words of the apostle in the book
of Hebrews. And I don't remember when we
started looking through the book of Hebrews, but it's been several
months ago, maybe in over a year. I don't know. You know how long
it's been? It's been a while. And really when I started looking
at this book, I didn't particularly set out to say, well, I'm going
to go through the book of Hebrews. But one thing led to another,
and that's basically what we did. You know, and so we're coming
to the end of it. And you can kind of get the gist
of a book by reading the first part of it. and reading the last
part of it. In fact, some people, they don't
want to take time to digest the whole book, and so what they'll
do is they'll read the first bit of it, and then they'll go
over to the last few chapters and read it to find out what
happened. And so you can kind of get it. Now, of course, you leave out
a lot of stuff in the middle. that is often greatly important. But the conclusion of the matter
is always that which carries with it a great blessing. Now Paul says, and I'll read
beginning in verse 18, he said, Pray for us, for we trust we
have a good conscience in all things, willing to live honestly.
And I beseech you, the rather, to do this, that I may be restored
to you the sooner. Now the God of peace that brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of
the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make
you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you
that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ,
to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. And I beseech you,
brethren, suffer the word of exaltation, for I have written
a letter unto you and a few words. Know ye that our brother Timothy
is set at liberty, with whom, if he come shortly, I will see
you. Salute all them that have the rule over you, and all the
saints. They of Italy salute you. Grace
be with you all. Amen. Now, of course, we've gone
over some of this, and Paul desires their prayers, and he desired
for them to pray that he might be restored to them the sooner,
because evidently he was in jail at the time that he was of the
writing of this book, and he desired, of course, to be out
of jail. I don't know of anybody that
wants to be in jail. There may be some, but if they're
in jail, they probably want to be out. And so surely he did.
But he didn't just want to be out of jail just to be out of
jail. He wanted to be out of jail where he could have fellowship
with the people of God. And that's an important part
of our existence and walk through this life as the sons of God
is our interaction with one another as believers because we give
strength to one another. We encourage one another. We
help one another. Every joint supplies that which
the body is in need of. And so a man cannot be encouraged
and strengthened completely all by himself. Now that doesn't
mean that if the Lord puts a man in a place all by himself that
the Lord doesn't meet with him and doesn't minister to him and
that sort of thing. But the Lord did say where two
or more are gathered in my name there I am in the midst of them. And so there is a blessing that
comes from fellowship of the saints one with the other. in
encouraging one another and ministering to one another of those things
that God has given because He's given gifts to all men. There's not just some men that
are given gifts, and when I say men, I mean men and women, the
people of God, but all of God's people are given gifts. And the
purpose of these gifts is not to be consumed upon our own use
but to minister and help the body. Now all of the gifts are
not speaking gifts. We're not all one big mouth,
and the mouth is not the most important part of the body. The
most important part of the body is the head, and there's only
one head, and that's Christ. And He is that one to whom we
all exalt, and we are members of Christ, but He is a member
of the same body of which we are. We are the fullness of His
body, the Scripture says, which filleth all in all. We are part of the body of Christ. Now these are mysterious things.
I do not completely and fully claim to have an understanding
of that, how that Christ is our head and yet we are His body. That is what it says in the Scripture.
And so that He is not complete without us, and so we are certainly
not complete without Him. And surely the head is that which
is worthy of the glory. And so he goes on to say to them,
Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord
Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of
the everlasting covenant. Now when the Scripture speaks
of Christ as the great Shepherd of the sheep, it is speaking
about Him as that One who rose from the dead. He is the Good
Shepherd, He is the Chief Shepherd, and He is the Great Shepherd.
And when the Scripture speaks of him as the great shepherd,
it's speaking about his resurrection because there is no aspect of
the work which Jesus Christ did for us that is any greater than
that arising from the dead. For had he gone to the cross
and poured out his blood as a sacrifice for sin, it would not have been
of great use had the grave contained him. But because the grave could
not contain Him, then He ascended back into the presence of the
Father where the Scripture says He ever lives to make intercession
for us. Now how does He make intercession
for us? He doesn't do it upon His knees.
He doesn't do it with words. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
our intercessor by the five bleeding wounds that He bears. As we sing
in that song sometimes, five bleeding wounds He bears. Received
on Calvary, they strongly plead for me. They strongly plead for
me. And so the Lord Jesus doesn't
plead for us before the Father with His words. The Lord doesn't
just show mercy to us. No, He stands there. as that
bleeding sacrifice. And He is ever before the Father's
throne as that One who is our substitute. And so that great
Shepherd of the sheep who was brought again from the dead through
the blood of the everlasting covenant, that is all of these
things, the blood of the everlasting covenant is the blood of Christ. And the blood of Christ could
not be shed in vain. It was necessary that he rise
from the dead. Had he shed his blood and not
risen from the dead, as I said, that would have been in vain.
So it was absolutely necessary. It was predetermined. It was
predestined that he would rise from the dead because this is
a part of the importance and the finality of the blood of
the everlasting covenant. That which he would do, he did
do. Now, a lot of people talk about
what Christ did, but they speak of it in terms of like, well,
He did something, but it's up to men then to make it useful. You know, Christ died for everybody,
they tell us. He poured out His blood, but
now, now all that's important, they tell us, but here's the
most important thing. And that is that you've got to
believe it in order to make the blood of Christ effective. Because
if you don't believe it, it's not going to do anything. Well,
dear brethren, that makes the belief of man to be of greater
value than what Christ did. Now it is indeed, and you made
a good point there about that faith is the means by which True
faith is delivered to us. That justification comes to us.
Now, we're justified in the blood of Jesus Christ, whether we ever
believed it or not. But you see, the Lord in His
mercy has seen fit to make these things known to us and to cause
justification to be a thing that we do know about. And that means
of faith is how it's been conveyed to us as the Lord has given us
faith to believe it. But He didn't cause our redemption
to occur because we believed it. He just opened our eyes and
brought the ministration of that which Christ did to us through
faith. Opened our eyes and we could
see and we believed. Yes, we believed. But it is,
dear brethren, the blood of the everlasting covenant, that which
is sure and steadfast upon which all of our hopes stand, and it
rests in that which Christ did and accomplished as our substitute. And so, on the one hand, we can
say whether you ever believed it or not, It wouldn't make any
difference as to the effectiveness of the blood of Christ, but as
to the mercy of God, He has shown you what Christ has done and
delivered it to you through faith. And we believe, and therefore
believing, we are justified before Almighty God because we see it,
we understand it, we embrace it, we're thankful. that such
has occurred, but it most certainly does not occur because we believe. But our justification occurs
because Christ paid the price with the blood of the everlasting
covenant, because it was that which was determined from before
the foundation of the world and carried out. Then he says, The
God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, the God of peace makes you
perfect in every good work. See, it is the Lord that makes
His people perfect. It's not the people that make
themselves perfect. Oh, you've got to be perfect,
you've got to get to work on it. Well, brethren, I'm going
to tell you, if you've ever got to work on trying to make yourself
perfect, you've been disappointed many times. Anybody who's ever
become acquainted with what they are by nature knows for a fact
they can't make themselves perfect. Now, there are people working
on being perfect. But they're going to be disappointed
every time because that's not how perfection comes. It's not
the perfection that stands before Almighty God. And that's what
he says here. Now, the God of peace makes you
perfect in every good work. And he says that the manner in
which this is going to be done is through the same manner because
he's the one who brought Jesus Christ from the dead. You see,
in order for God's people to be made perfect, there has to
be a resurrection. They are made perfect through
the blood of the everlasting covenant. They are resurrected
in the new birth. They are brought from death unto
life. And through the blood of the
everlasting covenant, we are perfected before Almighty God.
We do not need anything else. We are sanctified by Him. He
is our sanctification. He is our justification. He is
our redemption. He's all those things. The God
of peace makes you perfect in every good work to do His will.
Now what he says over in, I believe it's in Philippians, for it is
God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good
pleasure. You see, the Lord is at work
in His people. Now is He at work in everybody
that claims to be a child of God? And everybody that's joined
the church, no. But He is at work in those who
are His. He works in them, both willing
to do His good pleasure. And this is not according to
the standard of men, but it's according to the standard of
God. It's according to the work that He is pleased to work in
us. You see, He's pleased with His people because they belong
to Him. He's not pleased with His people
because of what they do. I mean, if you said, well, I'm
going to do this. God's going to be pleased with
me today. You've got a low standard of
what God would be pleased with if you think He'd be pleased
with something that you did in the flesh, corruptible as it
is. Now what's He pleased with? He's
pleased with Christ. And He's pleased with that which
He is pleased to work in His people through Christ. The sacrifices
of God are broken in a contrite heart. With such He is well pleased. He spoke about it up here. By
Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God
continually. That is the fruit of our lips,
giving thanks to His name, but to do good and communicate, forget
not. For with such sacrifices God is well pleased. What sacrifices? Those which He is pleased to
work in His people. That's what He's pleased with.
He's pleased with the work of Christ in us. Make you perfect
in every good work to do His will, working in you that which
is well-pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ to whom
be glory forever and ever. Now I'm glad of that, aren't
you? I mean, I'm glad that He works in us because if it was
left up to me, I'd be in a mess. There would never be anything
about me that would ever be pleasing unto the Lord. But because He
works in me, all things are pleasing in His sight as He sees me in
Jesus Christ. Make you perfect in every good
work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing
in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and
ever. Amen. Now, when we have an understanding
of the fact that it is the things that Christ works in His people
with which He is well pleased, then that doesn't give anybody
any place to sit back and have glory in what they do, does it?
Because, you see, when men make a standard and they say, okay,
here's how the people of God ought to act, and here's the
standard, well, you messed up. You didn't live up to that standard.
Now, if you'd have lived up to the standard, you'd be like me
who's living up to the standard. See, I know how it's supposed
to be, and you're falling short. Well, what am I doing? Who am
I glorying in? I'm glorying in me because I'm
comparing myself to Him and Him to me. Dear brethren, we're not
the standard for one another. The standard is Christ. How do
you measure up there? Now when that's the question
and that's the standard, every one of us, if we know who we
are by nature, will fall on our faces and say, we don't measure
up. You know, we can't ever attain
unto that standard. But you see, that's not the place
we're called to be, is it? He said here, to whom be glory
forever. So who do we give glory to for
our righteousness? We're righteous, dear brethren,
we're righteous in Christ. Now, is that a prideful statement? No, because I know from the source
of my righteousness. I know the source from which
it comes. You see, He is my righteousness,
and my glory is in Him. I'm not pouring in anything that
I am. I couldn't be anything, couldn't
do anything apart from His grace and mercy that which is well-pleasing
in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and
ever. Amen. Now, amen is usually considered
to be the end of something, isn't it? I mean, you get mad. Lendley gets mad at me sometimes
because I don't always say amen at the end of a prayer. But amen
is not the end. It just means so be it. And may
that be that whenever we read, to whom be glory forever, that
it would be our testimony to confess, so be it. Yes, that's
what we want. I want Christ to have the glory.
I don't want men to get any glory at all. I don't want to pat somebody
on the back. I want Christ to have all the
praise and all the glory because He's worthy. And I beseech you,
brethren, suffer the word of exhortation. For I have written
the latter unto you in few words." What does he mean there? He says,
bear with the exhortation. He said, I have written you some
stuff here that is tough to hear. Because this was tough to hear.
Some of these things were tough because of the background that
these Jews had that he was writing to. And this cut across their
very traditions and the ways that they thought. But he said
to them, now bear with me. He said, permit the word of exhortation.
This is why he says to them, as he goes on to say here, salute
them that have the rule over you, just as he has said here,
obey them that have the rule over you. Now how do we say that
there are those that have the rule over us? Do they have the
rule over us because they have some position and it's just they've
got the ability to tell us what to do? No. The only way that
anybody rules over the people of God is through the declaration
of the Word of God. And then every man comparing
Scripture with Scripture and looking, as the Bereans do, to
see if these things be so, they are ruled over by the Word of
God. And if the Word of God is teaching
us something, are we not supposed to listen to it? I mean, shouldn't
we not listen to it? Do we not want to listen to it?
So that's what he means here. I beseech you, brethren, suffer
the word of exhortation, which I have written to you in a few
words. Listen to it. Take it in. Don't disregard it. Don't think that you, well, I
know more than he does. Maybe you do. Maybe you do. I mean, you know, the declaration
of the Word of God is not done in the wisdom of men. The foolishness
of preaching is a common thing. People, I
mean, the things that are true in the Word of God seldom appeal
to the flesh. They're contrary to the way of
the flesh. I mean, when the Lord said, if a man sues you at the
law to take away your coat, give him your cloak also. Now, does
that sit well with men? If a man smites you on the right
cheek, turn to him the left. Does that sound like good advice?
I mean, does that fit the flesh? Is that the way we think by nature? No, it's contrary to it. The
Lord said if a man would be great among you, let him be the servant
of all. Well, no, that's not right. I
mean, if a man's going to be great, he's got to clamber and
pat himself on the back and build himself up and rule over men. No, the Lord said, be the servant
of all. He said, that's the man that's
greatest in the kingdom of God. These things are contrary to
the flesh. They're not the way of the flesh. So listen to these things. Suffer
the word of exhortation. Be sure of this. If it seems
right to you in the flesh, it's wrong. How do I know that? Because the Scripture says there
is a way which seemeth right to men. But the end thereof are
the ways of death. If it seems like what you ought
to do in the flesh, I mean if your flesh, you say, man that
will make you feel good to do that. You know, you need to get
your, that person needs their comeuppance. You need to teach
them a lesson, buddy. Boy, don't we like to teach people
lessons. Don't you like to get people
straightened out? I mean, when people are doing wrong, don't
you like to get them straightened out? Well, of course you do.
Everybody does. That's just the nature of people.
The way we are now, some people are stronger in that than others,
surely. You know, by force of personality
or whatever. That's rooted in the heart of
all men. But brethren, that's not the basis upon which we are,
that our life is to go forward. That's not how Christ did, did
He? Now those who raised themselves up in righteous defiance against
the Lord and thought themselves to be righteous over much, He
rebuked them. But He did so in the Word of
God. And He said, to those things
that we are taught, suffer the word of exhortation. For I have
written a letter unto you in a few words." Now, I think that's
probably like a... I can't think of the term I'm
thinking of, but it's not necessarily sarcastic, but he's saying, I've
written to you a letter in a few words. It's not a short letter,
it's a long letter. But he said, it's really a few
words compared to the things that need to be said. So in other
words, he's saying it's a lot, but yet it's not a lot. I mean,
when the Lord said, Be ye holy, even as I, the Lord your God,
am holy, that's a lot, isn't it? But it's really not a lot
because that's just the basic thing that's expected of the
people of God. And that thing which he is bringing
to pass, Then he says, Know ye that our brother Timothy is set
at liberty, with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you.
Now evidently, Timothy, we don't know a lot of the details about
this, but Timothy had been in some sort of imprisonment. Now
he was set at liberty. He was set free. And he was evidently
not where Paul was, but he was Paul was hoping that he would
come to see him and that he too would be set at liberty. He says,
If he comes shortly, I will see you. Now, I believe also that
he might have understood that he was not going to be set at
liberty. And he is saying, If Timothy
comes, I will see you because he has ministered among you.
and He will bring me news of how you are doing. And so in
that sense, He would see them even though He didn't see them
in the flesh. It's the same thing as though
when we hear a report that what the Lord is doing in some other
place among the saints of God, it's as though we join in that. We have pleasure from it as we
hear that it's good. Know ye that our brother Timothy
is set at liberty, with whom if ye come shortly I will see
you. Salute all them that have the
rule over you. There it is again. How do they
rule? By the Word of God. Listen to
the things of the Word of God. And all the saints, they of Italy,
salute you. And of course Paul was imprisoned
in Rome and he says the saints here in Italy salute you. They greet you. They send their
love to you. Then he closes with the, there could be no more fitting conclusion to a letter than that
which he writes here where he says, Grace be with you all. Amen. So let it be. Because grace is the message
of the gospel. We do not have any other message.
And if a man comes preaching a message that is not grace,
do not listen to it. If a man comes telling you what
you need to do, don't listen to it. Paul said, I determined
to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
That's grace. Anything else is not grace. When people say grace and use
the word but, you better flee from them because if it's going
to tell you something that's not true, it's not grace but,
It's grace there, brethren. It's completely grace. It must
be grace. And the more that a man knows
about himself, the more he becomes convinced that it is all grace.
Because instead of getting better, he gets worse. Instead of getting
higher, he gets lower. And he knows that it is just
the grace of God alone that can deliver him. And that's what
Paul said, Grace be with you all. Everybody. You know, there are certain people
that people place on pedestals through time. I mean, if you
talked about somebody that went about doing good in our days,
the name of Mother Teresa would probably come up. People have
a high opinion of Mother Teresa. And I don't know anything about
Mother Teresa, okay? I'm sure she did a lot of good
things, and I certainly wouldn't speak evil of any of that, nor
would I seek to detract from her, but I'll tell you one thing.
If she did anything that is of any use whatsoever in the kingdom
of God, it was all of grace. It was all of the grace given
to her, and it was all of the grace given by God to those to
whom she ministered. It's all of grace. And so there's
no place to exalt men as the Roman Catholic Church does and
sets up people as saints. You know, they set them apart.
Oh, well, he was a saint. Listen, all the people of God
are the saints of God. There are no saints that are
to be revered among others. There are no saints to be prayed
to. Our prayers are directed to one,
and in one name do we pray. the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby
we must be saved. There is no other name under
heaven whereby we must pray but the name of Jesus Christ. He is our hope and it is grace
and grace unto it. And that is the, as we read over,
I believe it's in the prophecy of Malachi or maybe Zechariah,
How Zerubbabel built the temple and he went in there saying,
Grace, grace unto it. And that is in the Old Testament. He understood that it was grace,
dear brethren. That is the only thing that gives
a man a place of standing before God. The mercy of God, the grace
of God set forth unmerited in all of its aspects and most assuredly
Everyone who knows the grace of God will confess that that
is true. And the man that won't confess
that that's true doesn't know the grace of God. So may the
Lord help us and give us an understanding of these things.