Hebrews chapter 1. This is some of my favorite portion
of Scripture, I think, in all the Scriptures. These verses
here in the first portion, especially of Hebrews chapter 1. But let
me read the first few verses in this book to us. Hebrews chapter
1 verse 1. God, who at sundry times and
in divers manners spake 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 expressed
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. For unto which of the angels
saith he at any time, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten
And again, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.
And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world,
he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. And of the
angels, he saith, who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers
a flame of fire. But unto the Son, he saith, Thy
throne, O God, is for ever and ever. A scepter of righteousness
is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness
and hated iniquity. Therefore God, even thy God,
hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And thou, Lord, in the beginning
hath laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the
works of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest.
And they all shall wax old as doeth a garment, and as a vesture
shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed. But thou
art the same, and thy years shall not fail. But unto which of the
angels saith he at any time, Set on my right hand, until I
make thine enemies thy footstool? Are they not all ministering
spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of
salvation? 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 every disobedience received
a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect
so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken
by our Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him? My thoughts this morning will
be confined really to these first three verses, but I hope to go
through the rest of this chapter sometime shortly with you. This book begins like no other
book. I guess the only book that you
could begin to compare with this book would probably be the book
of Genesis, In the Beginning, God. But this book here begins
with God. God, who at sundry times, no
other book begins like this. The writer doesn't stop to identify
himself as most books do. Paul an apostle or Peter a servant
or Isaiah the son of Amos or whatever. This book here begins
simply with God. God. And you notice here he does
attempt to prove the being of God. He doesn't attempt to prove
that He exists. He offers no proof of His existence. He doesn't attempt to identify
Him. He just simply begins with God. God. There's no reason or need
for God to prove that He exists, is there? Wouldn't it be silly
of me this morning if I got up here and I began to offer some
evidence of my existence to you? Wouldn't that be silly to do
that? It would be foolish of God, and He knows it, to begin
with offering evidence of His existence. It would be foolish
for you to doubt my existence, as well as foolish with me to
try to prove my existence. And wouldn't it be so with God?
If he tried to prove he existed, that would be foolish. Here's
the evidence that I exist. And it's foolish for any man
to doubt his existence. He's declared his existence,
and he says a man that denies the very being of God is what? He's a fool, isn't he? The fool
has said in his heart, there is no God. Here in verse 1, so he just simply
declares that there's a God. A God. God. And he says it like
this, we're told here in verse 1 that at different times in
the Old Testament in various ways, God has made Himself known. He's opened up His mind. He's revealed His will. He's
shown His purpose to people. God has spoken. And who did He
speak to? He's always had a lineage. He's
always had a remnant of people that He's spoken to. Most of
the world was left with just simply the light of nature to
teach them. That's all they had. But everybody
wasn't left to that. From the very beginning of time,
God has had a lineage of people, and you can follow that seed
right down through Scripture, that He spoke to, that He revealed
His mind to. In the Jewish history from Abraham
on through the major and the minor prophets, God revealed
His mind to the Jewish people. But you go back before that,
back in Abraham's day, God had a lineage. He had a seed of people.
And you go back before Abraham's day in Noah's time, there was
a few of them, but God spoke to those people. And you go all
the way back to Methuselah and all the way back to Adam. From
the very foundation of the world, God has had people that He's
opened His mind to. Various ways and in different
manners, God's faith in time past to our fathers. To our fathers. And here is how
He speaks to them. By the prophets. By the prophets. He's spoken by the prophets.
You know God don't speak through everybody, does He? He never
has spoken through everybody. He had men then that He called,
and no man took this honor to himself, but he that was called
of God. God even threatened those men
that pretended to have this gift to prophesy. No man takes such
an honor to himself. God called, He chose, and He
qualified these prophets. And he says here the way that
he revealed his mind was in different manners. God who at sundry times
and in different manners, different ways. Sometimes he'd give them
a dream. They had dreams. Sometimes he
gave them a vision. They saw visions. Sometimes they
literally heard an audible voice speak to them. Sometimes God
spoke to their conscience. Nobody heard it but them. And
sometimes He wrote down things. Two times I remember particularly
God wrote down things with His hand. Remember the Ten Commandments? God wrote that down by His hand. The message on the wall that
Belshazzar saw, God wrote that with His hand. Different ways
God communicated with men. And these prophets would go then
and tell the mind of God to the people. And when they told it,
what did it do? It brought faith. Faith come
by hearing what God had said. It either brought faith or it
brought a hardness through unbelief. But it had a reaction just as
it does today. God who at sundry times and in
diverse manners spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets. God spoke to the prophets. And
somebody asked this question, how did the prophets know that
it was God speaking? How did the prophets know? How
were they convinced this is from God? This is God speaking to
me. God gave me this dream. God spoke
to my conscience. God gave me this vision. Did
you ever wonder that? How did they know that that was
God speaking? How can God make Himself known? How can He reveal Himself? We've
asked that question a lot, haven't we? We've had people come up
to us and say, How can you know? How can you know? We count it a marvelous thing
that God can make Himself known. And yet, we make ourselves known
to people all the time, don't we? Brother Larry was talking
about it this morning. There's a time when none of us
in this room the masses of people in this room this morning. We
didn't know each other, did we? We didn't know each other. Wasn't
long ago we met Sarah. Never met Sarah before. Sarah
never met me before. We have the capacity to introduce
ourselves one to another, don't we? We have the capacity to get
acquainted one with another. And not just Physically, not
just when we see each other, say, yeah, that's Wayne. I know
Wayne. That's Wayne coming there, getting
out of his truck. But it's to know the heart. We long to really
know each other, don't we? To know what we're thinking,
to know what kind of character we are. We have the capacity
to get acquainted, to get familiar one with another. And don't God
have that capacity? Don't He have the capacity to
introduce Himself to us? To reveal Himself to us? To let
us know Him? If we have that capacity, surely
God has that capacity. The Lord Jesus said, This is
life eternal, that they might know Thee. and Jesus Christ whom
thou hast sent. And John made this statement,
We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding
that we may know Him. God has the ability, and He does
it all the time, even to this day as well as back there in
the Old Testament, to open our understanding and make His self
known to our spirits. And that's the amazing thing.
We don't hear an audible voice to it. We don't recognize Him
by an audible voice. We've never seen His shape. We
don't have any crosses on the wall in here. We don't burn candles. We don't have images. And yet
we know Him. And we know Him in the most intimate
way. He has this capacity of revealing
Himself to us. Our very spirits, our souls. And opening up His heart to us. That's the amazing thing about
this. We see people and we meet people and for years we get more
acquainted with them and come to find out we don't even know
them. We didn't even know them. It happens with a man and his
wife, doesn't it? They're married for years and
they seem to love one another and do, at least naturally. And what happens? I didn't even
know that man. I didn't even know that woman.
Didn't really know them. But you know, God can open up
His heart to us. He has the capacity to do that.
And we are acquainted with the very heart of God. Come unto me all ye that labor,
and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you, and learn of me. For I am meek and lowly in my
heart." We can not only know Him, we can know His very heart. His very heart. So when people
said, how can we know? Well, I can't explain the way
that God makes Himself known to us. I know He does it through
His Word. I know He does it by His Spirit.
But I know He has the capacity to do it. And we know that He
does it. God in time past, spoken to the
fathers by these prophets. I don't know how he spoke to
Adam and Eve, but he made them understand that Jesus Christ,
his son, was coming, and he would be of the seed of the woman.
He taught Abraham, some way or another, either by an audible
voice or visions, face to face, that Christ Jesus would come
from Abraham's He told Jacob that Christ would be of the tribe
of Judah. He told King David that Christ
would be of his house. He told Isaiah that Christ would
be born of a virgin. He told Micah that Christ would
be born in Bethlehem. He communicates, doesn't he? He communicates. We have all
kinds of communications today. All kinds. Have you ever seen
the lack of communications we have? The different gadgets that
we communicate one with another with? And we trust those things,
don't we? And yet to think that God cannot
communicate Himself. He can, and He does. I can't always tell you how.
You know, when somebody comes up and says, how can I know Him?
How can He make Himself known to me and open up His heart to
me? But I know He can. He hath in these last days, verse
2, look at this. Back in the Old Testament, He
spake in various ways at different times unto the fathers by the
prophets, but hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son. This is something that you and
I are constantly confronted with. In the Old Testament, but especially
the New Testament, God has a Son. I don't know of anything that's
more gripping than that. The everlasting God, the everlasting
Father, having an everlasting Son. From the very fact that
we address Him as Father indicates to us, if nothing else did, that
He has a Son. Where there's a Father, there
has to be a Son. Where there's a Son, there has
to be a Father. God has spoken unto us by His
Son that was with Him before the world and before time. Father,
glorify Thou me with Thine own self with the glory that I had
with Thee before the world began. And the Father sent His Son into
this world and He has spoken to us by His Son. And what did He speak to us about? Why, the most important thing
between the eternities. The thing that concerns us more
than anything else. And what is it? Salvation. Salvation. When the Lord Jesus came into
this world, this is what He talked to us about. This great salvation. I read it to you in chapter 2,
didn't I? How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation
which at first began to be spoken by the Son of God Himself, the
Lord Jesus Christ. There's two things about this,
God speaking to us by His Son. What a great grounds, what good
grounds of assurance we can have of the seriousness of God about
our salvation because He's spoken to us by His Son. God is serious when He's spoken
to the prophets. That's serious, isn't it? But
when He speaks to us by Son, that not only indicates great
love, but great seriousness about our salvation. If a mighty king
had a foreign country that had rebelled against him, and he
sent this ambassador to him, and this ambassador was a good
man, and this mighty king sent this ambassador to this rebellious
nation, with terms of peace. That my King, my Master is a
great King. He's a mighty King. He's going
to overthrow you. He's got the ability and the
means to overthrow you, but here's the terms of peace. Boy, they
would be advised and encouraged since the King had sent this
good man with terms of peace to pawl up their weapons Surrender
yourself on these terms of peace. But how much more so when this
mighty King sends His Son, His well-beloved Son, and sends Him
right where the heat of the battle is and when it's roaring, and
sends Him right there with terms of peace. My Father is seeking
peace on His terms. How do we know He's serious?
How do we know He won't renege on the terms? How do we know
that when we pile up our weapons He won't destroy us? Because
He sent the Son! He won't negate the words and
terms that His Son has spoken to us about. What assurance that
you and I can have since God has sent His only begotten Son. These Jews that the Lord Jesus
came to, they were so distrusting. They were so mistrusting of God.
They mistrust Him from all the way from the time that God sent
Moses to deliver them out of Egypt and bring them into the
land of promise. All through the desert. Can God? Will God? He brought them out there in
the desert with the promise that He'd feed them and did. opened
up the rock to give them water. But you know what they kept saying?
God has brought us out here to kill us because He hates us. Wasn't that awful? Wasn't that
awful mistrust? Brother Larry quoted that portion
of Scripture this morning about the man that had the one talent.
And he said, I knew that you were a hard man. You're an austere
man. You don't care about anybody.
You're just out for yourself? That's what the Jews thought
about God. And here God sends His Son. God sends His only begotten
Son. Could they have doubted God's
seriousness? Could they have doubted God's
concern that He sent His only begotten Son? What a grounds,
brothers and sisters, that we have to look at our Father right
in the face. and to say He's concerned about
me. He's serious about my salvation
because He sent His Son. He's spoken unto us by His Son. What's He said? What did He speak
to us? Oh my, He's spoken so many things,
hasn't He? Listen to this. The Lord Jesus opened His mouth
and said, I have a message. My Father is speaking to you
through me. I will have mercy and not sacrifice. That's what God said. All manner
of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven, the sons of men. That's
God speaking through His Son. He said, as it were, My son,
tell them that they can trust Me with all their hearts about
everything, every aspect and area of their life. They can
trust Me. They can trust Me with their
natural life. Tell them that I'm the One that feeds the fowls
of the air, and I'll feed them. Tell them I'm the One that clothes
the lilies of the field, and I'll clothe them. Tell them to
seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all
of these things will be added unto them. Tell them they can
trust Me about their eternal life. I'll never cast them out. I'll never reject them. I'll
never block their names out of the book of life. Tell them to
knock at My door, and I will answer. Tell them to seek Me
and they'll find Me. Tell them to seek Me with all
their hearts and whatever they desire, that I'll give them.
And tell them this, that it's the Father's good pleasure to
give you the Kingdom. Oh, God has spoken to us by His
Son. And these comforting, assuring
words that He's given us, can we believe Him? We have reason
to believe Him, don't we? We sure do. because He sent His
Son. You and I can surrender ourselves. We can give up ourselves in every
area of our life. Are we justified in living our
lives in anxiety and doubts and fears? Are we? How can we be
when God has spoken to us by His Son about every era in our
life. There's something else, too,
here about God sending His Son and speaking to us by His Son.
That means that God is very serious about this. There's the positive
aspect of it, and there's the negative aspect of it. In chapter 12 and verse 25, He
deals with this. See then that you refuse not
Him that speaketh. For if they escape not who refused
Him that spake on earth, that is Moses and the prophets, much
more shall not we escape if we turn away from Him that has spoken
from heaven. God has spoken, hasn't He? And
how did He speak? By His Son. If they escape not
who heard Moses, how shall we escape if we don't hear Him,
the Son of God, who spake on His Father's behalf? God, who at sundry times and
in divers manners spake in time fast unto the fathers by their
prophets, look at this, hath in these last days spoken unto
us by His Son. You and I, ever since the Lord
Jesus came, are living in the last days. These are the last
days. God has no other revelation to
give. These are the last days. I hear
people all the time, and perhaps you do too, sending messages,
as it were, to the Jewish nation over there in the East. And they
tell them such things as, you've got something to look forward
to. That after this, God is going to turn back to you and build
the temple and in some other way after this time that He's
going to save you. The writer here said, no, no,
this is the last time. The times are not going to be
after this. When this time is ended, we go
into eternity. John called it the last time,
didn't he? It is the last time. And Peter
says Christ was manifested in the last times for you. Brothers and sisters, we must
be saved by the Son of God now, today. We can't wait until some
other time, and when things change, they're not going to. This is
the last time. That parable the Lord Jesus told
about the rebels killing all the prophets and so on, and He
said, last of all, He sent unto them His Son. He has a Son, a
well-beloved, and last of all, He sent them His Son. I, for my own personal understanding,
Things aren't going to change. I mean, it's going to go on like
it is. God is saving His people. And I think the Scripture teaches
that things are going to wax worse and worse. And then the
Lord's coming. Is He going to turn back to the
Jew? I hope He does. But if He does, it's going to
be in His Son. It's going to be by the words
of His Son, spoken through His Son. No other way and no other
means but by His Son. Notice what he says here concerning
this Son of God. First of all, concerning His
inheritance, here in verse 2. Hath not this last day spoken
to us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things? That's the first thing he says
about Him. God has appointed Him heir. of all things." You
know He's equal with God, isn't He? He's equal with God. He's
equal with the Father. But as the God-man, as the mediator,
God has appointed Him heir of all things. The Father loves
the Son and hath given all things unto His hand. Things that's
seen and things that's unseen. He inherited it all. The earth and the formers thereof,
He inherited that. The world and they that dwell
therein, He inherited that. All power in heaven and in earth,
He inherited that. The destiny of all men, He inherited
that. THE RULE OVER ALL MEN, THE JUDGMENT
OF ALL MEN, THE DISPOSAL OF ALL MEN, HE INHERITED THAT. HE'S HEIR OF ALL THINGS. I'VE HEARD PEOPLE ASK THAT QUESTION,
WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH JESUS? ALRIGHT, BUT LISTEN, HERE'S THE
QUESTION, WHAT WILL JESUS DO WITH ME? I'M NOT IN HIS HANDS. to decide anything about Him. He's not in my hands to decide
anything. But I'm in His hands. Everybody's
in His hands. He's the decider, isn't He? He's
the heir of all things. I sometimes think of that bragging
statement that Satan made when he was tempting our Lord. and
said, If you'll fall down and worship me, I'll give you all
these kingdoms and all the glory of these kingdoms. For that's
mine, he said, and I give it to whomever I please. I don't
know about that. Do you? How does that fit in
here? That he's there of all things.
I know this much. The devil, he can flip sometimes.
He can tell some things that just ain't so. I don't know what's
his. Where did he get it? These kingdoms
are mine. Where'd you get them? Who gave
them to you? How'd you get them? And look at this, secondly, what's
said about the Son of God, by whom He made the worlds. Now, if I was a Jehovah Witness
or a Mormon this morning, I would tell you that God made the worlds
by an instrument, and that instrument was Jesus Christ. But he's not
speaking here that God created the world, created all things
by Christ as the instrumental means. They say that God created
Christ, then used Christ as an instrument to create everything
else. That's not what he's saying here. God created all things
by Christ, His essential Word. When God said, Let there be,
that was Jesus Christ. That was the Son of God. He is
the essential Word of God. He's the essential power of God,
the wisdom of God. By Christ, God made the natural
creation. And by Christ, God makes the
new spiritual creation. And by Jesus Christ, He will
make the new heaven and the new earth. And by Jesus Christ, He
will give a new body on the day of the resurrection. He alone
is the sole creator of all things. The old creation and the new
creation. The natural creation and the
spiritual creation. He created all things. and without
him was not anything made that was made and listen he not only
makes it but he governs it he governs it and he goes on in
verse three to say this he not only created all things by Jesus
Christ who be in the brightness of his glory and the expressed
image of his person and look at this upholding all things
by the word of his power You know I believe the sun is
coming up in the morning. I'll lay down tonight with this
assurance in my heart, the sun is coming up in the morning.
And you know how I know that? Jesus Christ is upholding the
sun. A few more days and we'll be
tilling the gardens and the farmers will be planting their food and
it won't be long, the garden will be green and the fields
will be covered with vegetables and fruits. because Jesus Christ
upholds the seasons. Those heavenly bodies that run
to and fro in their circuits every day, innumerable bodies
floating around and missing each other, all of that going on in
outer space, They won't be colliding. They won't be blowing up the
earth. They won't be devastating things where we can't live here
because Jesus Christ upholds it all by the Word of His power. Boy, that old world. Can you
imagine back there when the flood came upon the old world? Can
you imagine the weight? All of the water? All the windows
of heaven opened up and the waters rose above the highest mountains.
But not only that heaviness, the awful sin of man. Can you
imagine how weighty the sin of man was in the old world and
the wrath of God upon it? Somebody had to be holding that
earth up. Or I tell you, it would have
never come through that devastation. That would have been it. Who
held it up? The same One that's holding up
everything, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. And you know
why your faith don't fail? You know why you don't fall during
the trials of the heaviness of your heart? Your faith don't
fail because Christ holds it up. He sustains it. The One who
gave it to you and began it, He sustains it in your heart.
And these burdens that cast you down, why are you cast down,
O my soul? Why are you disquieted within
me? And sometimes the weight of your
soul, you can't hardly breathe. And it seems like it's crushing
you and pushing you down and pressuring you down. But you
know something? Underneath you are everlasting
arms of power. And you can't sink any lower
than those arms. the everlasting arms of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God. He upholds all things by the
Word of His power. Nothing falls and nothing fails
while Jesus is upholding it by His power. And you know, there's
no other power but His. He says all power It's given
to me in heaven and in earth. There is no power apart from
it. We talk about how powerful the devil is. Okay, where does
he get that power? We talk about strong men, how
they wrestle and they fight and all of this, and the mighty men. Where do they get their power? Brother Ralph Barney was preaching
one time and he got in a big way and he said, I'll give somebody
$500. if they'll stand up and vow to
me that they can walk through that back door on their own power. We have no power. Nothing has
any power but what is given by Him who possesses all power.
That's Jesus Christ the Lord. He upholds all things by the
word of His power. Look here at the dignity of His
person. Matthew Henry called it His personal
excellency. Here in verse 3. Who be in the
brightness of God's glory. I don't know these Greek words,
so I'm not even going to try to pronounce these Greek things.
Wayne, he comes up with these Greek words and opens them up
to them, and I can understand what he's saying. And I thought,
boy, I'm going to start studying some of these Greek words, and
I go look at them, and I can understand a thing that they're
saying. I'm going to have to give Wayne another job. About
every third or fourth time he teaches, I've got all these Greek
words I want him to explain to me. So I don't know the word
that's used here, but this word, the brightness, It means flood,
a flood of light. Great cluster or brightness,
splendor. Christ is described in the scriptures
as having immortality, dwelling in the light that no man can
approach into. No mortal man can approach into
the light. in which Jesus Christ dwells.
His own light. He dwells in His light. There's
a reason that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of
God. There's a reason that we can't go to heaven like we are.
We cannot stand in the presence of Jesus Christ. He's too glorious. He's the brightness of God's
glory. John talked about the heaven,
that city that was there in heaven, had no need of the sun or moon
to give it light. The glory of God did lighten
it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. He's shining! When he
appeared to the Saul of Tarshish on the road to Damascus, and
Paul began to tell his experience, he starts out and he said, there
was a light appeared to me. And then the next time we find
him telling it, he said there was a great light from heaven.
Then the next time he said the light outshined the sun. That's Jesus Christ. He's glorious, isn't He? There
on the Mount of Transfiguration. This is amazing. This is a miracle
in itself. How did He keep from this happening
all the time? He was the brightness of God's
glory and He concealed that brightness behind His humanity. Ain't that
amazing? He's God. In Him dwells all the
fullness of the Godhead body. He's the brightness of God's
glory and yet He concealed that for three and a half years. and
kept it from breaking out. The only time we ever know it
breaking out is on the Mount of Transfiguration when His face
shone as the sun and even His raiment, His shirt and His pants,
was white as light. He's the brightness of God's
glory. That's why we won't meet the
sun and the moon this sun and the moon, it just lightens this
little speck in the universe anyway, this little galaxy here
that we live in, this little earth, this little terrestrial
ball. Where does heaven get its light?
Where's that new earth and new heaven going to get its light?
This brightness of God's sun. And he says something else here,
not only is he the brightness of God's glory, but look at this,
He is the expressed, He is the exact image of His person. Exact image. The Bible says that
no man has seen God at any time. And that's because God can't
be seen. He's an absolute, pure, eternal
Spirit. You couldn't see Him. You couldn't
see it. But listen to this. The only
begotten Son, which is of the bosom of the Father, He hath
declared Him. If you have seen Me, you have
seen the Father. If you've heard Me, you've heard
the Father. Christ is the wisdom of God.
He's the power of God. He's the goodness of God. He's
the mercy of God. He's the grace of God. He's the
love of God. When you've seen Me, you've seen
the Father. There's an amazing verse of Scripture,
and I have no idea how to enter into this, Caution 115, who is
the image of the invisible God. Now get a hold of that if you
can. Somebody thinks, well, I got that. I got that done bad. I'd
have gotten my hands around that. You probably don't know nothing.
You probably don't know nothing. What can you do before that?
He's the image of the invisible God. All we can do is just fall
down before that. Say, Lord, you above me. You're
higher than I am. I can't attain unto you. And
we just fall down there and worship Him. Jesus Christ is the exact
image. He's nothing like God, the man
said. Nothing like God at all. He is God. He is God. I like Richard Wernbrandt. Some
people may not like him. I don't know him all that well.
He's dead and gone now, but he was in a communist prison camp
for years, kept him in solitary confinement for like 13 years,
didn't see anybody but those who beat him daily. And he was
telling, I heard him tell, I saw him on the internet and he was
telling some of his experiences and he said, The captain, the
one that beat him daily or had him beat, every day, they'd take
him out and beat him every day. And he said the captain called
him up to his little room one day and had a Bible in there.
And he wanted him to read where God created man in his own image. And he said, he said, Mr. Wormbread, do you believe that
you're in the image of God? Do you believe that? Do you believe
what the Bible says? He said, yeah, I believe it. I'm the image
of God. He hadn't seen his image for like 15 years. And he got
out a mirror and said, I want you to look in this mirror and
see what you look like. And he said, I couldn't believe
it. He said, I couldn't believe it. He said, I look like a monster. They had beat me and starved
me until he said, I couldn't believe that was me. I hadn't
seen myself in years. And there was my image. He said,
I never felt so disgusted with anybody in all my life as myself.
That can't be me. And he said, the captain looked
at him and said, do you still believe that you're in the image
of God? God created you in His image. And you know what Mr. Wernbrandt told him? He said,
yes, I do. But he said, think of this, think
of this. He said, Jesus Christ was the
image of the Father. And look at Him upon the cross.
His vestige was more marred than any man. Look at the blood running
down his face, his beard plucked out. Look how black and blue.
Look how swollen that he is. His vestige was more marred.
And yet he was the exact image of God. And he said, Captain, someday
this ugliness will be gone. And then I will be glorious as
Christ Himself. He's the image of God. That's
difficult to understand. But someday we'll be just like
Jesus Christ. And this ugliness, this wrinkles
and pain and all the sicknesses and the worries, all of that's
going to be gone. And we'll be in His likeness,
in His very image, holy and thirdly. Jesus Christ is the image of
the invisible God. Lastly, consider this quickly. Consider His work, His atoning
work, His atoning for sin. In verse 3, Who being the brightness
of His glory, and the expressed image of His person, and upholding
all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself
purged our sins. Now that's a wonderful thought,
isn't it? And we have no doubt that He
can do it when we consider what we've been saying and studying
about His person. If He's the image of the invisible
God, if He's the brightness of God's glory, if God has given
Him all of these things, if He is who He says He is, We have
no doubt in our mind that He's able to purge our sin away. An angel couldn't do it. All
the angels together, all of humanity together couldn't do it. But
Christ is not an angel. And He's not a mere man. He purged
our sins. This word purge means purification. Christ made purification for
sin. Our sins have been thoroughly
purified, that nothing of their filth remains. Though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. He purified our sins. I want to show you three scriptures
quickly here about our sins in the book of Hebrews. Turn to
chapter 2 and look in verse 17. When He talks about purging our
sins, He mentioned He looks at the purging of sins in different
ways through the book of Hebrews. Look in chapter 2 and verse 17
how He considers it. Wherefore in all things it behooved
Him to be made like unto His brethren. that he might be a
faithful and merciful high priest in things pertaining to God,
to make reconciliation for the sins of his people." Reconciliation. What does that imply to us? That
sin had brought separation. We sing about that, don't we?
Sin had brought separation. God said, My hand is not shortened.
But here's the whole problem. He said that I face and you face.
Your sins have separated between me and you. And your iniquities
have hid my face. I can't look upon your sins.
We see that in marriages sometimes, don't we? There's a division.
There's enmity in the marriage. There's a falling out. And the
counselor comes and talks and makes reconciliation. Reconciliation had to be made
for sin. What was causing the enmity had
to be removed. The source of separation. That's
what Jesus Christ did. He made reconciliation for iniquity. Another place, look in chapter
9 and look in verse 15. Look how He says it here. Chapter
9 and verse 15. And for this cause he is the
mediator of the new covenant, that by means of death, his death,
for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant,
they which are called, might receive the promise of eternal
inheritance. Here he talks about the redemption
of transgressions. Redemption, that means a buying
back. You know what the Bible calls sins? Debts. We're indebted
to God. And we can't pay the debt. And
the debt has to be paid. Jesus Christ took the debt on
Himself. He stood responsible to pay the
debt. He redeemed the debt. He redeemed
the sins from that curse of the law. Paid the full price. You are bought with a price. Our sins, brothers and sisters,
have been thoroughly paid for. Thoroughly paid for. My dad,
when we was growing up, they had a local grocery store there
in the county, and most people had credit back in those days.
You know, you didn't have cash on you. You just got paid every
so often, and they'd put it on the credit. They had a little
book. It had my dad's name, Luther
Crabtree, right on top of it. And in that book was the debt
he was racking up for groceries. And every paycheck he'd go pay
it. And he'd bring them home. And I've seen those receipts
laying there on the table. And I got to looking at them.
We got this and we got that and we got that. And every page was
stamped, paid, paid, paid. That's our sins. That's our debt. He purged them. He paid the price. One more place, look in chapter
9 and verse 26. Look at this, how He speaks of
it. Look in verse 25. Nor yet that
he should offer himself often, as those high priests enter to
the holy place every year with the blood of others. For then
must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world.
But now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put
away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Here's another aspect
of atoning for sin. It's put away. It's purged. It's been purified. Reconciliation
has been made for it. Redemption from it. And here
he says it's put away. I tell you, I don't want to hide
my sins, do you? I don't want to sweep them under
the rug and have to pull them out someday and be exposed. I
don't want to do that. I want to know that my sins have
been put away and they have been. Even before the face of an all-seeing
God, they've been put away. The iniquity of Israel shall
be sought for, and there shall be none. The sins of Judah, they
shall not be found. Why? They're gone. They've been
taken away. That's why he uses such terms
as he's put them behind his back. And He's cast them into the depths
of the sea. Behind His back is where God cannot see. And the
depths of the sea is where God cannot know. That's what those
things mean for us. They've been put away. Is this purifying of sins a perfect
purification? Has reconciliation been made
complete? Has payment been thoroughly made?
Has sins really been put away? Yes. How do we know that? How
do we know that? How do we know that He did what
He said He did? It tells us here in our text,
doesn't it? After He had by Himself purged
our sins, He sat down on the right hand of God. Now, we know
what that means in that tabernacle, there was no chairs
in that tabernacle because their work was never done. The priests
never did sit down. They were always working. They
went out, came back in work, and they went out. But Jesus,
when He died, He purged our sins. And in the 10th chapter, He said
He sat down. And here in our text, it said
He sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. And look
here what He says in verse 13 of chapter 1, this was a place
not only of honor and privilege and power, but this was a place
you could only get to by divine invitation. Nobody sat at the
right hand of God unless God invited you there to sit down.
And that's what He said in verse 13, to which of the angels saith
He at any time, sit on my right hand until I make your enemy
thy foe. So son, sit down. Why? The work is done. The work
is done. Sin has been thoroughly purged
away. I was preaching a funeral this
week of an old veteran, dear old man, one of the most honorable
men I think I've ever met in my life. And I thought about
the message, triumph of Christ, while I was preaching that message.
And I told his family and all the people there at that funeral,
I told them this, I said, when you think of salvation, when
you think of being forgiven of your sins, when you think of
being justified from all things, when you think of being saved,
don't think of what you can do. Don't think of what you can be.
When you think of being saved, when you think about forgiveness,
salvation, think of it on these two terms. What happened at the cross? And how did God respond to it?
What happened at the cross? In the death of the Son of God,
He purged our sins away. And God responded by saying,
Son, it's finished. Sit down. I'm satisfied. Sit down. And when Jesus said,
it's finished on the cross, you know who that message was from?
You say, well, that was Jesus saying it. Yes, but who was it
from? God has spoken through His Son. It was God the Father saying,
it's finished! It's finished. And He turns to
you and He turns to me. And He says, put all your trust
in Me. It's finished. Ain't this a wonderful message?
I just hate to quit preaching. I don't have anything else to
say, but I hate to quit preaching. You're probably tired of hearing
it. Brad, would you dismiss us?