And Hebrews chapter 2 is our
third study in this book. And I want us to take a few minutes
and look at the first four verses in Hebrews chapter 2 tonight. Hebrews chapter 2, and let's
begin reading in verse 1. 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 in every transgression, and every disobedience received
a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect
so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken
by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him? God also burned them witness
both with signs and wonders and with diverse miracles and gifts
of the Holy Ghost according to His own will. He begins here
in verse 1 and tells us to take heed to what we've heard. And what have we heard? Well,
we go back to chapter 1. It refers us back to chapter
1. He tells us there in verse 1 and 2 that God has spoken in
time past to the fathers by the prophets. But He says there in
verse 2, He hath in these last days spoken to us by His Son. Give the more earnest heed to
the things which you have heard. Well, what have we heard? Well,
God has spoken. That is what we have heard. God
has spoken. Isn't that a solemn thought and
a solemn fact that God has spoken? You know, when a parent speaks
to a little child, that child should listen to the parent.
If you get pulled over by a policeman and he begins to instruct you,
you listen, don't you? You take heed to what he tells
you. How much more when God speaks? The eternal God has spoken. But he goes even farther than
that there in verse 2. He says, God has spoken to us. Boy, that's a sobering reality,
isn't it? God has spoken to us. He's spoken
to me. He's spoken to you through His
Word. Through His Word. Boy, you know,
God used to speak to some of the prophets. Sometimes they
got on their faces while God talked with them. And God would
give them a message for the people and they'd go tell the people,
I have a message from God for you. And boy, their hearts would
tremble waiting for that message. And now He tells us here in our
text that God has spoken to us. God has spoken to angels. God
has spoken to the prophets, and He has spoken to those people
through the prophets. Now He has spoken to you, and
He has spoken to me through His Word. Isn't that a solemn reality,
a sobering reality? God has spoken to us. And he goes on to say that God
has spoken to us by His Son, through His Son, and he says
this is the final Word. God has no more to say than what
He has spoken through His Son. This is the last word. This is
the most important word. And He has spoken it through
His Son. And then He proceeds to tell
us who this Son was, that He was the heir of all things. God
had given all things into His hands, and that He was the Creator
of all things. By Him, God made the world, and
He was the Sustainer of all things. By Him, all things are held up. And then He went on in chapter
1 to tell us that He is God. We looked at that last week,
that God called Him God. But even more than that, He says
there in verse 3 that He is the EXPRESSED IMAGE, He is the EXACT
IMAGE of God's person. In other words, He is God! Jesus
Christ is God, not just in name but in reality. And then He told
us in chapter 1, He says that He is the triumphant Savior.
For in our humanity upon the cross of Calvary, He purged our
sins away. He's a triumphant Savior. He never failed to accomplish
redemption. And the fact of it that He's
risen and in His humanity, He tells us in verse 3 that He's
seated at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens. And this
is why He's telling us, give the more earnest heed to the
things which you've heard. And this is what we've heard
from the Word of God. And where is Jesus now? He is
reigning, isn't He? Set on my right hand, we find
out in verse chapter 1, until I make your enemies your friends,
until I convert them and bring them under your gracious rule,
or until I crush them under your feet. Rule until you put all
your enemies under your feet. And we found out in this first
chapter here, what we heard in this first chapter that these
holy creatures that the Bible calls angels, they worship Him. They love Him. They adore Him. They look upon Him in wonder
and amazement. This is their God, their Creator
in our humanity. And they marvel as they are there
in His presence. And you know something? His command,
His very will is their desire. They are there to fulfill His
will and His glorious command. And the Apostle Paul tells us
here, Therefore let us give the more earnest heed to the things
which we have heard. And he gives some words here
to emphasize this exhortation to give heed
to what we've heard. He says, first of all, here in
verse 1 of chapter 2, we ought to give the more earnest heed
to the things which we have heard. You know, sometimes when we use
that word, we don't think of it as being very forceful. We
ought. We take it as, well, you should
do this. But you know, this is a very
strong word. Listen to this. We ought to obey
God rather than man. That's pretty strong, isn't it?
We ought not to think that the deity is likened to gold or silver
or stone graven with man's devices. We ought not to think that. It's
an awful sin to think that, isn't it? And he said, Ought not Christ
to have suffered these things, and to have entered into His
glory? So when he says here we ought to give the more earnest
heed to the things which we have heard." That's a very strong
word, a very strong word. And then he says, your heed,
we ought to give heed. Brother Baker has been studying
on that, taking heed, how you hear. And remember what he told
us, that with the measure that you meet, with how you hear,
it's going to be measured to you again. If you hear, then
more is going to be given. So He says you are to take heed,
and this word means to pay attention. Take notice. Be mindful. Be cautious. Take care. Be watchful. Take heed. Amaziah
was a man that was going to take over David's army. Joab came
up to him with a sword in his hand. And the Bible says that
Amaziah took no heed to the sword that was in Joab's hand. and
he stabbed him with it and killed him. Take heed. Be cautious about what you've
heard. And then he uses another word
to express this. Give the more earnest heed. In other words, read this with
eagerness. Listen very attentively. Listen with zeal. Let your attention
be firmly engaged because God has spoken through His Son. And then He goes ahead and even
adds this word, Give them more. Give them more earnest heed.
In other words, don't become less earnest, become more earnest. Don't let anything be more valuable
to you than hearing and believing and retaining what you've heard. Give them more earnest heed.
to the things which we have heard. And notice here who He is talking
to, which we have heard. He is not talking to people that
is in some jungle somewhere that has never heard the gospel. They
never heard a gospel message. They never had Bibles to open
up and read. But He is talking to those who
have heard They've at least heard with their heads, as we say.
They've received something at least into their intellect. They've heard. So He says now
to Take heed what you have heard. Take heed. I don't know if these
were professing believers or not. It seems like they were,
doesn't it? And it seemed like they were
hearing at least with their ear, with their intellect, if not
with their hearts. And now He's going to tell them
why He gives them such exhortation. And there's a good reason why
He says, give them more earnest teeth. Because there's a danger
He's going to present them with. There's a potential loss that
He's going to tell them about. And it's this, less at any time
we should let them slip. Here's the danger. Give the more
earnest heed to these things that you've heard. God has spoken. He's spoken to us through His
Son. Therefore, give this more earnest
heed because here's the danger that it may slip from our hearts. It may slip from the mind. Give
the earnest heed. This word, my margin here in
my Bible says, this word to slip means to drift away. Don't let
this drift away from you, and don't you drift away from it.
Some use this word slip, and they say it means to leak out
as leaky vessels. Well, I think you and I can understand
that. Isn't it difficult to put something in your heart and not
let it leak out? Have you ever noticed your heart
was that way? It's very difficult to retain what you put into your
heart. It's like a leaky vessel. It's
difficult to keep the Gospel effectually in our minds and
in our memories. We're often forgetting the Gospel. And I think this is the warning,
not only to believers, but to those who have sat under the
Gospel and are hearing the Gospel. Why is the Gospel so difficult,
first of all, to grasp and then to retain it after we have grasped
it? Well, three common reasons. One is because of the corruption
of our nature. Isn't the Gospel so foreign to
us? It's the most blessed news that
anyone could ever hear. And I think because it's so good
It's almost unbelievable. And therefore, it's so foreign
to our old natures that it's difficult to retain it. It's
just difficult to retain it. I bet Shannon has trouble believing
that Ginny loves him. That's almost a miracle in itself.
Ain't it, Shannon? You know? How does he retain
such knowledge? How much more? How much more
this glorious gospel of the free and sovereign grace of Jesus
Christ to poor, needy sinners. It's amazing, isn't it? And that's
why it's so easily lost. It's so contrary to our corrupt
nature. The second thing is, and Mr. Baker has been studying on this
too in the parables on Sunday mornings, that we have this adversary,
boy, We have this wise and subtle adversary that the Bible calls
that old serpent, the devil. And how often does he steal the
Word from our hearts? That happens, doesn't it? You
hear a message and before you get out those doors, somewhere
or another, he's wrested that Word from you. And instead of
believing it and retaining it, you've lost it. And then we have
this world to consider, don't we? The pleasures, the lust, the cares, we have
all of that, and enters in and chokes the Word. This is the
way sometimes it can be lost very easily, very easily. And I would venture to say very
quickly that it can't be retained. It can't be received and maintained
in the heart apart from the grace of God working in us. All these things and more make
this exhortation here take heed to what we've heard. It makes it very needful. Inattentive
hearers, Matthew Henry said, will soon become forgetful hearers. and this will slip away. It will
slip away. What heartache, what sorrow,
and what a great loss if we lose one gospel truth. How many people have you and
I seen, we've been on the way now for a while, and how many
people have you and I seen through the years, have seemingly and
professedly spent years listening and reading and laboring to come
to the knowledge of these blessed truths of the Gospel, and then
they slipped away from them and they lost them. How many of those
have we seen that happen to? And that's what he's telling
us here, to be careful, to be diligent, to maintain the Gospel
in the heart. There's a reason why I've got
good books. that I surround myself with.
And there's a reason why daily I open this Bible and read it
and meditate in it. And there's a reason why I visit
the throne of grace on a daily basis and ask God to give me
the spirit to maintain His grace in my heart, to hold me up to
put the gospel in my memory. Don't let me forget it. Don't
let it slip away. There's a reason I do that. And
there's a reason you do that too. I hope you do that. And
it's because of this exhortation here that's given to us. The
gospel will slip away. It'll slip away. We've seen it
happen. It slips away. And what a loser
we'll be. give them more earnest heed to
the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let
them slip. Now Paul goes on to the second
verse. Here in verse 2 he says, If the word spoken by angels
was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just
recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great
a salvation? He's going to further enforce
this exhortation to take heed by reminding them of the punishment
those suffered who sinned against the law. He tells them, first
of all, here how the law was given. Did you notice that? If
the word spoken by angels was steadfast. That's the way the
law was given. He tells us that. Look in chapter
12 of this book in verse 18. If you ever wonder when you read
in Exodus chapter 19 and 20, and you see that Mount Sinai
shaking, and you see the smoke and the fire rolling up, and
the lightning and the thunder, and these voices of words, one
of the things that was about not only was the presence of
God there, But there was these holy angels there speaking this
law, giving this moral law. And that's what he tells us here
in chapter 12. Look in Hebrews chapter 12 and
look in verse 18. You are not coming to the mount
that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness
and darkness and tempest. and the sound of a trumpet and
the voice of words." What was those words? Who was speaking
those words? Our text in Hebrews 2 says, the
voice of angels. It was the voices of angels.
God had put this moral law in their mouth and they were shouting
it out as Israel was standing around this mount. You could
hear these voices. Thou shalt have no other gods
before Me. Thou shalt not make unto you
any graven images. Thou shalt not commit idolatry.
Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt
not kill. And these angels were echoing
this moral law. And Israel was standing down
there at the bottom of this mountain trembling for hearing the voices
of these mighty angels. Look what they said. which voice
they that heard entreated, that the word should not be spoken
to them any more. For they could not endure that
which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touched
the mountain, it should be stoned or thrust through with a dart.
And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly
fear and quake." The word spoken by angels. And what does He say
about that Word? Look back in our text again.
If the Word spoken by angels, look what He says about it in
verse 2. If the Word spoken by angels
was steadfast, the Law is steadfast. This word steadfast means to
be fixed. It's firm. It's established.
It's resolute, unmovable, constant. as opposed to fickle and wavering. The moral law as a covenant for
believers has been abolished. But listen, brothers and sisters,
the moral law can no more be abolished itself than God Almighty. You are here tonight and you
are a believer, you are not under that law as a covenant. You're
not under the law, but under grace. But can the moral law
ever be abolished? It's impossible, isn't it? It's
always been a sin to have another God before the true and living
God. It has always been a sin and
always will be a sin to worship other gods but that one God,
or to make idols, or to commit adultery, or to steal or kill. Those moral laws can never be
abolished, can they? That's why I said it's steadfast. It's steadfast. And when the
Lord comes and saves us, He delivers us from the curse of that law,
but what He does is put that law in our hearts. He puts it
in our minds. And you know something? The believer
delights in it then. Don't you delight to love God?
Don't you delight to fear Him? Don't you delight to worship
Him? Isn't your heart grieved if you think you have another
God before Him? Paul said, I delight in the law
of God, didn't he? It is steadfast. If the Word
spoken by angels was steadfast, it was steadfast. And notice
the strictness of it also here in verse 2, what he said. If
the Word spoken by angels was steadfast, then every transgression
and every disobedience received a just recompense of reward. Boy, that is strict, isn't it?
transgression. Every disobedience, every sin
against God, every sin against His law, every single act of
disobedience received a penalty. Every evil thought, every word,
every deed that was contrary to the law of God He says here
was rewarded with punishment. That's a strict law, isn't it?
That's a strict law. And the world today, people today,
this rebellious world will stand up and say, I don't care what
God says. I don't care what His laws say. I'm going to do what
I want to do and I don't care. Well, you know something? You know something? The law don't
care either. The law don't care what you say. The law don't care how you rebel.
The law don't care. The law is going to expose your
sins, the law is going to judge your sins, and the law is going
to curse you because of your sins. That's how strict the law
is. It's unbendable. It will not
compromise. You know, when they caught somebody
picking up sticks on the Sabbath day, you know what they did?
They stoned them. When they caught somebody worshiping
idols, you know what they did? They stoned them. If they caught
somebody committing fornication, you know what they did? They
stoned them. If a child rebelled against his parents, they stoned
them. And somebody said, well, that's just not fair. That's
just not right. That's too strict. What does
the Holy Spirit say? Every transgression and disobedience
received a just recompense of reward. Here is our whole problem. Here is the problem with a fallen
society. They want to tell God what is
right and what is wrong. Justice is not established by
what a fallen sinner thinks. Justice is established by the
holy law of God. And let a man say, I heard a
man say the other day, I'm just waiting until I get up. I've
got some questions I'm going to demand of God. Yeah, he's
got some questions. You know what he's going to do
when he stands before God? He's going to have his mouth
shut. And he's going to stand there and tremble while a just
God pronounces His doom. Now, ain't that the truth? Every
transgression. And this world thinks today,
I've never seen a time like you and I live in today. There's
completely disregard. When I was younger, if you could
talk to somebody about the Lord, usually they'd just bow their
head in shame. You go out to talk to people
about the Lord now, you may get cussed out. Who do you think
you are? I don't care what God says. You
will. You will. And when God judges
you, you'll say, Amen, He's right, I'm wrong. Every transgression
received a just recompense of reward. The law requires no more
and it will punish no further than what is just. But justice
is not determined by the wicked hearts of fallen man, but by
the holy law of God. Take heed to what we've heard. But look at the difference now
in the gospel. Look at the blessed gospel. The law is strict. Notice
how the gospel is described here in verse 3. How shall we escape
if we neglect so great salvation? Oh, a great salvation. He calls
this salvation a great salvation. And you know one of the first
reasons it's great? Because it delivers us from the
curse of this law. Who among us hasn't broken it?
Well, this great salvation delivers us from the curse of it. Once
sinned against this law, we have to be delivered from it. It gives
no repentance. It tells us no deliverance. It
discurses us. But this great salvation delivers
us from the great curse of the law. Christ has redeemed us from
the curse of the law being made a curse for us. Its promises
are great because it promises forgiveness for every transgression
and disobedience which the law has charged us with. All manner
of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to the sons of men,
in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
sin." I tell you, if we just think of this alone, it is a
great salvation. It is a great salvation because
it brings a great deliverance from so great a power. He hath
delivered you from the power of darkness. The power of Satan,
He has delivered us from it and transformed us into the kingdom
of His dear Son. It is a great salvation because
it takes us from such a low estate, dead in sin, and raises us up
to sit together in heavenly places in Jesus Christ. This salvation
delivers us from so great a misery and it brings us into a state
of great joy and future happiness. It's a great salvation because
it does for us what the law commands. The law commands us to love God. This salvation gives us love
for Him. It commands us to obey Him. This salvation gives us
grace to obey Him, doesn't it? It gives us a new heart and a
new spirit. It creates us anew in righteousness
and true holiness. It reconciles us to a great God,
a merciful and forgiving Father who has promised us that He'll
keep us in this life and afterward receive us up to His house. Who
could ask for more than that? That's a great salvation. It's
a great salvation. It's a great salvation because
the one that accomplished it is a great Savior. You know why
He begins in chapter 1 and speaks of Jesus as He does? That He's
God. That He's purged our sins. That
He's created all things. You know why He magnifies Him
as He does? I'll tell you why, brothers and
sisters. Nobody but a great Savior could accomplish our salvation.
He said in somewhere, I don't even know where it's at, but
somewhere in the Old Testament, he said, They shall cry unto
me because of the oppressor, because of the oppressor, and
I will send them a Savior, a great one, and He shall deliver them.
And Jesus Christ is a great Savior, and He's accomplished a great
salvation. Also here in verse 3, how shall
we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? This salvation has
become the occasion of a new and most aggravating sin, more
aggravating than those sins against the law. You say, Bruce, what
in the world could be more aggravated and more dangerous than sinning
against the law? Sinning against the Gospel. Sinning
against the Gospel. How shall we escape if we neglect
the Gospel? If they escape not who neglected
to obey the law, we can't escape if we neglect to obey the Gospel. If neglect of justice is punished,
how much more Neglect of mercy will be punished. He goes ahead
in chapter 10 and 12, and I want you to turn over and look at
this. He further develops this thought in chapter 10. Look in
chapter 10 how he says this. In verse 29, chapter 10 of Hebrews
in verse 29. Look in verse 28. Hebrews 10, verse 28, He that
despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. But look in verse 29, Of how
much sore punishment, suppose you, shall he be thought worthy,
who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and counted the blood
of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, that unholy thing,
and hath done despite and to the Spirit of grace. There is a sore punishment for
despising and neglecting the gospel. Look what he says in
chapter 12 and look in verse 25. See that ye refuse not him that
speaketh. For if they escape not who refuse
him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we
turn away from him that speaketh from heaven, whose voice then
shucked the earth, Mount Sinai, but now he hath promised, saying
yet once more, I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. If they escape not who refuse
Moses, how shall we escape if we neglect the gospel, this great
salvation of men's souls? Back over to our text again in
chapter 2. And what he's telling us here that this salvation is,
sometimes neglected. It's often neglected, isn't it?
A person doesn't have to be an open and profane sinner to perish. Just neglect the gospel that's
preached. when people have Bibles and neglect
to open them and earnestly seek the salvation that is revealed
there? How shall they escape? If people neglect to hear the
Gospel as it is preached, how shall they escape? If people
want to humble themselves at the throne of grace and seek
grace to believe and be saved, how shall they escape? Their
answer is obvious, isn't it? They won't. They won't. This is not a question. You notice
he doesn't ask this. It seems like he's asking, but
there's no question here. It's basically a statement. And
the statement becomes obvious. How shall we escape if we neglect
this great salvation? And the obvious answer to that
is you can't. If men will not come and receive
this salvation by God's grace, is there another salvation? If
men aren't saved by grace, how can they be saved? There's no
other salvation, is there? There's no other Savior. There's
none other name under heaven but Jesus Christ, whereby we
must be saved. And if men neglect the salvation
that's in Jesus Christ, They can't escape. There is no other
escape. Let the world tell us there's
many ways back to God. Let the world tell us there's
more than one way. Let them have that way. They're
welcome to it. You and I know from God's Word
there is no such way. There is no such way. In the last portion of verse
3, He gives another reason for not neglecting this salvation.
He says here in the last portion of verse 3, which at the first began to be
spoken by the Lord Himself. Jesus Christ came down from heaven,
and what did He tell us when He came? What did He talk about? Salvation. He spoke it as plainly,
didn't He? Nicodemus, you have a religion. That won't save you. You must
be born again. Every time he opened his mouth,
he was telling us of this salvation, even in the parables. That's
what he talked about, wasn't it? Can you imagine all the things
the Son of God could have told us? We were coming out of Noah's
ark. We were coming out of the ark
the other day, all of us, when we went over there. Coleen was
taking pictures of it, and I was standing there thinking, Boy,
if you could have talked to the Lord Jesus, He could have told
you what that ark really looked like. He could have told you
what happened when the floods came, what it looked like before,
and what it looked like after, how it changed everything. He
could have enlightened us and told us everything. Why didn't
He do that? He knew we had to be curious
about these things. You know why He didn't? There
was something exceedingly more important for Him to talk about,
and that is salvation. There is nothing more important
than the salvation of our souls. And when Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, came down from heaven, that is what He preached. Of
all occupations that He could take to Himself, He took the
occupation of a preacher. And he preached, the kingdom
of heaven is at hand. Repent you and believe the gospel. And Paul said here, give the
more earnest heed to the things that you have heard because this
is the gospel that Jesus Christ Himself preached to us. And not
only did He preach it, but He goes ahead and says, and was
confirmed unto us by them that heard Him. when the Lord Jesus
was ready to go back up to heaven, what did He tell His apostles?
He gave this command to those men. You go into all the world
and you preach this gospel to every creature. You don't consider
yourself You deny yourself, you take up your cross, and you do
what I tell you to do. Have no regard for your safety
and your need. You just go preach this Gospel. And you know what? They put the
preaching of that Gospel above their own lives. And it costs
some of them their lives. Don't that show us how important
this Gospel is? How shall anybody escape? if he neglects this Gospel that's
been shown by the Lord and by His followers, to be important.
But he goes on in verse 4 and says, God the Father had a hand
in this salvation. He has approved of what His Son
said and what His Son did. Look at this. God also burned
them witness. You know what He did? He bore
those apostles in that early church witness that the Gospel
was the truth by giving them peace in their mind, peace in
their conscience. Boy, you can tell there was a
marked difference when the Holy Spirit came upon the church,
wasn't it? I mean, there was a strength,
there was a peace that came upon that church, and that's why they
were willing to lay down their lives. God bore witness to them. This is the gospel. And they
went out and preached it and died for it. But God did more
than that. He so approved of this Gospel,
He says here that He bore witness both with signs and wonders and
diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to His
own will. The Holy Ghost had a hand in
this, didn't He? God the Father bore witness to it. The Holy
Ghost came down from Heaven and began to do all of these great
miracles that nobody could do but Him. And why did He do that? To confirm that this is indeed
a great salvation, the only salvation. And may God give us grace to
hear it effectually and never to let it slip from our hearts
and from our memory, from our lips and from our lives. It's the only hope we have, isn't
it? I tell you, if we lose this, we've lost our hope. I don't
want to let the Gospel slip, do you? God give me grace to
hang on to it, hang on to it, not let it slip. Wayne, would you and Larry dismiss
this one?