 |
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
our message
Hebrews Study - Pastor Terry Jones
The epistle to the Hebrews began with the teaching that Jesus is God revealed to us in the flesh. That AS the eternal, creator, sustainer and revealer of all that God wants us to know of Himself He is much greater than the prophets and His message is to be received with reverence and obedience.
Next the write moves op to show us that Jesus is to be distinguished from the angels in both His divinity and in His humanity. He does not have the nature of an angel. His purpose and works are far greater than an angel could ever carry out.
First the writer contrasts the divinity of Christ with the nature and purpose of angels and then contrasts the humanity of Christ with angels.
The key verse is
Heb 1:4 Having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
His is not the name of an angel. His name is the name of God. The angel Michael is the angel whose purpose and work is to help the Hebrew people fulfill their destiny. The angel Gabriel came to Mary to announce that she would become the mother of the Messiah. Another angel came to save Daniel and shut the lion's mouths. An angel appeared to Joseph and told him to flee away from Israel into Egypt so that the baby Jesus would not be killed by Herod. Every little child has a guardian angel who seeks to look after them and preserve them from evil as they are empowered by prayer and sanctified parents.
Mt 18:10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
Those who fear the Lord are said to have angels encamped around them to deliver them from spiritual enemies.
Ps 34:7 The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.
Angels are mighty in power and wise to all that God commands them to do
Ps 103:20 Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.
Angels have a great work to do in their service for God, principally helping those men and women who by faith are following Jesus. But in the bible they are not exalted, they are not prophesied about, and they deflect any prominence, any glory towards God, giving Him the glory .
But when Jesus came to earth He inherited all that had been predicted about the Messiah. The prophets ahd spoken continuously about the person and the great redemptive work of the Messiah and the names and descriptions and works the prophets ascribed to the Messiah leave no doubt that He was to be God in the flesh and not just an angel. Jesus came and inherited that name. As the true Messiah, He was and is all that was expressed about the messiah throughout the old testament prophecies.
Isa 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
The writer now begins to speak about some of these old testament prophecies to establish what he is saying with evidence from the prophetic writings themselves.
Hebrews 1:4-14
Vs 5 quotes from the psalms and from the book of Samuel. The Messiah was to be the Son of God and God was to be His Father. This was never spoken of regarding angels.
Vs 6 is from a psalm that tells us that when the Messiah arrives He will receive the worship and praise of angels. We portrayed this in our Christmas musical when the angels appeared to the Shepherds in the fields and praised and worshipped the baby Jesus as he lay below them in a manger of hay.
Rev 22:8,9 Shows us that angels are not allowed to receive worship. Worship is meant for God alone. So he whom angels worship must be God.
Vs 7 tells us who angels are. They are created spiritual beings who minister for God with passion and great zeal and love. Head-covering. 1 Cor 11:10
Vs 8 and 9 quotes from a psalm and describes the Messiah as God who will sit on a throne and rule with righteousness over His kingdom
Vs 10 is from another psalm and speaks of how the Messiah created the world and the heavens and that one day they will be changed, but that He will never change. It speaks of His eternal perfection .
Vs 13 speaks of how the Messiah is exalted to sit at the right hand of God and as time is passing the plans of God will result in all things becoming subject to Him. This is not said to any angel.
Then it finishes with the ministry of the angels.
Vs 14 They are ministering spirits. They are full of zeal, they are full of the Love of God and desire nothing more than to do the will of God. God has commanded them to minister to us who are believers.
How do they minister?
So we see that though the angels do much for God and have a pure and Holy servant ministry, yet the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God and so much better than the angels because He is God and he is the source of all that the angels do for us. They minister in His power, moved and inspired by His love to fulfill His divine plans and purposes.
In the past God used prophets to speak to men and He judged those like Ahab who rejected their words and also He used Angels to speak to men and judged those who disobeyed and transgressed their words. Now he has spoken to us through His Son, how shall we escape judgment if we drift away from what he has called us to and neglect the great salvation which he has purchased for us?
Heb 2:1-4
I have seen so many people drift away. I have seen many who neglect the great salvation that has come to us through the son Himself. How shall we escape. How shall we not be held responsible and declared guilty when at the judgment God makes enquiry as to what we did with the message and the opportunity He sent us by the life and death and words of His Son.
The picture of the words here is that our faith is a boat and the boat is in a current. The current is taking us away from God down the river of our life. But there are places on that drift where we can stop and refuse to drift further and then start again to swim up against the current of the world and live in close obedience to God. This verse speaks of the last place where we can cast out an anchor before we are swept out to face a certain judgment. Past that point the Lord will reject us and we become reprobates. Unable to hear the Lord, hardened against his ministers and their message to us. Devoid of spiritual desires and unable to sense any conviction in the house of God. Such backslidden believers may feel uncomfortable at this message but forget it as soon as they walk away and are powerless to do anything about it. Like the bible says the backslider in heart is filled with his own ways. His own plans fill the picture. Gods call and God's purpose for him hold no prominence in His mind.
I was vividly reminded of the meaning of this verse as I spoke to a man at school who I have mentioned before . He became a new Christian late last year. Over the holiday time he needed to go to the States to sort out and face some difficult family problems and in his great difficulties turned once again to the bottle and buried his problems in an alcoholic stupor. After several days he came to himself and determined to give up booze as a new Christian. He determined to trust God and not chemicals to give him peace. He determined to keep facing and working through his challenges and do his best to walk in the strength and power of the Lord. He told me that that night he had a vivid dream.
He comes from San Fransisco and grew up sailing yachts in the Harbour and Bay area. In his dream he was a small boy swimming in the water and he began to be swept out by the strong tidal flow out under the Golden gate bridge and out to certain drowning in the waves and turbulence of the Bar at the entrance of the harbour. Then there was with him a man who encouraged him to hold on and swim with him and they began to move across the current and were trying to connect with the last outcrop of rock on which it was possible to catch hold and climb to safety before all would be lost. They just managed to get to the rock and cling onto it. The man helpoed him climb up and then they climbed the cliff up to safe ground. As he stood on the cliff top looking down on the tide racing away to the sea and bar he realised he was overcome with a sense of how close he had come to final destruction and death. He woke up and as he thought about the dream he realised in his spirit that God was speaking to him. The man that encouraged him and helped him was Jesus Christ and he realised that God had given him one last chance to truly repent and truly mean business with God.
Perhaps this morning you are like my friend. Perhaps you are facing some major decisions, or perhaps you are just drifting along and you realise that unless you grab hold of the rock today you will not survive spiritually. If you leave it for tomorrow it will be too late. You will have drifted past it and only condemnation and judgment will be waiting for you. But Jesus stands here today, He is calling you to take his hand and swim with him. Stop your drifting, stop your sleep of death and wake up. Come alive again in Christ and begin to mean business with God from this very morning.
Let us copy the angels who are God's faithful ministers and are as flames of fire in His sight. Burning brightly with passion and zeal and commitment as they serve in His will and do all His bidding.
As we read the beginning of this epistle we would be feeling that Jesus is so high that we as sinful, fallen men and women would be unable to reach out to him because he is so high and exalted above the prophets and above the angels. We would be thinking that although he has asked us to obey Him and live by what he has told us, yet there would be a distance between us, and we would not be sure that He would understand our weaknesses and our frailties. Someone close to me said to me recently. God doesn't understand how I feel. He doesn't know what its like to be me and what its like to liove my life and face my challenges and difficulties.
So the writer shows us the other side of Jesus Christ, He shows us the human nature and the human experience and the human suffering of Jesus as man.
Heb 2:5-9
After God has removed sin from this world and all its damaging effects he will establish His kingdom on earth. There will be a new heavens and a new earth. This world will not be subject to angels, it will be ruled by resurrected men and women who have been restored to the condition of true holiness and righteousness by Christ. Paul quotes an Old Testament writer who marveled at what position and responsibility God had given man in the world. But in vs 8 the writer says that although God has put all things under man prophetically yet at this time we do not see the fulfillment of that prophecy. Instead we see fallen man destroying the world, poisoning its waters and plundering its resources. As we look around us we see none of the nobility and honour and glory in man that the writer speaks of. But there is one ray of hope, we see Jesus.
Our great hope is that we see it fulfilled in one man. Jesus. He was God, but became a man, was made a little lower than the angels, which is man's present position, so that He could suffer and die. But now we see him exalted, crowned with glory and honour. Filled with that nobility and glory and honour which the psalmist spoke of. The purpose of the coming down and going up of the son of God was that he might taste death for us and deliver us from our condition and place us on the pathway to glory and spiritual responsibility. We are becoming like him and one day we will be as He is.
He tasted death for us. It was a bitter taste in his mouth. It was a cup of poison drink that he chose to drink knowing that its sufferings would be unimaginable and its grief and pain unbearable.
Now that we are following Him we are being trained, we are being changed, we are being renewed in the spirit of our minds, we are being given new hearts. The day will come when our redemption will be complete and we will be given new resurrection bodies, glorified bodies like unto Christs.
But now while we are in the process of becoming all that we are meant to be, let us realize that Jesus di become a man, that he did experence suffering and was perfected through it.
Read Ch 2:10-18
Jesus does know what it means to be human.. He is not ashamed to call us brethren., God the Father is not ashamed to call us sons and daughters. He does not give aid to angels but he does give assistance and help to the seed of Abraham. Abraham is the father of faith. The father of the faithful.
He became our faithful and merciful high priest. He was made in all things like us. He has suffered, he has been tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted.
Dear one if this morning you are in the centre of a testing time, a time of trial and even temptation, turn to the Lord, call upon him and ask for His help. He does understand, he is your brother, he wants you to pass through the trial and become perfected by suffering as He was. His purpose is your growth in grace and wisdom and your becoming more like him. We want Him to wave a magic stick over our situation and remove every taste of affliction, to remove every temptation that we struggle against, to smooth out every rough path and to cast every high mountain into the sea.. But Jesus has another way of helping us. He endured His afflictions knowing that there was the reward at the end. Now He will help us by passing through our afflictions with us as a dear brother who stands beside us. We must learn to persevere, to endure hardness, to set our faces like flints and not be moved by our feelings, our circumstances and our desires. How dow e do this? The writer tells us to always remember that because jesus was a man as well as the son of God, He knows what is happening, He knows what iot is like and He is able to help us in our trials.
<<< Back go up
|
|
|
