All right, let's turn to Hebrews
2. In these first two chapters of
Hebrews, the Holy Spirit has told us a good bit about God's
Son, God's purpose, God's people, and God's salvation. He assures
us that there is in this world a great multitude of sinners.
chosen by grace and redeemed by blood, called to be the sons
of God, who shall at last be brought into glory. Now in the
light of that fact, we come to this tenth verse, and the apostle
tells us, for it became him, Hebrews 2.10. It became him. It was becoming for him. It was
needful for him. for whom are all things, and
by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory." Now, that's
his business. That's what he's here to do.
In order to do so, it became him to make the captain of their
salvation perfect through sufferings. I have four questions. which
I want to raise an answer from this passage of scripture, and
my subject is, The Captain Made Perfect. Our text declares that
it was needful, it was necessary, it was becoming to God, and becoming
to God, Father, Son, and Spirit, to make the captain of our salvation
perfect through sufferings, if he would bring us to glory. So
the first question is this. How can we be sure that all God's
elect will at last be brought to glory? Can we indeed assert
absolutely, infallibly, with certainty, that every chosen
sinner, every saved sinner, every blood-bought, spirit-called sinner,
every child of God, believing on Jesus Christ, shall at last,
with absolute certainty, be brought unto glory? If we say this, then
we must have some basis for saying it. We must have some biblical
basis upon which to assert our belief in the absolute security
and infallible salvation of all God's elect. How can we be sure? Obviously, the basis of our confidence
has nothing to do with man's will. If it depended on our will,
we would fall immediately. It has nothing to do with our
good works, our righteousness. If that were the case, we would
all go to hell because none of us has ever done a good thing. Not right. Not right before God. We have good works, yes. Believers do good works, relatively
speaking. Relatively. And the word relative
is key. Before God Almighty, it's impossible
for any sinful man to do a good thing. We do good with regard
to one another. We do good with regard to our
God as best we can. But the best we offer is just
filthy rags. Our best righteousness is just
filthy rags. So if our salvation depends on
the measure or stability of our good works, then we must certainly
acknowledge we must all perish. It does not in any way depend
upon our faithfulness, our love for our Redeemer, or in anything
about us, but rather the salvation of God's elect. The absolute
certainty of our assurance is this. Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, has assumed to himself the total responsibility for our
souls and has become the captain of our salvation. Now, I don't
know, I'm just guessing about this, I presume military ranks
in days gone by were somewhat different than they are in our
day. But irregardless of whether that's the case or not, in this
context, as the word is used to describe our Savior, he who
is the captain is the chief visible commander of all things. He's the captain in the field. He's the captain at the helm
of the ship. He's the captain in the midst
of the battle. He's the captain leading the
army. This word captain, in fact, is translated three ways in the
New Testament. Let me show you all three of
them. Turn back, if you will, or turn over to Hebrews chapter
5, verse 9. The word captain is translated
author. It's translated prince, and it's
translated captain. It means the chief leader. Here
in Hebrews 5, verse 9, the Lord Jesus is described as that one
being made perfect. He became the author of eternal
salvation unto all them that obey him. Look in Hebrews 12. Paul has just given us that great
hall of fame, as far as believers are concerned, that those men
and women noted for their great exemplary faith in chapter 11.
And now he says in verse 1 of chapter 12, Wherefore, seeing
we also are compassionate about, we are so great a cloud of witnesses.
I try when I read this text of scripture, I try to give it to
you as I preach from it, a picture of the Olympic Games, those ancient
games. And that's the picture Paul's
alluding to here. You didn't have arenas like we
have now, but rather runners in a race would be running. And
the fans, they'd be up here in the grandstands on the backside
of the finish line. And they'd be there rooting for
the ones running in the race. And here's the picture we have
drawn here. God is telling us in Hebrews 11, we have a great
cloud of witnesses. I don't have any idea what the
saints in glory know, observe, or even care about what goes
on here, but I know they're interested in God's church. And here he
says this great cloud of witnesses, at least as those who have gone
before us, they now stand as stands at the finish line, urging
us all in perseverance. We have this great cloud of witnesses,
so let us lay aside every weight Like runners in a race, take
off everything you can, lay down everything you can, and the sin
which doth so easily beset us, let nothing hinder, and let us
run with patience the race that's set before us. How? Keeping your
eye fixed on Him. Fixed on Him. Oh God, give us
eyes for Christ alone. Looking unto Jesus. Looking unto
Him how? The author, the captain, and
the finish of our salvation. Same word. the finisher of our
faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is sat down on the right hand of the
throne of God. He who is our captain, he who is the author,
the causer, the designer, the executor of our salvation, has
run this race ahead of us, and he is seated at the right hand
of the majesty on high. Keep your eyes on him. ever look
to him and consider him. This word captain also is translated
prince. Over in Acts chapter 5, you turn
to that one, but it's used a number of places. In Revelation 1, our
Lord is called the prince of the kings of the earth. It wouldn't
be much meaning to say he's the prince over in Palestine. It
wouldn't be much comfort to say he's the prince over most things.
It wouldn't be much interest to me to say he's the prince
over all the civilized world. It says here he's the prince
of the kings of the earth. He's the captain in charge of
everybody everywhere. Now that gives me some comfort.
We're told in Acts 3 in verse 15 he's the prince of life. He's
the captain of life whom God raised from the dead. Now in
Acts chapter 5 in verse 31, him hath God exalted After he finished
his work, he ascended up into heaven, and the Father said,
sit here on my right hand until I make your foes your footstool. God exalted him with his right
hand to be a prince and a Savior. What a word. He's made to be
prince of the kings of the earth, the prince of life, the prince
of the universe, the captain of all things as our Savior for
this reason, for to give. Do you see that? God said, now
you sit down here, on my right hand, crown Prince and Savior
for this purpose, to give repentance to Israel and the forgiveness
of sin. Not to Israel in a physical sense,
no. To give repentance to God's elect,
the Israel of God, those who are God's chosen ones, Jacob's
sons and daughters, Abraham's seed, to Israel, and to grant
to those to whom he has called, whom he has chosen to grant to
them repentance toward God, and to grant to them the forgiveness
of sins. And the two always go hand in
hand. Wherever God gives repentance, He gives forgiveness. Wherever
He gives forgiveness, He gives repentance. God will bring His
sons to glory, but He will do so only by our Captain, the Lord
Jesus Christ. You can't come to glory except
He bring you to glory. You can't come to glory except
by Him. Alright, here's the second thing.
Why is the Lord Jesus Christ called the Captain of their salvation? I just mentioned back in the
office, I recall, oh, it's been eight or ten years ago, Brother
Rex was out here reading one night. I don't really recall
it that well. I looked at my notes a couple
of weeks ago, and Rex was reading one night from Hebrews chapter
2, and he got to this, the captain of our salvation. He said, I
don't know what that means. I sure would like to. Well, let
me tell you why he's called the captain of our salvation. I'll
give you six or seven reasons. Number one, the captain. has all authority and all power. He's the captain. Mr. Spurgeon's men used to call him
in private as they just admired him as their pastor and leader.
They referred to him as Captain Spurgeon. He's the one with the
authority. The man called Captain, he's
the one who has power. He has authority given to him. The captain is the one in charge.
He's at the helm of the ship. The captain of the army is invested
with all the authority and all the power of the king himself. Joseph was made prime minister
in Egypt by Pharaoh's hand. He was given the responsibility
of being captain over all of Egypt. The captain's word is
the king's word. The captain's treasure is the
king's treasure. Even so, the Lord Jesus Christ
has all power and all authority given to him in heaven and in
earth, not as God, but as the God-man, as the captain of our
salvation, to give eternal life to as many as God the Father
has given him. This is what that means. As a
man, having finished the work of redemption, the Lord God has
invested in Jesus Christ, our mediator, the dominion of the
universe, for the purpose of giving repentance and forgiveness
of sins to his people. Number two, the captain makes
all the arrangements for the army's march. He decides what
path the troops will take, where they will camp, how long they'll
stay in one place, when they'll move to another. And he supplies
all the provisions. Even so, our Lord Jesus Christ
mapped out our path in divine predestination. He supplies us
with our needs and directs our steps according to his will,
in his wise and good providence. He orders the steps of his army.
As I looked over that this afternoon, getting ready to preach, I thought,
how am I going make this applicable to you and me, you and I as believers,
this congregation here. Let us ever seek his direction
in everything. Trust him with all your heart.
Acknowledge him in all your ways. Don't lean to your own understanding.
And he will direct your paths. Now that's a word for all of
us collectively. That's a word for each of us
individually. Seek his will. And I promise you, Lindsey, if
we honestly seek to know his will, he'll show us his will.
Don't have any question about that. You have his word for it.
Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. If we're willing to walk in his
steps, he'll show us the steps to walk in. We must seek to know
the direction of the captain. Number three, the captain's word
is the law of the army. Now these days, you know, it's
hard for us in what's called a democracy like we live in,
and I don't mean to say that with ridicule. I suppose that
with our depraved society, this is the best you can get. But
it's hard for us in these days to grasp what authority is. We really can't get hold of it.
We don't know what an absolute monarch is. An absolute monarch,
a man sitting on a throne, And everybody in his whole realm
is totally, totally under his dominion. That means they can
eat or drink according to his mere will. That means they can
live or die at his whim. That means nobody votes on whether
or not this is the law. He says this is the law, this
is the law. That's all there is to it. That's an absolute
monarch. Now thankfully we don't have
any human beings as our absolute monarchs except this human being
who is himself God our Savior and he who is our captain. His word alone is the law of
his army. Oh I would to God I could get
folks to understand what I'm saying. The whole army of God
The whole church of God, the whole kingdom of God is governed
and must be governed only by his word. What he himself has
written on pages of Holy Scripture. This alone is our rule of life.
This alone is our rule of order. This alone is our rule of faith
and practice. Soldiers are not allowed, each
one, to do what he chooses. The troops don't make up the
rules of conduct and principles of warfare as they go along.
That's the captain's business. And in the Church and Kingdom
of God, Jesus Christ alone gives the marching orders. They're
not optional. His word is law. People these days argue and fuss
and argue and fuss about whether or not we're under the law, Ten
Commandments, and all that stuff. But if this book in its entirety
from beginning to end is our law. The whole book. Not just Ten Commandments, the
whole book. Not just this thing or that, the whole book. This
is our law. Christ alone determined what
our doctrine would be. He alone determined what our
duty would be, what our faith and practice must be, and he's
given us these things. in his word and we must seek
them out and obey them. We don't have the prerogative.
We do not have the prerogative. Not as a body of believers, not
as a group of pastors, elders, deacons, whatever, not as individuals. We do not have the prerogative
of making up our own rules. for ourselves or for anyone else.
Churches have throughout history, almost since the days of the
apostles, churches have gotten together and they've had their
great meetings and their great conclaves and their great conferences
and their great synods and they've worked out and hammered out creeds
and confessions and all that stuff. That's not our business. That is not our business. We
don't hammer out a creed. We don't hammer out a confession.
We don't decide what's important, what's not important. We don't
decide what's included, what's not included. This is it. It
is totality. All right. Number four, the captain
is more than a commander. A faithful captain is a leader.
He always leads the way. Always leads the way. Stonewall
Jackson, perhaps one of the most commendable military men in United
States history. When he was leading his soldiers
during the war between the states, he got the name Stonewall, and
he got the name for this reason. The nickname was given him because
he would stand before his men And when someone would be discouraged,
one of the men would look at him and say, there's Jackson
standing like a stone wall. Follow him. Follow him. And I'm telling you, the captain
of our salvation leads the way. He leads the way. That means
this. We will never go in any path
of duty. We will never walk through any
fiery furnace. We will never go through any
deep valley, climb any high hill of difficulty, or endure any
temptation. But where you find the footprints
of the crucified one, he leads the way." Now that's what a commander
is. That's what a leader is. He's
not one who tells you what to do. He's one who leads you in
the way to go. He's not one who just sits back
and gives orders. He's one who leads you as a spectacle
before you. Paul said, we are a spectacle
unto you. And that's exactly what our Savior
is. Number five, the captain encourages his men. When the
Lord Jesus appears to us, we hear him say in the midst of
the storm, It is I. Be not afraid. I'll give you an assignment. You can take your concordance
and look it up. It'll do your heart good. Every day or two
this week, get your concordance and look up where the Master
says, in the Old Testament and the New, fear not. Fear not. Fear not. Fear not. Just about
every circumstance and condition you can name, Rex, are found
in those fear nots. Just about all of them. Fear
not. Fear not, it's me. I'm with you. I'll uphold you.
I'll strengthen you. I'll deliver you. I'll bring
you to your desired haven. Number six, it's the captain's
delight to reward his followers. We used to call them spoils.
Spoils of war. Spoils of victory. You remember
in 1 Samuel 30? David's men went out to war,
and David gave this edict, this law in Israel. He said, each
one shall have the spoils alike, both they that went to war and
they that stayed by the stuff, both the courageous and the timid. Both the mighty and the weak,
both those who are found in the thick of the battle where everybody
sees them and those who are not seen at all but are in the background,
nobody knows their name. Each shall have the spoil alike. And that's the great delight
of our Redeemer, the Son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ. We who
believe are described this way in scripture, heirs of God. and
joint heirs with Jesus Christ. Joint heirs. Turn to John 17. Let me show you what I mean by
this. Joint heirs. I have three sisters. My mother's
gone. My dad doesn't own anything,
lives in a mobile home on the hillside in Bluntville, Tennessee,
and it's full of rocks. And when he's gone, there's not
going to be a whole lot to divide amongst the four of us. if he
chooses to do so. But if he were a multimillionaire,
and he makes us all equal heirs to his fortune, we would all
divide the fortune four ways. Just that simple. We can't possibly
be co-heirs. Can't happen. Not with human
beings, not with our limited existence. But here in Romans
8, 17, our Lord told us that we are joint heirs with Christ. Now that means we all have the
same inheritance that he has. The very same inheritance in
the fullness of its glory. Now look here in John 17. What
can that be talking about? And now, verse 5, And now, O
Father, glorify thou me with thine own self. with the glory
which I had with thee before the world was. Look down at verse
22. And the glory which thou gavest
me I have given them. What's he talking about? Everything
that Jesus Christ as a man earned by his obedience unto blood. Everything. All of glory. all of it, I've given it to them,
all of it, as the sons of God, as the children of God, as the
sheep of God, as the covenant people of God, as Abraham's covenant
seed. All right, seven, the captain
is the one responsible both for the army under his command and
for the victory. Now it's true, we're engaged
in a warfare, as I told you a couple of weeks ago, We must fight continually,
resisting sin, contending with the world, the flesh and the
devil, but the battle's not ours. You remember how the Lord spoke
to Moses when he was about to take Israel across the Red Sea?
He told Moses to command the people, stand ye still and see
the salvation of the Lord. God sent Jehoshaphat out, but
he said the battle's not yours, it's the Lord's. The Lord Jesus
Christ, the captain of our salvation, is the one who is responsible
for the battle and responsible for the victory. And this is
God's word concerning him. Isaiah chapter 42, verse 4. He
says, Skip, he shall not fail. He shall not fail. With him,
failure is not a possibility. He's God in human flesh. All
right, now third thing. How was the Lord Jesus Christ
made perfect? as the captain of our salvation.
The scripture speaks here in verse 10. It became him for whom
are all things and by whom were all things in bringing many sons
into glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
sufferings. Now, our Lord was the captain
of our salvation from eternity. He assumed the responsibility
in the covenant of grace. He was our savior from everlasting.
But in order to save us, in order to bring us to glory, the Son
of God had to be made perfect as a Savior. He had to experience
something himself if he would be made perfect and complete
as our Savior. What does that mean? Listen carefully.
Christ was not made perfect in his character by suffering. He
was always perfect, both as God and as man. But he was made perfect
officially. as the captain of our salvation,
in order to perform the office of a Savior, in order to save
sinners from their just, righteous condemnation, the Lord Jesus
Christ had to possess three things. In order to be our Savior, in
order to be the captain of our salvation, he had to have merit,
power, and sympathy. Those three things. Merit, power,
and sympathy. How did he get them? when He
became a man. You see, He who is our Savior
must be God, infinite God, but He must be a man. A man who has
merit of infinite worth with God so that His blood and His
righteousness is sufficient to satisfy God Himself. That's what Jesus Christ had
when He took on Himself our nature, merit. Merit as the God-man. Here is a man able to meet all
the demands of holiness, righteousness, justice, and truth for all his
people by his one obedience unto death. The captain must also
have power, authority, authority. Now, our Lord Jesus, of course,
has such authority from everlasting as God. But he's talking now
about himself in his office capacity as our captain, as our mediator.
And it was as the captain of our salvation that he's given
authority, power, and dominion over all flesh to give eternal
life. The Apostle tells us in Hebrews
chapter 5 that he has this because he lives forever. Look in Hebrews
5, or chapter 7 rather, and verse 24. Hebrews 7, verse 24. This
man, this man, Not this God, this man. This man who is God,
because he continues ever, though he died, he's alive, and alive
forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore, since
he is life eternal, he's able to save them to the uttermost
that come to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession
for them. Number three. Our Savior became
a sympathizing Savior by the things he suffered. Look down
in chapter 2 verse 18. For in that he himself hath suffered
being tempted, he's able to succor, he's able to help them that are
tempted. I try my best never to say to
someone, I know what you're going through. unless I know what you're
going through. I try never to say it. Sometimes
I goof up. You forgive me if I do in your
case. But it's impossible. It's impossible for one human
being to know the heartache of another unless he's been through
the same heartache. It's impossible for one human
being to know the pain of another unless he's been through the
same pain. It's impossible for one human being to know the trials
of another unless he's been through the same trials. It's impossible
for one human being to know the falls of another unless he's
been through the same falls. Our Lord Jesus Christ assumed
human flesh so that he could go through and
experience and taste all the bitter consequences of sin for
you and me. And now Bobby, he sympathizes. He's touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. Whatever touches Sam and Ruth
Wall, touches him. Whatever it is. Whatever you
feel, he's felt. Whatever you go through, he's
gone through it. Sin alone accepted and yet in a sense not even that.
For he was made to be sin. And he felt it like no man has
ever felt it. He was made to be sin for us.
Why was it necessary? To bring us to glory. There was
no other way for God in justice to be honored in righteousness
to show his glory no other way whereby God Almighty could be
both just and justifier of ungodly men and women except God's own
son assume human flesh and fulfill all the righteousness of the
law in our stead and sit down on the throne of glory now and
by righteousness, as the captain of our salvation, bring many
sons to glory. So I say to you, my brothers
and sisters, what I said here just a moment ago and wrote to
myself, trust the captain. Trust him. Follow the captain. Just follow him. For grace, how can I say it? To blindly follow Him? That's
not a good word. To follow Him with a brilliant
light of the noonday sun of righteousness shining on man. To follow Him. To follow Him with blinders on
so that nothing interferes. Obey the captain. Love him. Honor
him. Whatever you do, do it to the
glory of God. For Christ, the captain of our
salvage. Amen.