As far as scripture reading this
morning, turn with me to Hebrews chapter 2. These verses will
also serve as my text this morning, so if you have a marker you can
put it there. Hebrews chapter 2. Therefore, that is, in consideration
of everything he said in chapter 1 about Christ, the maker of
the world, the honored son of God, he who took his seat at
the right hand of God. Therefore, we ought to give the
more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at
any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels
was steadfast, And every transgression and disobedience received a just
recompensive reward. How shall we escape if we neglect
so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the
Lord, the Lord Himself? What did Christ preach? He preached
Christ. He preached Himself. And was confirmed unto us by
them that heard Him, God also bearing them witness, both with
signs and wonders and diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy
Ghost, according to his own will. For unto the angels hath he not
put in subjection the world to come, wherever we speak, but
one in a certain place testifying, saying, What is man, that thou
art mindful of him? Or the Son of man, that thou
bist of him? Thou madest him a little lower
than the angels, crownest him with glory and honor, and didst
sit him over all the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all
things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all
in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under
him. But now we see Yet, not yet,
all things put under him. Everything's been put under him.
God put him there, but we don't see it. We don't see it. What do we see? We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than
the angels, with the suffering of death, crowned with glory
and honor, that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for
every man. For it became Him, 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
suffering." That is, to make Him a perfect Savior. One who
understands your prayers. You pray to Him, you're suffering,
He understands. He suffered. For both He that sanctifies,
And they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he's
not ashamed to call them brethren. How is it that the Lord of glory
could look on you and I and not be ashamed to call us his brethren? Because we're one with him. saying, I will declare thy name
unto my brethren. In the midst of the church will
I sing praise unto thee. And again, I put my trust in
him. And again, behold, I and the
children of which God hath given me. For as much then as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took
part of the same. that through death he might destroy
him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver
them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject
to bondage. For verily he took not on him
the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham,
the promised seed. Wherefore in all things it behooved
him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a
merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to
make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he
himself has suffered being tempted, he's able to succor them that
are tempted. May the Lord add his blessing
to the reading of his words. If you will turn back with me
now to Hebrews chapter 2. I want to focus most of my time on verse
9, but to do so we're going to have to go a little bit through
the chapter. I want to tell you before we
get started that it's good to be home. I enjoy going away. I enjoy seeing brethren in other
places and ministering to them, but it's always good to come
home. The saints at Danville, Kentucky
send their greetings to you and their appreciation for sharing
your pastor with them for a season. There's a lot of things that
I profited from during this trip. Things overlooked because of
the pressing activities of daily life. We overlook these things.
We all see them, but we overlook I was granted the privilege of
seeing the grace of God manifested in a suffering saint. If you've
never seen it, there's nothing like it. Nothing like it. Suffering, and yet smiling ear
to ear. Huh? Saints manifest the grace of
God continually. They're examples of it. Paul
said he knew the election of the saints at Thessalonica because
they received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy
Ghost. And in doing so, they become
examples to all the saints. But it's especially thrilling
to my soul to see this grace as it passes through the trial,
passes through these fiery trials. And the pure gold of the work
of God is seen apart from the dross. That's what these trials
do. They take away the dross. What's
that? That's just everyday life. That's
what that is. Oh, said Peter, let the trial
of your faith be much more precious than a gold that perishes, though
it be tried with fire, might be found under praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. I also was made aware of the
value of true fellowship and hospitality. We entered into
the saint's home who kept us, and he made us all sit down.
He said, I have something I want to say. He said, this is your home. If you want something in the
refrigerator, look for it. Don't come get me. You want something to eat, fix
it. You want to go take a nap, go
take a nap. You want to sit in a chair, go sit in a chair. This
is your home. This is your home. God help us here in this church
to treat our guests with such hospitality. And I saw firsthand a real hunger
and thirst for the gospel message. It's a special blessing to minister
to men and women who are hungry to hear. Huh? They just drink it in. Alright, let's go back to Hebrews
chapter 2. Hebrews chapter 2 begins with
an admonition. What in the world is that? You've been here in that world
all your life and you've never looked it up. An admonition. It means advice. That's what it means. To give
advice. It means to counsel, recommend, or urge somebody to
do something. And it also means to caution
or warn someone about something. He begins this chapter with an
admonition. The Holy Ghost tells us in verse
1 to give the more earnest heed to the things which we've heard.
When the service is over, it's not time to go back to the world. We're not of the world, are we? We're just passing through. This
world is not our home. We're only passing through. We're just here for a little
bit and then gone. It's not time to go back to the
world. It's time to hold on to and reminisce and study and contemplate
and pray over the things which we've heard. God would make those
things a working part of our lives. That He would so infuse
these things into us till it becomes a part of your thinking. Oh, give them more earnest heed
to the things which we've heard. Why? Lest we let them slip. Oh
my soul, how many times? Oh, pardon me, I didn't mean
to say that, I slipped. Yeah, you sure did. Lest we let at any time that
we should let them slip. The Bible said, faith cometh
by hearing. Hearing by the word of the Lord.
And the Spirit of God asked this question, how shall you hear
without a preacher? I get tired of people saying,
well, that's your opinion. No, it ain't. It's the Holy Ghost
Declaration. That's what it is. And how's he gonna preach if
God don't send him? You ever thought about how vast
a population this world is? According to the computer, I
don't know how accurate it is, but according to the computer,
8 billion people occupy space on this earth. 800 million people. To give you some idea, I think
Dallas, when I looked, was 4 million, 4 or 5 million people. 800 million people in the world. The surface of the Earth, the
whole Earth, is 197 million square miles. But two-thirds of the
Earth is covered in water. The land area, they say, is somewhere
around 58 million miles. got to do with anything. Well,
14 people per square mile over the whole world. In other words, there's a person
that occupies 45 acres of land worldwide, everywhere. How many
people is that? That's a lot. That's a lot of
people. But he didn't send his gospel
to 800 million. He sent it to you and he sent
it to me. How rare is that? Now I know there's churches that
we've not heard of, although I find it difficult with the
the internet and means by which we can search out and find things.
I find it difficult to believe, but there are places out there,
churches out there, saints out there that we don't know. But not many. And I tell you,
you can count them on both hands, the churches worldwide. Not many. I don't need them on
one hand. I know that there's hundreds
of them. His Word in and of itself is
a blessed privilege to have, but it's much more rare and special
to hear the message of Holy Scripture. And we're to regard it just that
way. Don't let these things slip.
These are not everyday occurrences. If you forget what 2 plus 2 is,
you can go look it up. Don't let these things slip.
Don't close your mind to these things when you're dismissed
from the service. Cling to what you've heard. It's
special. It's rare. And it's valuable
beyond your imagination. Well, what do we hear that's
so special, that's so rare? We heard the gospel of our salvation. That's what Paul, he's writing
to his kinsmen. His heart is for his kinsmen.
He grew up with them. He's a part of them. They were
dear to Him. We heard the gospel of our salvation
and nobody, now listen, nobody is going to be saved, delivered
from the wrath to come, going to be reconciled to God's reconciliation,
going to be granted an interest in the glory apart from hearing
the gospel. It's not going to happen. My sheep hear my voice. That's what he said. And how you gonna hear without
a preacher? Listen to this, Hebrews 2 verse
3. How should we escape? You might not know you need to
escape, but you do. You do. When the Lord finds his
saints, he finds them dead in trespasses and sins. And here's
what he says that means. You walked according to the course
of this world. You need to escape that. Huh? You need to escape that. But how you gonna escape if you
neglect so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken
by our Lord. He's the one who brought this
thing clear as a bell. He is the Word of God, the eternal
Word of God. Everything God's got to say,
He's going to say through His Son. In these last days, He's
spoken unto us in song. At the first, it began to be
spoken by the Lord, and then it was confirmed unto us by them
that heard Him. And the words of this text we're
looking at are not the words of some radical group of spiritualists
that found a little group and published a book and gave their
opinions about this and that. One man told me one time, this
had been years ago, he said, I can't believe that you rested
your soul on the Jewish book of mythology. I rested my soul on the testimony
of God concerning his son. I don't know anything about the
Jewish book of mythology. A historian called it that. God bear his prophet's witness. and he bare his son witness,
and he bare his apostles witness with signs and wonders and divers
miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his will. He set their word apart from
others, infinitely apart from others.
Nobody, nobody standing up on his soapbox talking about coming
down isles and who knows what else, obeying the law and whatever
other kind of thing they can come up with. God put an infinite difference
between them and his apostles and prophets and his preachers. Well, what is it about this gospel
that makes it so rare and valuable? It's about a person. We say everybody's talking about
a person. Oh, no they're not. Listen to them. They're talking
about redoing your life. They're talking about getting
back in the scheme of things. They're talking about understanding
a plan. They're talking about everything
else. Talking about you having control
over God by your own will. You're going to decide your own
destiny and all that. What makes the gospel so rare
is it's about a person. It's all about a person. It took me forever to see that.
A person. It's not a plan. It's not a system. It's a person. A man named Jesus of Nazareth. What's so special about him?
Everything. What's not special about him?
everything special about him. I don't know if you know this,
but you know why Satan fell from heaven? You know what his problem
was? He heard the gospel. God declared, read it, it's in
Isaiah. What is it? Chapter 16, I think,
where he talks about it. preached the gospel to him, he
said, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, no. Talking about a man ascending
unto the throne, I will ascend unto the throne. I'll sit in
the seat of the congregation. I'll sit with the Most High. And he fell from heaven like
a lightning. What's so special about the gospel?
Everything. Everything. Jesus of Nazareth
is the Son of God. He is, Colossians 1, verse 15,
the image of the invisible God. People said, I saw God. No, you
didn't. The only way you saw God is to see Christ. He's the
image of the invisible God. The firstborn of every created
thing. that was first Christ and then
creation. Colossians 1, 16, for by Him
were all things created that are in heaven, that is, angels,
councils, purpose, kingdoms, and things that are in earth,
visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, principalities, and
powers. All things were created by Him,
now listen, and for Him. Why does the sun rise and set?
For Him. Why does it rain on the just
and the unjust? For Him. Why do we have a bed? For Him. You see what I'm saying? What's so special about Jesus
of Nazareth? He's before all things. He occupied
a place farther back than our imaginations can travel. He's
the eternal God. The old writers used the term
Council Halls of Eternity because we got no other way to even think about it. Huh? Eternity
has no beginning, has no end. He occupied a place. We come
along in time. He's eternal. He's before all things, and by
Him all things consist. That is, they have a continuance.
They're held together, ordered, maintained. What's so special
about Him? He's the head of the body of
the church. What's that mean? He's the federal head. What's that mean concerning my
salvation? In Adam all die. He's the federal
head of all mankind. In Adam all die. Even so in Christ
shall all be made alive. Everybody represented in Adam
is dead. Everybody represented in Christ
will be made alive. He's the head of the body, the
church, who is the beginning. The beginning of creation, the
beginning of salvation, Why? For it pleased the Father that
in Him should all fullness dwell. The Gospel is about a person,
an all-glorious, eternal person. He's the reason behind every
created thing and the reason why things are the way they are. In the scheme of the whole universe,
all creation, all time, all events, Hebrews 2.6, what is man that
art mindful of Him? or the son of man, that thou
visitest him. How does this man Jesus fit into
the scheme of all things? Well, he was made, verse 7. See
it there in our text? Made is to him a little lower
than the angels. Now, brethren, it's difficult,
if not impossible, to imagine God being made anything. It's God. Now when I think of
God, I think of what He made. But God being made something
is something special. He was made a little lower than
the angels. The scripture said in 1 Timothy
3.16 that God was manifest in the flesh. He appeared before men in the
person of a man. It's hard to conceive that. Simeon, the Lord told him he
wasn't going to die until he saw the Lord's Christ. And he
watched. And Mary brought that little
baby into the temple. And that priest reached down
and got that baby and picked him up in his arms and he said,
Now let us thy servant depart in peace, for I have seen thy
salvation. In John 1.14, he tells us that
the eternal Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Full of grace
and truth. In him, Paul said, dwelleth all
the fullness of the Godhead. Now listen, bodily. Made a little lower than the
angels, yet crowned with glory and honor and authority over
all the works of God's hands. Hebrews 2 said. In this all-glorious
person, God has put all things into subjection. Everything subject
to him. Now listen to me a minute. When
I look around with these natural eyes, I don't see that. Do you? I see men and women defying the
God of glory. I see false prophets influencing
great multitudes in the earth. I see death and disease, calamity,
disaster, on and on. I don't see all things subject
unto his faith. I don't see it. And so the apostle writes in
verse 8 of my text, but we see not yet all things put unto him. They are. God put them there. He put them there. So what do
we see? We see Jesus. You see where he's
going with this? We see Jesus. What do we see? With the eyes of faith, with
spiritual eyes, we see five things concerning Jesus of Nazareth.
We see, first of all, the curse of man. The curse of man. A savior of
men denotes their predicament, don't it? Paul said, this is a faithful
saying worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, of whom I am chief. He didn't come to help
the partly righteous become more righteous. or the partly good
folks to become really good. The whole need not the physician,
but they that are sick. That's what Christ said. And
Jesus is a name given to the Son of God who condescended to
take on Him the form of a servant. He came into this world as a
man to represent men before a holy God. To save sinners, He must
be made sin. Huh? Isn't that what Scripture
says? How was he made sin? Appearing
as the sinner's substitute. We made one with him. A representative being in union
with his elect, the Scripture said, bearing our sins in his
own body on the truth. I see the curse of man when I
see Jesus. No other reason for God to come
down and robe himself in human flesh other than to save sinners. All right, secondly, when we
see Jesus as God is setting forth, we see God's willingness to save
sinners. Why would any sinner who knows
what he is, knows what he's done, knows what he's going to continue
to do, think God would be willing to save him? Huh? Any man that God convinces of
sin, he's going to have to convince of righteousness because now
he understands what the sinner is and the non-righteous. And
why would God be willing to save my soul? What have I ever done
to merit God's willingness to save me? Nothing. Search if you will, you cannot
find a reason in yourself that's sufficient for God to show favor
to you. Oh, but we see Jesus. Huh? You have to look outside yourself.
Quit looking in here. That's a black hole. Deeper you go, the darker it
gets. Look outside, we see Jesus. He who thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, made himself of no reputation, took on him
the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, become
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Is God willing
to save sinners? Hear what Jesus said, This is
the Father's will which has sent me, that of all which he hath given
me I should lose nothing. I'll raise it up again at the
last day. What did the Father give him?
John 6, 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. Are you listening? This is the
will of him that sent me, that every one that seeth the Son,
and believeth on him, may have everlasting life, and I raise
him up at the last day. Wasn't he talking about three
different things? No, he was talking about the same thing
three different times. Huh? He that cometh to him is he that
seeth him, isn't he? He that seeth him is the same
that the Father gave him. Otherwise, you wouldn't see him
at all. If you care to read the rest of John chapter 6, you'll
find that out. He said they was murmuring. He
thinks he's the bread of God come down from heaven. He said,
don't murmur. Don't murmur. No man can come
unto me except my Father draw him. Huh? They're talking about the same
thing three different times and three different sentences. Well,
you're talking about God's elite, and now you're talking about
people they believe. They're the same. God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation. That's what he told Thessalonians,
the oldest book in the New Testament. Through sanctification of the
Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our
gospel. There's no other reason for a
Savior to appear than the willingness of God to save somebody. Is that
right? Everything else God can do from
glory. He can judge this world from glory. He don't have to
come down here as a man to judge this world. He does all the time,
judges this world. Never leaves His throne. But
if He's going to save man, He's going to have to get up off that
throne and come down here and do the work. Because man can't
do it. With men, it is impossible. That's what our Lord said. Are
you looking for hope? God has decreed the salvation
of some. Christ came to save some. And
what that means is that there's some in this world who must be
saved. They must be. And God's will
cannot be frustrated. Every chosen sinner, every predestinated
son, every man, woman, boy or girl whose names were written
in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world must
be saved. I must needs go to Jericho. Why? Because there's a sinner
there I need to save. There's no possibility that any
chosen sinner will perish. How come? Because God's not willing
for any of them to perish. He's long-suffering to us. We're
not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And he says here in this passage,
he was made a little lower than the angels, that by the grace
of God, he should taste death for every man. Not every man
born a woman, whatever man he came to represent, without exception. Now right there, what do we see
when we see Jesus? We see Jesus, we see the impossibility
of any sinner being saved apart from the satisfaction of divine
justice. Justice has to be satisfied. I know I've told you this so
many times, you may get tired of hearing it, but I was in Nazarene
church. I was sitting there in the pew,
listening to the man talk, had an evangelist in, it was revival,
whatever that is. And he had a blackboard up here
on the back, and he said, here's what God does when he sees men
sin. And he wrote a one, and then
a two, and then he got to five, you know, put the little cross
mark, and he went on. And each time he'd name something,
adultery, Theft, you know. He said, here's salvation. He
took that eraser and erased everything. That ain't salvation. God has
to be satisfied for them sins. And you don't have the price.
How? What are you going to do? Here's what he taught. Moses
said, show me your glory. He put him in the cleft, or he
put him in Christ. He put him in the cleft of the
rock. And here's what he told him. He said, I keep mercy for
thousands, forgiving, iniquity, transgression, and sin. But you
better know something. I will by no means clear the
guilty. So put your eraser up. That ain't
going to happen. Sin has to be paid for. Christ
came into this world as a representative of men, a chosen substitute,
and died in our room instead. Died on that. Nobody is going to be saved apart
from the satisfaction of divine justice. It became Him, Hebrews 2.10,
for whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory to make the
captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. What God
demands from the sinner is absolute, total, divine perfection continually. Cursed is every man who continueth
not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.
Continual obedience, perfect obedience, and it all has to
be motivated by love for God. Anything done that's not done
with that motive is sin. Jesus Christ is our representative. Become obedient unto death. His
perfect obedience is our righteousness, and the crowning obedience of
Christ's work was his death on the cross. His death satisfied
offended justice. God saw the travail of his soul,
Isaiah said, and was satisfied. When we see Jesus, we see the
satisfied justice of God. And when God speaks of our justification
to chosen sinners, he gives two things for us to rest in. Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect, it is God that
justifies. That's the first thing. Who justified
you? The highest court in creation,
God. What did he find? Nothing. Huh? He found perfect righteousness.
Perfect obedience. He found perfect love. He found
perfect mercy. He found everything perfect. Perfect. God justified. And then secondly, that this
justification is sealed forever by the death of his Son. Who
is he that condemns? Now listen, if Christ had died, huh? All right, here's the fourth
thing we see when we see Jesus. We see the absolute impossibility
of God punishing any sinner for whom Christ died. It's impossible. He ain't gonna do it. Ain't gonna
do it. My text says in verse 11, for
both he that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of
one. They're one. For which cause he's not ashamed
to call them brethren. He ain't ashamed to call you
his brother. Why? Because you're one with
him. God looks on you, he sees his
son. You can't look in the mirror and think that about yourself,
can you? God does. When he looks at you, he sees
his son. And I tell you, if you ever come
to know the truth, that'll be the most valuable thing to you.
Christ in you, the hope of glory. We were, by virtue of our union
with Him, raised up together, the Scripture said, with Him,
and seated with Him in the heavens. In 2 Timothy 2.13, there's a
wondrous verse of Scripture, precious to every sinner who's
conscious of his sins. It says, if we believe not, yet
he abideth faithfully. He cannot deny Himself. His disciples said, Lord, we
believe. Help Thou our unbelief. Can a
man have faith and unbelief? Can unbelief still abide in him?
Well, they did, and it did. And so do we if we've really
been made aware of our sins. God's faithfulness toward us
is sealed in the death of His Son. And He cannot punish the
sinner, not for whom Christ died. And the fifth thing we see when
we see Jesus is that every soul that believes on Him must forever
be saved. He came to the cross that through
death he might destroy him that had power of death, that is the
devil. The whole of false religion is
the spawn of Satan and the center of it is self. It's all about
self, what I did, what decision I made, what end I will acquire. He's a self-made man. I've heard
that more times than I want to think that. He's a self-saved
man. A self-righteous man. He glories
in himself. Satan's spawn is called the man
of sin. The son of perdition. His coming
is after the working of Satan. He opposeth everything God says
and he exalteth himself above all that's called God or that
is worshiped. So that he as God sits in the
temple of God showing himself that he is God. That's natural
man in detail. He thinks he's God. A man told me one time, he said,
I can believe any time I want to. And I said, do you want to?
He said, no. And you never will. Jesus Christ came to deliver
us who through fear of death were all our lifetime subject
to bondage. And it's the person of Christ
that enlightens chosen sinners to this satanic bondage and gives
them the cure. Christ and Him crucified. Christ
resurrected, stepping on a cloud, ascending into glory, taking
His rightful place. at the right hand of God. Ever
live it to make intercession for us. Who's going to separate
you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus? Nothing.
Nothing. Oh, what's the cure? Seeing Him
as He is. That's what draws us to Him.
But, that's how the verse starts out. But, we see Jesus. Oh, my soul. Oh, to say from my heart, we
see Jesus. May the Lord grant us all that
blessing today.