God Spoke

0:00Hello. Good morning. Go ahead and turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews. We are beginning today what uh what may prove to be our longest journey yet. It took us almost 40 weeks to go through the book of 1 Corinthians, and I'm not sure we can make it through Hebrews in under 40 weeks. I think you will see this as we get into it, but every word and every verse of Hebrews has been carefully curated and put down with so many layers that it is next to impossible to find the end of all that is said in this book. We will certainly try, but I can't and won't rush through this book. I pray that the Lord blesses our time through Hebrews and transforms us and encourages us through it. And I want to begin as any good publisher would begin any work of nonfiction or of fiction, and that is by offering up some reviews of the book and support for its content. As though the Bible needs this question answered, but why should we, you, spend time reading and studying this book? I will let uh John Calvin speak to that. Quote, since the epistle addressed to the Hebrews contains a full discussion of the eternal divinity of Christ, his supreme government and only priesthood, which are the main points of heavenly wisdom, and as these things are so explained in it that the whole power and work of Christ are set forth in the most graphic way, it rightly deserves to have the place and honor of an invaluable treasure in the church. End quote. But nowhere else is the supremacy of Christ so clearly and eloquently articulated. That is, in fact, the theme of the whole book. If I were, if we were, if I were a megachurch and I put out a bunch of marketing literature about our new sermon series, this sermon series, it could be titled Nothing Other Than The Supremacy of Christ. The declaration, explanation, and teaching of the supremacy of Christ is the reason that this book was written. Why is such a topic so important for us to mine the depth of? Why is the supremacy of Christ such an important topic? And to answer that, I will defer to Pastor Charles Spurgeon, who chose for his first sermon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on March 25th, 1861, a passage from Acts 5 and 42. That verse is, and daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. To which Spurgeon commented, It appears that the one subject upon which men preached in the apostolic age was Jesus Christ. I would propose that the subject of ministry, the ministry of this house, as long as this platform shall stand, and as long as this house shall be frequented by worshipers, shall be the person of Jesus Christ. End quote. This grand topic has both spiritual and practical implications. It is believed that this letter was written to Jewish Christians, likely in Rome, initially, and then circulated for the purpose of encouraging Christians not to fall back from their faith in Christ in the midst of trials and persecutions and cultural pressures. To make a plea with them, not to backslide, the writer of Hebrews eloquently and rhetorically asks, where else are you going to go? When faced with trial and temptation and hardship or doubt, the tendency is to look for answers or relief wherever you can find it. But if Christ is superior to man, superior to angels, superior to all the prophets, superior to all sacrifices, superior to all priests, the source of all wisdom, the supplier of a better covenant, and the keeper of all promises, where else do you turn? And you can imagine, because we see it even now, that these early Jewish Christians felt like, were feeling like a fish out of water, alienated, looked down on, outcast from mainstream society, struggling with having their whole world turned upside down, fighting sin and temptation and feeling the pull to stop fighting and just fit back in. Just go along with the culture, the religion of the masses. It's easier that way. And certainly it is, but to strengthen God's children against such temptations, the writer does not give us ten steps to fight against sin. He does not give us fifteen steps to battle culture. He does not give us three ways to stop backsliding. He instead presents us the beauty, the glory, the majesty of Christ. To say wherever you are thinking of turning, or to whomever you are thinking of following, it will be inferior to the supremacy of Christ. Why would you return again to something that didn't work? Something that was and is broken. Something that was already fulfilled by something greater. Why would you run to the shadow of a thing when the substance is in the room with you? And that is what I pray, God willing, we will attempt to address. And to do that, we will weakly behold the supremacy of Christ. The other thing that I might need to address as we begin is who wrote this book, Hebrews. It is suspected that it is possibly Apollos because he was noted as an eloquent speaker, and this book is written with an unmatched eloquence, but that is only speculation. Perhaps it was the Spirit's intention to keep the author hidden in a book whose main objective is to declare that Christ is better than everything else. In that respect, it doesn't really matter who wrote it, right? Because the message is clear. Look to Christ and none other. Okay, so that's where we're going. Probably take us a year to get there, God willing. So stand with me very briefly as we begin our journey in Hebrews, the supremacy of Christ. Verse 1. But in these last days he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the world. This is the word of the Lord. Thank you, Lord, for your word. Please speak to us. Ask all these things in the name of Christ. Amen. I know this is not new information, but the struggle against absolutes by our present culture is a real one, right? There has been such a violent war against objective truth for varied reasons and motives, which we won't get into, but this war has progressed such that nothing can really be trusted anymore. No truth can be found through our reading because things progress so quickly. No truth can be found through our eyes or even creation or biology because everything is fluid, changing. The result is that hope has been sacrificed on the altar of subjective progress. We have missed the reality that the presence of absolutes is fundamental to our assurance and to our hope. For example, countless studies have shown that the clearest measure of success and overall health of children is directly proportional to the level of objective stability they have at home. Stability is grounding. It allows deep roots to grow. It promotes trust and confidence in something outside of ourselves, so that when the wind blows, we have an anchor. Fluidity, on the other hand, is by nature shifty. It prevents any roots from growing. It promotes skepticism and doubt and fear so that when the wind blows, we have nothing to cling to. This is true in every aspect and in every area of our lives. And I know you know all these things, but I need to establish once again the importance of objectivity and more specifically the foundational objectivity of God. God Himself, in his triune nature, is not progressive because he doesn't progress. He does not change. He has not changed. And he will not change. Jesus Christ, of whom we will exalt and of whom Hebrews says is the exact imprint of God, also says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. There is no change in Christ. There is no change in his character, his nature, his plans, his will, or his law. The things that please Christ have always pleased Christ. And the things that displease him have always displeased him. He is more than an immutable foundation. He is the only, the one and only immutable foundation. The source of all life, the receiver of all glory, the supplier of all truth. Christ is the full, final, and eternal authority on all things for all time. And even now, I hope you find peace and comfort in this reality. That you truly can know this God. You can find rest and security in him. Now, because God is by his nature wholly other than us, right? He is wholly other than us. If we are to know this God and receive the benefits of his objective stability, he must speak to us. He has to speak to us. If we are to know anything about Christ our Savior, God is going to have to speak to us. If all knowledge or if all the knowledge that we need for faith and salvation is to be known by us, God Himself is going to have to give this knowledge to us. If the command is to trust and to believe in the gospel, how can anyone believe in which in that which they have never heard has to be spoken? So it is that this truth, this very truth that is so vital to our salvation, this very truth according to the eternal nature and will of God, this very truth that is so instrumental for our assurance and hope. The very truth that was fully and finally spoken to us in Christ, God has been speaking since the beginning of the world. From our passage this morning, long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. Since the beginning, God has been speaking to man in many ways through the prophets, and providing us not only his truth, but the hope and assurance we so desperately need. God speaking, then, is both the revelation of himself unto salvation and the revelation of his immutable truth. This is the foundation of all hope. Without God speaking, there is no salvation. There is no hope. But God did speak. Praise the Lord. And our first verse makes that clear. And God has been speaking since the beginning, revealing himself in a particular way and revealing his truth, his plans, and our salvation. And the voice of God has been captured for us in 66 books. And we will see in just a second, given a final word in the person and work of Christ. So God's speaking then has at least a few implications for us, more than I will list here, but I'm going to point out a few. First, it means that the Bible carries with it a divine authority, because it is nothing less than the voice of God. The Bible is not a collection of suggestions or ideas on living better. It is the authoritative voice of God directly to you. And you need that even if you don't know it. Again, as I began, objective truth and divine authority may not sit well with you, but without this authority, we are lost and we are hopeless. Second, the Bible is the voice of, because the Bible is the voice of an immutable God, the words contained within it are forever relevant. The words contained within it are forever relevant. If Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, then it stands to reason that his word is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We cannot divide it up. We cannot parse it out, as though only some of it is still relevant for us in 2024. No, it is the voice of God and therefore timelessly relevant. Okay, thirdly, because the whole Bible is the voice of God, the message contained within it is a clear and unified one. The message is clear and unified. If someone reads the Bible and comes away saying that the God of the Old Testament seems like a different God then with a different message, then this person is reading it wrong. It's the same God with the same message. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring, and he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. Genesis 3.15. This is the unified message of the Bible. Sin has caused enity between God and man, but God in his grace will send an offspring to crush sin and restore paradise. Everything points to that message and follows that track. It is a clear and unified message. If it is true then that the words of God are authoritative and that they are eternally relevant, and if it is true that this message of God's words are all guiding one central message, then it would stand to reason then that God's words will find their end when the word becomes flesh. And this is what our text further tells us. But in these last days he has spoken to us by his son. Meaning, in all of human history before Christ, God spoke about Christ through the prophets. But when Christ came, the very word of God in flesh, nothing more needs to be said. Because the word and work is complete, it is finished. Let me explain further by using the gospel of Matthew as an example. This is just one, and these are only a few examples. Matthew 1, the birth of Christ, verse 22. Quote, all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Matthew 2, the visit from the wise men to the place where Christ was born. Verse 5, they told him in Bethlehem of Judea, so for so it is written by the prophet. Matthew 2, the flight to Egypt by Jesus and family. Verse 15, this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Out of Egypt I called my son. Matthew 2, Herod kills the male children. In verse 17, this was fulfilled, then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. Matthew 2, the return back to Nazareth, verse 23, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene. Matthew 3, John the Baptist enters. Verse 3, for this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah. There are many more examples, but the testimony of Scripture is unavoidably clear. God spoke to the prophets to foreshadow and prepare us for Christ. And then Christ comes to fulfill said words of God and be the final word, the word made flesh. Why would we ever need a better word than the word completely fulfilled and made flesh? What else do we want or expect from God? And this is why I find those who call themselves prophets in our day so frustrating and frankly nauseating, because God has given us everything we need. And has explicitly told us that he has given us everything we need. And yet we still try to conjure up more. God has foretold of us Christ since the beginning of the world. And then he gives him to us and saves us by him, yet we are still looking for something else. God wrote this perfect story and capped it with the dramatic death and resurrection of an ascension of Christ, fulfilling everything he had previously said, and finishing his work of salvation, along with promising us that he would return again to bring us all home. It is finished. Believe in me, wait on me, I will return. This is what he says. And this is how the Story ends. And we have it all to trust in and cling to, yet we foolishly still want to add to it. Like a second-rate author who picks up on someone else's finished story and spends a lifetime writing fan fiction. Modern day prophets and their tales are nothing more than cheap, lousy fan fiction. It's garbage. Don't buy it. Don't listen to it. Don't have anything to do with it. We say that God's word is sufficient for us, don't we? Then God's final word, the word become flesh, must be sufficient for us. And it is. To this point, Calvin says, it was not part or a part of the word that Christ brought, but the last closing word. The same is echoed by Luther, quote, if the word of the prophets is accepted, how much more ought we to seize the gospel of Christ, since it is not the prophet speaking to us, but the Lord? The Lord of the prophets. Not a servant, but a son, not an angel but God. End quote. If in Christ and through Christ we have God speaking directly to us, fully and finally, and through the words and the work, we now have access to communicate directly to God in prayer. What in the world would we ever need a prophet for today? The Lord of the prophets has spoken. Listen to him. Read his words. Trust in him. Wait on him. We don't need, nor should we ever desire anything else but Christ. So we have seen that God spoke. And we have also seen that in Christ God fully spoke, finally spoke. And now we will see that in Christ God fully spoke truth. And Jesus is the ultimate and final truth, right? The one who is appointed the heir of all things, our text said. The same one who is the creator of all things, our text said. And Jesus Himself says in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father except through me. Christ reigns then through the Word, because this Word is Christ. And this Word is the truth, which revealed Himself and the Father. And if, as we have said, if objective truth is what establishes hope, and objective truth can be found nowhere else but in Christ and through His Word. Then the complete words of God are necessarily the sole source of all hope. And they are. And this is a fact that we struggle with so mightily, isn't it? The struggle is thousands of years old. John 18, 38, Christ standing before Pilate. Then Pilate said to him, So you are a king. And Jesus answered, You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. And Pilate said to him, What is truth? The denial of truth, and that truth is knowable while literally looking truth in the face is shocking but should not be surprising. But who is it that listens to the voice of Christ? That passage I just read said, those who are of the truth. And Christ seemingly reverses the order of what we may expect there. We would think that he would say, Everyone who listens to my voice is of the truth. But that's not what he said. He said, everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. Meaning that when we approach the words of God, we don't judge it as though we are determining whether to listen to it or not. Rather, when we approach the truth, we are judged by it. We don't judge the world or the word. The truth, the word judges us. And if we are of God, and if we are of the truth, we will receive it, and we will listen to it. And such authority is repulsive to those not of the truth. So the reply is always the same. What is truth? But Christians, we know what truth is because we know who truth is. We believe in truth because we believe in Christ. And Christ has revealed himself to us through his work and through his word. And when we accept and believe his truth, God's great work will be fulfilled in us. And consider all the preparation that we just went through through the whole of Genesis. That was the at many times and at many ways, all leading to the full and final word of God, the full and final truth of God given to us when the word became flesh. Okay, so our points of application then as we close. First, we must submit to the word as the authority of God. We must submit to the word as the authority of God. This collection of words called the scriptures is not something that we get to fiddle with. We don't get to hold things, or this word rather, under a fine mesh screen, strainer called culture, relevance, science, and only believe what comes out on the other side. That's not what we get to do. The word of God is the sieve through which all else must pass. And anything that doesn't make it through the whole thing is not true. And that doesn't make us a biblicist, as though we believe that the Bible is the only source of knowledge or that general revelation has no value or that we should be intellectually shallow only reading and studying the Bible. That's not what I'm saying, not at all. But it does mean that we consider the Bible to be the final and ultimate authority on all things. To use a John Piper analogy, the Bible should be the window through which we see everything else. It must be that way. And this is what it means that the Bible is authoritative and sufficient for us. Okay? Secondly, we must accept the word as the final words of God to man. We must accept this word, the scriptures, as the final words of God to man. The next time God speaks to man, it will be after the trumpets have sounded and Christ has returned in glory. His revelation is complete. The last days are here. The call is to repent and believe in Christ, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Lifted up was he to die. It is finished was his cry. Now in heaven, exalted high, hallelujah, what a savior. And when he comes, our glorious King to his kingdom us to bring. Then anew the song will sing hallelujah. What a savior. Finally, we must accept this word as the source of all truth. I'm going to close with a quote from Richard Phillips in his commentary on the Hebrews. I couldn't say it any better, so I just quoting him. Quote: If you look to Jesus Christ, and if in him you see and believe the very truth of God, then God's redemptive work of the ages will be fulfilled in you. At many times and in many ways, God began preparing the world through the prophets for the coming of his Son. Why? So that in these last days, these days of God's redemptive fulfillment in Jesus Christ, we might enter into the fullness of salvation. This is what Jesus said to his disciples as they struggled to know the truth on the night of his arrest. I am the way, the truth, and the life, he told them. And so he is for us. When we receive Jesus as the truth, then he becomes the way for us to enter into life. Life everlasting. This is why Jesus is God's final word. And why, if even if all else in this world is lost, we must hold fast to him in faith. End quote. And amen. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord, for Christ. We thank you for your final word to us, Lord. I pray and ask that you would help us to cling to Christ alone today and every day, Lord. Help us to know that the word of Christ or the word your word through Christ is sufficient and complete for us, Lord. You've given us everything. Help us to trust and rest in you. Help us to cling to your word and to Christ. Help us to desire nothing else until you come home. We love you. In Jesus' name. Amen.