GOD HATH SPOKEN

Hebrews One

God, having of old times spoken unto the fathers in various portions, and various ways, has at the end of these days spoken unto us through His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things. According to John 1:3, “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that has been made.” And then again in Colossians 1:16, “And by Him were all things that are in heaven, and that are on earth, visible, and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, all things were created for Him, and by Him.”

Now as the New Testament is read it is noticed Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, James, and Jude actually wrote the words of Jesus. When Jesus was about to go to the cross He reminded the Apostles that the Holy Spirit would come and bring to their remembrance all things that He spoke unto them. So actually when we read the words of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, James and Jude, we are reading the words of Jesus.

The Bible is the only inspired revelation of God on earth. Paul said in Galatians, “If any man preaches any other gospel than that which we have proclaimed, let him be accursed.” He said, not only any man, but even if an angel preach any other message, he would be condemned also.

Now what did God have to say in Hebrews chapter one? God had a lot to say, and we cannot notice all of it, but He had much to say about the redemptive power of Jesus. Verse three reminds us, “Who being the effulgence of His glory, and the very image of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high; having become so much better than the angels as He hath inherited a more excellent name than they, for unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee.” John 3:31 informs us, “He that cometh from above is above all: He that is of the earth is of the earth, and of the earth He speaks; He that cometh from heaven is above all.” And then Romans 14:9, “For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be the Lord of both the living and the dead.” Now what did God say about the human race?

THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN RACE

For one thing He had something to say about the origin of the human race. In the fifth verse God the Father said of Jesus, “Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee.” And again, “I will be to Him a Father, and He to Me a Son.” And again when He brings His firstborn into the world He saith, “Let all the angels of God worship Him.” Jesus was not made a little lower than the human race; if He had He would have been an animal. Jesus was not an animal, and I am not an animal. People are concerned about life in outer space. While I do not know anything about who or what is out there, I know that it is not superior to us, because we are just a little lower than the angels, and you don’t get any higher in creation than that. We are it. Man is the biggest thing in the cosmos, next to the angels.

Sometimes through the years my faith has been a little shaken. I saw a beautiful Buick convertible back in the fifties on a downtown street in Cincinnati, Ohio. The top was down, and as I came up from behind I saw a young couple with their backs toward me, and they seemed to be talking to what was an infant on a car seat between them. I heard the man say something like, “Itchy kitchy koo, daddy’s little baby.” And then the woman said, “Itchy kitchy koo, mama’s little baby.” As I passed by I turned to see this marvelous sight, and there hanging between them on the car seat was a monkey. I thought to myself, maybe there is something to this evolution thing. We have come this far, and now we are starting back in the opposite direction. Now what else did God have to say in Hebrews chapter one? He had something to say about His hatred of sin.

GOD HATES SIN

Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. God hates sin. We need, as Paul said, to learn to hate, despise, and abominate that which is evil. Would that we could hate sin the way that Jesus does. It seems that in general we have a love affair with sin. We flirt with it. We like it. We hold it close to us like a poisonous rattlesnake. We pet sin and laugh at it.

There is more to being a Christian than going to church once a week, observing the Lord’s Supper, putting a few dollars in the collection plate, and listening to a sermon.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “For I say unto you that except your righteous shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.” And then the life-style of Jesus is found in Hebrews 4:15, “For we have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities; but one who was tempted in all points like as we are and yet without sin.” And then in Psalms 45:7, “Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”

One example of the degradation of the modern mind was when a Doctor on television was being interviewed by a young woman on the subject of Aids. One of her questions was, “Doctor, if you and I, were going to bed together what advice would you give me?” She was not the slightest bit embarrassed to ask such a stupid question. The doctor replied, “I would like to say first of all that you and I are not going to bed together.” The young woman was slightly put down by such a remark and said, “What’s wrong with me?” The Doctor said, “I have been married for several years, and that is not my life-style; and then he repeated about four times that statement again, “You and I are not going to bed together.” America today both out of the church and the majority in the church love iniquity and hate, and despise righteousness. Anyone who has not been blinded by the Devil can see it. Paul said in 2nd Corinthians 11:3, “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and purity that is toward Christ.” GOD HATH SPOKEN. What else did God have to say in Hebrews chapter one?

THE FINAL WIND-UP

He speaks of the wind-up of human affairs. Speaking of the universe God says, “The heavens are the works of Thy hands. They shall perish, but you continue, they shall wax old as doth a garment, they shall be rolled up as a mantle and changed as a garment.” The message of God in Hebrews chapter one is that the world is not going to remain as it is forever. However Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yea and forever.”

In Second Peter 3:10 the Apostle predicted, “But forget not this one thing beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promises as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to you, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat and the earth and the things that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you also to be in all holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring the day of God, by reason of which the heaven being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. But, according to His promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness.”

People are concerned about the day after; personally I am not concerned about it at all. If they ever drop atomic bombs on this country, I know where I will be on the day after. I have the hope of meeting Jesus in the air. But the greatest meeting of all will be that day when the Lord comes again, and what a meeting that will be. Those who miss that meeting will miss it all. Peter says that we ought to earnestly desire the coming of the day of the Lord. Paul says that we should look for the blessed hope and appearing of the great God our Savior Jesus Christ. John prayed the last prayer in the Word of God when He said, “Even so, Come, Lord Jesus.” Now what else did the Lord have to say in Hebrews chapter one? He had something to say about ministering angels.

MINISTERING ANGELS

The last verse of the first chapter of Hebrews asks the question, “Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to do service for the sake of them that inherit eternal salvation?” The angels are sent forth; we do not pray for them to come, we pray to God the Father, and He sends them wherever they are needed.

In Revelation 22:8 John said, “And I John am he that heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel that showed me these things. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am a fellow servant with thee and with thy brethren the prophets, and with them that keep the words of the prophecy of this book: worship God.”

Now here are several examples of ministering angels: Acts 12, “Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, and guards before the door kept the prison. And behold an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shined in the cell, and he smote Peter on the side, and said Rise up quickly.” Acts 27:23, “For there stood by me this night an angel of God whose I am, and whom also I serve, saying, Fear not Paul; thou must stand before Caesar: and lo, God has given thee all them that sail with thee.” Acts 5:19, “An Angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them out and said, Go ye, and stand and speak in the temple, to all the people all the words of this life.” Then there is Acts 8:26, “But an angel of the Lord spoke unto Philip saying, Arise and go toward the south unto the way that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza: the same is desert.” Then in Acts 10, “There was a certain centurion, a devout man, who feared God with all his house, and he saw in a vision openly, as it were about the ninth hour of the day, an angel of God coming in unto him, and saying unto him, thy prayers have gone up for a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa, and fetch Peter, who shall speak whereby you shall be saved, you and your house.” And then last of all, there was Mark 1:13, “Jesus was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan; and He was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.”

The angelic population of heaven must be greater than the population of humans on earth. In Hebrews 12 they are referred to as an innumerable host of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven.

How many ways they have worked in our lives we will not know until we reach the other side of the mystic river; but there are some ways that we are told where they minister. The great job of the angels will be at the resurrection of the saved. Matthew 24:30 tells us, “And then shall they see the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send forth His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

Matthew 13:41 warns us, “The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity and shall cast them into the furnace of fire, there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.” Romans 14:9, “For to this end Christ died and lived again that He might be the Lord of the living and the dead.” And then Hebrews 1:4 reminds us having become so much better than the angels He hath inherited a more excellent name than they. O precious cross, O glorious crown, O resurrection Day-Ye angels from the stars come down and bear my soul away. And now consider the two footstools of God.

THE FOOTSTOOL OF JESUS

There are two footstools of God, God the Father’s footstool is mentioned by Stephen in his defense in Acts 7:49, Solomon built the Temple, and God the Father said, “The heaven is my throne, and the earth the footstool of My feet: What manner of house will you build Me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of My rest? Did not My hand make all these things?”

And then the footstool of God is mentioned one more time beginning in Matthew 5:34, “But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by the heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.”

And then the footstool of Jesus is mentioned four times in scripture, once in Psalms 111:1, once in Matthew 22:44 and twice in Hebrews. And then this question is asked of all this great array of the angelic assembly, “But unto which of the angels has He said at any time, Sit Thou on My right hand, till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet.” This statement is asked four times in all parts of the Word of God, twice in Hebrews, once in Matthew and once in Psalms.

This question is asked of the One who died and arose from the dead, and sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high; having become so much better than the angels as He has inherited a more excellent name than they. He is the one who shall reign at the right hand of God until all His enemies shall become the footstool under His feet are the ones, they trampled under foot.

Now it is hard to understand some people. About twenty years ago I was in the airport in Norfolk, Virginia. As I walked through the concourse, I saw a display on outer space, and a sign proclaimed the message: Mankind must go to Mars before 2030. A lady called to me, “Sir, are you interested in outer space?” I said, “Yes Ma’am.” She said, “Take some of these books, and learn about it.” I said, “Your books don’t go far enough, you are only going as far as Mars, and I want to go all the way to heaven.” I took out my New Testament and said, “I have all the information in this book; do you want to go?” She laughed and said, “No.” She wanted me to go to Mars, but she did not want to go to the heaven of the One who said, “Go ye, into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature, he that believes and is baptized shall be saved, he that believes not shall be condemned.”

Back in Bible College days there used to be a song that we sang with great gusto. It was a song about the Word of God.

Midst the storms and doubts of unbelief we fear; stands a book eternal that the world holds dear. Through the restless ages it remains the same, Tis the book of God, and the Bible is its name.The old book, and the old faith, are the rock on which I stand. The old book, and the old faith are the bulwark of the land. Through storm and stress they stand the test; in every clime and nation blest. The grand old book, and the dear old faith, are the hope of every land.