israel, the Lord our
God is one God. And yet these three are one. And God said, Let us. Spirit
of God moved on the face of the water. The word, the voice of
God came walking in the cool of the garden. God said, let
us make man in our own image. Now, God is spirit. But God apparently had an image.
What was it? Christ. Christ. Express image. The Son. That's why he's called the Son.
You know, he's called the Son, not because he's less than God.
I've got to hurry. He's called a son, not because
he's less than God. Am I less a man than my father? No. Am I less mayhem than him? No. I'm equal. And Christ, who thought it not
robbery, to be equal with God. He's called the son because he's
the only bodily image of God. Only one. Son. Only bodily image. But he's God. God said so. Did
you read it with me? Verse 8, God said, Thy throne
under the sun, the image of God, he said, Thy throne, O God, is
forever. There's a story in the Old Testament
that when David was the king, and David was old, David was
70 years old, and he was kind of in, he was infirm, he was
on his bed. And remember, there were some
fellows out there who wanted to be king, and somebody took
one of them and made him king. Do you remember that? Do you
remember that story in 1 Kings? The king of kings, 1 Kings? Do you remember that? Anybody?
I'm going to preach it again. There's a fellow who thought
he'd be king, and somebody set up another king. But no, David,
David's son. Solomon was his king. He chose
him. And one day, Solomon came in.
Somebody said, there's a fellow out here who thinks he's king.
And they're having a big party to anoint him king. David said,
bring my son Solomon in here. And now David's the king. Kings
don't bow to anybody. You know, kings, David never
bowed to anybody. Everybody bowed to him. Well,
when Solomon came in, his son, it says, he bowed himself to
the king. Under the sun, God said, Thy
throne, O God, is forever. This ends this argument about
who Christ is. Is he God? God said so. Thy throne, O God, is forever
and ever. His government, no end. know
him, express him in bodily image. And now listen, go on, I've got
to hurry. He said he upholds all things
by the word of his power, Christ that is. Christ upholds all things
by the word of his power. You need anything? He's got it
all. God Almighty put it all in the
hands of his son and said he's it. He's the way, he's the truth,
he's the He's a mediator, he's a substitute, he's the sin offering,
he's the high priest, he's the prophet. Need to know anything,
go to him. Everything's in him. I'll talk
to you in him. I'll speak to you, I'll be spoken
to through him. No other way. I'll accept you
in him. You can come to me by him. Him. He came to earth. God, why'd
he come? It says in verse 3, to purge our sins. Something
he had to do for us. Purge our sin. And he did it.
It says here, doesn't it, that when he had purged. That's past tense, isn't it? Huh? And he goes on throughout
this book, telling about what Christ did. And I love this,
over in Hebrews 9, it says, he obtained. Verse twelve, he obtained
eternal redemption for God's people. Purged our sins, put
them away by the sacrifice of himself. And down in verse, we'll
look at chapter two. Go over chapter two real quickly.
Men see Jesus, they talk about Jesus, verse nine. And this is
what he writes, we see Jesus, yes, a man, made, now for your
information, is for your life. The Mormons and the so-called
Jehovah's Witnesses use this part. And verse four chapter
one being made so much better than the angel and this first
made. We see Jesus made a little lower. They use that to say that he's
a created being that they that's what they They say he's a created being,
that he's no more son of God than you and I are. That's what
they say. Well, they do err not knowing
the scriptures, don't they? This doesn't start, this doesn't
stop with Hebrews 2. But it goes on to chapter 7,
Brother John, that talks about a man named Melchizedek. Have
you considered how great this man is? Talks about this man, who's a
high priest, and all many chapters talks about this high priest
named Melchizedek. He said, things hard to be understood.
But he said, have you ever considered how great this man is? He doesn't
have a father or a mother. He said, and that's our high priest.
That's Jesus. He said here in verse 9 of chapter
2, we see Jesus. Yes, we saw a man made a little
lower, that is, given a body. But he didn't begin there. A
little lower than the Englishman. Why? For one reason. To suffer death. To suffer death. To taste death. That word man there, does that
confuse you? You know, that's not in the original
Hebrew scriptures. Not there at all. But it goes
on to say, and bring him many sons. Talk about the son. He's the captain, verse 10, of
their salvation. He came to save them all, all his children. And it says in verse 13 that
someday he's going to present them all to the Father and say,
here they are, all thy children. You remember that story we told
Sunday of David recovering all? I told you why that was written,
huh? It's the written of Christ. We're covered off. These are
David's spoils, and this whole thing is Christ's spoils. It's
all about his spoils. In chapter 2, it says Christ,
in verse 14, took part of this flesh, like we had, to destroy
the power of death. Him that had the power of death,
that is the devil, to deliver us. He's the deliverer, verse
15. And deliver us from this bondage and this death. We started out by talking about
this death that this human race has plunged into. And all die. In Adam, all die. But God wrote
this great story of redemption and salvation, and it talks about
in Christ, all those in Christ shall be made alive, never die. Christ said, he that liveth and
believeth in me shall never die. You believe this? He was never around a dead body,
but it didn't rise. That's right. Every funeral he attended, the
person rose. He believed this. I said, if
you'd been here, our brother would have died. He didn't, Martha. He didn't. He that liveth and
believeth me shall never die. He believed that. Yeah, I'm the
resurrection healed it. I am the resurrection. I'll prove it. This is who this is. This is
who our faith is in. It's not just the man. This is
God manifest in the flesh. And all through the scripture,
all through this book, it talks about many, there are many, many
stories, but it talks about a tabernacle, an ark, a high priest. It's the
Hebrews' summary. Now, let me close with the words
of John the Apostle. John said, These things are written
unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God. These things are written to you. This book is written for our
learning that we through patience and comfort of the scripture
might have hope. Hope in who? Hope in God. Hope in Christ.
Christ our hope. These things are written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you might
know you have eternal life. This is the record. He had the
son have life. And he says that you may believe
that is that you may most probably make firmly more firmly believe.
I hope right now that you have greater faith than when you came
in here. I hope you believe more firmly than you did when you
came in here. I hope you're more firmly persuaded now than when
you came in here. I hope you go out of here. Fully
persuaded. Who you believe. that you may
believe on the name of the Son of God, what's his name? Jesus
the Christ. And John went on to say, this
is the true God and eternal life. Little children,
keep yourselves from idols. Any other Jesus is an idol. Any
other hope, any other refuge is an idol. Little children,
keep yourselves from idols. Amen. Okay, stand with us. Our Lord, our God, thank you
for writing this book. Thank you for speaking through
the prophets. Thank you, Lord, for giving us
this wonderful book, the Word, and the volume of the book. We
thank you for it. Lord, thank you for sending your
Son down to this earth to reveal
the Father. Thank you, Lord, for sending
the Savior. Thank you, Lord, for sending sin offering substitute. Thank you, Lord, that you raised
him and sat him down at your right hand. Thank you, Lord,
that we have a great high priest. Always will and always shall.
Thank you. We believe on the name of the
Son of God. Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief
is our prayer. In Christ's name, amen. You're
dismayed.