Iga Guya He Nago Jo San Iulo
Se Iga Guya O Na Thank you, Jim. He's doing better all the time.
He's really a good guitar player. Oh, you are? Don't act humble. I know you ain't humble. Don't
act that way. I appreciate your practice
and your hard work. I do. I do. Oh, Cheryl is going into the
hospital on Tuesday, right? She's going to have a pretty
serious operation in the lower regions of the stomach and all
that stuff. It's going to be about three to four hours, they
said, of operation down there in Hendersonville. So you remember
her, Cheryl, Sharon's daughter, in your prayers. Pretty serious
operation, but she's been having some serious problems. So hopefully
this will correct it and make her feel better. We're hoping
that anyway. Hebrews chapter 2. The book of Hebrews is a phenomenal
book of scripture, all of them are, but this one especially
deals with the issue of letting go of old religion, because it's
written to the Hebrew children who are believers, who were not
converted to Judaism, but were born Jews. They were born in
the Hebrew, they never knew anything else. And when you're raised
like that, and you only know one thing, when somebody comes
along with something different, it's hard to let go of all that
stuff you knew when you was a kid. And that's true of natural religion. That's true of false religion
that I was raised in. I find myself things popping
into my head that shouldn't be there, and I haven't preached
a false gospel for 42 years. I think, where did that come
from? Because I was born, literally,
I was on the cradle roll at Antioch Baptist Church before I was born.
I was a member of the Sunday School before I was born. They
had my booties on the cradle roll that said the James baby
whenever he comes. I was enrolled, so I've been
in church all my life. I was in church before I was
born. I was in the real church before I was born too, but that's
a whole different story. But I was raised a certain way
to believe certain things. And when I found out those things
weren't so, it was tough to let them go to some degree. And because
they were in this computer, they never will really be gone. And the Hebrew children, when
they walked around Jerusalem, they saw all the artifacts of
what they'd been raised on. They saw that temple. And so
Paul looked at those children and said, Christ is that temple.
The church is that temple. That temple is just a building.
The church is that temple. When they saw the priesthood,
He said, Christ is the great high priest. That priesthood
is done with. When they saw the sacrifice, He says, Christ is
the great sacrifice. All those sacrifices are done
with. Israel is done with as such. True Israel, the Israel
of God, the Church of the Living God. That's what all that Old
Testament was about. And here in this passage of Scripture,
He talks about the suitability of the Lord Jesus Christ to bear
the sins of his people and offer the sacrifice to God that would
be different from all the other sacrifices of the Old Testament.
The sacrifice to God that would actually put away sin. That would
answer the sin question forever because all those Old Testament
sacrifices, bullets, turtle doves, lambs, rams, e-goats, kids, all
those that were sacrificed back then, never in any instant, and
it was millions, it was a veritable river of blood that flowed down
to one point and pointed that finger of red coagulate at Jesus
Christ alone. Not one sin was ever remitted
or ever put away by all that shed blood in the Old Testament.
Paul tells them that in this book, but he says, this man,
this man, when he had offered one sacrifice forever, sat down
on the right hand of God. For by one sacrifice he has perfected,
perfected, finished, done forever them that are sanctified. In
this passage of Scripture we find out who Christ died for. The question that is confronted
in this passage is for whom did Christ taste death? If you hold
that Christ died for every man, you're in the majority of what
falls under the pale of what is called Christendom or Christianity.
There's a difference there. Christendom basically comes out
of the Roman Church and has to do with those who were christened
at birth and then at 12 years old they're accepted. But when
you're christened, they're said to be in the body of Christ.
And that is called Christendom. And you have all that and the
churches that came out of the Reformation fall under that view. And they practice what is called,
generally called, a traditional salvation. Not a personal salvation. Not a salvation that involves
knowing God and being in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
But a traditional salvation that says when you were christened,
you were saved. When you were christened, you
were put in the church. Now you may act bad throughout
your life if you're among those people and you may have to go
to something called purgatory where some people have to pay
the priest to get you out but you are saved basically from
birth that's traditional salvation then there's Christianity which
says there must be a personal relationship with Christ you
must be born again must be born again that new birth whether
you were christened at it or not doesn't matter What matters
is that you may be born from above, and that happens through
the preaching of the gospel. But under that pale, most people
think that Christ died for everyone. They think that. The false notion
of universal atonement, or atonement whose design was to save all
men, is the prevailing view among those who gather under the leaky
umbrella of what is called Christianity in this day. Many years ago,
just a few weeks before he went to meet his maker. Jerry Falwell,
while addressing a group of over 1,800 prospective students and
referring to the theology of Liberty University, said, we
are not into particular love or limited atonement. As a matter
of fact, we call it heresy. That was just about three weeks
before he died and met the one who particularly atoned for his
people. In the previous year, one of
his professors said, Calvinists are worse than Muslims. These statements were made against
the doctrine of what is known as particular redemption or successful
or accomplished redemption. We just sang Wounded for Me.
When he shed that blood, I knew my atonement was done. I knew
my redemption was free. These men reiterated the generally
accepted belief that Christ suffered and tasted death for every man
and woman who will ever live. Old John Owen, a great Puritan
writer, wrote this addressing the death of Christ and for whom
it was intended. He said that there are but three
possibilities in Christ's death. One, Christ paid all the sins
of all men. That's one possibility. Two,
He paid for some of the sins of all men. That's the second
possibility. Or that He paid all the sins
of some men. Those are the three possibilities.
Now if He paid for all the sins of all men, then one of two things
is true. All men are and will be saved.
Or the payment that He made really had nothing to do with salvation.
One or the other. Because He paid the debt, and
when He paid the debt, When he died, many were already in hell,
and it is clear from the Bible that many will also end there
and be cast into a lake of fire. If you pay the debt for some
of the sins of men, or some of the sins of all men, then no
one would be or could be saved. Because God must punish all sins,
and every sin is worthy of death. So if you have any sins left
that He did not pay for, you are going to pay for them. And that
will be an eternal payment. However, if He paid for all the
sins of some men, then what He did could truly bear the title
of salvation. If God loves all men and Christ
died for all men, and there are men suffering eternal punishment,
whom God supposedly loved and Christ supposedly died for, then
what does the love of God and the death of Christ actually
have to do with salvation at all? That's the question. If
He paid my sin debt and I go to hell, what good did it do
that He paid my sin debt? If God loves me and I go to hell,
what does God's love got to do with my salvation? None whatsoever. The last phrase of verse 9 in
our text says this, that Jesus Christ tasted death for every
man. And this is one of the big guns used by these theological
so-called giants to support the idea of the universal love of
God and the universal intent of Christ's death. However, in
the original, the word man is not in the original text at all.
It would better read, He tasted death for every one. Every one. And then find the design and
intent to be illuminated by the context in which it's written.
I saw Nancy Pelosi the other day reading from Ecclesiastes
3 on the Senate floor. She opened up a Bible, a time
to love and a time to embrace and she left out a whole lot.
Somebody asked me what I thought about that, and I put text without
context as pretext, and that's the truth. Context determines
what it means. When it said He tasted death
for every man, or every one, or every, who is He talking about? Was He talking about all men
without exception? It does tell us who He was talking
about. They're actually named in this context. Listen to the
words. For it became Him, in verse 10,
whom are all things, and by whom are all things, to bring many
sons. sons. So He died for many sons
to glory and to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
sufferings. For both He that sanctified and those who are
sanctified, those who are sanctified. Hebrews chapter 10, they are
sanctified by the will of God and He has perfected them that
are sanctified. All are one, which cause He is not ashamed
to call them brethren. sons sanctified brethren say i will declare to
thee the name of thy brethren in the midst of the church there
it is the church i will sing praise unto thee and again i
will put my trust in him and again behold i and the children
children sons sanctified brethren Children church for as much then
as the children are partakers of flesh and blood he also is
likewise took part in the same In verse 15 delivered them also
who through fear of death were in lifetime subject bondage for
verily took not on the nature of angels Now they're called
the seed of Abraham read Galatians chapter 3 the seed of Abraham
are those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ Where in all
things it behooved him to be made like his brethren, that
he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining
to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. So
they are his people. For in that he himself suffered,
being tempted, that he was able to succor them that are tempted.
They are called those who are tempted. The context clearly
and unequivocally declares for whom Christ died and tastes death.
No doubt about it. Sons, sanctified, brethren, Children. Seed of Abraham. Children. People of God. This
is who He died for. This is what it says. This is
the context. The first thing that should be
noticed is that the driving engine of the entire mechanism of substitution
is the grace of God. This effectively removes the
salvation of men from the hands of men. Our Lord said, if grace is no
more works in Romans chapter 11, Ephesians chapter 2 and verse
8 and 9, By grace you are saved through faith, that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God has before ordained that we should walk in. When
Moses said, Lord show me your glory, he said four things, I
will make my goodness pass before you, I will proclaim the name
of the Lord before you, I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy, and I will be gracious unto whom I will be gracious.
You want to know what glorifies God? There you go. Don't get
no clearer than that. God said that's what His glory
was. If man could do or did do anything in the matter of salvation
of his soul, then no part of it may be attributed to the unmerited
favor of Almighty God. Grace cannot be merited. I wish
people would understand that. Just think about the concept. Unmerited favor. How can you
merit that? How can you merit what's unmerited? That's what grace means, unmerited
favor. You can't merit mercy. Mercy belongs to the sovereign.
If you ask someone for mercy, you can't demand it. You can't
demand it. If a fella got a gun holding
your head and you say, I demand you give me mercy. You're right.
Kapow. You're dead in a hammer. What
do you do? You beg. Be merciful, please. And what are you doing? You're
saying, my life is in your hands. That's what you're saying when
you ask for mercy. My life is in your hands to withhold mercy
or to give mercy. You attribute sovereignty to
the one who holds mercy in his hand. You attribute sovereignty
to grace because it's unmerited favor. Secondly, notice that
this salvation, this substitutionary death of Christ is something
that's becoming to God. That means it makes God look
good or it's good for His glory or it effectively honors His glory. This is another
way of saying that this death of Christ glorified God in all
His attributes, and it did. This death declares God to be
righteous and just and justifying sinners. When Christ was made
to be that propitiation and charged with that, according to Romans
chapter 3, God said, I was righteous in the salvation of the people
and just to forgive them because of what Christ did. Thirdly,
notice that salvation wrought by this glorious death is said
to be the possession of somebody. This is the way it is worded.
It is possession of somebody. Verse 10 says, It became him
for whom are all things, about whom are all things, and bringing
many signs to glory, to make the captain of what? Their salvation. That is a personal, possessive
pronoun. their salvation. It is not a
salvation that was available to them or offered to them. They
had no idea that it was theirs until they heard the gospel.
Yet it was nonetheless theirs because it was accomplished for
them and was ordained to be revealed to them. That is what it says
in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verses 7 and 12. It says this
mystery was ordained for our glory. And the mystery that is
opened up is the Spirit takes and shows us what good things
God has done for us. The good news of the gospel has
nothing to do with possibilities or probabilities. Religion works
on those things. The gospel does not. The gospel
does not. The gospel does not address what
you might or can or by your will or decision appropriate. The
gospel is a declaration that salvation is accomplished for
those whom Christ died. And when will you believe? Ephesians
1.13 says you believe after you heard the word of truth. And what was the word of truth?
The good news, the gospel of your personal possessive protean
salvation. What did you find out when you
truly heard the gospel? When the Gospel came to your
ears, what did you find out? You found out that God had saved
you! You went and found out something for you to do, you found out
something had been done! You found out that salvation
was yours before you even knew it! It is the good news of YOUR
salvation! And you don't believe it until
you hear the Word of Truth, the Gospel of your salvation. There
are those who We're against Christ and against John the Baptist
and our Lord said what y'all like a bunch of children in the
market Playing a little flute and carrying on and you say about
John the Baptist I don't care you can preach all the sad business
and the hard business and the wrath of God all you won't do
we're not gonna mourn we're not gonna cry it ain't gonna affect
us and they said to Christ you come along preaching this message
of kindness and love and peace and you sit down and have wine
with folks at dinner. You like a little flute player,
you like to play a little religious ditty. We're not going to dance
to your tune either. And our Lord looked to heaven. He said,
I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou
hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent, and has
revealed them unto babes. For even so it seemed good in
thy sight. For no man knoweth the Father, save the Son, No
man knoweth the Son, save the Father, and He to Whomsoever
the Son will reveal Him. And then He said, because He
had shut the door on the wise and the prudent, He had opened
the door to the babes. He said, Come unto Me. Who's
He talking about? The wise and the prudent? No!
This is a hint from them. Who's He talking about? Those
that can gain knowledge by their own revelation? No! Those to
Whom God has revealed the Son and the Son has revealed the
Father. That's who He said. Now He said
to them, come unto Me. All you that labor and are heavy
laden under this religious mess that they put on people. I'll
give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn
of Me. For My yoke is easy and My burden
is light. You shall find rest unto your
soul. To your soul. This is the language. When the disciples looked at
him and said, how come you speak to these people in parables?
How come you teach that way? You know, you tell a story to
get a point across. How come you do that? He said to his disciples, because
it's given to you to understand and know the kingdom
of God. but not to them. That�s what He said. I didn�t
give it to them. So when I teach in parables,
they think I�m telling a nice little story, and they�ll quote
it. They�ll quote it all down through history. They�ll quote
the little parables. They�ll never know what they mean, because
when the child of God hears the parable, he understands, because
he�s a member of the kingdom. Fourthly, note the familial relationship
Says He tasted death for sons. Who are sons? Behold, what matter
of love is this that we should be called the sons of God? We are now the sons of God, He
said. They're called brethren. They're called the sanctified.
How are they sanctified? God has made Him to be unto us
wisdom, sanctification, redemption, and righteousness. They're sanctified. They are my brethren. He is our
elder brother. My brethren. They are called
the church. Who did Christ die for according
to Ephesians chapter 5? He died for the church. He laid
down His life for the church and shall present it without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing. They are the children which God
has given me. That is what they are called. The children that
God gave me. I am not ashamed to call them brethren. gave Him,
yeah, gave Him in all eternity and electric and predestination. And when those who didn't believe
Christ in John chapter 6, they said, we don't believe that you're
the man of from heaven, you don't believe that you're the Son of
God. He said, I know you don't believe me. Now I know religion has Christ
all in it up. Of course, folks don't believe.
They have God all kind of twisted up. All twisted up and crying
and weeping and moaning and begging and make him out to be some kind
of solicitor. He's just such a gentleman and
all that stuff. Act like God just really tore
up. A fella told me not long ago, I don't believe in God.
And I said, he ain't losing no sleep over it. And he ain't. Christ said, you don't
believe, but let me tell you this, all that the Father giveth
me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, I
will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not
to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. This
is my Father's will, which has sent me. Of all He has given
me, I shall lose nothing, but raise it up again in the last day.
The same language repeated in John 17. 2 Now has given me authority
over all flesh, that I might give eternal life to as many
as Thou hast given me. As many as Thou hast given me.
They are children called the seed of Abraham, which are believers
in Christ. His brethren, His people, now shall call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. For My people was He stricken,
it says in Isaiah 53. The substitutionary death of
Christ was for the family of God. the brothers of Christ,
the church of God, the children of God, the people of God. This
is for whom Christ tasted death according to the context in which
that passage is written. Christ the Lord was made a little
lower than the angels. What does that mean? It means
lower for a little while. What capacity? So He could die
for the suffering of death. That's why He was made lower.
Angels can't die. They are created beings. They
can't die. So he was made for a little while
different from the angels or lower than the angels in this
sense. He could die. He could suffer death and was
crowned with glory because of the absolute success of his death.
He is the representative man. He died as the representative
man. He died the due death that I was due. I should have hung
on that cross. I should have been beaten up.
I should have been spat upon. I deserved that. I should have
had the beard plucked from my face. I should have had a crown
of thorns put on my head. I should have had nails driven
in my hands. That should have been me. I deserved that. He
deserved that. I should have been punished by
God with an eternal punishment which He suffered in three hours
of darkness. I should have died for my sin. But He died for me. He died in my room. He died in
my stead. That was due me. But He took it for Himself. The
just for the unjust He died to bring us to God. He being the
perfect man suffered perfectly and in doing so perfected all
for whom He died according to Hebrews 10, 14. Perfected forever
them that are sanctified. And being a man, the representative
man, he was the perfect one to suffer perfectly and thus to
be qualified to be the captain of our salvation. He was qualified
because he was perfect. He knew no sin, did no sin, had
never had a thought or deed. In fact, the law had nothing
to do with him because he was a righteous man. He fulfilled the law in
that he died. Because that's what the law requires
for sin. When Christ finished salvation, His death answered
the law's demands, and satisfied the inflexible justice of the
thrice holy God. And if He failed to any degree
in His mission of mercy, then there is nothing about Him that
is conducive to worship, and we are foolish to even mention
His name. We do not worship a failure. We do not worship someone who
tried and couldn't get the job done. We're worshiping an absolute
success. The gospel is the declaration
of a complete and perfect work accomplished by Him who cannot
fail, who reigns supreme as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the
suitable, suitable, perfect, sovereign substitute of our salvation. Say unto Israel, Thy God reigneth. God has saved us and called us
with a holy calling. Not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose and grace which was given us
in Jesus Christ before the world began. Please God to bruise him
when he made his soul an offering for sin. He shall see his seed
and the Lord shall prolong his days. He shall see of the travail of
his soul, and shall be satisfied. For by his skill, by his knowledge,
shall my righteous servant justify many. Who? The sons, the children,
the church, the brethren, the tempted ones, the ones in bondage. That's who he'll succor. That's
who he'll give peace to. That's who he'll comfort. Many
sons. many sons. Father, bless us to
our understanding. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.