this evening, Hebrews chapter
2. Look at the ninth verse again. We dealt with this this morning. Let me begin the way we ended
today, but we see Jesus. We see Jesus. We see him with the same eye
of faith that Abraham saw him. Remember in John chapter 8, Abraham,
the subject of Abraham came up. Our Lord was speaking with the
Pharisees. And they talked about Abraham
being their father. And he said, before Abraham was
I him. And he said, Abraham rejoiced
to see my day. He saw it and was glad. Just as Abraham saw the Savior's
day by faith, that's how we see the Savior, by faith. What is faith? I read this the
day before yesterday. I wrote it down. I thought this
was good. Faith is the eye of the soul,
which views and enjoys what the word of God brings to its view. That's good. Faith. What is faith? Faith is the eye of the soul,
which views and enjoys what the word of God brings to its view. What does the Word of God bring
to our view but Christ Jesus and Him crucified? Throughout
the Word He set forth and we view Him in the Scriptures and
then as the Spirit of grace deals with us in mercy, then we see
the Savior by faith. That's why And later in this
epistle we read in Hebrews chapter 12, the way that we're to run
the Christian race is looking unto Jesus, the author and the
finisher of our faith. We began this journey looking
to Christ Jesus by seeing the Savior. God's servants said,
behold the Lamb of God, and we looked. We've been bitten by
the serpent of sin. Death is in us. And God sent
a preacher to us and that preacher said, look, look to the Lamb
of God. Look like the Israelites looked
to that brazen serpent lifted up in the wilderness by Moses. Look and live. God sent a faithful
minister. That's what he said, look, look
to Christ Jesus, behold the Lamb of God. We see Jesus, we look
to Jesus, we have looked to Him, we are looking to Him. By His
grace we shall continue to look to Him and we'll see Him. What is growing in grace but
really seeing more of Christ Jesus in the scriptures? Rejoicing
in Him more. Isn't that what growing in grace
is? Growing in an awareness of how much you need His grace. Growing in the knowledge of our
Lord Jesus Christ. The knowledge of the Savior and
all of His offices. Oh, how desperately we need this
great Savior. We not only see the Savior, but
we see ourselves and we see our neediness. We see how guilty
we are and how desperately we need this Savior. We're like
Job. Job said at the end of the book,
he said, he said, I heard of thee by the hearing of the ear. But he said, but now by regeneration,
by the gift of grace, mine eyes see of thee. Not these eyes. the eyes of the soul, we see
thee. And I know this, none can see
except to be born from above. That's what our Lord Jesus said
to Nicodemus. He said, except a man be born
again, he can't see. He can't see the kingdom of God. You'll never see the beauties
of Christ Jesus. You'll never see the wonders
of redeeming grace. You'll never see the blissfulness
of this salvation unless God gives you eyes to see. Oh God,
give us vision. Give us a spiritual vision to
see the Savior. But we see Jesus, who was made
a little lower than the angels. Why was he made lower than the
angels? Well, it was for the suffering
of death. We see Him crowned with glory
and honor. Why was He crowned with glory
and honor? Well, that's the reward for His
sufferings unto death. God the Father gave Him a work
to do. A work of redemption, a work
of reconciliation, a work of saving His people from their
sins. That's what the Savior came into
the world to do. And he finished the work. You
know he wouldn't leave till the work was done, till the job was
done. And he did it to God's full satisfaction. That involved living a life of
righteous obedience to God's law. And it involved being obedient
all the way to death. Even the awful, ignominious death
of the cross. He was obedient. We see His obedience. We rejoice in His obedience.
And it's as a result of that obedience all the way to death
and saving His people from their sins that we by faith now see
Him crowned with glory and honor. He was crowned with thorns. No
longer. No longer will He be humiliated. Our sovereign Savior is crowned
with glory and honor, and evermore shall be. And those whom He saves
by His grace, we're stars in His crown. We're trophies of
His rich grace. We see Jesus, who was crowned
with glory and honor, that He by the grace of God should taste
death for every man, for all of His people. For it became
him, verse 10, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things,
in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their
salvation perfect through sufferings. Let me talk to you a while this
evening about our captain. The captain of our salvation. The captain of our salvation. He's the one who accomplished
the work. the captain. We're his army. We're his followers. and those of us who have been
saved by His free grace, those of us who have been gathered
to Him by the sovereign effectual work of the Spirit, we have been
brought to rally under the banner of our Captain, the Captain of
our souls, the Captain of our salvation. Here is the Captain
and His many sons, and He is being made perfect through bringing
these many sons all the way to glory. This captain has many
sons, he has many brethren. He has many that God has given
to him in the covenant of grace. He's bringing them all safely
home to glory. What is required for the captain
to bring many sons home to glory Well, this was important and
this was required that He enter into a covenant engagement on
the behalf of those many sons that God gave Him. Our Savior
stood as our surety in the covenant of grace. God the Father gave
a people to Him more numerous than the sands on the seashore,
more numerous than the stars in the sky. He said, these are
mine elect. This is my family. These are
my chosen ones. I love them with an everlasting
love. I give them to you. I commit
them to you. I entrust these to you. Save them. Redeem them. Reconcile them for they will
fall into sin. By their fall and by your rescue
of them from the fall, we will bring great glory unto this Godhead. This was what was involved, this
was what was necessary, this was what was required for the
captain to bring many sons into glory. He had to be responsible,
responsible and accountable for the safety of everyone that God
gave him in that covenant. I know we often talk about we
have responsibilities to God. There's no question about that.
I say you're responsible to believe the gospel. You're responsible
to acknowledge your sinfulness, to ask God to forgive you because
of Christ's blood and righteousness. You're responsible to seek the
Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He's near. You're
responsible. I'm responsible. We're responsible
to repent of our dead works. All of our works before conversion
are dead works. We're called upon, we're commanded
to repent of our idolatry. We're idolaters until we believe
and worship and honor the God of glory. We're responsible. We're responsible to seek the
Lord, to call on the Lord, to bow before the Lord. But listen,
the responsibility for our salvation rests upon another's shoulders. It rests upon one who is mighty. And he's up for the job. And
all of those committed to Him, given to Him, entrusted to Him
in the covenant of grace, He stood as our surety. He stood
good for us. And He said, I bear full responsibility. I'll bring every one of these
many sons home to glory. The captain of our salvation
engaged to do just that. What's required for the captain
to bring these many sons to glory? Well, it required His incarnation
and birth. Galatians 4 says, But when the
fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made
of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under
the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. This was
the very dawning of hope for fallen man. Our Savior's name
is Emmanuel, God with us. Oh, there's hope! There's hope
for poor sinners like you and me, for the Savior has come.
God has come down. God has come down to rescue the
fallen, to save the lost. The Lord Jesus is God in human
flesh, God in our nature. He's God come to save. He's God
come to the rescue. We needed rescuing and nobody
else could rescue us but God Himself. In order to bring, for this captain
to bring many sons unto glory, He had to be made flesh and blood. And the incarnation means there's
hope. The incarnation means there's
mercy. The incarnation means there's
deliverance. Then what's required for the
captain to bring many sons to glory, it required his death. Oh, the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ, it is the most critical point of all history. It's the
focal point of all history. The Savior said in John chapter
12, now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of
this world be cast out and I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men unto me. In order for the captain of our
salvation to be made perfect and in order for him to bring
many sons unto glory, he had to die. He had to give his life
a ransom for us. He had to shed his blood to his
death. Otherwise, sin won't be put away. Otherwise, there will be no everlasting
righteousness established. It's by His death. It's by His
blood. There's no wonder then we speak
so often of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the death
of the Son of God. There's no hope for anybody unless
He dies. But in His death, there's salvation. In His death, there is redemption. In His death, there is reconciliation. In His death, That's our heaven. That's our life. That's our pardon
of sin. It's all in His death. In His
death. What He did for God. He presented
Himself to God as a sacrifice for poor sinners like you and
me. For all of His elect. For all
of the needy ones that God gave Him back there in that covenant
for whom He stood assured. By that death, he sealed our
pardon. He sealed our pardon. What's
required for the captain to bring many sons to glory? It requires
his resurrection. His resurrection is the evidence.
It's the evidence. It's the guarantee. that the
work of redemption and reconciliation and pardon and the bringing in
of everlasting righteousness, it has been accomplished. It
has been finished. And His resurrection is the guarantee
of our spiritual resurrection. And it's the guarantee of our
physical resurrection as well. Well, what's required for the
captain to bring many sons into glory? It required His ascension
and His exaltation. As thou hast given Him, John
17, that's what our Savior said, as thou hast given Him power
over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many
as thou hast given Him. He's been exalted. He's been
exalted to be a Prince and a Savior for to give repentance and forgiveness
of sins to all of God's Israel, to all of God's people. There
is in glory Christ Jesus our Savior. He's our Mediator. He's our Representative. He's
our Great High Priest. He speaks to the Father for us
and He pleads the merits of His own blood. His blood that answered
every demand of divine justice. And the Father is well pleased
with us for Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. What's required
for the Captain to bring many sons into glory? He must regenerate
us and bring us to believe Him. He must quicken us. Dead in sin,
that's us. lifeless toward God, having no
hope without God, without Christ in this world. Oh, what pitiful
people we were before God saved us, before God convinced us of
the gospel. Oh, what miserable worms we were. Thought we were somebody and
didn't realize we was nobody. We're just a bunch of nobodies.
bragging on how good we are, and how much we've done, and
how wonderful people we are, and how moral we are, and just
really wiggling maggots. And we're just going with the
crowd, going with the crowd on the broad road that leads to
destruction. And then God said, now's the
time. I'm going to deal with you. And
He cut you out of the herd. He got you off to yourself. And
He taught you who He is. And you got fearful. You found
out who God was. And in finding out who God is,
you found out what you are. You see, we see what we are in
the light, the glorious light of the holiness of God. This
thing doesn't start with our depravity. That's the reason
I know we talk about T-U-L-I-P, TULIP, total depravity. I understand what that's saying
and I certainly believe all the five points. But it starts off
with man. And nothing ought to start off
with man. The Bible doesn't start off with
man. The Bible starts off with God.
And our theology and our doctrine had better start off with God. And as we see who God Almighty
is in His immaculate holiness, that's the mirror in which we
see our filthiness and our neediness. Then we say, is there no hope?
Is there no hope for me? I see who God... I've just got
a glimpse of Him. And that's all we've really seen
of God. Isn't it just a glimpse? We don't
know very much about God at all. But what little bit we do know
of this great, infinite Being who charges His angels with folly
and the heavens aren't even pure in His sight. What little bit
we do know about this great and glorious God makes us tremble. We say, is there any hope for
me? Oh yes. Oh yes. For God has come down in the
person of His Son. And He has by His blood and by
His righteousness, He satisfied God. The Spirit of God convinces. Have you been convinced? Convinced? See, the Spirit of God convinces
us of sin and righteousness and judgment. That's what He does.
He convinces people. I'm convinced, aren't you? Do
you need convincing? Or have you been convinced? I'm
convinced of this. I'm convinced of my neediness
and I'm convinced that Christ is all. You convinced? The Spirit
of God has done a work within me, and I'll say this, He is
doing a work within me. He's maintaining that work within
me. He's keeping me alive. He's keeping
me interested. And if He was to ever leave me,
I'd be dead again. Right? He's the only life we've
got. He's the only light we've got.
If He left us, we'd be in the darkness again. We'd be right
back where He found us. But bless His name, He'll never
leave us. He said, I'll never leave you
and I'll never forsake you. The Spirit quickens us from the
dead. He shows us Christ Jesus in His
beauties. And people sit and listen. And I'm thankful for that, but
you've got to hear through another ear. You've got to hear with
a spiritual ear. I can't give you that. Your mom
can't give you that. Your dad can't give you that.
Your husband and your wife can't give you that. I've had people
say to me, you know, I just didn't understand what all the excitement
was about. It talked about Christ Jesus
and His beauties and His glories and you preached Him. And it
just didn't click with me. And then one day it clicked. One day it made sense. One day
I said, wow, that's it. Well, what happened? What happened? Did you finally come to your
senses? Well, you did finally come to your senses when God
gave you sense. When God made you alive, He quickened
you from the dead. And you said, oh, this is glorious. This is wonderful. And people
say, why does he preach the gospel every time? Because this is a
message that thrills our soul. This is a message that glorifies
God. Listen, it's only as we brag
on the captain of our salvation that we honor God. No other message
honors God. What has God set out to do from
the beginning? He set out to exalt His Son by
His Son saving a multitude that cannot be numbered and conforming
them to the image of His Son. That's what God set out to do.
He set out to honor Christ Jesus. And we better set out to honor
Christ Jesus too. In our music, in our methods. in our missionaries and in our
message, the message that we proclaim. We better set forth
Jesus Christ and Him crucified because if we don't, God won't
own it, God won't bless it, God won't honor it. God honors those
who honor His Son. That's who God honors. And if
you want God to honor you in your life, you honor Christ Jesus. What's required for the captain
to bring many sons to glory? Our regeneration and a revelation
to our souls of the beauties and the glories and the wonders
of God's grace to us in Christ Jesus. What's required for the
captain to bring many sons into glory? It requires him to come
again and receive us unto himself. So that where He is, there we
will be also. And you know, when He comes for
us in death, that's what happens. He takes us home to be with Him. We have saints of God have exited
from us. They've made their exodus. They've
left us. What happened? He came for them.
He came for them. And one of these days, He'll
come for me. One of these days, He'll come for you. But there's
going to be a glorious day when He comes back in the clouds. And John says in Revelation 1,
every eye shall see. That's when every knee is going
to bow to Him. There's going to be a great resurrection. A lot of differences in the minds
of God's people about prophecy and that sort of thing. I tell
you, when Christ comes back, that's when time shall be no
more. That wraps up everything. There's going to be a general
resurrection, a resurrection of the just and the unjust. And
for God's people, those who have died, bodies going to be raised. This mortal shall put on immortality. This corruption shall put on
incorruption. We've known saints of God. I've
preached funerals of dear children of the Lord, and their poor bodies
were just wasted and faded away to nothing. Wept with the families
overseeing them in that kind of condition, and I encourage
them this way. It's not always going to be like
this. We're going to have a new body. Death doesn't have the
last word. He who is life has the last word. And he's going to come back in
glory with a shout. And he's going to raise the bodies
of God's people, those dead bodies, he'll raise them and make them
anew. It'll be the same body made new. No more aches and pains, no more
age, no more infirmities, no more diseases. You know what
it means? No more sin. That's what it means.
No more sin. And no more effects of sin. If
the captain is going to be made perfect, if he is going to bring
many sons unto glory, these things are absolutely necessary. Absolutely necessary. He's bringing
many sons into glory. Watch this. He's bringing them. In bringing
many sons into glory. He's bringing them. He takes
us by the hand and He just brings us. He says, you're going with
me. And I see in this the effectual call of grace. When the Lord
calls you by His effectual grace, You know, I do believe this,
there is in some ways a general call of the gospel and certainly
the gospel goes forth as I preach. I call on you to believe the
gospel. But my call won't get the job done, but His will. His
will. When He calls effectually, powerfully,
irresistibly, that's when the dead hears His voice. And you
who believe Him tonight, He spoke to you in your death, and He
said to you, He called you by name, and He said, Live! Like He said to that infant in
Ezekiel chapter 16, that infant that had been cast out in its
pollution, God said it was a time of love, and I passed by you,
and I spread my skirt over you, and I said, Live! That's what's necessary. That's
what's got to happen. And we live to believe Him. We
live to receive Him. We live to love Him. We live
to honor Him. We live to glorify Him. Why'd that happen? Because He's
bringing many sons to glory. That had to happen. He's bringing
us. That's why the effectual call
is just that. It's effectual. I know sometimes
we use long words and people don't understand what that means.
So I don't know what you mean by the effectual call. The word
effectual means it gets the job done. Is that okay? That's pretty
clear. It gets the job done. When the
Lord God of glory calls on one of His spiritually dead people
in the time of love, in the time of life, and you come forth,
that's an effectual call, it will get the job done. If He
says live, you will live. Now you will live. It's not a
matter of you exercising your will, it's a matter of Him exercising
His will. See, somebody's will reigns supreme
in salvation and it's not yours and it's not mine, it's His.
Of His own will begat He us with the Word of Truth. It's not of
Him that willeth, nor of Him that runneth, but of God that
showeth the mercy. That's free and sovereign effectual
grace. He brings us to believe Him. He brings us to trust Him. It's necessary in bringing us
to glory. He just takes us by the hand
and says, you're coming with me. He's bringing many sons into
glory. He's not pushing many sons to
glory. He's bringing us. He's bringing. Why is all this happening? Well,
it's to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. The word perfect, it means complete. What was that I can't remember
that movie. I watch movies usually with practically
one eye closed. I'm usually got my laptop or
my Kindle or something I'm reading. But I remember some movie where,
I don't know if it was a man or a woman or whatever it was,
some foolishness, and forgive me for even using such a stupid
illustration, but somebody said to another, said, you complete
me. I guarantee some of the women
here know exactly the movie I'm talking about. You complete me. You make me whole. Well, let
me tell you something. And I say this with all reverence
and all respect to our Savior. He's not whole. He's not perfect. He's not complete without us. Did you know that? He's not complete
without us. Because you see, we're one with
Him. God the Father gave us to Christ Jesus in covenant grace. We're His. And if He doesn't
bring us all home to glory, the captain's not going to be perfect.
He's not going to be perfect unless He brings all these many
sons and daughters home to glory. And when we all get home to glory,
that perfects Him. It completes Him. It makes Him
whole. Well, how do we know that all
this is going to be accomplished? Well, because this is the God,
look at verse 10, I'll give you this and I'll quit. This is the
God for whom are all things and by whom are all things. This
is the God for whom everything is for Him. I know we think that
all of life revolves around us. We're right in the center of
our world. No, we're not in the center of
the world. All things are for God. And more than that, by whom are
all things? That not only are all things
for him, but all things are by him. By him. And what's he doing? What's God
doing today? Well, I can only tell you sort
of generally. Because I don't know all the
specifics of what God's doing. entered into the secret councils
of God Almighty. I can't tell you how this event
in the world or that event in the world, how God's going to
use that, how God's going to get glory by that, but I do know
this. I do know this. He's working
all things together to accomplish His will. He's working all things
together for the good of His people. And He's working all
things together in providence in order to bring all of His
elect to a saving knowledge of His Son. And then He'll bring
us all home to glory. I know that's what He's doing.
And He'll get all the praise and He'll get all the glory.
And well, He deserves it because Jesus paid it all. all the debt
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
but he washed it white as snow. He deserves the glory, doesn't
he? Sure he does. 125 in the song
book. 125. That's seeing Jesus paid
it all. And we'll go home rejoicing in
this Savior who paid our debt. in this Savior who loved us and
who gave Himself for us and will seek His glory. And that's what
we do. We seek His glory every day.
125. Let's stand together.