Conference: 2000
Table of Contents
Christ The Way of Life
Address—C. Hendricks
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
What has struck me so?
Forcibly recently as the.
Is the wonder of this book I hold in my hands.
Greatest miracle that there is.
66 books written over a span of.
1500 years or more.
By over 30 authors.
And we have it. We have it in one book.
Tremendous legacy.
That we have. I wonder if we value it like we should.
What I want to do this this afternoon is to to look at.
Some of the statements of our blessed Lord. Let's start out with a verse from John Chapter 7. John's Gospel, Chapter 7.
The soldiers were sent to.
To take.
The Lord Jesus.
And it says in the 45th verse of John 7. Then came the officers.
To the chief priests and Pharisees. And they said unto them, Why have ye not brought him?
The officers answered. Never man spake like this man.
That's what I want to look at this afternoon. Turn back to the first chapter and we will just remember that statement. The officers hadn't. They didn't give any excuses as to why they hadn't brought him. They just said never.
Man spake.
Like this man, there was a power.
There was a power in his words that never heard the likes of it, nothing even close to it. Now the very first verse of our gospel tells us something it says in the beginning.
Was the word.
And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then in the.
14th Verse. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
And we beheld his glory, the glorious of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Now I'm using words to.
Conveyed to you, to your mind. What's in my mind?
In order for me to do that, I have to form what's in my mind into words. In order for God to communicate to His creatures what was in His mind, He did it through the person of Him who is the Word.
The word.
I remember hearing once a missionary story.
About a missionary who is constructing a.
A building.
For the local native believers to meet in.
And he needed a hammer.
And so he took a piece of wood and he he wrote something on the on the piece of wood. He gave it to the native. And he says, give this to my wife.
And so he went to the house and found her, and gave the piece of wood to the wife of the missionary. She read it. She went to the two shed, took the hammer down, gave it to the native, and he came back to the missionary, handed him the hammer.
And the missionary said thank you.
The natives said.
Would talk.
Would talk.
He couldn't understand that.
She just scribbled. He scribbled some things down and the wife read them, knew exactly what to give, would talk.
You know, our New and concise Bible Dictionary has that story in it. I was amazed to find it. You can search for it. I can't remember under what heading it is, might be under the heading of language or something like that. It's got that very story in it.
Would talk. Well, here we have God talking in the person of the Word. Now He was the living Word, and here we have the written word, the written word of God.
Tremendous revelation that we have.
There was a time when it was forbidden to anyone to possess a Bible in some parts of our so-called Christian world, Western Europe, when the Church had such power that they forbade anyone to even possess one, let alone to read it. We have such wonderful liberty with this precious book.
00:05:10
The word never man spake like this man. Now the higher critics, these are the intelligent rationalists who don't believe in the Bible, don't believe it's the word of God, have not submitted to Christ as Savior and Lord.
And with their minds, they have come up with, they've analyzed the New Testament and the Old Testament too. And especially I'm thinking of the Gospel of John right now, which is where we are. And I want you to just remember this, that they have said that this Jesus that that is, he's been invented by some men. He didn't really exist.
And this is an invention of man.
Now, as we as we read.
What he said. We're going to look at some of his sayings.
Just consider this rationalistic, unbelieving infidel statement.
That he never really exists, he's just the figment of someone's imagination. Well, right off hand I would say that sinful man could never, never, never come up with a life.
Like this?
One who spoke with such authority and such power and such evidence. All you have to do if someone says is I don't believe the Bible is the word of God. I always say, have you read it? It bears its own credentials. I have a book. It's called The Signature of God. I love the title because it means God's put his signature on every page of Scripture then he has.
And it's compelling evidence. All you have to do is read John's Gospel. I love what one brother used to say to me. His advice was to someone that was not a believer. Read the Gospel of John through to the end.
And then go back and read it a second time. And then go back and read it a third time. Read it prayerfully. Read it carefully. Read it.
To submit to the message of it. And he said to the person he was speaking to, You will be a changed man if you do that.
This book contains its own.
Authority and its own proof that it is indeed inspired of God. No man, no man could ever have thought up the life and the words that Jesus spoke.
Never man spake like this man, and that was a true statement.
Now we're going to look at some passages we can't possibly cover the mall. We'll turn to the 6th chapter.
The 6th chapter.
Verse 30 They said to him, these unbelieving Pharisees, they said, Our fathers did.
No. Verse 30 Then said they unto him, What signs show us thou then, that we may see and believe thee? What does thou work?
Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written. He gave them bread from heaven to eat, which is a remarkable sign of course. And thence Jesus said unto them, to them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven.
And giveth life.
Unto the world. Just that statement just pondered. We read it. We're so familiar with it that we pass through these passages without, without pausing and reflecting. A mere man wrote that statement. The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them.
I am the bread of life.
He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
Invented by man, Such a word no Impossible.
But I said unto you, that ye also have seen me, and believe not all that the Father giveth me shall come to me.
And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him.
That sent me.
00:10:01
When we think of these words that the blessed Lord uttered, he who is the word of God Himself, what power they convey and they contain in themselves.
And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
Any of these sentences that we've read, any of these statements that the Lord has made, could never have been invented by the mind of sinful man. Never.
Utterly impossible.
And this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?
Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the Father.
Which hath sent me? Draw him, and I will raise him up.
At the last day, think of think of creating this mythical story. If that's what it was, we know it wasn't. We know it isn't. We know it's absolute. The truth of God, This life was actually lived. These words were actually uttered by the Son of God. Become a man. But think if, if the rationalist theory were true, that this would all have to be invented.
Thought up by the mind of sinful man, which is.
The absolute impossibility.
Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves, No man can come to me.
Except the Father which hath sent me draw him.
And I will raise him up.
At the last day.
For it is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God.
Every man, therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh to me.
Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.
Verily, verily, I say unto you.
He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
I am that bread of life.
Your father's did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof.
And not die.
I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.
And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood.
Dwelleth in me.
And I in him.
As the living Father hath sent me.
And I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven, not as your Father's did eat manna and are dead he that eateth.
Of this bread shall live forever. Never man spake like this man.
Now the Roman Catholics have invented. They have perverted.
The Doctrine of the Lord's Supper We took the Lord's Supper this morning.
The loaf on the table never ceased to be a loaf of bread.
The cup filled with wine never ceased to be wine.
The elements never changed.
But they have invented the doctrine of transubstantiation.
Which when the priest says his words in Latin, the bread is transformed into the literal body, and the wine into the literal blood of Christ.
00:15:00
Needless to say, that is not the truth.
It's a blasphemous lie.
And if it were true, then verse 53 would say, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. And if the elements of the Lords Table, the elements of the supper were transformed into his little body and blood, all you would have to do to have eternal life would be to eat it. The next verse says so. It says, whoso verse 54, whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood.
Hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
And if you haven't done that, you're lost for all eternity.
They make out of an ordinance out of a remembrance supper where we look back and remember Christ in death.
And he uses the loaf of bread and a cup of wine to bring to our remembrance the state that he was once in when he was dead on the cross.
We remember him not living, but in his death. When we come into the meeting Lords Day morning, we see a loaf of bread and cup of wine. We we come into a picture of death that that symbolizes death because the wine is separate from the loaf. That means the blood has been shed and so it's a picture of death.
I have a nice picture of my wife and.
Let's suppose it's mounted in a beautiful frame.
Then I show it to you, I said. This is my wife.
This is Laverne names Laverne. This is my wife Laverne.
Well, that's not really the case. She's in Illinois. She's not here in Arizona. But I could show you a picture of her and say, this is my wife. And that's what the Lord did when he took the law. If he says this is my body and when he took the cup, he says this is my blood. It's a it's a picture of it. It's what's going to remind you that I was once dead.
And I went into death. The wages of sin is death, and I paid for your sins when I died for them.
Now John 6.
Is not.
A picture of the supper.
But the supper is a picture of the truth embodied in John 6. The supper still remains a supper. It still remains bread and wine.
That doesn't change. It's a remembrance.
If I told you in that picture of my wife and I said this is really she, this is she, she's right here in the picture.
You'd think I'd lost it.
Though that's just a picture of her.
Sometimes in the past I've taken that picture.
Not kissed it.
Because just looking at her picture brings these thoughts to my mind.
But she's still not there in the picture. She's there in one sense. But now if you said to me, that's a beautiful frame.
Beautiful photography.
I'd say wait a minute.
You have no value for the one that's pictured.
I'm talking about my wife. You're talking about the frame, you're talking about the photography. I resent that.
You have no value for the one that's pictured.
And when we make the supper to be the literal body and blood of Christ.
That's blasphemy.
It reminds us of him.
Reminds us of Him, but it's still just a reminder. It's a remembrance. It's not a remembrance of Him as He walked and spoke those wonderful words. That's what we're considering this afternoon. Or as He was after the resurrection, a man in the glory. It's not a reminder of Him in that condition, but we remember Him in a condition that He is not in any longer condition of death.
As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show forth the Lord's death till he comes.
And it doesn't say that he didn't say to us Remember my death.
But he said, Remember Me.
But Remember Me in.
My death.
That's the truth of the supper.
So they've made a mystical thing out of it.
And blasphemously denied the truth, they made a sacrifice of it. And if you ask a Roman Catholic priest every time you celebrate the math Mass, are you sacrificing Christ? Is it? Is it this duplicate of the cross? And you will say, yes, that's true.
Well, it's not true, it's blasphemy. He could only die once.
00:20:03
He can only suffer once, and he did that of course, on the cross, and his death without his sufferings is worthless.
Another thing that is totally false about their system, their doctrine is.
The wafer is all they give to the people, and it contains the body, the divinity and the blood contains everything of Christ.
Well if it's the body and the blood then it's a it's a remembrance of non death because if the blood is not separate from the body, death hasn't come in.
That's why when we come into the table every morning, there's the cup we're symbolizing the blood and the bread symbolizing the body.
Now Paul got an added revelation about this, about the supper, and it's connected with the truth of the Lords Table in 1St Corinthians 10. And we'll come back to John, but I think I want to turn you there for just a few moments.
The bread doesn't only speak of the physical body that was prepared him in which he suffered for our sins. It does do that, of course.
As he lay in death on the cross, everything.
It's interesting that in the Old Testament.
In order to kill the animals, they cut the throat and let the blood out, and then he died.
But with the Lord Jesus, he already was dead. When the blood was shed, the soldier pierced the side of the dead Christ, and all the value of His atoning sufferings were in that blood that was shed. And that's the only blood that's spoken of as to the blessed Lord, the blood that was shed on the cross.
Three things are necessary to accomplish atonement, the atoning sufferings, the life given up, which is death. He had to die and the bloodshed, and that took place in that order actually.
With the Lord.
He did not die a martyr's death. He did not die because His blood was shed. No, His blood was shed after He was dead, after He dismissed His spirit. No man taketh my life from me. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. And so His blood carried with it the shed blood of Christ. That which flowed from His pierced side carried with it all the value of His atoning sufferings and death.
And that's what is necessary to accomplish the work that he accomplished once and for all on the cross.
Anything that denies that is a denial of that which has secured God's glory in our eternal blessing. But we learned from Paul's ministry that the loaf on the table speaks of something beyond his precious body. It speaks of the body of Christ which we're a part of. Every one of us is a member of that one body. And in First Corinthians 10/16.
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?
Notice in the supper in the 11TH chapter, and in the way the Lord instituted it, The bread is first, and then the blood, and then the cup.
At first he took a body and then he shed his blood. And that's the that's the historical order and that's the order in which the supper was instituted. But in connection with the Lords Table, it's reversed. The cup is mentioned first because what's what the bread here symbolizes is not his physical body in which he suffered, but his mystical body. Well, that you and I are a part of the body of Christ. We're all members.
So when we remembered the Lord in his death, we didn't just do it as individual believers.
I wouldn't deny that truth. I think that's the truth. The 1St Corinthians 11, we remember him, each one of us in his death, but we also remember him as members of his body.
Not just individuals, and this is a truth that is not practiced in the systems.
They've missed that line of truth. They'll serve a wafer or crackers or.
Some baked flour.
But they don't have a loaf.
And the body of Christ is 1 and it pictures every believer on the face of the earth, regardless of what he's connected with. If he's a true believer, if he's under the shed blood of Christ, and if he's been born again and sealed by the Holy Spirit, he's a member of that one body.
And he's represented in that one loaf, and he has a place at the Lord's table.
A place there. Not everyone occupies that place, but if there's a place there for everyone who is a member of the body of Christ.
00:25:02
Now that's the truth that we have in verse 16, the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the blood is mentioned first because it's the basis for fellowship.
The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? When we break the bread, we express fellowship.
The fellowship of the Body of Christ.
We don't recognize all the divided.
Uh, groups in Christendom. That's the work of the enemy.
That's not the work of God. Work of the Spirit of God is to form 1 body.
And he did that on the day of Pentecost. And the purpose of the Lord's death was that he might gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. And he's done that. He's done that. And in the early church, they were all one.
They were all one. I passed the track to a lady at a gas station and paying my bill. And we got into a little conversation and right away she said, what church do you go to? And I said, well, I said if I was living in the 1St century, we were living in the 1St century, what church would we go to?
Well, there was only one then she said, yeah, I said that's right, there was only one in the 1St century.
And all the many that exist today are the results of the work of Satan.
That he's come in and scattered the flock.
Paul said in Acts 20. He said, I know that after my departure shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock, and they would be unsaved ones that would come in and scatter the flock. And then he said also of your own cells shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
What's the remedy in such a confused state of things? And we're living in the 20th, 21St century now, and we're down at the very end. The Lord is about to come, and they come today before this meeting is over. He might come take us home.
And we look about this must be very confusing. I was talking to a man up in Cottonwood but her brother Ray and I went to visit him a dear man of God that's that's struggling with the all the confusion that exists around him. The last days difficult time shall be there. What difficult times how does one find his way in the maze of confusion all these different bodies calling themselves Christians and saying we're right and we're right and.
How do you find out?
It's not easy. It's not easy. We have to go by the word of God, follow the man with the picture of water, spirit of God using the word of God and he will lead us. He will guide us. I often say I can't tell you where to go, but I'll tell you one because I could make a mistake. I'm fallible. I'm, I'm just a fallible human being, but I can tell you one who's infallible and if you follow his leading.
He will lead you to the right place.
Who's that? That's the Holy Spirit.
Using the picture of water, the word of God.
And he will lead you.
If you are led by the Spirit of God, by the word of God.
To the right place and I am so LED. We'll be together, won't we?
He's not going to lead you one place and me another.
He's not going to support division.
That's not God's work, that's the work of the enemy.
And I have often said to some who are not with us, if I'm right, you're wrong. If you're right, I'm wrong. Or maybe we're both wrong.
But we can't both.
Be right.
And not be together.
That's not hard to grasp.
Is it?
We might all be wrong.
A doctrine.
Sound teaching.
But that has to form the basis for a fellowship which is of God, has to be sound according to the Word of God. It has to be holy because the Holy Spirit is the one that gathers us. And it has to be according to truth, because He is the Spirit of truth and He is the gathering power and He gathers us to a center. Who said I am the way, the truth and the life? No man cometh to the Father, but by me. He is the one we're gathered to by the Spirit of God for the glory.
Father, and if each one of us was so gathered, we'd all be together.
Well.
What does he say here? The bread which we break, verse 16? Is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread.
And one body, for we are all partakers of that one.
00:30:03
Bread in the early days. I believe that if one was a true Christian, a member of the body of Christ, he took the loaf when it came around Lord's Day morning, that we are all partakers of that one breath.
Sad to say that we're living in a day when some are members of the body of Christ. They're saved, they're in dwelt of the Holy Spirit, but they don't break bread. Why don't they break bread?
Why don't they break bread?
Well, maybe there's something in their life that they feel makes them ineligible. That's possible. Maybe they're just timid. Maybe they're not instructed properly. But if you remember the body of Christ, there's a place for you at his table, and he's invited you there. It's not for us to invite you. For us to invite you. He's already invited you. This too, He said, Remember Me?
He's asked her to do that. Have you done it?
Great privilege.
Behold Israel after the flesh. Now he goes back to the Old Testament, and he appeals to Israel.
Connection with their peace offerings are not they which eat of the sacrifices. He's talking about the peace offerings or the communion offerings. Partakers of the altar. That word partakers is not a good translation there. It should read in communion with the altar.
That is when an Israelite came to the altar of Jehovah there at Jerusalem, and he brought his peace offering. The priest took some of it and ate it. He the offer took some of it and ate it, and the rest was offered to God. It was the communion offering and that's what's expressed at the Lords Table. Fellowship. Fellowship with the Father and the Son and with one another as members of the body of Christ.
Now he turns to the Gentiles in verse 19. What say I then? That the idol is anything, or that which is offered to idols is anything the Gentiles sacrifice to idols. The Jews had a single table or altar at Jerusalem, and they were to bring their sacrifices there and only there, and they were expressing fellowship with the very altar on which they worshipped, at which they worshipped when they did that.
And now he turns to the Gentiles and says that the but say I then that the idol is anything or that which is offered, and sacrifice to idols is anything but. I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils or to demons and not to God. And I would not that she should have fellowship with demons. What he's saying is that when the when the Jews partook of the peace offerings, they were expressing fellowship with that altar.
And when the Gentiles?
Of the offerings offered to Demons, they're expressing fellowship with the Demons table.
And when the Christian.
Eats the Lord's Supper. He's expressing fellowship with the Lord's Table in a different system, a different line of truth altogether. And he says you can't mix those.
You can't be a Jew and a Christian or a Gentile and a Christian. You have to be 1 or the other.
He says that in verse 21, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons, devils or demons.
He cannot be partakers of the Lord's Table and of the table.
Of demons, they were actually doing that and that's why he corrects it.
And he says you can't do that, realizing that the demons table represents something totally contrary to the Lord's Table. Lord's Table speaks of the unity of.
Christians and of.
And of the true God whom we worship. And all these others are connected with false gods.
Now I'm not saying that the tables of men that are round about us are tables of demons. Now far be the thought that was that was idolatry.
But man has set up his own table.
And we have confusion.
Now let's go back to John 6 and the cull a few more points there.
John, Chapter 6.
Verse 53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat.
The flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood. You have no life in you. Now when we take the Lord's Supper, that's not what we're doing.
The supper hasn't been transformed into his body and blood. We're not.
Eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
00:35:02
But it speaks of the truth of this.
When he said this is my body and this is my blood.
And the one that.
Eats the Lord's Supper is one who is saved.
And how did he get saved? By eating his flesh and drinking his blood. The eating is a figure in scripture of appropriating to oneself.
Christ in death.
Eating his flesh, drinking his body separated. Now the death has come in, the blood is outside the body and so we appropriate him, we receive him by faith and we have eternal life. And if we haven't done that, whether we've eaten the Lords Supper or not, that has nothing to do with it. The supper is just a figure of this, it's not the real thing.
Just like that picture of my wife. That's not the real thing. My wife is not really there in the picture. She's at home.
But this is a picture of her. It's at which I can think of her and remember her as she was.
Maybe it was when she was in her 20s.
And so we look back and remember the Lord.
Hanging a dead man on a cross.
And that death?
Has secured, infallibly secured, our salvation.
And the supper, we remember that.
We don't get it by eating the supper.
The supper doesn't impart any spiritual value to us.
That's the ritualist that would claim that.
They also say that when a child is baptized, he receives eternal life. Nonsense. Other nonsense.
They make this symbol, they make the ordinance to be the real thing. The real thing is obtained by faith.
By faith in the Lord Jesus. Without faith it is impossible to please God, regardless of how many ordinances you may have partaken of.
They don't save.
They might be a picture of salvation.
But they in themselves do not say very important that we see this, this distinction between what is a picture of something and what is the real thing that it's picturing. And the way you get the real thing is to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, and that is you appropriate by faith into your soul and make him your own. And if you have not done that, even if you've eaten the Lord's Supper, even if you've been baptized, even if you've gone to church every day in the week, you're still not saved.
Because you haven't taken him into your soul.
Into your heart by faith and received him. You have not eaten Him. You have not made Him a part of you.
That's what John Six is talking about.
I read those two verses again, and read a few later. Then Jesus said unto them, Never man spake like this man. Think of what these words are saying. Could a mere mortal man, a sinful man, ever, ever, ever have come out with words like this?
Utterly impossible.
Yeah, the claim of the rationalist and the higher critic is nonsense, just as the evolutionist claims are nonsense.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
If you haven't gone through that transaction in your soul of making him yours.
You have no life in you.
Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
For my fleshes meet indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me.
And I in him.
Now these next two verses to me are a tremendously precious verse. 57 Especially as the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father. His whole purpose for living down here was to glorify His Father. On account of the Father I live, he says. And now notice the last part. So he that eateth me, even He shall live by reason of me.
Account of me.
If you're a Christian, your whole purpose for being here is to live.
For him, as Paul said, for me to live is Christ, not to make money.
Not to make a name for yourself in a world that cast him out and that would not have him, but to live for him.
To witness for him.
To make him everything in your life.
This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your Father's did. Eat manna and are dead. He that eateth of this bread shall live forever.
00:40:03
Eternal life.
The manner that came from heaven was enough to sustain them as they went through the wilderness, but it didn't impart eternal life to them. This bread, the sun come down from heaven.
Imparts eternal life to the soul.
No ordinance does it. No. Might be a picture of it, but it's just like my wifes picture. Just a picture of the reality. The reality is at home and the reality today is in glory. He was once a dead man on a cross. We remember him in that condition. But.
He is in glory now. He lives, and He's coming again for us. But how do we get eternal life? By appropriating Him in death for our own souls, showing forth His death.
Turn to chapter 8. Every man spake like this man.
Verse 12. Then spake Jesus again.
Unto them saying.
I am the light of the world.
He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have.
The light.
Of life.
I recently had occasion to view a film about the cults.
And I just want to pass this on to you and all of the cults we looked at, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses.
Unity School of Christianity sung Sun young Moon, the Moonies the.
Jehovah's Witnesses.
Christian Science.
A bunch of these cults, they all had a leader.
Jim Jones. Yet he was the leader and.
In these cults, the leader.
The Watchtower leader.
The Armstrong Heresy, the man that was the leader, he went, he lived there in the time of the Great Depression and people were were starving, very poor and that and he was living in great luxury.
They always have a man that is.
Is the is the leader and he's the one that that you can't challenge. You can't challenge him whatever he says. The Church of Rome has a leader. He's called the Pope, he's there in Rome. Whatever he says, that's law and they can't challenge it.
That's the worst ******* that there is. Worse ******* that there is, is to submit yourself to such.
Awful, wicked leadership.
Allegiant allegedly to hell because that's where they're going.
Well.
They don't have light. These people that have been duped into those things, they're just following darkness. They're walking in darkness. And here's one that says I'm the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
I remember lying on the bed after viewing that and thinking of all these evil cults that are in the world, and here we have one who says I'm the light of the world.
To have him who is light, God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. And he came and became a man, and he's the light, He's the light.
Follow him and you will not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. And it struck me that all those people that were duped into following these false leaders.
How, how, How did it happen to them because they did not know this book?
They did not know this book.
And you have to remember that if you don't make it your own, if you don't read it.
If you don't, make it your own.
You're you're going to be open to following a false leader.
A false leader.
Christ was charged with being that, but he was the truth, was he not?
The 9th chapter we have the same thing he says in verse 5. He says as long as I am in the world.
I am the light of the world. This chapter pictures a man who was blind from his birth, to whom the Lord gave physical sight, and he also was blind spiritually to start with, and he gave him spiritual sight as well. And these Pharisees that opposed the Lord, they were the ones who were blind not physically, but spiritually.
I am the light of the world and in the 10th chapter, these are wonderful statements that he made. He says in verse 9, I am the door.
00:45:05
By me if any man enter in he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture. I remember when I was a young man I was pumping gas at the Shell station near the house and I passed the track to the person I was serving and we got into a discussion and his view was that as long as you're sincere in many ways to get to heaven doesn't matter as long as you're sincere a lot of people get there there you have your way and I have my way and just before he left he.
By the way, I want to go to Evanston. How do I get there? Well, I said just take any road you want. I said as long as you're sincere, you'll get there. And he said no. I said that's you've been telling me.
That's a juvenile. How can people be so intelligent and their mind functions rationally when it comes to the simple thing of directions to a town, but when all of a sudden when it comes into a religious thing, they lose their common sense?
You know the Bible isn't irrational.
Faith is.
Faith is not reason, but it's not unreasonable.
The only thing that makes any sense is real faith.
Faith in God, leave him out. Nothing makes sense.
I am the door by me. If any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture.
Verse 11 I am the Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. That's very precious. If you were a sheep in the Old Testament and you could read, you'd read Psalm 23 and you could you could say Jehovah is my shepherd.
It shall not want.
That's what it really says is Jehovah.
And here in the New Testament you read the Lord saying, I am the Good Shepherd.
Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
Now, and I'm pretty simple, but if Jehovah is the shepherd in the Old Testament and Jesus is the shepherd in the New Testament, it must be the same person.
Doesn't that sound reasoning?
There's only one shepherd.
Jesus is Jehovah.
And that's very precious. I am the Good Shepherd and know my sheep and am known of mine. Do you know him?
Are you one of his sheep?
Do you have eternal life? He gives it. It says, I give unto them. Verse 27 My sheep hear my voice. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me. That's one of the marks of a of a true sheep. He follows the shepherd. He follows the Lord Jesus. Do you follow him?
They follow me.
And I give unto them eternal life.
And they shall never perish. Now in the 6th chapter we get eternal life by eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
But here we get it as a gift from the Shepherd. He gives it to us. It's a gift. These are all different ways.
That the Spirit of God tells us how we can gain and get eternal life.
I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
In talking to Mr. Wentz, this is this young, this man, the middle-aged man that Ray and I talked to just comes to mind. He's working with a group of Christians, at least they profess to be, and what he's pressing upon them is the word.
Doctrine, sound doctrine, and they don't like that, they said We want to hear the anointed man.
Oh, be very careful if you ever get into a into a system like that. That's a cult. The anointed man, that's the one that speaks as he says he's in self appointed man that says he has the anointing of the Spirit and what he says is the word of God.
Although easy way to test whether he's anointed of God or not is check him out by the book.
And if he says something contrary to the book, he's not anointed of the Spirit of God at all. He might be possessed of a false spirit.
Be very careful.
There's all kinds of error out there, and if you're not, if you're not firmly grounded in the Word of God.
You are a subject for the enemy to lead astray into what is false. This is our safety.
I didn't finish that in Acts 20 after he said men shall arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them.
But then he said, And I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up.
The word of His grace, the word of His grace, God and His Word will always have that.
That will keep us from being LED astray. That will keep us from following a another voice.
00:50:04
We often we often criticize the Epistle to Ephesus at this turn to it in Revelation chapter 2.
To the Ephesians.
You might be surprised I'm turning into Revelation and not to Ephesians, but I want to reach you something.
That is to be commended.
In these Saints at Ephesus.
Chapter 2 and verse one unto the Angel of the Church of Ephesus. Right these things sayeth he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the 7 golden candlesticks. Now notice what he commends them. For he says, I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil, and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not.
And has found them liars, and has born, and hath patience. And for my namesake has labored, and hast not fainted.
Clearly dwell on the next verse, which is, I have against thee that was left thy first love. But they had tried those that said they were apostles.
And we got a lot of them floating around today in Christendom, men who claim to be apostles. They're the United ones. There are no apostles today. And the Word of God tells me that they passed off the scene after the 1St century because they were there to lay the foundation of the church, the apostles and prophets. And they laid it. And once laid, the Lord withdrew them. And we have the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to continue on teaching us and shepherding us and saving souls to bring them in.
But we don't need apostles and prophets today because they've already laid the foundation stone and we have what they laid in the New Testament, their writings. That's what we have. It's a permanent record, the word of God.
It's more valuable than miracles or any kind of a sign which will come and go.
But something we can go back to and read over and over and over again. This is our greatest treasure. Value it, young person. Read it, study it, make it your own, and it'll keep you from all kinds of error.
Oh, now we're back to John 10. Now let's go to John 14 and I just read a few more of these precious things. Never man spake like this man in verse 6 of John 14. I'm going to read from verse one because there we have this. There we have this man who supposedly, according to the higher critics, never existed, saying these words. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not.
Would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whether thou goest, and how can we know the way? And Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth.
And the life no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Oh, these other religions don't like that no man cometh unto the Father, but by me Christianity is exclusive.
Yes, it is, you Christians. You think you're the only ones that are right? Correction, we know we're the only ones that are right.
Because we're following Him who is the light, We're following Him who is the way? We're following Him who is the truth.
That's how we know.
That's how we know.
Wonderful to be able to say we know who we have believed.
And are persuaded that he is able to keep us from falling and so on.
We know that the Son of God has come and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true even in His Son Jesus Christ. Wonderful to be able to say, we know I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. I wonder how these this whoever.
Fabricated John's gospel, learned about the Father's house and all these precious truths. Sovereign, utter nonsense.
He was here and he spoke these words. We're not following a commonly devised fables. We're following Him. Who is the truth?
All that thrills my soul to be able to say that. How wonderful it is, this precious book.
Value it, live by it.
And I'll meet you in glory.
Behold My Servant
The Lord's Day
Hebrews Lecture
Address—C. Hendricks
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Turn back to Hebrews 1.
There's a lot about angels in this chapter and in the next chapter. What you have in Hebrews 1 is the the greatness of the sun.
Greatness of the Son and now that God is spoken to us in the person of the Son.
Not to prophets now, but the Son himself speaking God, himself speaking in Son.
Verse 4 after well, I'm going to read those wonderful statements again.
God hath that sundry times God, who at sundry times in in diverse manners spake in time passed unto the Fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the world's to being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His Person, and upholding all things by the word of.
His power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high, 7 things stated of him.
Seven wonderful things stated of him, and then verse 4 being made or taking a place so much better than the angels.
Who as he hath obtained 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. And again I will be to Him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son. And again, when He bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he sayeth, and let all the angels of God worship him.
And of the angels he saith, who maketh his Angel spirits, and his ministers of flame of fire.
But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.
A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy Kingdom. And so pause there. Why? Why so much about the angels?
Now that thinking of this hymn, though angels may with rapture see how mercy flows in Jesus blood, it is not theirs to prove as we the cleansing virtue of this flood. The angels praise the heavenly King and him their Lord adoring on.
We can, with exaltation, sing.
He wears our nature on the throne. Beautiful expression.
He wears our nature. He passed the angels by. We get that in the 2nd chapter where it says verse 7 Thou madest him a little lower than the angels.
And so on.
He went down below the angels in coming.
And he has ended up.
Above the angels in returning to the glory.
As a man.
Tremendous thought that God became a man.
A servant.
And the angels are servants. He could have become an Angel, but no, he did not.
He became a man. The angels do not have redemption. The angels, that is those who have fallen, there is no salvation provided for them.
Only for man's race. Why is that?
Well, the angels fell.
In rebellion against God, when there was #1 There to induce them to do it.
They did it on their own, following their leader, Satan the Devil.
And but man was deceived.
Man was led into sin by the lie of the devil.
And so God has provided A Savior for man.
Not for angels.
The death of Christ avails only for men. He became a man, that he might as man redeem man.
And this is the wondrous truth.
There's a lot connected with the angels in connection with the giving of the law. Turn back to Acts 7.
Acts Chapter 7.
And Stephen is going over the history of Israel.
And he says at the end of his message.
Verse 51 of Acts 7 Ye stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost.
00:05:06
As your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your father's persecuted, And they have slain them, which showed before of the coming of the justice, one of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
I want to read that as it reads in the new translation, who have received the law as ordained by the Ministry of Angels and have not kept it.
Angels had.
Were instrumental in the giving of the law.
And Moses, of course, is considered the Lawgiver, but it was the angels that.
We're involved in giving it to him.
Again, we have.
In Galatians chapter 3.
Galatians, chapter 3.
And verse 19.
Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added, because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made, and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.
And again in Hebrews chapter 2, verse 2.
And he's referring to the law.
The Old Covenant, if the word spoken by angels, was steadfast.
In every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?
The danger, of course.
Was that some of these Jews which had professedly embraced?
Jesus as being the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. They were in danger, some of them.
Of going back.
To the law and to Judaism until the old order of things to come to the wrong conclusion, that Jesus is not the Messiah after all. And if that's the case, then he was a false one, and what our people did to him was right. If his claims were wrong, if he was a deceiver, as they claimed and said, that deceiver said that in three days he would rise again. They went to Pilate and they said that to Pilate.
Command that the tomb be sealed and a guard be placed upon it.
So his disciples don't come at night and steal his body away. And Pilate says you have a watch. Go and make it as secure as you wish.
But an Angel came that night or that morning.
And rolled away the stone. It was huge and massive. Angels are greater in might and power. They are of a higher creatorial order than man. Man is a weakling in comparison, but man has a tremendous advantage.
Over the angels, and it is that he wears.
Our nature on the throne.
He did not become an Angel, the blessed Lord, He became a man.
One of us.
That He might redeem us from our sins and bring us into blessing. How wondrous. And so the angels they look on. Look at Ephesians 3, Ephesians chapter 3 in connection with.
This subject of the Angels.
Ephesians chapter 3.
Let's start at verse 9.
Verse 8 unto me less than the least of All Saints is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the fellowship or the administration of the mystery which from the beginning of the world have been hidden. God, who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that now unto the.
Principalities and powers in heavenly places.
Might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God.
Principalities and powers in heavenly places. The angelic Oaths.
Might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. They are learning the manifold wisdom of God as they look down. And also First Corinthians 7, another important verse coming to mind.
00:10:03
The teaching that Paul is First Corinthians 11, excuse me, First Corinthians 11 That that Paul gives in connection with man's place and the woman's place.
Now verse 9 says of 1 Corinthians 11.
Let me read verse 7. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head when he prays or prophecies, in as much as he's the image and glory of God. But the woman is the glory of the man. So this is his argument that she should have her head covered when performing those functions. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man.
Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.
Another reason why he says the women ought to have.
A head covering a sign of the authority of the man over her is in verse 10 for this cause of the woman to have power or authority on her head because of the angels.
So as the angels look down, they learn the manifold wisdom of God.
They were there at his birth.
They were there at his death, at his resurrection, they were involved, they strengthened him in the garden.
Angel came and ministered unto him.
And they were involved in the giving of the law.
So in the in the Jewish mind, the angels have a very prominent place.
And they thought very, very much highly of angels. And so the writer of Hebrews, the apostle Paul, I take it.
Shows how that.
When he came, he was he came lower than the angels, and now he's been exalted above the angels and.
He's been made so much better than the angels, taking a place higher than the angels have.
As he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they, I'm reading Hebrews 1/4.
And then he says, Unto which of the angels did ever God ever say, at any time, Thou heart my son, this day of I begotten me? Now it's true that the angels are called sons of God in Scripture.
But that's as a company.
There's not a family of angels. Each Angel is created as an individual. They don't. They don't have a family they don't have.
A.
Propagation of the race by one being born an Angel. There's no such thing as an Angel being born.
They're sexless creatures and so in the resurrection the Lord says we are as the angels of God, the family, the husband, wife relationship. The marital relationship as we know it is an earthly institution, not heavenly. The only heavenly part of it is Christ in the church, of which the earthly 1 is a picture.
A picture.
But we will not have.
The same relationship to one another.
Like father and son and wife and husband in heaven that we have here.
We're not told a lot about it.
But the Lord did say will be his angels in that sense.
The human race is the only.
Group of the only family that reproduces itself.
And do we know what that is? But the angels, God never said to the angels, to anyone Angel, though the angels are called sons of God. Adam was called the Son of God. We're called sons of God by redemption. But there is only one Son of God eternal, the only begotten Son, and He never became that. All the others became sons of God. At some point in time the angels were created and we have been redeemed.
And Adam was created.
And as he came from the hand of God, he's called the Son of God.
But the angels are sons of God by creation.
The Lord Jesus is the Son of God.
For all eternity never became it.
And so I want to stress that for on to verse 5. Unto which of the angels?
Said he said God at any time.
Thou art my son, This day have I begotten thee.
No.
That was never said to the angels again.
00:15:03
I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. They are just servants.
Ministering spirits and forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.
But not in the relationship that we have.
Though we are of a lower creatorial order, we have been elevated in Christ in the sun to a higher position than the angels.
They will serve us First Corinthians.
Chapter 8 is it?
Comes to mind.
One Corinthians.
Chapter 6. Excuse me?
Verse 2, where I'll read from verse one, Dare any of you having a matter against another go to law before the unjust and not before the Saints?
Do you not know that the Saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know you not that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life, I believe that will take place during the Millennium, when we will have an administrative place and the angels will do what?
We tell them to do. We will judge angels in that sense.
It has nothing to do with their salvation or anything like that, but with the with the job that they're to perform in their service in the in the Millennium.
We shall judge angels.
Well.
Verse 4 again of Hebrews 1.
Being made so much better than the angels are taking a place so much better than the angels.
As he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they, it was very important that this truth be made solid in the mind of these Jews, because they made so much in connection with Judaism, so much of the angels. And here now he's presenting one before them that is infinitely greater than the angels, the Creator himself.
Under which of the angels said He at anytime thou art my Son, that's what he always was. And now this day he have I begotten thee. This day that's the incarnation when he became a man. So in that statement Thou art my Son was his eternal glory as the Son. And this day have I begotten thee is his coming into the world.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And again I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.
And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith that all the angels of God worship him. So when he comes back in his glory, and we'll come back with him, and the angels will come back with him, all the angels are to worship him.
Clearly they are creatures and He is the Creator. They had to get firmly established in their minds so that their faith embraced that truth.
That Jesus was number creature.
And the angels are nothing more than creatures.
Verse 7.
And of the angels he saith, who maketh his Angel spirits.
And his ministers a flame of fire.
I believe that.
When Satan saw.
That God placed.
Adam as the head of this earthly creation.
That it.
It provoked an intense jealousy on Satan's part.
He had aspired after that place of supremacy, and he wanted to be.
Number one.
You want it to be like God, and then God creates man and he makes him #1 down here.
And Satan.
Must have said to himself, I want to, I will destroy that. And he went about to do it.
God makes his Angel spirits. They are ministering spirits, says in verse 14. Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them? Who shall be heirs of salvation? I suppose if I went around the room and asked different ones if you have knowingly had any angelic experiences in your life.
I think some of us could clearly point to something in our life where the Ministry of Angels came in and delivered us from some accident or.
00:20:07
Or evil.
The angels are ever present.
And ministering for those who are heirs of salvation.
And I believe that they they're looking at such even before they're saved.
I remember when I was just a boy of seven and a young girl the same age in the neighborhood.
We had just bought a new car.
And we like to play cops and robbers. So we got in the car and we used the dial of the radio to turn it. That was our speedometer.
And I said.
To marry.
Moon I said I'm going to get the key to the car and we'll make this more real. So I went into the house, opened my mom's purse and got the key out and went out into the garage and closed the doors of the garage so no one could see us. And I started the engine.
And we were having fun.
And justice, then?
Mom said.
Where's Chucky?
And she looked in her purse, didn't find the keys, ran out to the garage, opened the door, and we were still conscious sitting there. Another 15 minutes or so we would have been gone.
Angelic.
Interference.
That's just one instance.
I'll give you another one.
I was passing out tracks on the elevated platform in Chicago.
And everyone was rejecting them. It's a place where you change from the L to the subway. And they were all rejecting them. And I was getting pretty discouraged. And an old lady said to me, go on, go on. They're not rejecting you, they're rejecting him.
And then I started passing them again and everyone took one. They all heard her voice. They all took 1. And I spun around and I looked for her and she had disappeared. She was gone.
An Angel.
I don't know.
But some of you can come up with events similar to this.
The angels are watching over us, preserving us.
So many times and we don't realize that someday it'll all be told us.
And they're ministers, they're servants.
They're not children like we are.
And they're not redeemed like we are.
They cannot.
Though angels may with rapture see how mercy flows in Jesus blood, it is not theirs to prove as we the cleansing virtue of this flood.
Wonderful place that we have been brought into, but here he's presenting in this wonderful chapter the the the glory of the sun.
The greatness of the sun and how He is so much better than the angels, and how they worship Him as we worship Him too.
Verse 7 And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels, spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.
It does the will of God.
And.
The Angel does.
There was one time in the Old Testament where 185,000 of the enemy was destroyed by an Angel. 1 Angel.
Shows you how powerful an Angel is.
The Lord said to Peter, put up thy sword in the sheath like, and I now pray to my Father, and he'll give me 12 legions of angels.
Didn't need but one.
To defend him if he needed that. And of course he could have spoken the word himself.
There was a time. When was it Elijah?
He said open his eyes, opened his eyes, and he saw the Chariots of fire and all the angelic coats around about. Those that are with us are more than those that be with them.
And those that have served the Lord can tell of instances in their life of angelic intervention, but they're just creatures, and they are not in the same place that you and I are.
And here he's comparing the blessed Lord himself with angels.
But unto the Son he saith, verse 8, Thy throne, O God. Here God the Father is addressing His Son as God. Here one of the most powerful verses in Scripture showing the deity of Christ. Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy Kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore God, even thy God.
00:25:10
Hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. Who are his fellows? You may us we're his fellows.
And thou, Lord, in the beginning has laid the foundation of the earth. He's the Creator, and the heavens are the works of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest, and they all shall wax all the stuff. A garment then as a vesture shalt thou fold him up, and they shall be changed.
But thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. The same is a title of the Lord of God, Jehovah God in the Old Testament. I am that I am. He is who he is. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And that title is given to the Lord Jesus in the New Testament, Jesus is Jehovah.
Jehovah is Jesus.
And that's what they had to know, that's what they had to learn, That's what they had to be made sure of. Now, this portion that I've just read is a quote from the 102nd Psalm. So let's turn back there and see how it reads the 102nd Psalm.
The Messiah is speaking. I'll stop pick it up from verse.
23.
Weakened my strength in the way.
He shortened my days. He was cut off right in the midst of his years as a young man of 33.
He weakened my strength in the way He shortened my days. I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days.
Now that's what the the Lord Jesus says prophetically here to the Father.
And now the Father answers him. And here's the answer right in the middle of this verse. Here's the answer from God. Thy years are throughout all generations.
Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands.
They shall perish, but thou shalt endure. Yeah, all of them shall wax old like a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end. The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee. That's.
The Psalm that.
Paul is quoting from and applying it to the Lord Jesus.
Right in the midst he says, take me not away in the midst of my days. And then God answers and says, Thy years are throughout all generations. As man. He says, take me not away, and God answers him. Who is God?
The Sun.
So again.
Hebrews 19.
Now let me read verse 8. But unto the Son he saith thy throne, O God.
Is forever and ever a scepter of righteousness. Is the scepter of thy Kingdom.
Thou has loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
And thou, Lord, in the beginning has laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thine hands.
They shall perish.
Beautiful the expressions that are used.
In the 33rd Psalm it says, For He commanded and it was done. He spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast, He spake. The world's into existence Here it says that the heavens are the work of the hands.
Another place. It speaks of him, the work of his fingers, all these beautiful.
Pictures of God's creation, the one who is Lord over all, blessed forever. Thou Lord, in the beginning has laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens, of the works of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest. They all shall wax oldest of the garment, and as a vesture shalt they fold them up, and they shall be changed. Well, the imagery here is just beautiful. They're just like you. You take your garment off at the end of the day, and you, you lay it down.
You hang it up in the closet and justice the universe just like that to God.
Something that he can just lay aside as he so desires. He is infinitely great. I like what one brother said.
Someone said to him as to made the question, Can God make a stone so large that he himself cannot move?
00:30:06
That's nonsense, of course.
If he made a stone as large as a mountain, he could move it. If he made it as large as the United States, he could move it. He made it as large as planet Earth. He could move it. He made it as large as the solar system, He could move it. He made it as large as a Milky Way. He could move it. He made it as large as the universe itself. He could move it with his little finger.
That's how great God is.
That's how great God is.
You take an atom, you put it in the hand of a man. An atom.
The hand of a man.
That's like the universe.
In the hand of God.
And that analogy really diminishes God. He's greater than that.
That's how great he is.
And here we have this this one.
In order for us to really appreciate, to ponder, to meditate in our bed at night upon His greatness, upon the the lowliness, the low place that He took when He became lower than the angels and became a servant, is to realize how infinitely great He is.
How feebly we grasp it. We don't think of it enough. We don't. And we think of our little puny problems that we have, and they're too great for God.
Nothing is too great for God. Nothing.
The heart of the King is in the hand of the Lord. He turneth it whithersoever he will.
He controls the animals, He controls the King's heart, He controls men.
Controls everything. The sovereign of the universe, that's who he's presenting.
To these Jewish believers, I had to see who he was, who he is.
Who he ever shall be?
Thou, Lord, in the beginning has laid the foundation of the earth. The heavens are the works of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest. They all shall wax old as doth A garment, and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed.
Without the same.
We change, He changes not. Our Christ shall never die. That's what we sing sometimes. All creatures change, but the Creator is the same.
Thou art the same in thy years shall not fail. But to which of the angels, said he at any time?
Sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them? Who shall be heirs of salvation?
You see, it's one thing for these Jews to believe that Jesus is the Christ.
But did they really understand?
Who he was. Turn back to Matthew 22 for a moment, and this is what the the author here, Paul of Hebrews, is striving to bring before these Jewish professing Christians.
Greatness of the sun. Now even the Pharisees didn't understand this that Paul is bringing before them. And in Matthew 222041 while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ?
Whose son is he?
They say unto him, the son of David, and they were right. He was the son of David. Remember the blind man, He said, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And in his genealogy, the son of David, that's his, that's his human side.
But that's not all there is to that blessed One, they said, The son of David, he saith unto them. How then doth David in spirit?
Him, Lord.
Saying now he's referring back to.
110th Psalm.
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. That's what he's referring back to. How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord Jehovah said unto my Lord David's Lord, David's the author of that Psalm, Sit down on my right hand, shall I make thine enemies thy footstool?
If David, then call him Lord.
00:35:01
How is he his son?
And no man was able to answer him a word, neither dost any man from that day forth ask him anymore.
Questions. So even the Pharisees did not understand that the Messiah.
Is infinitely more than just David's son.
Just a man.
But he's David's Lord.
And that means he's God.
And they had to come to that. They had to learn that. And if that's not part of your faith?
You're not saved.
Because the Lord said, if you believe not that I am He.
Ye shall die in your sins.
You need to believe not that I am he, I am Jehovah.
You shall die in your sins.
Now, chapter 2 of Hebrews.
Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed.
To the things which we have heard, lest at anytime we should let them slip.
For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast.
And every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward in connection with the giving of the 10 commandments, the Law of Moses. How shall we escape?
Now that the the true light has come.
Now that the one who is greater than Moses, greater than the angels, greater than Abraham, greater than Aaron.
Greater than all the worthies of the Old Testament.
How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?
Which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him.
God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to His own will. For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak. That's the millennial reign, which is still future, and it's not being placed in subjection to angels, but to a man.
That's the Lord Jesus.
But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man? That thou art mindful of him, Are the Son of man that thou visitest him, Thou madest Him a little lower than the angels. Thou crowned him with glory and honor, and did set Him over the works of thy hands. In that one verse He was made lower than the angels, and then higher than the angels, because He hasn't placed everything under angelic power but to this man.
That was put all things in subjection under his feet.
During 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.
Not everything has been placed under his feet yet.
Is still the rejected man. We're still going through a world of unbelief.
World that is guilty of the blood.
The Son of God.
That they nailed to cross.
One day that will all change.
But it says 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.
For it became Him, that's God. It became God, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Perfect means in the resurrection state He is in the perfect condition.
For both he that sanctifieth, that's Christ, and they who are sanctified are all of 1.
For which cause 1 substance 1 essence.
One lump, as it were.
One family for which 'cause he's not ashamed to call them brethren.
Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren. In the midst of the church will 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 presents us to the Father, and he says, Behold, I am the children.
Which thou has given me.
Now that's not an angelic company. That's us.
That's us redeem sinners.
I and the children which thou hast given me.
00:40:01
For as much, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood.
He also himself likewise.
Took part of the same.
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 lifetime subject to *******.
For verily he took not on him the nature of angels. That's not quite correct. It's He did not take a hold of angels by the hand they did. He did not espouse the cause of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
That is, he took hold of the seed of Abraham and is leading them all the way into the glory.
Jude The Faith once Delivered