Thank you. Let's go to the last
chapter of the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 13. With or without your permission,
I'm going to take this jacket off. It may be cool outside, but it
isn't up here. Hebrews chapter 13. Here's my
subject, and this will carry over into this evening as well. And maybe we won't even finish
it this evening. I don't know. We'll see how God
leads us through this. But these are the final words
to the Hebrews. Final words to the Hebrews. This last chapter of Hebrews Well, it puts all of the people
in God in remembrance of our duties and responsibilities to
our God. God has done wonderful things
for us. We're His chosen bride. We know that our salvation goes
all the way back to the God of all grace even before
He made creation. He loved us with an everlasting
love and He gave us in covenant grace to Christ Jesus to be our
Savior. You know, that which we do experience
when we hear the preaching of the gospel, that we experience
conversion, and that's real, isn't it? It's real. It happens,
and God deals with us. He convicts us of our utter inabilities,
of our terrible sins against Him, and He shows us that there
is no Savior for us but Christ Jesus. And he shows us that the
work of redemption that we so desperately needed, Christ has
finished. He's been so good to us in teaching
us the origin of our salvation, of the redeeming work of Christ
Jesus. We see His blood, the blood that
she just sang to us about is the blood that washed away our
sins. We have no other hope but Christ
Jesus and him crucified and as we look and you've studied the
book of Hebrews, most of you have, you've seen how Christ
Jesus is He's more excellent than everything and everybody.
He's instructed us in these matters. And we know to look to the Lord
Jesus for all things. We believe Him and we rest in
Him. And we say, my hope is built
on nothing less than Jesus and His righteousness. God has been
good to us. He's taught us these things.
We're justified by the grace of God. God Himself has said we're righteous. We're righteous people. We're
His children. In fact, He says we're the sheep
of His pasture. And a couple of chapters before
this, in Hebrews chapter 10, We're instructed there in the
necessity of the once for all offering of Jesus Christ to be
our Savior. We studied last week the blood
of bulls and goats but couldn't put our sins away. As necessary
as all of those Old Testament animal offerings were, they didn't
do anything for us forever. They didn't settle the issue
with God. But our Lord Jesus came, and
this is what is brought forth there in the first part of Hebrews
chapter 10. The great Redeemer came forth,
and He did settle the issue. He has redeemed us. We're washed
in His most precious blood. and we're robed in His righteousness.
We've been perfected. That's what it says there in
Hebrews chapter 10. We've been perfected by that
offering of our Lord Jesus once for all. And then you get into
the next chapter of Hebrews, chapter 11, and that teaches
us the people of God are a people of faith. We're people who believe
Him, who walk in faith. We don't walk by sight. We walk
by faith. We walk believing God. Believing
God who's ordained our path. Believing God who's guiding us
all through our pilgrim journey. I know maybe to us it appears
that our lives are just kind of meandering back and forth
and how I can't make heads or tails of my life, but you're
on a precise, precise directed road. God has ordained your life
for you. Those things that you will face
during Your pilgrimage, not the same as me, because your road
isn't the same as mine. But we rejoice in this, that
the direction we're going is the direction God's put us. And
I've said this lots of times, if there were a better road for
you to be on as a child of God, you'd be on it. You'd be on it
because your Heavenly Father is the one who's directing all
the paths. of each of His children. And
all of our paths will ultimately lead to glory. But we've got
different, different roads that we've got to travel. You're going
to have to endure some things that I won't have to endure.
And I'll have to endure some things that you won't ever have
to endure. But this is our great comfort. We believe God who has
ordained it all. And as you live in this The world
of wickedness. How can you ever have any peace
deep down in your soul? Unless you just rest these things
in the hands of God. While you worry yourself to death. You'll be anxious. You'll be
awake at night. And worrying about things that
you can't change. Isn't it good to know our God
rules all things? That our God governs? He sits
upon His great and mighty throne. And He is directing us in the
way that He would have us to go. It is for us to believe Him. And I'll tell you the most The
easiest thing to say is to just believe God. And the most difficult
thing to do is to just believe God. Because we're still doubters. God help us. The hymn writer said, Oh, what
peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry everything
to God in prayer. And just believe Him. And Hebrews
chapter 11 is about believing your Father. It's about trusting
His wisdom. It's about resting in His tender
care. That's what Hebrews chapter 11
is about. Hebrews chapter 10 is about the
perfect sacrifice. The work is done. Hebrews 11
is about believing Him who ordained the work. And believe Him who
did the work. And then we get to Hebrews chapter
12. Hebrews chapter 12 tells us that
we're part of the general assembly of the people of God. We're part
of the new Jerusalem. We haven't come to Mount Sinai. We've not come to the law, the
law that thunders, the law that demands. The law that says be
perfect or perish. We've not come to the law. We've
not come to Mount Sinai. We've come to Mount Zion. We're
the church of the living God. We've come to Jesus. We've come
to the Savior. We've come to the Redeemer. We've
come to the multitude of all of the ransomed of God. Why,
we're members of a wonderful, wonderful big family. That's
the family of God. That's what Hebrews chapter 12
closes out by telling us. Now, based on all of these things
that have been said, not only, of course, in chapters 10, 11,
and 12, but also in all the previous chapters, which set forth the
vast superiority of our Lord Jesus, over all people, over
the angels, over the prophets, over the high priests of Israel,
that this covenant grace is so much better than the covenant
works, after setting before us all of that and that sacrifice
of Christ Jesus, and that we're to believe him, we're to be a
people who walk not by sight, but by faith. And we've come
to the church of the firstborn. He therefore gets to this last
chapter and he says, in light of all that God has
done for you and for me. He said, here's some duties for
you. Here are some of your responsibilities
as the people of God. And here's the first one, and
I'll just give these to you and we'll go as far as we can this
morning. And then we'll pick it up again this evening. But
here's the first thing, he calls us to brotherly love. And you wouldn't think that he
would have to do that, but he does. Because you know, as the
people of God, we have to be reminded of the things which
we're responsible to do. So he starts off, here's the
last chapter. He says, let brotherly love Continue. Now, obviously we're to love
the Lord. The Scripture says, if any man
love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha. Our Lord, after His resurrection,
He appeared to the twelve or to the eleven. And after He had
prepared a meal for them, looked at Simon Peter and he
said to Simon, he said, Lovest thou me? Do you love me? Do you love the
Lord Jesus? As he's revealed in the book.
I know, you know, the natural man says, oh, everybody loves
Jesus. Well, I'm not talking about every
man's idea of Jesus. I'm talking about the Lord Jesus
Christ. Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? This one who is
the prophet that Moses spoke about in the book of Deuteronomy.
That prophet God said, I'll raise up. That one who is our teacher. That one who is our instructor.
That one who speaks from God to us. Do you rejoice in Him? Do you
love Him? Do you love this prophet? Listen,
I learned from nobody except Christ Jesus and His Word and
as His servants set forth this Word in its purity. That's all
I want to listen to. He's my prophet. See, you're
a prophet? He's the only prophet I've got.
There is no other prophet. I know every once in a while
you hear somebody on television say, I'm a prophet of God. No,
he's not a prophet of God. All the prophets of God are dead.
There's one prophet who lives, that's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the prophet. And we love
Him as the Prophet. We love Him as that One who is
our Teacher. And we bow to His teachings.
We bow to His Word. We bow to His salvation by grace
alone. We bow to this salvation by the
righteousness of the Son of God Himself. We bow to this Book
that says all of your salvation, all of your acceptance is based
on The faithfulness of the Savior to do what God assigned Him to
do. We love Him. We love Him as the prophet. We
love Him as the priest. As God's prophet, He speaks to
us for God. As our priest, He speaks to God
for us. He deals with God for us. We've
got to have somebody to deal with God for us because look
at the very last verse of the previous chapter, Hebrews chapter
12, for our God is consuming fire. You want to deal with Him?
You want to go face to face with God? Well, He's a consuming fire. Do you know how God indicated
His acceptance of sacrifices in the Old Testament? Fire came down from heaven. Or
when the tabernacle was built, fire came out of the Holy of
Holies from that great Shekinah glory. And it devoured the sacrifices. When Elijah faced all those false
prophets, 850 of them, And he said, now water it down.
The false prophets have called on their gods and their gods
couldn't ignite the sacrifice. He said, just soak everything.
And then he prayed a 63 word prayer to God. Fire fell from
heaven. And I mean it destroyed everything. It licked up all the water. Everything was dry as dust when
God got through with it. You want to deal with that God?
Our God's a consuming fire. We need a great high priest. That's who Christ is. And we
love Him as such. We love Him as our high priest.
We love His work that He did as our High Priest. He offered
the sacrifice to God that satisfied divine justice. What was that
sacrifice? The sacrifice of Himself. That's
what satisfied God. That's what honored God. That's
how God can be just and justify folks like you and me. through
the sacrifice of Christ Jesus. He is our high priest. We love
Him as priest. And we love Him as our King who
rules and who governs. We love the Son of God and we
love His people. Let brotherly love continue. As you read in Galatians chapter
5, About the fruit of the Spirit. Not fruits as in many of them,
but just fruit. Singular. Because it's all the
fruit of the Spirit. It's not your fruit. It's the
Spirit's fruit. And in that list, you know what
the first one is? Love. Love. And here the writer says, let
brotherly love continue. The Savior said this, by this
shall all men know you're my disciples, if you have love one
for the other. We read in 1 John 5, everyone
that loveth others, the Lord's people, Everyone
that is loved of Him that begat Him loveth those who are begotten. If you've been begotten of God,
if the Spirit of God has done a work of grace in your heart,
if you're a new creature in Christ Jesus, you're going to love people. That's all it is too. You're
going to love people. You're going to love the brethren. Notice
he says, let brotherly love. This is a love of the family.
A love of the family. We're related to each other.
Like it or not, I'm your brother. I'm in the family. And the scripture
says you're to love me. And I'm to love you. And I know
there are some in the family of God, they seem to be easier
to love than others. But this is brotherly love that
crosses the boundary of any difficulty you might have with a brother
or sister in Jesus Christ. We love them. We love them because
the Lord said love them. We love them because they're
family. We love them because they're begotten of God. We love each other, we're prayerful
for one another, we encourage one another. Our Savior said,
a new, a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another
as I have loved you. The old commandment was, love
your neighbor as yourself. The new commandment is, love
your brother as I love you. That's a tall order there. I know even within our earthly
families we can have squabbles, fusses, but you still love one
another. and in the family of God. Differences
and squabbles, but we still love one another for Christ's sake. That's the first thing He said.
That's our duty. Love each other by speaking very
highly of each other. Love each other by seeking one
another's good. Love each other by being prayerful
for each other. And then, secondly, here's a
call to extend hospitality to the brotherhood. Notice in the
second verse, he says, be not forgetful to entertain strangers,
for thereby some have entertained angels unaware. Be people who are considerate.
and thoughtful. Do you know what the Savior will
say? It's a very interesting passage. We'll get to it in our
Bible classes in, well, it'd be a few weeks, Matthew chapter
25. But that's the judgment scene
when he separates the sheep from the goats. And he will say to his sheep,
He will say to his sheep, come ye into the kingdom prepared
for you by my Father from the foundation of the world. And then he'll say, I was hungry
and you fed. That's what the Savior will say.
I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me
something to drink. I was naked and you gave me something
to wear. I was sick and you visited me."
And the righteous will say to him, Lord, when did we ever see
you in that kind of shape? We never did those things for
you. He said, when you've done it, verily I say unto you, and
he always prefaced these weighty words with verily or a double
verily. He said, verily I say unto you, when you've done these things
to the least of these, my brethren, you've done them to me. That's
what he said. You've done them to me. Be thoughtful of others. Speak to one another. I know
you can't speak to everybody in the congregation, you can't
do that. Even I can't do that because I go back out there and
I'm at one door or the other and you'll go out another door
and I don't even get to speak to you. But be, you know, as
much as life within you, be nice to people, be friendly to people.
I guarantee you this, there are people in there this morning
who have heavy hearts. There are people in here this
morning who are troubled. And they sure could use an encouraging
word. Wouldn't it be wonderful if it
came from you? There are people in here who
need a hug. I appreciate you, brother. I'm
thankful for you, sister. And then they'll go away saying,
Lord, thank you, I needed that. Be considerate of one another. Extend the hospitality to the
brotherhood. Do good for others. Then he says this, look at verse
3, here's something else. Remember those who are in affliction. Remember them that are in bonds
as bound with them and them which suffer adversity as being yourselves
also in the body. In other words, if you're not
going through affliction now, you will. Your time's going to
come. You may feel good now and you
look at somebody who's sick and say, bless their hearts. Sure
hope somebody does something for them. Hope somebody can help
them. Maybe that would be you. Maybe that would be you. Considering
that you're going to go through adversity. You're going to have
difficulties. And then I'll go quickly to the
next and look at verse 4. He says, live in moral purity. Live in moral purity. He says,
marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled, but whoremongers
and adulterers God will judge. I tell you, marriage is an honorable
thing. But for those who live together
outside the boundaries of marriage, know this, you're violating God's
law. And adulterers and whoremongers,
God's going to judge you. I know we live in a world now
where anything goes. If you feel like it's right for
you, go ahead and do it. You're like those folks in the
day of the judges. Every man did that which was
right in his own eyes. Years ago, an Episcopalian minister,
I hesitate to even call him a minister, but he came up with this idea
of situation ethics. Situation ethics, and he wrote
a book about it. And basically, it comes down
to this. If you feel like it's right for
you to do something, go ahead and do it. You don't have any
constraints. No rules. Except the ones you
want to make for yourself. Well, I've got news for you.
God's made some rules. God's got some laws. Immorality is wrong. You understand that? Anybody
with half a brain knows immorality is wrong. And God, may He keep
us pure and living wholesome lives. Get a bridle on your passions,
on your lusts. Keep them in check. You say, we're all sinful people
preachers. You got that right. We're all
sinful people. But that doesn't excuse sin. There's a right way to live in
this world. And a way that's honoring to
God. I'll tell you, here's what is written Paul wrote to Titus. He said, adorn the doctrine of
God our Savior in all things. In all things. Doesn't matter
what facet of your life you're talking about, you're to adorn
the doctrine of God, the doctrine of salvation by grace. You can't
adorn the doctrine of salvation by grace by adultery. You can't
adorn the doctrine of salvation by grace through the work of
the Lord Jesus Christ by impure living. It just can't be done. Be careful. That's what he's
saying. Be careful. And then he says
in verse 5, here's a call to watch out for covetousness. He
says in verse 5, let your conversation, what does that mean? Let your
manner of living, not only your words, but let your manner of
living be without covetousness, excess desires. Just be content
with such things as you have. For this reason, watch the next
word. You know what that means? Because.
Because he had said, I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake
you. This is a society that's materially minded. Focused on things. Get more things. There's nothing wrong with having
some new things. Everybody likes to have new things
every once in a while. But don't live for these things.
Don't crave these. I'll tell you what you should
crave. Let me tell you what you should crave. You know what crave
is? It's to just long for something.
You just got to have it. Crave for Christ. Man of life. Crave for salvation. Pray for
things to be right between you and a holy God. Desire righteousness. Desire a peace in the heart that
all is well between you and a holy God. Crave that. Get in the Word
of God. Crave spiritual things. Crave
eternal things. The Lord said, Seek ye first
the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. All these other things will be
added to you as God sees fit to give them to you. Tell you what, you seek God's
glory? You seek the majesty of King
Jesus? You seek to love His gospel and
love His people and sit under the sound of His Word? God will
take care of you. He'll take care of your temporal
needs. This world is an affront to grace
and God, and it's not your friend either. Don't be fooled. Don't be deceived by the world,
the allurements of it, and all the attractions of it. If these
things are not your friends, they'll draw you away from the
things of God if they can. Lord, keep us. Keep us focused
on You. Be thankful for what you've got.
You got a roof over your head? You got more than the Master
had when He walked on this earth. He said the birds have nests
and the foxes have their holes. He said the Son of Man didn't
even have a place to lay His head. You got a house? Well, there ain't much preacher,
but it's mine. Be thankful. Be thankful. You got a vehicle
riding around in? Yeah, it needs a little work
done, but you know, it gets me to working back. Be thankful.
And if God's pleased to give you more, that's okay. But don't
crave those things. Don't set your heart on those
things. Set your heart on things which
are above, where Christ sits on the throne. That's what the
Scripture says. And then watch this, verse 7.
Or let me get to verse 6. So that we may boldly say, the
Lord is my helper. I won't fear what man can do
unto me. I don't need to crave the things
of the world. The Lord's my helper. The Lord's
my provider. Is He your provider? Well, sure
He is. Everything you've got, He's given
to you. Actually, I say He's given to you. You don't own anything
in reality. It's just entrusted to you. Like
you prayed, be good stewards. That's what we need, be good
stewards of what God puts into our hands. And then he says this
in verse 7, here's another duty. Pray for those and obey those
that have the rule over us. Verse 7, remember them which
have the rule over you in the house of God. That doesn't mean
they're running your business and your family. It doesn't mean
the preacher is going to come around demanding to govern every
aspect of your life. That's not what he's talking
about. Remember preachers, remember them that have the rule over
you in the house of God. Who have spoken unto you the
Word of God. Listen to them. Obey the preacher. Take heed to what he has to say. Because I do speak with some
authority. That isn't my authority. It's
the authority of this book. I'm speaking to you for God. Scripture says in John 1, there
was a man sent from God whose name was John. Well, there's
a man sent from God whose name is Jim. And you say that about
every preacher of the gospel. Every man's God taught, God sent. Remember these men, they have
the rule over you. We're guiding you in the things
of God. Whose faith follow? You know
what the word follow means? Mimic. It doesn't mean mimic
me, but mimic my faith. Who do I believe? Christ Jesus.
You too. You believe Him too. You mimic
that faith. You be an imitator of my faith.
You hear me preaching. Week in and week out. Who do
I preach? Jesus Christ. What did He do?
He's crucified. What do I say about Him? Believe
Him. He's the only Savior. I trust Him. You trust Him too.
Mimic me. Be an imitator of my faith. Whose faith follow... considering the end, the goal,
of their conversation or their ministry. What is my goal? I do have some goals. I set some
goals. My first goal is to honor God
and the Trinity of His persons. I want to honor God. And the
second thing is, I want to help you. I want to help you. Well, how do we know whether
we should listen to a man or not. I mean, there are preachers
all over the place. Because here's our message, verse 8. Jesus Christ. The same. Watch it. Yesterday,
today, forever. Jesus Christ. Should I obey the rule of a man
over me? Well, if he's preaching Jesus
Christ yesterday, today, and forever, the same. Yesterday,
He was my surety. Yesterday, He was the shepherd
who received the sheep as a gift from the Father. Yesterday, He
stood for me in the covenant of grace. Yesterday, He took
full responsibility for my salvation. Yesterday, He was born of a virgin. Yesterday, He died for my sins
according to the Scriptures, and was raised again the third
day according to the Scriptures. Yesterday, He ascended back to
heaven as my Savior, Jesus, who is the surety of the everlasting
covenant. Yesterday, today, today, He intercedes
for me. Today He represents me before
the Father. Five wounds He bears and they
never plead for me. Today He upholds me. Today He
sends somebody to preach the gospel to me. Somebody to tell
me the truth. Somebody to tell me about Himself. Somebody to tell me about me.
And somebody to tell me about The only Savior I need, who is
this Savior? Christ Jesus the Lord. That's
today. Yesterday, today, forever. Forever, He'll be my Savior. Forever, I'm safe in Him. Forever,
I'll be with Him. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
today, forever. Let me just start into this one.
Look at verse 9. He says, don't be carried away
by divers and strange doctrines. Don't be carried away with them. That word divers means multitudes. Do you have a, is that called
a variegated knife? That's the one that's got all
them little teeth on it, right? That's what they're called, variegated.
That's the word here. That's the word here. Be not
carried away with a multitude of doctrines that are strange
to the Word of God. Don't be carried away. It's a good thing to be established
in the Gospel. Not with meats which have not
profited them that have occupied therein. Let's be grounded. Don't be blown around by this
strange doctrine. A lot of strange doctrines being
preached. Strange doctrine of universal
love. It's strange to the Word of God.
It's foreign. That's what the word strange
means. It's foreign. There are things being said today
from pulpits all over this country and many countries through the
world. One of them is universal love. That's strange doctrine.
Not found in this book. And universal redemption. That's
strange doctrine. and that the Spirit of God is
trying to save everybody. That's strange doctrine. Better
get your doctrine from the Word of God. It's the only trustworthy source
there is. Well, we'll pick up about right
there this evening.