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Good morning.
Greetings of grace and love be multiplied to
your heart today.
It's the second day of Bible school and
already some of you are not the same
as you were 24 hours ago.
Isn't that true?
By the power of God and through His
Son, Jesus Christ, He has spoken to some
of you and changed you.
But we still have more to do, don't
we?
And God does as well.
So open your Bibles this morning to the
book of Hebrews and we'll pick up where
we left off yesterday in verse 5.
And as we look at the passages we're
going to look at today, we're going to
probably try to go through chapter 3 verse
6 as we pick up the flow of
what's going on here.
We will see, as it is emphasized quite
a bit in this passage, that Jesus Christ
came as a man.
And so we will emphasize the humanity of
Jesus Christ.
It's right and it's good that most of
the time when we talk about Jesus Christ,
we emphasize that He is God and He
was God when He came.
But it's also right that we look that
He came as a man so that there
would be an identification in our hearts concerning
His incarnation as flesh and blood as you
and I live today.
So the title of the study today is
The Humanity of Christ.
And we'll begin by reading 5 verses here,
I think, 5-9, starting in chapter 2
and verse 5.
Paul writes, For unto the angels hath He
not put in subjection the world to come
whereof we speak, but one in a certain
place testified, saying, What is man, that thou
art mindful of him?
Or the Son of Man, that thou visitest
Him?
Thou madest Him a little lower than the
angels.
Thou crownest Him with glory and honor, and
didst set Him over the works of thy
hands.
Thou hast put all things in subjection under
His feet.
For in that He put all in subjection
under Him, He left nothing that is not
put under Him.
But now we see not yet all things
put under Him.
Verse 9, But we see Jesus.
See, in verses 5-8, He's not talking
about Jesus.
He's talking about you and I.
He's talking about man.
But in verse 9, He switches here.
He says, But we see Jesus, who was
made a little lower than the angels for
the suffering of death, crowned with glory and
honor, that He by the grace of God
should taste death for every man.
And we'll stop reading there and make some
comments.
Notice there, two times the word death is
used.
That five letter word is going to be
mentioned five times today in the passages that
we're going to read.
And understanding that word death and what it
means in connection with our lives and Jesus
Christ's life is going to be very important
as we look at the verses we need
to look at today.
This section of Hebrews proclaims in these first
five verses here that Jesus Christ became a
man in order to recapture our lost destiny,
our lost dominion.
When man fell into sin in the Garden
of Eden, he didn't just fall in sin,
he fell out of a position that he
had.
God not only put him in the Garden
of Eden, He not only made him in
a perfect state, He put him in a
position of dominion and He said to him,
I need you to rule, I want you
to reign, I want you to have dominion
over all the earth.
So man's providence, man's place in the economy
of God as originally set up in perfection
was that he would be in a place
of ruling and reigning and dominion.
But, when man fell into sin, he not
only severed a relationship with God, he also
lost that which was rightfully his.
And these first three or four verses here,
it says in verse 6, but one in
a certain place testified saying, what is man?
Thou madest him Lord of the angels.
It's actually pretty much word for word a
repeat of Psalm number 8 which tells us
about the earth being a subjection to man
which has really been a reference back to
Genesis 1 and 2 there when God put
man in that position.
So some people read these verses and they're
confused and they think it's talking about Jesus.
It's not.
It's talking about you and I and what
we lost.
Notice here that angels are mentioned here too
and the reason for that is this.
God never gave to angels the right to
govern or have dominion.
Did you ever notice that in the Bible?
It's very interesting.
They do not have the right to rule
or reign over the earth.
That was given to man.
Now there was one angel in heaven who
tried to exercise dominion and right to rule.
His name was Lucifer, the son of the
morning.
And he tried to take rule and he
tried to take dominion that was not his.
And we know what happened to him as
he was flung out of heaven and his
name was changed to Satan.
So sin has a lot to do with
dominion.
You notice the connection?
Satan tried to rule with dominion.
He was thrown out of heaven.
Man rejected the authority or dominion of God
in his own heart and he was thrown
out of the Garden of Eden.
So there's some connection here between authority and
all of that.
And as long as man in the Garden
of Eden was subject to the dominion of
God within him and in his place and
position and under the Word of God and
God's commandment to him...
Actually, there was only one commandment in the
Garden of Eden, wasn't there?
Really?
There was only one thing that he couldn't
do.
You can do anything you want basically, man.
You can rule.
You can reign.
But of this tree, you shall not eat
it.
And so as long as man was in
subjection to the dominion of God and the
authority of God in his own life and
his own heart, he then had a delegated
authority to then have dominion over everything else.
But the minute that he rejected that authority
of God...
Because see, disobedience isn't just some theory.
It's rejecting the dominion and the authority of
God.
It's saying no to God.
That's what Adam did and Eve did on
that day.
They said no to the authority of God.
And when they did that, immediately, they lost
the right to have dominion.
So as long as we allow God to
have dominion within us, then God trusts us
to have dominion as well.
We can illustrate that in many different ways.
One way that I see it worked out
is this.
Sometimes I have a young man come to
me and he'll say that he feels like
God has called him to find a wife.
And we'll talk about many things, but one
of the things we always talk about is
this.
I find out if he has learned how
to be under authority.
Because see, before a young man can be
in authority and exercise it, he better learn
how to be under authority.
You see?
It's the same principle here.
It's the same principle.
It's one that you need to understand.
And it's key to understanding the whole Bible
because man broke it right at the very
beginning.
And now here in Hebrews, years after Jesus
has died, the same principle is being brought
up so that we can understand part of
the reason Jesus Christ came wasn't just to
deliver us from our sins, and that's enough,
amen, but to restore the providence of man,
to restore the destiny of man, to restore
him to that right relationship with God where
we are subject to God, but also we
have a place of dominion to rule.
That is part of our heavenly calling is
to rule and reign, to be joint heirs
with Christ, right?
And so all of these things begin to
flow together and the connections are made back
from Genesis what we lost to what now
God is trying to recapture in your life
and in mine.
Dominion.
You know, man was given this instinct.
I'm not sure of the right words here.
To rule.
To have dominion over this earth.
And in a way, in a strange way,
it seems like we haven't totally gotten rid
of that.
Have you ever noticed how interesting it is
that in every age there's men that just
can't seem to help themselves?
They've got to climb that mountain.
They've got to go to the deepest part
of the ocean.
We've got to go to the deepest reaches
of outer space.
There's this pioneer spirit to get control over,
to explore, to have dominion, to try to
rule, to try to reign, and all of
these things.
And yet, as I've studied history a little
bit, it's interesting that no matter how far
out man goes in space or how deep
he goes under the ocean or what dominion
he may have over this planet and all
the amazing things that man can do, no
matter how far you go back in recorded
history, and right up to the present day,
with all the wonderful advances we've made today
in technology, we as men have made absolutely
zero progress when it comes to morality.
Isn't that true?
In fact, the Bible says things are going
to wax worse and worse.
It seems like that the more we try
to exercise dominion in our own way instead
of God's ways, the more the spiral goes
down according to the Bible.
And as I observe society, it seems true,
doesn't it?
It seems true.
The world is not getting better.
The humanist would tell you things are getting
better and better.
That's a lie.
Things are waxing worse and worse as far
as the world system, as far as the
way the world functions and works.
What is man, this says, that thou art
mindful of him?
Well, it says that he was made a
little lower than the angels.
It seems to me, again, I don't understand
it all, but it seems man is finding
ways to go even lower and lower and
lower as time goes by.
What is man?
Well, man of himself physically is what?
I don't know how many elements make up
this human body, but I looked up a
few things.
And 95% of your body weight and
my body weight is made up of just
six elements.
95% is made up of oxygen, nitrogen,
carbon, hydrogen, phosphorus, and calcium.
That's 95% of what we are.
Now, if you were to sell that on
the open market, do you know what you'd
get?
Not very much.
You know?
What is man that thou art mindful of
him?
What is man?
What does man actually know about this universe?
What has man actually accomplished?
You know, as we've spent billions of dollars
on medicine, you know we still can't cure
the common cold.
I think sometimes God does those kind of
things just to show us who we really
are and who we're really not.
What is man that thou art mindful of
him?
You know, we like to think we are
masters of the domain of this earth.
We've got cell phones.
We've got artificial hearts.
The list goes on.
And all these things that we try to
exercise in a futile effort to try to
gain control over how long we live and
how we communicate.
Now we've got the world wide web that
we've got all this information and all these
things.
But the more we try to take control
in our own self, the more frustrated it
all gets.
Because even the world wide web, as wonderful
as some people may think it is, has
infected more garbage in the human mind and
heart than I think anything else since the
history of mankind.
You know, in this effort to try to
kind of bring the whole globe together and
tie it together, really what has it done?
What has it done?
It's caused the failure, the moral failure of
millions and millions and millions.
There's some connection here again between this dominion
thing and sin and God's part in all
this and man's part in all this.
Now it says something very interesting here at
the end of verse 8.
It says, "...he left nothing that is not
put under him."
But then there's a but in the Bible.
It says, "...but now we see not yet
all things put under him."
Now, I don't know what all those things
are.
I could make a list.
But because of the flow of the passage,
it seems clear what Paul is trying to
get at here is there's one big thing.
There is one big problem that man does
not have the answer for.
What is that in this passage?
Does anybody know?
Death.
That's right.
Is death under man?
Or is death ruling man?
You know?
Death.
What is death?
Death has conquered man.
It triumphs everywhere.
Death strikes infants, old people, politicians, preachers, carpenters,
business executives.
It's not a respecter of persons.
Death is not under man.
When all is said and done, all the
famous people die.
Doctors even die with all their knowledge of
medicine.
They still die, don't they?
Death.
Death is not subject to man.
The sting of death has mocked mankind since
Adam fell.
Since Adam fell.
Christ was above the angels, but when He
became man, He became, the Bible says here,
in verse 9, but we see Jesus who
was made a little lower than the angels.
He allowed Himself to be put in a
position where He was a little lower than
angels.
Now, again, depending on what your thought on
all that is, we could talk about different
things, but obviously in this passage, what it's
saying is Jesus allowed Himself to become a
man.
A little lower than angels.
Just like man was referred to as lower
than angels, Jesus is.
For the one purpose, it seems like according
to this passage, that He could taste death.
That He could taste death for every man.
Why did He do that?
Well, it seems like Jesus being fully God,
definitely He brought God to earth in a
new way.
But also, because He came, He is able
to take man to heaven in a whole
new way too, wasn't He?
And if you and I get to heaven,
it will only be because we are in
Christ.
We are in Christ.
Let's continue to look at man here just
for a minute.
I want to talk about Jesus a little
bit more.
But I want to make sure that we
again see that man in his sinful natural
state, which is the picture that I'm painting
right now, is not capable of ruling.
As we look at the world today and
all the capitals and all the rulers, all
the political men, man cannot rule and accomplish
what he thinks he can.
The reason he cannot is he has adopted
Satan's viewpoint.
Do you know what Satan's viewpoint of ruling
is?
I can do it without God.
I will make myself like unto the Most
High.
He tried to exclude God from the equation
of ruling and dominion.
It's not possible.
It's not possible to do that.
And so the men today that try to
rule with all their decisions and all their
worldly wisdom, they're frustrated.
It doesn't work.
They work so hard for peace, and it's
like the whole thing mocks them and laughs
at them.
Because they're trying to rule and reign and
have dominion and leaving out God.
Man, not just modern man, it's always been
that way.
I lived in England back in 1978 and
1979.
And while I was there, I visited a
lot of castles and historical places and studied
a little bit about English history.
And I always thought of the English as
such nice, civilized people.
You know they weren't.
I mean, what a bloody country that was.
Everybody that got to the throne, it seems
like, ended up collecting all their relatives and
having their heads taken off in the Tower
of London.
That was their way of ruling.
Isn't that amazing?
Isn't that shocking?
I mean, when man tries to rule and
get God out of the equation, he's worse
than an animal, isn't he?
He's worse than an animal.
And we need to understand, there's again, some
connection between this whole thing of dominion and
what we lost back there in the Garden
of Eden.
What is it that keeps man from ruling
the right way?
First, it's sin.
And sin then leads to death.
Let's look at verse 9 here again for
a minute.
Jesus, it says here, a couple of interesting
things.
It's made a little lower than the angels
for the suffering of death.
We've talked about that.
We'll talk about it again later.
But it says here, He's crowned with glory
and honor that He, by the grace of
God, should taste death for every man for
the suffering of death.
For the suffering of death.
Why would He do that?
First of all, let me ask you an
important question.
Do you believe that Jesus Christ died?
Physically, bodily, that He died?
Amen.
Good.
Do you understand that in the Bible there
are three types of death?
There are three deaths in the Bible.
There are three deaths.
You remember Adam and Eve in the Garden?
We already talked about that.
When He fell into sin and He also
fell out of position.
There's something else that happened that day.
He died that day.
The Bible says that death entered the world
through Adam.
And if you read that at first, you
think, well, wait a minute.
When He sinned, He didn't die.
Yes, He did.
Spiritually, He was dead.
The Bible teaches us in the New Testament
and throughout the Word of God that we
are dead in our sins.
That when He sinned that day, there was
a ripping and a tearing in the veil
of His relationship with God and spiritually something
died in Him.
And so He was spiritually dead.
Why do you think you have to be
born again?
Listen to the phrases that are in the
Bible.
It's because you're dead and you need to
come back and be quickened, it says in
Ephesians, quickened to life, meaning spiritual life.
When you're born again, when you're quickened to
life, it's not that you're dead and you're
resurrected, but spiritually it's as if you are
resurrected.
Do you understand that?
So that's the first death.
The second death is the physical death.
We all understand what that is.
The physical death.
And of course, the third death or the
final death is at the end of the
ages in the final judgment when all of
those, the devil and all those that have
rejected Jesus Christ will be thrown into the
pit into everlasting judgment.
So that's the third death.
Now here's the thing you need to understand
about Jesus Christ.
I believe that He experienced the first and
the second death.
That on the cross, He had a unique
experience that His whole life He lived totally
in tune with the Father.
He said, I and the Father are one.
I mean, He didn't know what it was
to be separated from His Father.
He says, if you've seen Me, you've seen
God.
Right?
And so He and the Father were one.
He said, the words I speak, they're not
even My words.
They're My Father's words.
But do you remember when He was on
the cross?
Right before He died, He said two things.
The first thing He said was He cried
out in a great anguish and agony, My
God, My God, why hast Thou...
What did He say?
...forsaken Me.
And at that moment, I believe on the
cross, as sin came upon Him, God cannot
be where sin is.
God had to depart for the first time.
There was a split in the Trinity.
There was a tearing and a separation.
And for just a moment, I believe Jesus
Christ tasted the full dregs of that spiritual
death.
And for Him, I believe it was a
much greater agony than later when it said
He gave up the ghost, the physical death.
I believe that.
If I understand His relationship with God based
on the Word of God, that was a
moment that we cannot even understand.
He felt the full fall of Adam as
it crushed upon His own soul and cried
out in bitter agony, My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken Me?
Though He knew this had to happen, yet
it was such a tearing in the fabric
of who He was, it was almost more
than He could bear.
But He did bear it.
He stayed on the cross, didn't He?
He stayed on the cross.
And that's why the Bible teaches us that
it actually pleased God to bruise Him and
to crush Him.
Because at that moment, He who knew no
sin became sin and God had departed that
we might become the righteousness of God, right?
And so all these things you begin to
see.
So when it says Jesus tasted death, it
didn't just mean He had a little sip
of it.
He drank the full cup.
And the full cup was that spiritual separation
from God.
Why hast Thou forsaken Me?
And then later, He did I believe also,
as you agreed with me, suffer a physical
death as He gave up the ghost.
He didn't swoon.
He didn't faint.
And even part of our understanding of the
Gospel says in Romans 10-9 that if
we confess with our mouth and believe in
our heart that Jesus Christ, what?
That He died.
You actually have to believe that He died
and was resurrected.
Part of our believing the Gospel is believing
that He died.
And Paul here in Hebrews is making sure
that point is understood again that He did
die.
He actually experienced death.
But it goes on here in verse 10,
For it became Him for whom are all
things and by whom are all things in
the beginning in bringing many sons to glory.
The Captain.
And the word Captain there means the originator
or the forerunner or the first of their
salvation.
Perfect through suffering.
So what it means here is that Jesus
Christ when He did this, He opened the
door to bring with Him many sons and
may I say daughters.
The word sons there is an all-inclusive
term like mankind.
Into glory with Him.
That's why He had to taste death.
That's the humanity of Christ.
See that Christ is God is so important.
But may I say it's equally important that
He was a man.
The humanity of Christ is equally important.
He is the God-man.
And being a man, He died.
Well, at the end of this verse 10
is a phrase we need to look at
just for a moment.
The Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Now if you're like me when you read
a phrase like that in the Bible, you
first think, wait a minute.
Wasn't Jesus perfect?
Wasn't He sinless?
Did Jesus ever sin?
No.
When He was born, even His birth was
perfect.
He was born of a virgin.
Was He perfect as a baby?
I believe He was.
Was He perfect as a boy?
I believe He was.
Well then, how can He be made perfect?
What does this mean?
When Satan tried to tempt Him in the
desert, was He perfect?
Yes, He was.
What does this mean then?
Does it mean that He was sinfully imperfect
and that through suffering He got to be
perfect?
No.
No, Christ was free from sin.
Christ was free from sin.
What this is saying here is this.
This does not mean perfect as in He
became sinless.
But it means that when He came, He
had untested obedience.
Untested obedience.
But through the suffering that He endured in
the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross,
His suffering tested.
And the word tested there may be a
better word to think of as it proved
His obedience.
And this proving, and the word perfect here
meaning it brought it to fulfillment.
It completed what God already knew was in
Him.
It was tested or proved what it was.
You know, sometimes when we prove something, we
don't do it to show that it's not
right.
We actually prove it to show that it
is right or that it will work.
Let me give you an example.
Growing up in eastern Kentucky, as a small
boy, there's a lot of hills and rivers
and streams and creeks.
And there's bridges everywhere.
You know, every little nook and cranny and
holler as we called it back there.
There's bridges everywhere.
Well, when I was a boy growing up,
I forget my age, I think I was
12 or 13, there was a pretty good
sized bridge called the Silver Bridge that fell.
It collapsed during rush hour traffic and a
lot of people were killed.
Well, soon after that, there was suddenly a
lot of tax money freed up to repair
and rebuild a lot of the local bridges
that were in pretty bad shape.
A lot of them were old wooden bridges.
This is, oh my, 35, 36 years ago.
And near my house, there was this creek
called Hood's Creek and it had this old
wooden creaky bridge on it.
And we'd used it for years and never
thought a thing about it.
But after this other bridge collapsed, it was
like everybody was avoiding it.
They didn't know what to do with this
bridge.
Well, the state came in there, they replaced
the bridge, all steel, steel girders, steel posts,
concrete pilings and everything.
And back then, things weren't as tight because
of liability as today.
And a lot of the boys in the
neighborhood, like myself, we would go down there
and watch.
They'd even let us help, you know, carry
rocks out of the creek and all this
sort of stuff.
And I remember after they finished building this
bridge one day, they did a strange thing.
They had all these big concrete trucks and
the bridge wasn't very long.
It was only about 50 feet long, if
that.
And they put two concrete trucks on it
full of concrete and let them sit there
all day and all night.
And the second day, some of us boys,
we said, what are you doing?
Why are you leaving those trucks on there?
Isn't the bridge going to collapse from all
the weight?
No, they said, no.
We're trying to show to all the people
that live around here, we're trying to prove
to them, just the opposite, that the bridge
won't fall.
And so if you get the point, God
allowed Jesus to go through this to prove
that He was perfect.
To show that He wasn't going to fail.
And so that we could look back on
His life and see He was tested.
He was proved.
Not to show that He wasn't perfect, but
to show that He was perfect.
And that's what was going on there.
Alright, let's keep going here.
Verses 11 and 12 and 13.
I think I'll just...
We already read them.
I don't think...
Well, no, I haven't read them, have I?
Let me read these here quickly.
For both He that sanctified and they who
are sanctified are all of one, for which
cause He is not ashamed to call them
brethren.
See, something happened.
When He became the Captain of our salvation,
we entered into a new relationship and we
were restored back to Him.
And He now calls us brethren.
You know, there's a wrong teaching or a
wrong thought in the world today.
The world tells you that all men are
your brothers.
There's even songs like that in popular culture.
You know that's not right.
There is no universal brotherhood of man.
There is no universal.
It's man against man.
It's a dog-eat-dog world out there.
That's the way the world operates.
But here, if you're born again, if you
come into the Kingdom of God, not only
are you restored to life and dominion, but
you now have a relationship with Jesus Christ,
with the God of Heaven.
He's not ashamed to call them brethren, saying,
I will declare thy name, my brethren, in
the midst of the church while I sing
praise unto thee.
And again, I will put my trust in
Him.
And again, behold, I and the children which
God hath given me.
Now, we're going to pick up here in
verse 14, 15, and 16.
Let me read 14 and 15.
There's some things that we need to say
about here.
Verse 14, why don't you stand up for
just a minute.
Stand up quickly.
Leave your Bibles open.
I'm going to read 14 and 15.
For as much then as the children are
partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself
likewise took part of the same.
What's same?
He became flesh and blood.
That through death he might destroy him that
had the power of death, that is, the
devil, and deliver them who through fear of
death were all their lifetimes subject to bondage.
Alright, you may be seated.
Now, what it's saying here is because we
are made of flesh and blood, Jesus Himself
took on and became a partaker of flesh
and blood, the humanity of Christ, and He
came into this world by human birth.
But what you need to understand as you
read all this and not get confused is
Jesus just becoming a man, that alone doesn't
save us.
His virgin birth, though it's very important, doesn't
save you.
Do you know the Sermon on the Mount
doesn't save you?
It's through His death that you're saved.
Did you see that little phrase through death?
Through here means like there's this doorway.
Through it.
He had to actually go through death.
He had to not just experience, He had
to enter into it and He had to
actually die.
Through death.
If all we had was the Sermon on
the Mount, He came down, taught that, and
went back to heaven, do you know what
we would have?
A religion.
But we don't have a religion.
We have a Savior.
We have a Redeemer.
We have a High Priest that is touched
with your infirmities.
That has experienced death for you and for
I.
That song we sang this morning, what was
it?
Lift Up Your Glad Voices?
I mean, what an appropriate song to sing
this morning, Tim.
Lift Up Your Glad Voices.
Because He has died.
We don't have to die.
That's what happened there.
That's what happened.
Through death.
Now, there's an interesting part of this verse
here that we do need to deal with.
We do need to talk about a little
bit to have a clear understanding of what
Paul is saying to us here.
I know this can bring some confusion to
some people.
Maybe we can just ask the Spirit of
God to illuminate this to us a little
bit this morning.
When it says that through death, He might
destroy him that had the power of death,
that is, the devil.
Now what do you do with that verse?
What does that mean?
Is there a devil today?
Is Satan still alive?
Well then, what does this mean?
Because this says it destroyed him.
Well, now if you look up the word
destroyed, it doesn't mean eliminate.
Sometimes we think of destroy as eliminated, as
in gone forever.
What this means here is Satan has been
in effect rendered impotent.
Rendered unable to do great harm.
Now, that's a wonderful thing.
But, he still is capable of great harm.
But not if you're in Christ.
Not if you're in Christ.
The devil has not been eliminated, but he's
been stripped of his power and the fear
and the bondage of death is destroyed.
Because Christ, through death, has destroyed that ability
to cause us that fear and to live
and to quake and not know what to
do with Satan.
Let me illustrate it this way.
When I was nine years old, my father
built a house.
We moved into a new neighborhood about five
or six miles away from where I grew
up.
We had a neighbor.
They had a nice big yard right beside
ours.
I used to like to play baseball.
My ball would go into their yard sometimes.
Right after we moved there, I didn't realize
they had a dog.
I didn't like dogs back then very much.
They didn't seem like they liked me.
One day I went over there chasing my
ball and this big, ferocious dog comes tearing
out after me.
And of course, I go tearing the other
way and all of a sudden I hear
this...
I look back and there's a chain on
this dog.
I didn't see the chain.
And he stopped about three feet away from
me.
And my heart was racing and everything.
And then the neighbor came out and introduced
himself and apologized.
He said, look, the dog is kind of
mean.
He does bite.
I'm sorry.
But we like him.
But as long as you don't get in
his domain here, his chain is just so
long, he'll never bother you.
He'll bark at you.
He looks ferocious.
And if you get in his area, he
is ferocious.
And he'll bite you.
Just stay over here.
Well, that's the way it is with the
devil.
He is a mad, rabid dog.
And he is ferocious.
And he can hurt you, but only if
you allow him by getting in his territory.
Do you understand?
There's a chain put on him.
His power has been destroyed in that it's
limited or stripped.
But if I flirt with the devil, if
I play with that dog, I would have
gotten bit.
And when you flirt with the world, when
you play with sin, you're where you don't
belong.
You're going to get bit.
And it's going to hurt.
And you're going to lose.
Because he is stronger than you.
Because the devil is still alive.
This is not saying he is eliminated from
the scene.
That day is coming.
But that's not today.
And we need to see that.
You need to understand what you're reading when
you see this.
Because we do need to be very careful
how we deal with the devil.
I can tell you I was very careful
how I dealt with that dog.
I lived there nine years, and I never
got bit.
I stayed out of that territory.
Are you staying out of the devil's territory?
Don't read this and think you can flirt
with the devil.
Don't read this and think you can play
with sin.
See, sin belongs to the devil.
You're in his backyard then.
You need to understand what the Bible is
saying here.
Well, the Gospel.
The amazing, wonderful power of the Gospel and
the cross is what delivers us from this
power, this destructive power.
You know, we said earlier there were three
types of death.
And with men in America today, there are
so many people walking around and they're dead
and they don't know it.
And they're under the power of the devil
and they don't know it.
They're pursuing what they call the American dream,
but they're dead.
They're dead.
They're dead in their sins.
The American dream.
Get a good job.
Build your own house.
Get a nice car.
They're dead and they don't know it.
But Jesus Christ is here to deliver us.
He is the Captain of our salvation.
And that salvation doesn't just mean you have
a home in heaven.
It frees you from the bondage of death
here.
Spiritual death?
Yes.
Physical death?
As well.
Freedom is not having what you want in
the American dream.
It's doing what God wants you to do.
And you get that power through Jesus Christ
and what He did on the cross.
Jesus said in John 14, verse 6 that
He is the way, the truth, and the
life.
He is the way that you need to
go.
This whole thing of death is spoken about
a lot here.
And as I think about people in America
and my own life, I wasn't born again
until I was 29.
Death is a frightening thing.
It's so frightening.
And the reason I'm talking about this is
you see this phrase here, through fear of
death.
You know, you would think as you go
around in normal America that there is no
fear of death.
But you know, Americans are so afraid of
death they never talk about it.
If you go outside of Lancaster County to
a typical funeral in the world like I
used to go to in Florida, you know
they never say the word dead.
They say things like, well, he's asleep.
He's passed away.
You know, I used to go to funerals
of my friends that weren't Christians.
And you know, if one of them was
into motorcycles or fishing, they'd say, well, he's
just fishing forever now.
I mean, it sounds so silly, but that's
just the way the world talks.
And you know, the reason they do that
is they're so afraid of death they won't
even talk about it.
They hide it.
No open caskets in those kind of funerals.
It's not like Lancaster County.
The plain people, God bless them for that,
they do that for a reason.
They know their children need to understand that
death is real.
But the world, they're so afraid of it
they pretend it's not real.
Have you laid your death on the altar?
I wonder.
You know, if you're born again, you don't
need to have any fear of death.
Because that fear of death, the bondage of
it has been destroyed in Jesus Christ.
O death, where is thy sting?
The answer is, it's gone.
It's gone if you're in Christ.
You have no need to fear death.
Paul said, he'd rather just go on.
You know?
He'd rather just go on than be here.
And that's the true destruction of the fear
of death.
Well, let's move on here.
Got a few more verses to cover.
Verse 16 and 17.
Well, let's read verse 16.
It's a repeat of something we've been over
a few times.
For verily he took not on himself the
nature of angels.
And the reason it's repeated so many times
is so that you'll get it, Bible School
students.
Jesus Christ didn't come as an angel.
You know, there's cults that teach that.
And it seems like God knew 2,000
years ago that that would be even still
happening today.
And it is.
It's not an old thing.
You read this and you think, well, nobody
believes that.
They do.
There's cults today that have been started in
the last hundred years that teach this stuff.
They teach He just came as an angel.
He didn't come as an angel.
He came as a man.
And the purpose of this verse is that
we'll see the humanity of Jesus Christ that
He died.
That He lived.
And He knows how you feel.
He knows how you live.
But He took on Him the seed of
Abraham.
Verse 17, Wherefore, in all things...
Notice the all.
In all things it behoved Him to be
made like unto His brethren that He might...
Here's the reason, besides entering into death, be
a merciful...
Oh, I'm so thankful for the mercy of
God.
Sometimes I think I need more than anybody
else.
But you know the good thing is there's
plenty left for everybody else even after I've
used up what I need.
And so on and so on and so
on.
Isn't that wonderful?
Be a merciful and faithful, high priest, in
things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for
the sins of the people.
For in that He Himself while hath suffered
being tempted, He is able to succor them
that are tempted.
And we need to understand a few things
here.
Jesus Christ could have been born in a
lot of different situations.
Even His birth teaches us that He wanted
to suffer and He wanted to experience the
full breadth of human life so that nobody
could say He doesn't understand.
He was born with a silver spoon in
His hand.
He was born in the palace of some
king and raised in ease and comfort.
And what does He know of real life?
Well, He was born in a stable.
And He lived a normal life in a
little hick village called Nazareth back up in
the middle of nowhere.
I mean, Nazareth was even the laughing stock
of Israel.
Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
I mean, even the town He grew up
in was a nothing town, a nobody town.
Nobody comes from there.
But that's where Jesus and God and His
providence chose to put Him.
Isn't that amazing?
But it's so that this Bible verse here
could be true so that we could understand.
In all things, you think that He doesn't
understand you?
That's the devil whispering in your ear.
He understands you.
We had the great joy of adopting three
of our children.
We have five adopted children.
Not counting our Hutterite adopted children.
But we have five adopted children.
And three of them come from the country
of Columbia.
I remember the first time I went down
there.
It was about 15 or 16 years ago.
And I went down there with a man
that used to be a missionary down there
by the name of Carlos Guerrero.
And he would take me to places down
there.
It's the first time I was ever out
of the country except to Europe.
But I'd been to Europe before, but I'd
never been to South America.
And he took me to places in Columbia
that aren't in the tourist brochures.
And we went on the backside of Cali,
Columbia into what they call the barrios.
And the first time in my life, I
saw people living in cardboard houses and tin
and just pieced together and a whole family
living in an area 8 by 8.
We walked down some of those streets.
You know, I've never been the same.
If you've never walked down a street like
that, a picture doesn't do it.
A picture doesn't do it.
While we were walking down one street, we
heard a baby cry.
And we kind of stuck our head in
there.
It didn't sound quite right.
And it turned out a woman had just
had a baby in there.
And I'd only been a Christian then two
or three years.
And I had to think.
Jesus was born in the stable because there
wasn't any room.
He would understand this little baby boy that
was just born.
He would understand it.
You know, that boy now is probably some
of you all's age.
He's 15 or 16.
And he might be tempted to think, Jesus
Christ, what would He know about my life?
Well, He would know.
He would understand, wouldn't He?
Because of the way that He was born
into this world.
He would understand.
He took on a human body so that
He would be like unto His brethren.
He knows and He understands.
And He knew that the devil would try
to tempt us and make us think that
Jesus doesn't understand.
But He does.
Then it goes on here in verse 18
to say that He Himself has suffered being
tempted.
And again, that word tempted there is tested.
Tested.
Secure them that are tempted or tested.
And I believe this verse in particular is
talking about what we call today the temptation
of Christ in particular.
I believe it's talking about other things.
But as you think about what He endured
for 40 days and 40 nights as He
fasted, you've got to remember, Jesus was man,
but He was God.
He could have turned those stones into bread.
And the temptation, the test that He was
put under is greater and was greater than
anything.
You think, well, Jesus doesn't understand what it's
like.
The temptations I have are so overpowering.
I mean, today, we have the Internet.
And you start making your excuses.
But the Bible is here saying that He
was tested in all points like you were.
He understands.
The temptations He experienced, I believe, were greater
than any man that has ever lived because
He could have done something about each one
of them.
He could have done something about each one
of them.
But He endured them.
He simply endured them and resisted them.
And that testing, again, was to prove who
He was and what He was.
But it was also done here, and the
point they're trying to make sure that you
get here, is that as your High Priest,
He knows you.
He understands you.
When you wake up in the middle of
the night and it's dark and you're tossing
and you're turning and you can't sleep and
you think nobody understands, you can cry out
to heaven, to Jesus Christ, and I guarantee
you, He'll understand exactly what you're going through.
That's what this is saying here.
You know, if you studied history at all,
you might remember that in the history of
Europe, there was a horrible disease that swept
through Europe back right at the end of
the Middle Ages called the Bubonic Plague or
the Black Death.
How many here have heard of the Black
Death?
You know what I'm talking about.
One of the interesting things that historians wrote
about the Black Death is that sometimes it
would come in a village and half the
village would die.
Sometimes 90% of the people.
Millions of people died.
Millions.
It decimated the population of Europe.
But one of the interesting things that historians
of that day noted and wrote down and
recorded for us today is that those people
who got sick were the first ones that
went and took care of the other people
that were sick because they could understand what
they were going through.
They could understand what they were going through.
Isn't that interesting?
I remember a little over seven years ago
in July of 1996, we had a child
born to us.
Her name is Lydia Faith.
And she has Down Syndrome.
And a lot of people came over and
visited.
A lot of people came over and they
prayed for us and said, you know, God
will give you strength.
This will be a blessing in your life.
And she is.
She's a wonderful blessing.
If you know her, you know what I'm
talking about.
But you know, within 24 hours, two or
three people came over that had a Down
Syndrome child and their comfort, their understanding was
of such another level, I can't describe it
to you.
When they would walk in the room, they
would just look at me.
Before they said a word, it was like
a million words were spoken between us.
You know what I'm saying?
And that's what Jesus Christ...
that's what this verse is saying about Him.
You know, He understands.
He empathizes.
He knows.
He is a faithful high priest.
He can succor you.
And to succor means to come to your
aid, to help you.
He can, you know, rest your tired head
in His lap.
He understands.
He cares in a way like nobody else
that has ever lived or died can care.
That's what this is saying.
Now, we want to finish here in the
last little bit of time left to us
We want to look at verses 1-6
here of chapter 3.
We'll stop at verse 6 I think today.
Chapter 3.
Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling...
Isn't that wonderful?
You know, you can partake of a lot
of things in this life, but there's nothing
better than this.
Consider the apostle and high priest of our
profession, Christ Jesus.
Consider Him.
Behold Him.
Perceive Him.
Gaze, meditate upon Him.
Who was faithful to Him that appointed Him?
As also Moses was faithful in all his
house.
For this man was counted worthy of more
glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath
built the house hath more honor than the
house.
Now, this word house is going to be
used I think it's either five or six
times here in these verses.
Just listen for a minute and see if
you can understand what the house is.
For this man was counted more worthy of
glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath
built the house hath more honor than the
house.
For every house is built by some man,
but he that built all things is God.
And Moses verily was faithful in all his
house as a servant for a testimony of
those things which were to be spoken after.
It's as if all of Moses' life was
just an example for something that was going
to happen later.
Verse 6, But Christ as a Son over
His own house, whose house are we, if
we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing
of the hope firm unto the end.
This house here that it's talking about is
not a physical house.
The house of God is never a building.
Amen?
The house of God is never a building.
No church building is the house of God.
And so, the answer to this is clearly
given here in verse 6.
We are His house.
We are the house that Christ has built.
Do you see that?
We are the house that He owns.
God never intended to dwell in a building.
He dwells in people, in men and in
women, and in young people like you.
That is part of the divine intention of
God in making man is that we would
be the tabernacle of His indwelling.
If you go over to Revelation 21 in
that wonderful revelation of what is going to
happen as the end of the ages draw
nigh, it says, Behold, the dwelling of God
is with men.
The dwelling of God is with men.
It's not in a building.
It's you and it's I.
What a wondrous thought.
But what a humbling thought.
But we have to be built by Christ.
We are His house, a fit habitation, only
as we are in Christ.
There are many other religious houses being built
in this world.
Take your pick.
You know, you can even start a new
one if you want to.
People are starting new ones all the time.
But those houses, may I say, are all
house of cards.
I mean, they just blow away.
They just blow away.
They won't make it through eternity.
The great message of the Gospel is that
it takes God for a man to be
really a man like He was intended to
be and that is indwelt by God.
And so, I say you, you cannot be
who you're supposed to be without God.
Do you understand that?
You cannot be who you're supposed to be
without God.
And it takes Christ to be a Christian.
Christianity is not a religion.
It's a person.
It takes Christ to be a Christian.
And when you put Christ in the Christian,
you put actually God back in the man
where He was supposed to be.
Do you see how this thing comes full
circle back in the Garden of Eden?
When you put Christ in a man, then
really what you're doing is putting God back
in the man where He was meant to
be all along.
That is part of the wonderful good news
of the Gospel.
Yes, yes, we get to go to heaven.
Yes, we get cleared from our sins.
But we get to go back to that
original purpose to manifest the glory of God
because we are created in His image and
in His likeness.
That's the good news.
And now in this house that it's talking
about here, God has servants.
He has a Son, Jesus Christ, but He
has a servant.
And remember, the title of this book is
simply Hebrews.
The Jewish people.
And so the Jewish people, they kind of
held Moses up on a pedestal.
You know, we do those things too.
We hold certain men up on pedestals.
Shame on us.
And God wasn't saying Moses was a bad
guy.
He's saying he was faithful.
But you know what?
He's just one of the hired help.
He's just a servant.
But the Son, the Son is coming.
The Son is here.
And what a servant sort of tidies up
and sweeps the floor and cleans up and
puts the beds in order, but the Son
comes in and possesses.
He owns.
He administrates.
He gets provisions.
He has the funds.
He has the resources to make that thing
work.
That is what Jesus Christ has come to
do.
He's come to indwell and inhabit us.
Christ needs to dwell in your hearts by
faith.
There's such a difference in a man who
has Jesus Christ indwelling in him and a
man who does not.
Do you understand the difference in that?
You know, I can meet someone, and it
seems like in three seconds, there's either this
connection, and it's like you just know there's
something of Christ here.
Or you know, uh-oh, something seems off
here.
You know, both of them look the same
outwardly.
They might even act the same sometimes.
But there's a difference there because when God
is at home there, when God is at
home there, everything is suddenly different.
You know, earlier I said I lived in
England for a while, and like I said,
when I was living there, I liked to
visit castles and history and all that kind
of stuff.
I remember one week I visited two different
castles.
One of them was Windsor Castle just west
of London about 30 miles which was built
hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
I think about 700 or 800 years ago.
And you know, people are still living there.
And the grounds are kept.
The flowers are planted.
Things are painted.
The metal is polished.
It's kept in working order.
There's light.
There's heat.
Food is served there.
I mean, there's life there.
About 10 miles from there, there's a castle
built within 10 years of the same year.
But there, nobody lives there.
And nobody's lived there for hundreds of years.
Same style of architecture.
Same time period built.
Nobody lives there.
The battlements are broken down.
All the metal is rusting.
There's no food served there.
There's no light.
There's no heat.
When you go in there, it's just cold
and dank and dark.
And it just sort of penetrates into your
bones.
And you think, what is the difference?
You know, the only difference is this one
is indwelt and lived in.
And this one is not.
This one is not.
And so the difference that God alive in
you makes is radical.
Just as radical as those two buildings.
They were as different as night and day.
And a person that's being indwelt by the
Spirit of God is radically different than a
person that is not.
Are you radically different?
If you're not, you need to find the
answer this week.
And I tell you, the way to God
is through the Son.
The way to God is through the Son.
And that's what this passage is all about.
Consider Him, it says in verse 1.
Gaze upon Him.
Consider Him.
Consider His superiority over Moses, it says here.
You know, Moses gave us...
the whole world would basically agree that on
Mount Sinai, Moses gave us one of the
greatest moral codes and legal system the world
has ever developed just in the Ten Commandments
and all the other things that flowed out
of them.
They were wonderful.
They were good.
But then Jesus Christ came along, and He,
on the Sermon on the Mount, another mount,
gave also the world some amazing teachings.
The difference is, Moses' teachings were based on
conduct.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not do this.
Jesus' teachings dealt with the heart.
Blessed are the pure.
Blessed are those that hunger and thirst.
It was written that thou shalt not commit
adultery.
But I say, if you have looked upon
a woman to lust, you've already killed her.
See the difference?
The reign of Christ in your life, in
you, now deals with who you really are.
Not just with your conduct, but with your
heart.
When the Son comes, He cleans house in
a way Moses never could.
Do you see the difference?
He's better than Moses.
He took everything Moses did and lifted it
up into a spiritual realm.
Into a new place.
That's why He could say, I didn't come
to change one jot or tittle, but rather
fulfill.
And that word fulfill is the same word
as perfect.
He came to make it what it was
meant to be.
And that's what it means to be perfect
in Christ.
To be what you're meant to be.
To be what I'm meant to be.
And that's the difference between Moses and Him.
Is conduct and heart issues or character.
Now, something else I'm glad of on those
two mounts there.
On Mount Sinai with Moses, there was thunderings
and rumblings.
And God said, don't even let the cattle
touch this mountain.
If they do, do you know what would
happen to them?
They'd be struck dead.
This is a holy place.
And I'm glad for the Ten Commandments.
But I'm glad I don't have to live
under them to get accepted into Heaven.
But then God also came down thousands of
years later on another mount.
On another mount.
Mount Calvary.
And there God also met with man that
day on the cross.
And on that day on that mountain, a
broken, bruised, and dying man died.
But the difference was He wasn't just a
man.
Although He was a man, He was God.
And His death, through His death, He opened
the way that we would have the power
to live.
And that those laws would be written on
the tables of flesh in our hearts.
Two men, two mountains, two manifestations of God
into the world.
Both good.
One better.
One giving you and I the power to
be free from the bondage of sin.
The other simply being a schoolmaster to show
us who we really are.
Because our conduct is not going to measure
up.
Your conduct is never going to measure up.
So Jesus is better than Moses.
That's what He's trying to teach you here.
And I'm thankful that God does not save
by the law.
Because if He did, if works worked, Jesus
didn't need to have to die.
But works don't work, young people.
Works don't work.
And this finishes here with what I would
call a cry or a plea, and I
would make it as well as I close
here.
But Christ is a Son over His own
house.
Whose house are we?
And are you?
If...
Now notice the if.
An if is a conditional prepositional word.
And it's a very powerful one here.
You need to listen.
If...
We hold fast.
And the word hold fast there, it's a
word of faith.
But such faith, the word fast is a
word of seizing and gripping with a holy
grit that you're never going to let go.
It's not just on the day you get
born again saying, well, I want Jesus in
my heart because I want to go to
heaven.
I'm sorry, that's not it.
It's such a trust and such a belief
in Jesus Christ that you realize that He
is the only answer.
He's better than the prophets.
He's better than the angels.
He's better than Moses.
In fact, He's the only thing I can
hold on to and I'm going to hold
on to Him so fast, I'm going to
hold on to Him and endure to the
end.
And that's the plea here.
Hold fast the confidence, which is the faith,
and then the rejoicing of the hope firm
unto the end.
I hope something comes in your spirit and
your heart and your soul this week, a
resurgence of faith that you could hold fast
and firm unto the end, never wavering, because
Jesus is worthy of that faith.
I'm not asking you to trust me.
I'm not asking you to trust the Bible
school this week.
But I'm telling you, you need to hold
fast to Jesus Christ firm unto the end.
And then, there's a hope.
There is a hope.
Not a hope as in it might happen,
but a hope as in it's going to
happen.
Jesus will not let go of you.
The question is, will you hold firm to
the end?
If you do, and I know you can,
because there are so many that have gone
before us that have, that have died and
gone on to heaven and been able to
say, O death, where is thy sting?
Because of their faith and holding firm to
the end, meaning the end of their life,
they didn't waver.
They held on to Christ all the days
of their life.
It's possible in Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Thank you for listening this morning.
May God continue to add His blessings.
Let me give you just, if I may,
those of you that can, a little assignment
for tomorrow.
This is Bible school, right?
Tomorrow, we're going to try, by the grace
of God, to go through Hebrews 3, chapter
3, starting in verse 7 through the end
of chapter 4.
Okay?
So we've got about 11 or 12 verses
there, 14, so maybe 28 verses, give or
take.
Try to read those over twice by tomorrow.
I don't want to take a lot of
time reading tomorrow.
I will read them anyway, but I want
to move along and make a couple of
very important points that are going to tie
directly into what I just said about holding
fast until the end.
So if you get a chance sometime late
tonight or early tomorrow morning when you wake
up, you read those.
Amen.
God bless you.
Thank you for listening.