A long time ago, the prophet
Isaiah wrote concerning the greatness, superiority, and excellence of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's read it together in Isaiah
chapter 9 and verse 6. Isaiah chapter 9 and verse 6. when you consider how this prophet
spoke concerning the person of our Lord Jesus Christ in his
humanity, hundreds, hundreds of years, almost a thousand years
before the Son of God came into the world. It is remarkable. It's remarkable But not when
you realize that Isaiah didn't write by his own ingenuity. He
didn't write by his own knowledge or by his own study. Isaiah wrote
as he was moved by God the Holy Spirit to give us the very Word
of God. And so that which is written
here was written by a pen writing miraculously the Word of God. Now listen to how he describes
the greatness of our Savior. Isaiah 9 and verse 6, for unto
us a child is born, unto us a son is given. What precision the
prophet uses as he writes. The child Christ Jesus as a man
was born in time. Our Lord Jesus Christ in his
humanity is not eternal, In his humanity, he is not preexistent. In his humanity, he is not one
who coexisted with God, not at all. His humanity was created
in the womb of the Virgin specifically to be a sacrifice for sin. There
was no way for sin to be put away except his humanity, body
and soul be formed in the Virgin's womb by miraculous work of God
the Spirit. But look at the next line. Unto
us a son. is given. Now as God the Son,
he could never be born. As God the Son, there was no
beginning to his existence. As God the Son, he is one with
the Father, co-equal with the Father, possessor of all the
attributes of divinity, one in the Holy Trinity with the Father
and the Spirit. But when Jesus Christ came into
this world, as the prophet here speaks, He came into this world
in union with humanity. Humanity created in time, but
now joined forever to Godhood in one glorious person. So this
one who comes forth from the virgin's womb is God and man
in one glorious being. Look at this now. Let's see what's
going to happen with it. And the government I love the
language of scripture. Underscore that definite article.
The government ain't but one. There's only one. There's only
one. Now we talk about the United
States government, the British government, the Soviet government,
used to be Soviet, Russian government, Mexican government. There's just
one government. It's his. He rules all rulers. His throne controls all thrones. This king is the king of kings. The government of all the universe
shall be upon his broad, broad shoulder. And his name, his name, Jesus,
Lord, Savior, his name, it shall be called wonderful. Never did
a word More wonderful are even so close to being wonderful.
Fall from human lips, says his name, Christ Jesus the Lord. Counselor, counselor, the mighty
God. Now our Savior is never called
what he isn't, not by the Spirit of God. How come he calls him
the mighty God for the same reason he calls him wonderful counselor?
Because he is the mighty God, the everlasting Father. Well,
how can that be? He's the father of all creation.
Not the father in the Triune Godhead, not at all. We wouldn't
think about confusing the persons of the Godhead. But insofar as
his covenant relationship is concerned, insofar as his mediatorial
work is concerned, he is that one who is the father of all
things. For without him was not anything
made that was made. He's the Prince of Peace. of
the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no
end. That means simply his throne
and his influence and his kingdom is going to continue to grow
and grow and grow and grow until time shall be no more. He's going
to continually gather his elect out of this world. And upon the
throne of David, now wait a minute, I thought we were talking about
The throne of God, same thing. Same thing. His throne's the
throne of grace. When the scripture talks about
the throne of David and Christ sitting on it, it's not talking
about a little peanut thrown over in Palestine. That's not
what it's talking about. It's talking about the throne
of absolute monarchy and dominion of this, our God, the covenant
head, the lamb, our mediator, our savior. And upon his kingdom,
what's he going to do? To order it. order it. He orders it exactly
according to his will, and establish it, establish it firm with judgment,
that is with righteousness, and with justice from henceforth
even forever. In other words, he's going to
establish and build and order and increase his kingdom and
rule on the basis of strict justice and strict righteousness as the
God-man, our mediator. The zeal of the Lord of hosts
will perform this. Now those were Isaiah's words.
Then hundreds and hundreds of years later, when the angel appeared
to the Virgin Mary and announced that though she was a virgin,
though she had never known a man, she would conceive and bring
forth a son by the power of the Holy Ghost, and that her child
would be the Son of God, the Savior of his people, Jesus Christ,
our Redeemer. This is what the angel told the
virgin. He shall be great. Oh, roll those words over in
your mouth. He shall be great. Never anything less than great. Even in his most abject voluntary
humiliation, he shall be great, and shall be called the son of
the highest, and the Lord shall give unto him the throne of his
father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Now then, turn to
Colossians chapter one. Colossians 1. Here we read in
verse 18, Colossians chapter 1 in verse 18, that it is the
will and purpose of the triune God. It is the will and purpose
of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is the will and purpose of
God our Father, and our Redeemer's Father, that in all things the
Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, our mediator, might have the
preeminence. Now this is God's purpose. This
is why God sticks things the way he sticks them. This is why
God does things the way he does them. This is why God saves sinners
in Christ the way he saves them. Without any effort on your part,
without any contribution from you, without anything done by
you, totally lock, stock, and barrel, salvation's locked up
in, wrapped up in, and given to sinners in and by Jesus Christ
alone. That in all things, he might
have the preeminence. That's God's purpose. God make
it my purpose and yours. That Christ be preeminent. For
it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. I sat this afternoon while I
was working on this message and I just meditated on that statement
a little bit. All fullness. All the fullness
of God, as we'll see in just a little bit, is in him. That's a mouthful. I can't begin
to describe it. All the fullness of the incomprehensible
God resides in him, who is the God-man, our Savior. All the
fullness of mediation. All the fullness of the covenant.
All the fullness of all things given to sinners by God's grace.
It's all in Christ. In Christ. Not in the church. Not in the preacher. Not in your
works. Not in your experiences. It's
all in Christ. In Christ. All the fullness of God dwells
in him. All the fullness of grace is
in him. All the fullness of the glory
of God is in him. Somehow, somehow, I don't know
how to explain this, I don't know how to say it, but all the
glory of God which shall be revealed to men now and forever is wrapped
up and made known in the glory of that man who is God our Savior. Everything, everything. All right
now then, let's look at our text, Hebrews chapter one. That which
God spoke by the prophet and announced by the angel and proclaimed
by his apostles has come to pass. And we read about it in this
first sentence of Hebrews chapter one. Now the sentence is a little
long. It goes for four verses, but read it with me. I won't
begin to think about trying to expound all four verses this
evening. We'll just touch maybe the first two, but let's read
these four verses together. God, who at sundry times and
in divers manners, that is at different times and in different
ways, spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son, whom he hath
appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds,
who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image
of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his
power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on
the right hand of the majesty on high, being made so much better
than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent
name than they. Now here the Holy Spirit shows
us plainly that our Lord Jesus Christ is superior to, greater
than, and exalted above all things. Now let me give you an assignment.
Sometime between now and next Tuesday evening, try to find
time to sit down and read all 13 chapters of this book at once,
and mark one word, just mark one word. All the way through
it, mark the word better, better, better, better. That's the key
word in this book, better, better. Throughout the book, one great
purpose of the book is to show us that Christ is better. He's
better than all who came before him. He's better than the prophets,
better than the angels, better than Moses, better than Joshua,
better than Aaron. He is a surety of a better covenant
established upon better promises, giving a better hope. The Lord
Jesus Christ is better than the tabernacle and better than the
temple. He has a better altar and a better mercy seat. He is
a better sacrifice, offering better blood, giving us a better
access and a better standing before God Almighty. In all things,
Christ is better than all others. He's infinitely better. He's
the best. He says himself, I am the Alpha
and the Omega. I am the A and the Z and everything
in between. Now his purpose in this book
is to show the Jewish believers particularly, who were being
tempted and enticed to go back to the rudiments and elements
of the law. They were being enticed to go back under the law to somehow
mix the ceremonialism and the ritualism and the legality of
the law with Christianity and grace and faith in Christ. And
this book is written specifically to show that Christ fulfilled
it all and he's better than all that ever gave any glory to Israel
in the Old Testament. He's the best. Now then, the
topic of my message this evening is the unrivaled excellence of
Christ. And that's clearly the message
of these opening verses. Listen carefully. If ever you're
tempted to imagine that there might be some similarity between
the weak, frustrated, helpless Jesus of this idolatrous, reprobate
generation and the exalted Lord of glory, just reread these verses. The Christ described here is
not even remotely similar to the Christ you'll hear preached
on television if you go and turn it on tonight. Just go turn it
on. Any channel you want to. Very, very few exceptions. Turn
the radio on if you're going to work in the morning. Any station
you want to. The Christ being preached in this age no more
resembles the Christ described in these opening verses of Hebrews
than a gnat resembles an angel. Jesus Christ as he is described
here He is the Christ. All others, Larry, are antichrists.
All others are false Christs. And such as worship them, worship
antichrists, they have the mark of the beast in their forehead,
and they shall perish with the beast, unless God saves them
for their delusion. And in these verses, let's look
at verses one and two this evening, and I want to show you three
glorious facts about our Lord Jesus Christ. First, our Lord
Jesus is unrivaled in his excellence as the Word of God. Look in verse
one. God, who at sundry times and
in divers manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. Here the scriptures speak of
our Lord Jesus Christ as the word or the revelation of the
invisible God. It is true. In the Old Testament
and during the bridge period, if we can use that, during that
transitional period between the Old Testament and the New, during
the apostolic age, God spoke in time past in the Old Testament
through types, shadows, ceremonies, and pictures in the law. And
he spoke by the visions given to faithful prophets and apostles. All those things were given,
however, to point us to and to bring us to understand who Jesus
Christ our Lord is. All the law and the prophets,
all of them, spoke of him. That's what our Lord said in
Luke chapter 24. All things written in the book,
all of them, were written and revealed to point centers to
him. so that those types and ceremonies
and rituals and sacrifices and visions of the prophets were
all designed to direct all men's eyes to him who is the revelation
of God Almighty, the Word made flesh. Now, in these last days,
and isn't it interesting that the writer here uses the term
last days. Well, preacher, when do you think
the last days are going to come? When do you think they're going
to come? He's talking about right here in the first century. The
last days? Oh boy, that's the case. Everybody
got messed up with prophecy. I've been telling you that for
a long time. Folks are going crazy with stuff.
The last days began when the Messiah came. The last days began
when all the prophets were fulfilled. The last days began when Jesus
Christ came to redeem His people and gathered them from the four
corners of the earth as the prophets said He would. Oh, what about
future things now? I'm telling you, don't pay any
attention, don't pay the slightest bit of attention to the tomfoolery
being passed off these days as prophecy and prophecy studies
the scripture. These fellows don't have a hair-brain
of an idea what's going on in God's providence, in God's purpose.
The last days began when Christ came and nobody knows when the
last days are going to end. When He comes again, they shall
end. Well, what do we look for then?
We look for Him. we look for him. All right, now
look at this. In these last days, God has spoken to us one time
with finality by his son. That's it. All the New Testament,
all the epistles were written under inspiration of God by men
who were moved of God to write infallibly and give us the mind
of Christ and instruction concerning the words of Christ. So that
the epistles of the New Testament are but the explanation of the
Holy Spirit of that which Christ taught while he was upon this
earth. Now then, we have then God's final word. Right here. Right here. Be smart to read
it. It'd be smart to teach you what
it says. Be smart to find out what God says here. Oh, but what
if somebody comes along and says, well, I've got a word from the
Lord. He's a liar. Either that or the writer here
is. God has in these last days spoken one time with finality
son wise. That's how he speaks. Now let's
see if that's the case. Let's see if that's true according
to scripture. Our Lord Jesus Christ is not one of many revelations. He is the revelation of the invisible
God. He is not one of many words from
God. He is the word. Come back to
John chapter 1. John chapter 1. We have here the written word.
Please don't ever speak disparagingly this. Don't ever say the written
word's nothing. Oh yes it is. This is God's word. This is God's word. But the written
word is nothing except the revelation of the living word. That's the
difference. Take the Bible and use it as
a code book of morality is to abuse this book. To take the
Bible and use it as a history book of Israel is to abuse, twist,
and pervert this book. To take the Bible and use it
as a book about politics is to abuse, twist, and pervert this
book and list it to your own destruction. Well, what's it
about? It's about the Word. It's all about the Word. Christ
is the living Word of whom the whole written Word speaks. Let's see here, John chapter
1. In the beginning was the Word, the Word, the Word. And the Word was with God, face
to face with God, one with God. And the Word was God. Now, if
you have some brussel lights out on your door, They'll come
along and they'll say, you know what Russell Light is? Jehovah's
Witnesses. They'll come along and say, now really that's, you
see there's not a definite article in front of the word God and
that's supposed to read, and the word was a God. Well, that's
not what it reads like. This is exactly how it reads.
If you want to check it out for yourself, I'll show you the Greek
text and you can learn Greek. But this is how it reads. And
God was the Word. God was the Word. Doesn't leave much question about
that, does it? That one who is the revelation of God. He is himself God in human flesh. Read it now. The same was in
the beginning with God and all things were made by him and without
him was not anything made that was made. That precludes the
notion then that he was made, doesn't it? Read verse 14. And the word, the word, the word. How can I? say this like it needs
to be said. I have thoughts and sometimes
my dear wife, she knows me pretty well and she says, I know what
you're thinking. But sometimes she misses it.
She just like misses it because there's no way you can really
know what I'm thinking unless I form a word and tell you what
I'm thinking. There's no way you can really know what's going
on inside a man unless he opens his mouth and tells you what's
going on inside him. Now listen to me. There's no
way anybody can ever know God except the word be revealed to
him. And Christ came here as the word.
The word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full, full, up to the brim and running over,
full of grace and truth. Verse 18. No man hath seen God
at any time. Now I know people talk about
near-death experiences and all that stuff. If you've ever been in the hospital
and had any kind of major surgery, you know they give you pretty
good stuff. And you liable to see or hear most anything, but
it ain't God. That's right. That's exactly
right. What does the book say here?
No man with mortal eyes, no man with a mortal mind, no man with
the limits of By night, creaturehood, no man has ever seen God. God's a spirit. You can't see
a spirit. No man's seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son, look at this now, which is in the bosom
of the Father, he hath declared it. He sees the Father because
he's one with him. He knows the Father because he's
one with him. You can't, Paul, but you can see him. He speaks
to us and makes known the Father. You and I cannot see God, know
God, speak to God, or be spoken to by God. We cannot come to
God except by Christ alone. Jesus saith unto his disciples,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. What on earth does that mean?
Christ is the way, without him there's no going. Christ is the
truth, without him there's no knowing. Christ is the life,
without him there's no living. There is no prophet like Christ
our prophet. He is the unrivaled, excellent
revelation of the invisible God. We know God in him, only in him. He said, no man knoweth the father
save the son, and he to whomsoever the son is pleased to reveal
him. All right, look at the next line.
The Lord Jesus Christ is unrivaled in his excellence as the word
of God and as the heir of all things, whom he hath appointed
heir of all things. What a word. All things belong to Christ,
our great mediator, our divine substitute. Now, when
the scripture says, the Father has appointed him to be heir
of all things, obviously, that does not refer to him as God
the Son. Being God the Son, he possesses
all things with the Father. He is co-eternal, co-equal with
the Father. But it does mean that as the
Son, our mediator, as the God-man, our surety, as the God-man, our
substitute, the Father has appointed him who would come in time to
assume our nature. to be heir of all things because
of his obedience as our surety. This is what our Savior said,
therefore doth my father love me because I laid down my life
for the sheep. Now, that doesn't mean the father
didn't love him before. No, the father always loved the
son, always. But he's speaking as a man. And
he says, now my father loves me and shows his love to me because
of my perfect obedience. in laying down my life for the
sheep. And the Father has given him all things as a man. He said,
ask of me, and I'll give you the heathen for thine inheritance.
When our Lord was about to go up to Calvary, declaring his
work finished, he said, I finished the work you gave me. Now, Father,
glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee. Thou hast
given him power over all flesh. He should give eternal life to
as many as thou hast given him. And the scripture tells us that
he is the heir of all things. The father loves the son, hath
given all things into his hands. The meaning is simply this. Our
Lord Jesus Christ, by virtue of his obedience as a man, owns,
possesses, rules, and disposes of everything exactly as he will. No one's about to stay his hand
or say unto him, what doest thou? Nobody's going to slap him on
the wrist and say, oh, don't do that. There's a better way.
A few years ago, when they had that tidal wave in Bangladesh,
there's thousands of people killed just like that. Some ignorant
preacher got on television on Larry King. He said, God's going
to have a lot of things to answer for. To who? To who? Who? You going to sit in judgment
over the Almighty? Who? Not me. Folks do it every day.
I think they do. For God. Well, God can't do it.
It's not right for God. Larry, Chris, whatever God does
is right and is right because God does it. He doesn't give
an account to anybody. Is it not right for me to do
with mine own what I will? And that includes Bob, you and
me. That includes our children and grandchildren. It's right
for him to do with his own what he will. Jesus Christ the Lord
is unrivaled in his excellence as the sovereign of the universe.
He says all power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Therefore
go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. Now that's
the motive for all evangelism, that's the motive for every endeavor
of the gospel. Christ sits on the throne! And he sends us to declare that
he sits on the throne to give eternal life to as many as the
father has given him. He who is God our savior does
as he will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth. He makes one a vessel of honor and another a vessel
of dishonor. He makes one a vessel of mercy and another a vessel
of wrath. He makes one a vessel of honor to show forth the riches
of his grace and another a vessel of dishonor to show forth the
severity of his justice. And he does it exactly as it
pleases him. That means God's put everything
in his hands. You remember how Joseph was made
prime minister in Egypt, and Pharaoh set him on the throne
right beside him? And anybody who wanted anything from Pharaoh,
they'd come and say, Pharaoh, we need some corn. He'd say,
go to Joseph. Pharaoh, our kids are hungry.
Go see Joseph. Pharaoh, we've done this, we've
done that, but now things are getting in bad shape. Go see
Joseph. Go see Joseph. How come? Because Joseph has
everything. I gave it to him. Now listen
to me, if you would meet God Almighty and have God meet you
in mercy, if you would have forgiveness and life eternal, if you would
have God's salvation, you're going to have to do business
with Him who sits on the throne, God's Joseph, Jesus Christ the
Lord. He's the heir of all things. All things. Behold your God. Jesus Christ is unrivaled in
his excellence as the word by whom God is revealed, in whom
God is revealed, and as the appointed heir of all things. He's seated
upon the throne of glory, made heir of all things, by the hand
of God, through the work of wicked men, Nailing him to the tree
2,000 years ago by divine appointment. I don't understand that me either.
I just know it's so. Somehow men who hated him and
wanted him to die nailed him to the tree and did exactly what
God ordained from eternity must be done for the saving of our
souls. You see, we worship God. And one of these days you're
going to worship him too. One way or the other. Oh may God
give you grace to worship him now. For Christ's sake. Amen.