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On earth. On earth, the song begins. In heaven, more sweet and loud.
#80
on earth, the song begins.
Oh man, I'm crazy. Love everything.
For one hour.
To hear the Lord.
Oh Lord, is there anything I ever thought?
The 12Th chapter of the book of Hebrews. I know it's a chapter we often take up on an occasion like this.
But as that chapter opens, it presents to us Christ in glory. And really what we need, brethren, is a fresh glimpse of the man in the glory that we might be preserved and encouraged.
In the path of faith, the few moments that remain.
Hebrews, chapter 12.
For seeing we also are accomplished of all, with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily be set off. And let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the change, and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Or consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest he be wearied and faint in your mind, ye have not yet resisted under blood, striving against sin, and ye have forgotten the excitation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.
For whom the Lord loveth he chasing us, and scourge with every Son whom he receive us? If he endure taste, name, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasing us not? But if he be without chastisement, whereof all our partakers, then are you ******** and not sons? Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us.
And we gave them reverence, Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits, and live.
For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure. But he for our prophet, that we might be partakers of His Holiness, now no chastening for the present, seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless Afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down in the feeble knees.
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And make straight paths for your feet, like that which is lame, be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed fall peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up, trouble you, and thereby many be defiled, lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as he saw.
Who for one more will of meat sold his birthright for you know how that afterwards?
When you would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he thought it carefully with tears. For ye are not come unto the mouth that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and templates, and the sound of a trumpet, in the voice of words which boys say they heard, and entreated that the word should not be spoken to them anymore, but they could not endure that which was commanded.
And so much as a beast touched them on, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart, And so terrible as the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear, and quaint. But ye are come on to Mount Zion, and under the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and Church of the first born, which are written in heaven and to God.
The George of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speakers better things than that of evil, see that ye refuse not him that speaketh, for they escape not who refused him to spake on earth. Much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven.
Whose voice then shook the earth, But now he has promised saying.
Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word yet once more signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as the things that are made, that those things which can't be shaken may remain, wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved.
Have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
For our God is a consuming fire.
Chapter is directly connected with the chapter before, because in the chapter before he has given us a list of men and women who live by faith for God's glory, against all kinds of odds and difficulties, showing us that it's on the one hand that it's never been easy to live for the Lord, but on the other hand that the resources have been there.
For God's people in any dispensation, but as soon as he completes that list of these men and women.
And it's a tremendous list given for our encouragement. He immediately takes our eyes off that list.
And he directs our eyes into the open heavens to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The one and the only perfect one. Whoever passed through this world in the path of faith and service and never digress from it. And to my own soul, it's just as if he says, I've given you this list in the 11Th chapter to encourage you, but they're not the object for faith. There's only one object for faith. And so my thought in suggesting this chapter, brethren, is that we might, during these meetings, lift up our eyes by faith into the open heavens and be occupied with the one that God would always occupy his people with.
An ascended, arisen, ascended, and exalted, An exalted Christ.
At the right hand of God, and that we might be encouraged to fix our eyes and our hearts and our gaze on that blessed one, that we might be preserved in the path of faith. It's difficult times, I agree, But the resources that you and I have in this one this afternoon, the same limitless supply that's been always available to the people of God, may our hearts be refreshed and encouraged in Him, and our feet preserved in the past.
Only one.
Risen man in the glory.
One he's the only one that's completed the whole course.
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We're in it. None of us have finished it yet.
And he showed us where it went to, to the father. What an encouragement it is to look up and see that man there.
Follow after him as Paul says.
For their sin around us.
The sin.
Which does so easily beset it.
Anyone here that say that that doesn't happen to you?
We're tested down here.
My dad used to say that. God.
Made man with a heart so big the whole world couldn't fill it.
And then he brought an object before that the heart can't take in, and that's Jesus.
He gave us, giving us too big an object for us to comprehend, but all to see him by faith. Then this 22nd verse on down, just to brush your head a little bit, you get.
What faith brings us to And there's a list there of eight great things.
You and I, as we go through it, ought to try to enjoy those eight wonderful things that we have by faith.
Is that the way we have those things? Plan the 22nd verse on.
They belong to us by faith, don't they?
They're cure they. Yeah. And I'm thinking that.
Right from the beginning of the Epistles and it's oh, it's really not an epistle. It's more however he brings a person of Christ, a glorious person of Christ before who being the brightness of his glory or the effulgence of his glory.
And.
By whom although He made the world, created the world of him.
Who, being and.
When He had by himself purged our sins, or made purgation for our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high the work of.
The work of creation was a divine work.
But the work of.
The work of salvation that was a divine work which only he himself.
Could, could accomplish, but as soon as it's over, as soon as it's done, he sits down at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens. And this is the object that the Apostle said before.
These Saints trying to lift them above this scene.
And.
How blessed it is to be occupied with Christ.
As you think of all that, we meet during the day, whatever circumstances we are in home, school, work, on the road.
But to be able to rise above it all and have our eyes fixed upon him there.
That it led to these Jewish people that the Apostle Paul was writing, and they were used to having materialistic things connected with their worship, the Temple, the priesthood, the fine music.
All the finery that went with it that the natural man could.
See and appreciate but in Christianity.
All we have, I shouldn't say all we have is everything, brethren. What we have is only apprehended by faith. There is no fine building that characterizes Christianity that is visible to the human eye. There is a building, but it's not visible to the human eye. But it's all apprehended by faith, and it's so important to get a hold of that here in this chapter were looked at is in a race we're passing through this world.
We're going through it, and it's a race that has already been run by the one who occupies the highest place in the universe. He ran it, he finished it. He is there in the glory, and now that is the object that is set before us to run as well. Lord, help us to in this materialistic age that we live in, Brethren, I don't think material things necessarily.
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Have to be.
Weight as it mentions in verse one. But I think we all can readily confess that they become weights in our running this race, and it's important in the measure that we can to recognize them and to lay them aside.
The value of the object set before us gives value to those things that are down here in this world sometimes. Say, if a man is going to run a race, somebody steps up to him at the last minute and offers him a bag of gold.
If he really wants to run that race, if he has his heart set on winning the prize at the end of that race, he's going to toss the bag of gold aside just as fast as he would toss a bag of garbage aside.
Because it has no value in connection with winning that race. And that's the point that's so important to get before our souls get the object before it.
One of the old brothers who?
In the office to try to remember this that.
Everything.
That you have that.
That you will always have. You have thy faith. The world passed away and it's lust there out. That's what Bob is telling us that we get her. We need to get our thoughts as to value connected with eternity. Not this world. God gives us nice things in this world. I just think of they have that hymn. Oh, that hymn begins down here. We're going to have that up there. We're getting some wonderful things in our training down here.
As God's children.
Hebrews is a wilderness book, the wilderness book. And that's why we have the Tabernacle and not the temple. Jehovah was journeying with his people, but as wonderful, isn't that to think that he would come down and have a he wanted a tent that he could journey with his people, and so he mixes himself up with everything in their life and our life too. Everything.
He loves to be such a help and an encouragement and a friend and that's and that's what he is along along his wilderness along this wilderness way. They it was only 11 days journey from Egypt to Canaan. We read by normal travel but there was a difference between the journey that God's people took and the people of the of the world and that is that Jehovah was journeying with them.
And the Lord is with us on this journey. We are on our way. He is up there in the glory, waiting for us. But He's down here with us, journeying with us all along the way. And how blessed a companion, how blessed a friend he is.
Helpful. And I've enjoyed in that connection how that when Israel was not very long into the wilderness, they became discouraged. They began to look at their present circumstances. They began to look back to Egypt, and they cried to Moses, And Moses cried under the Lord. And it's interesting what it says there. The Lord told Moses to tell the people to turn around and look out over the wilderness. Why? Well, they were looking in the wrong direction.
And when they turned around and looked out over the wilderness, what did they see? Was it to see all the things that were in front of them, all the difficulties and the hindrances that no doubt were going to present themselves? Oh no. When they turned around and looked, it says they saw the glory of the Lord revealed in the cloud. In some way Jehovah was pleased to reveal himself to them in the cloud. And with that vision before their souls, then they could press on even amidst the difficulties when they lost sight of that who was amongst them and the end of the journey.
Then they became discouraged. They murmured, and they complained, and they found fault. But as long as they had this before their souls, and as long as they had the end in view, they were encouraged to go on.
Because I believe, brethren, that faith always needs an object. There's no such thing as blind faith.
I've heard people say use the expression faith is a leap in the dark. That's not true. It's true. Abraham went out not knowing whether he went. But I believe, if you notice in the 11Th chapter, all those who lived by faith for God's glory, they all had an object We read of those who didn't receive the promises, but they saw them afar off and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Moses endured us, seeing him who was invisible.
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Even Abraham, who went out not knowing whether he went it says he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And so all those that live by faith, they had something before their souls. I say faith always needs an object, and our brethren are never given to us as the object for faith. They're given us an encouragement. And it says of those who have gone on in the past, whose faith follow, but they're not the object. There's only one perfect object, brethren, one who began and completed the path of faith and perfection.
And God has seated him at his right hand as the object. And I might just say this too, that it was helpful when I was a little younger, in looking at the book of Hebrews, to realize that in the book of Hebrews we have the heavens open to us so that we can look up. When the Lord Jesus was here in this world as a man, there was a perfect object in this world that was worthy of heaven's attention, and the heavens would open up, and all heaven would gaze at that perfect man.
And a voice would declare, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. But the Lord Jesus is not here in this world the way he was when he walked amongst men. He's returned to the glory. And I believe Hebrews opens up to us the heavens, not so that heaven can look down now, but so that we can look up by the eye of faith, it's true whom not having seen, we love. But brethren, we see him by the eye of faith. And that's why I believe that four times in the book of Hebrews you have the Lord Jesus.
Seated at the right hand of God, our brother Dear has mentioned one of them in the first chapter.
Where he seated, having made a full atonement there he's having made the purification for sin.
He sat himself down at the right hand of God. I'm quoting from Mr. Darby. Then in the 8th chapter you find him seated as our great as our High priest. There we find that that again the heavens are open, and we realize that we have one who's living to make intercession for us, sympathizing with us in our weaknesses and in the trials that we pass through. And we sometimes sing. His hands are uplifted in sympathy and love. Then in the 10th chapter he seated, having offered himself as the perfect sacrifice.
Who, when he had offered one sacrifice for sin, forever sat down on the right hand of God.
And then here in our chapter, he seated as the object for faith. And it's not so much he's the author and finisher of our faith.
But he's the author and finisher of faith, and as such, God has set him there as the object for your heart and mind.
There's some.
This verse one, brethren.
Says Let us lay aside every weight.
I feel this deeply in my own soul. I hope no one gets the idea I'm pointing the finger, but.
I just do feel, brethren, that we have gotten under the weight of the way of living that we have here in the United States, and it is important for us to get the goal before our souls and then to do some practical, positive laying aside, evaluate things in our lives. Our lives get so cluttered, brethren. I have to say for myself, there's times I have to sit.
Back and evaluate things one by one in my life. There's things that are not wrong in themselves.
Perfectly right, perfectly good and wholesome, perhaps, but they don't help me run the race. My life gets so cluttered that I cannot run very easily. We need to get the goal before us first of all, that glorious person of the Lord Jesus, and then to evaluate each things as each thing as it comes along. There are also the sin. It says that so easily deceptive, and it's true.
Then really trips us up, brethren, and we need to judge ourselves constantly. We living in a world that is increasingly difficult to get through, but it is not impossible. There was one who went through it before us. There was one who knows every circumstance that you and I passed through. He went through it in complete perfection. And where is he now? He's won. He won the race he's at. He's in the glory now. We run after him.
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You and I can never get to a point in our Christian pathways where we say nobody understands the difficulties I face. Rather, and that is not true, there is one who ran that race, who understands, who knows he made it. And if he made it, then that's our object brethren. We can go on after him, but it takes some real practical sacrifices times.
Laying aside.
The way Lord help us to get into His presence to evaluate.
In our lives, the things that so clutter and do not let us run like we need to run.
The race that is set before us.
Pass through anything in the path of faith and service down here.
That he himself as a man hasn't passed through, and that's been a tremendous comfort to my own soul children. He knew what it was to be a boy and grow up in this world, young people. He knew what it was to be a young person. He knew what it was to be misunderstood. He could say reproach hath broken mind, heart. He knew what it was to be weary and thirsty and hungry. And all the things that you and I passed through, all the things that we feel in the past of faith and service.
Brother Bob has said has passed through it before us, and now he's in the glory, living for us. And there he is as the object. And I don't believe there's ever. And I just echo what Bob has said. I don't believe there's ever any good reason that we can ever give to God for any failure or compromise in our lives. We might give lots of excuses, but we'll never give a good reason because we have all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
But I would just say that the Christian race is not the 100 yard dash. It's not the Sprint, it's the marathon. And that's why it says here, let us run with it ought to read endurance, The race that is set before us, when the athlete goes out to run the Sprint, he puts everything into those few 100 yards or meters because in a few moments the race is going to be completed. But when the marathon runner goes out to run.
He doesn't put everything he has into those few first few 100 yards. He has to learn to endure. He knows that the race is going to last for quite a while. There's many miles ahead of him, and he's trained to to pace himself and to endure and so on. Brethren, the Christian race is a race of endurance. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, but it's not in our own strength, because it says even the youth shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fall.
Natural strength, even of youth, isn't enough to run the path of faith and service through this world. We can only run it in the measure in which we're drawing on the resource we have and in the measures we've been saying, in which we have the perfect object before our souls.
The thing about the Lord here.
In doing what he's doing here, he had a work to do, he says. How am I straightened until he accomplished?
He was God's son, then sent down here from the Father to die, to redeem us, to get us to God.
What a work he had and he knew about it when he was here in his youth.
Somebody around him or his parents.
I guess maybe it's his mother, thy father and I sought thee thoroughly, referring to Joseph.
The Lord changed that, said Wiste. Not that I must be about my father's death.
He didn't forget what he came for. God had sent him to be the savior of the world.
Oh, he knew what that meant in the.
88 Psalm.
Prophetically, he says I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up. She knew some issues. He knew he was going to die, but he had to wait till he cut to be a full grown man to be tested like Adam was a full grown man.
Adam never was a boy. The Lord was. He knows what boys are like. He knows what it is to live in this world as a boy. All the experience the Lord had that he might be a faithful and merciful high priest, but he had something before him. So it says here in our second verse.
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Our second verse.
Looking unto Jesus.
The author and finisher of faith.
Who, for the joy that was set before him, he endured the thought.
You and I need a goal before our soul. We need a joy, a real motive, and the little thing God gives us to do in our daily life, in our family life, in our assembly life. There's something to do, and some have some very hard jobs to do, and it's good if we can have something beyond that.
And look for it well, the Lord here, he says, The joy that was set before him endured the cross.
What it was for the Lord to die.
Wasn't joy to die. It was joyous set before him of getting his work done and getting back to the Father's house. These things come, begin here. Let's go to the second of Acts to get the Lord using.
The scripture using the 16th Psalm.
To bring in what the Lord's work was. It was death. It was death and resurrection, So.
In Acts 225 we get these verses. They are so nice to see what David has written.
David speaketh concerning him. I foresaw the Lord always before my face.
For he is on my right hand that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad. Moreover, also my flesh shall rest in hope. Resurrection.
Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell or hadith.
The place of departed spirits you remember the Lord turned to the one thieves that believed that today shalt thou be with me in paradise. That's hell from this translation. That's Hades. That's the place of departed spirit. The Lord spirit was there at the same time the believing thief was there.
And it wasn't left there. Resurrection comes out, and there's a whole known thing now that will not leave my soul in hell. Neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. His body didn't corrupt.
Raise as soon as possible according to the time schedule.
Thou hast made known unto me the ways of life. This is resurrect. This is where it comes from. From God. He brings it in. Christ brings it in.
Thou hast made known to me the ways of light.
Now look what it says. Thou shalt make me full of joy with thy Countess. That's the Son talking to the Father and looking to the time when he's going to go back. When he did go back, there isn't man into the glory with all that work done. Well, it's the biggest work that's ever been done, and nobody else could do it. But he did it. But he had that motive before, and he had that joy of getting back to the Father's house. He knew where he was going to go.
Well, we know where we're going to go layside every weight.
And look up at that one that's gone up there, because just as you're as Jesus has arrived in the Father's company.
So shall we get there? He'll bring us there. The scriptures are so easy to take 14th of.
Of John.
I am the way, the truth and the life. Jesus says that that's what he is.
A lot more. No man cometh unto Father, but by me You're not going to get to the Father of Jesus. Don't bring you, but he will bring you just as sure as he's gone there. So these things are so comfortable when we see them in the Scripture and the reality of the Lord going into these things and having a joy before him as he tried the earth.
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30 more years amongst men.
With all evil and sorrow around him, he wept. He wept over the city. He wept at the grave of Lazarus. Oh, what a savior.
So he had a joy before him in order to go through the course that he finished, and he finished that he'd gone up there.
Well, it was a joy of doing the Father's will. They carried him on.
In some recorded and they're the Lord, there's a very, very wonderful Psalm.
It's Messiah speaking, and he speaks about how that I have about the Lord always before me. And there is this dependence, his faithfulness to God. But then he has, He has there's something else, there's a little remnant there. And so he loves to. He speaks about those in the He says in that wonderful Psalm, he says.
They.
To the Saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.
Well, now he identifies himself with those for those Saints who are in the earth.
And we see that we see that at the Jordan when he went there to be baptized of John.
And he sees those little remnant coming there to be baptized. That was the first step.
In the past and getting back to the Lord, it was the first step of repentance. It was a baptism of repentance. And he says I'm going down there and I'm going to identify myself with them and I'm going to encourage them in that. They're taking that first step and so well, he.
Thinking how?
The Where are that people down here now whom He And whom He finds all His delight?
And he identifies himself with us. We don't find him calling anyone.
My brethren, until after his resurrection, after his death and resurrection.
And he says go to my brethren, he said. Well, it's wonderful that.
He identifies himself with us as we are identified with him. Wonderful.
They that are the sanctified one and they that are sanctified are all of 1 So so how how precious is this association, this the Lord would identify themselves with you and me, who by grace have trusted Him as our Savior and He's and He's journeying with us along this wilderness and.
The Spirit of God. He sends the Spirit of God down here into this world to make Himself precious to us as we journey on as here.
Is that 16th Psalm? And suggest a few thoughts about it. See what you think about it. It's so charming. The 16th sound.
We have heard statements like this.
God had one son he loved so much. He wanted a whole lot more like him. Well, I believe that. And if he picked that teaching into this verse, Psalm 16 preserve you, God, for indeed do I put my trust.
Oh, my soul.
Thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord. Now look what he says, my goodness extendeth not to thee seemed like a private conversation between the Father and Son to me. Whatever you think and what was going to happen, God couldn't extend his goodness to Jesus and let him go to the cross.
But that was in the determined council on Four Eyes of God, that he would go to the cross. So God let his Son go there. His goodness didn't extend to him on the cross.
Judgment. But the words are so wonderful.
There's a **** there in the third verse to the Saints.
That is, his goodness extendeth to the Saint that are in the earth.
And to the excellent Now what it says, I think is charming, in whom is all my delight, I think, if you look at the translations about the Lord and the third of Matthew, and a few other places.
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Let's let's look and see what it does say in the in the third of Matthew to get it right.
We have been given to misquote some verses frequently.
And we ought to get it like it is.
In the third of Matthew and the Lord coming up out of the waters of Baptism.
The last.
2 verses and Jesus.
When he was baptized.
Went up straightly out of the water and lo, the heavens were opened. Just somebody's referring to that just recently.
Under him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove.
And lighting upon him.
And lo, a voice from heaven say now look what it says.
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
Then say Almighty. Well, please.
God had to leave that.
All my delight to get the Saints there, right alongside the Lord, and that's his joy in going back into heaven. He's gone there, but he.
Looked at and enjoys it as the whole thing. All the children brought in their twos. You get in a second chapter of Hebrews. So the blessed work of the Lord is the divine thing, and you can't limit it. He brings us all in, and when he gets us all in, He says it's in in whom is all my delight.
Then put us above. The Lord doesn't put us under him. God pleased with his family.
The no, I think a remark he makes, he says. That says clear to me as a noonday sun.
That Jehovah of the Old Testament is the Son of God of the New.
And how precious it is to.
Follow him through Scripture.
The Old Testament Scriptures and and and here in Matthew 3 this is the first time we get the Godhead. Is it not so first time we get the Trinity together?
A word in the third verse. Consider him.
How simple. The teaching of God.
Consider him. We get that statement more than once in Hebrews. Consider him. What do you think about?
Do you think about him? Oh, we ought to think about him more.
I like the way the translation phrase here. I've mentioned it a number of times, but it says reduce your thoughts to him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds. And really that's what we need to do, whether Don was mentioning in the address.
Self centeredness of our society. Do think of ourselves. People measure things by themselves. Here is something that goes directly contrary to that rhythm. Reduce your thoughts to him. Oh, they didn't treat me right. Reduce your thoughts to him. Oh, but they spoke bad about me. Reduce your thoughts to him. We need to have that constantly.
Impressed on our hearts, if they spoke badly about me, brethren, they spoke far and worse about one in whom was no guilt at all. They condemned him to the most awful death, the worst in just as possible, And brethren, the idea of having our rights that is infected us. Brethren, it is not Christ what did what happened when the Lord Jesus.
Was accused he was as a sheep before her shears. Dumb, He opened. Not his mouth. Where is that spirit, brethren? That's what should characterize. And if our hearts, our thoughts, are reduced to him, we're not going to be talking about ourselves. We're not going to even be thinking about ourselves. And that's so important in the ongoing pathway of faith if we're going to get on.
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We get snagged with ourselves, but let's get beyond ourselves. Let's get to that man that is completely perfect, the one that God is well pleased with.
And so if we're going to run rightly, we're going to have to reduce our thoughts to him, it's it's sometimes we talk about weight control programs, brethren, we need thought control programs too, to reduce our thoughts to him. Just challenge yourself sometimes when you're thinking a thought, maybe thinking pretty hard about some brother or some sister that you think hasn't treated you right.
Chances are, you're thinking about yourself and that's why you have those hard thoughts.
Reduce your thoughts to him.
Christ is everything.
Maybe we ought to increase our thoughts to him.
He's everything.
Where it says here, two of you going back, looking unto Jesus in the well, in this epistle, he seeking to set the heart eyes of the Jewish believers and his and I believe that follows all through this epistle.
But he is a.
Takes up the question of takes up angels. Angels had a lot to do with the with the law. The law was given by the disposition of angels. And well then how much above and beyond all angels is is is is Christ the Son of God Or then we get the priesthood brought in. It was during the wilderness journey that Aaron was established as the high priest of his people.
In a very marked way, and.
But how that Aaron and all his the ironic priesthood, how it all passes up.
Off the scene, as it were, but I shouldn't say it all times off the scene, but oh let's see, Priesthood of Christ is so infinitely higher.
And until and from one thing to another until finally it says, Looking under Jesus. Under Jesus is everything. And this is the one looking off unto Jesus of me.
Have so many times in the book of Hebrews. In fact, I believe 13 times the word better.
Because he takes up, as you say, every portion of the what they had under the Jewish order of things, the Levitical order. And he brings out it's right how it was, right and proper in its place, ordained of God. But now he says, you have something far better. You have the one of whom these things were just but pale reflections and feeble foreshadows. You have Christ himself, but sometimes illustrated it this way when I was engaged to the One who later became my wife.
There were, I think, about nine months between the engagement and the marriage, and the one who had promised to be My wife lived about 2000 miles away. And in those nine months we didn't see one another very often. But I had a large photograph on my desk in my room, and that photograph assumed a very important role in my life because I didn't yet have the one of whom that photograph was a picture of. And so that photograph meant a lot to me. But after I married my wife.
You'd be very surprised if that photograph still had the same importance if you came into my home and saw me more occupied with the photographs than with the one who was now my wife.
You'd say there's something wrong. Not that I've thrown the photograph out. I still have the photograph hanging on my wall, and I still value that photograph. But now I have the one of whom it was a picture of, And we have the one of whom these things in the Old Testament were just pictures of. Not that we set aside the Old Testament. We need those pictures. We need those illustrations. Very important. We'll never really understand the truth of God if we don't go back and take up these illustrations in the light of what we have revealed.
In the New Testament, we need to bring forth the Old because of the New as we're exhorted in Leviticus.
But we have the one now of whom these things speak of. He's the object as we've been having. We're to consider him, to have him before our souls. That's why it says in Colossians that your it ought to read your minds on things above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Brethren, this is a day when the enemy is so busy to bombard our minds with every kind of distraction and thought, so that we don't bring into captivity every thought under the obedience of Christ.
To distrust us from that glorious object, to fill our minds. And I say this as a warning to those of us who have children.
00:50:08
When we send our children to school, we need to be very, very careful. I'm appalled at how many things are being done in the school under the guise of relaxation and things that may sound very good on the surface, but when you check into it, it is seeking to empty the minds of the children and fill them with things that are not of of Christ and according to the truth. We need to be very, very careful, and we need to be.
Exercised.
That we would fill our children's minds with the Scripture, with Christ. Not that having it in the mind is enough, but I believe the entrance of the truth is the mind.
The dwelling place is the heart, but the entrance is the mind. Let's read the word of God ourselves.
Let's read it to our children. Let's have it before us in the assembly that we might indeed consider this blessed One.
The one who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame.
That would allow I would like to before we leave these first verses.
Go back to some things our brethren have said, and I have particularly.
The younger ones on my heart.
We've been talking about running a race and discarding weights that hold us down. And we've been talking, and I think rightfully so, about the fact that the Lord Jesus has gone before us. And so we have one that has felt these things. And now, without any thought of being light or irreverent brethren, let's for the young people that are here and the younger ones, let's look at that for just a moment, because it's true and yet the world we live in.
Is a completely different world than the one that existed when this blessed book was written.
So that things that we young people, older ones, each of us in our jobs at school have to deal with, did not exist. It was mentioned that the Lord Jesus knew what it was to grow up as a boy, and again, without any thought of being light, perhaps younger sisters are saying, but does he really know what it is to grow up as a girl, What that's like in this world? Well, what has occurred to me as we've been hearing these things?
Is that what our brothers brought out just a little bit back? And I'll just quote the verses and I think Hebrews 10, I come to do thy will. Oh God. Now you may have to deal with computers, and you may have to deal with school functions, and you may have to deal with jet airplanes, and we may have to deal with driving cars and technologies and all sorts of things that were absolutely not in the minds or thoughts of anyone living in these days that we're talking about here that are recorded in the word of God.
Does the Lord Jesus understand? He surely does, because his motive was to do the will of God. And if that becomes whatever you have to face in your home or at work or in school or wherever it is, in your neighborhood, with your friends, with your companions, if you face things and you think. But I don't see in the word of God that this issue, this particular thing I'm facing, is addressed. How did the Lord deal with it?
And I say reverently, he didn't deal with computers. I just use that as an example. But he did this, and he did it perfectly. I come to do thy will, O God, and that is the way that you and I can have the wonderful sense that if we have that desire in our hearts, we have this perfect example before us, the one who said, if I may put it this way, I'd rather die than go against the will of my father.
And he did. He endured the contradiction of sinners onto blood. It was more important to him to obey and submit to the will of God.
I might say than to live. And so he went to the cross, and he fully.
Fulfill the will of God. So if you and I, beloved brethren, young people and all of us, if we face issues and that thought comes into our hearts. But this didn't exist back when the Bible wrote, but I come to do thy will did and it did. Imperfection and that can guide us in perfection today. So that when your face with something in school or I'm faced with the decision about a job, change all of the things that are woven into the fabric of our life when we're faced with those things.
We have that perfect example, the example of one who only did the will of God, and that is the way.
00:55:05
I believe, brethren, that we can know how to walk through this scene and find that the Lord Jesus.
Fully does enter into every detail of everyone's life perfectly, for he always was doing the will of the Father. And then I was thinking, and I won't belabor this, but you know, in the Gospel of Mark is one place and I would like to turn to that just for a moment. Chapter 6, I just want to make a moral application in in light of what I've spoken about, about the Lord Jesus perfectly fulfilling the will of God as he went through this world and that being the way that we can have the comfort of knowing.
That He entered him fully to all those things that will face us. We go through this journey. He sends some to his disciples of 12 out, and they're going to go on a journey, just like you and I are on a journey.
Now there is a specific I am going to just make a moral application, but he gives them three things for that journey.
And it's all that they need. They need a staff, they need sandals and they need a garment.
They need to be supported. They need to have the ability to walk, and they need to have the ability to be protected against the elements of the world. And so the Lord sees to it that they have those things as they go on that journey. Now, beloved brethren, we're not here today and no one has suggested and I appreciate what our brother Bob has said about the the society in which we live in yet.
To realize that things don't have to be a waste, They may be if they're used.
In submission to the will of God, they may be the things that I find will support me.
Allow me to walk through this world and allow me to go through it, protected from that which is going to defile and corrupt and to give a testimony as a believer. Those are things that are between the Lord and a submitted soul. Who can say, I come, I want to do thy will. And so, beloved young people, whatever you're doing, let it be. Based on what your blessed Lord Jesus did, the will of his Father. I go to my father and your father. You know him as your Savior. His father is your Father, and it's about in submission to His will.
And then to find that the Lord says those three things will not be waits in your journey. If you use them in submission to my will, you won't find the staff. The sandals and the garment await to the race. I want you to run. But if you're going to use them properly and they're not going to be awake, they need to be used in submission to my will, as I was in submission perfectly to my father's will.
Weights are that have influence.
In our lives, aren't they in like we were mentioning, like you mentioned, they are not necessarily wrong things in themselves, but they affect it and I think sometimes at a job for instance.
It's necessary. It's important. Scripture speaks that say that profess the faith, provide for their own. If they haven't done that, they're worse. They've denied the faith. They're worse than an infidel. So we need to have a job.
But the point is, does the job command me or do I command the job? I think that's the question we have to ask ourselves. Is it a weight that controls me or is it something that I can control myself? And things change so subtly sometimes in our lives, we get under it and perhaps take it on in the right way at the 1St, and then later on it becomes a weight to it. And we need to evaluate these things from time to time. I think just.
Point of further clarification that I'm not contradicting anything you said, Doug, but in connection with the world, it has changed.
In an outward way, but I think you can say that the fundamental principles of the world are the same.
When the Lord was here, like it says in one John, all that is in the world.
The lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. Those are the same principles upon which this world operates today as it has ever operated on the outward circumstances. That's what sometimes confuses us. That has changed, and that's what you refer to, isn't it?
Touches each thing in Hebrews.
01:00:00
And it.
It's interesting in Hebrew because the things that are set aside or.
Improved you might say put on different grounder originally given by God what is harder to set aside than something God gave originally. And so the Lord Jesus comes along and each time he touches something it becomes either perfect forever or better.
Wonderful to see that when we come to.
This chapter.
In verse two looking unto Jesus.
Would you say in verse two an object at the right hand of God?
But when you come to verse 3, it's more a.
More a backward book.
Of that which took place during his time here below.
We think of center taught and by nature we have the instinct of self preservation.
Speak of the instinct.
Peter says.
To him you know all that shall not be, the Lord has to say, Get thee behind me, faces.
There could be nothing of the thought of self preservation, which is which is natural to man, but.
The wonderful things that God had originally given, set aside, or made better, or perfected forever, and this wonderful object that the Father's right hand. And now we look back and we see this object in His life below, even setting Himself aside. I don't mean that there was sinful self in Him, but His perfect delight in the will of God.
To become to be capable of that, and to go into that and to resist. And the blood.
Striving against sin, certainly not in himself, but he came to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. What an object for our hearts, and what an example.
He is here in the first.
Person before us in his service that we are to consider in chapter 3.
1St just a good verse for us anytime. Wherefore holy brethren and brother, if you're one of the brethren, you're one of the holy brethren. God does his work right? And consider the Apostle Now that's the sent one. The Father sent the Son.
That's the reason there's No title author fixed to this book because it's looked at as the Lord's apostleship. He was the apostle sent down here to do his work. Now he's the high priest going up. So it is service then and now. And our chapter brings in the cross work largely what a, what a, what a thought we got for our soul, who he was, who he is and what he has done.
You have it developed in Philippians chapter 2 where he says let this mind be in you.
Which was also in Christ Jesus. And then he goes on there to tell us of who this person was from a past eternity. But then he brings out his pathway, and he begins with a remarkable statement. It says, who made himself of no reputation. We've been saying that the natural man puts him, draws a circle, puts himself in the center of that circle, and does everything for himself and to draw attention to himself. But here was one brother.
The very Son of God walking in this world, and he made himself of no reputation.
Most people have a reputation for something. It might be a good reputation, it might be a bad reputation, but he thought no reputation as a man in this world. When I read this, I think of the time when they came to the Lord, and they accused him of two things, he said, they said, Thou hast the devil, and thou art a Samaritan. And when he answered them, he only answered the charge of having a devil, because that was bringing into question his deity. And he answered them on that account, but when it was the charge of being a Samaritan.
So I can put it this way. That was a slur on him, on him as a man, because, as the woman at the well said, the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. They were, so to speak, a despised people, and they sought to put the Lord Jesus as a man on that level. He never answered them on that. You get it again in Peter, where it says, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. Brethren, are we willing to do that in our lives?
01:05:28
Somebody says something against us. Somebody does something against us. The natural man wants to lash back. The natural man wants to get that all straightened out. But do we see in the Lord Jesus this precious example of the one who humbled himself, the one who didn't answer back, the one who committed himself to him that judgeth righteously? We see something of that spirit with Paul who said, I know who I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day.
You think of the Corinthians. They were treating him miserably. They were questioning his authority as an apostle. They weren't supporting him like they ought to have been, Paul said. That's all right. I just commit those things to the Lord Jesus. I know there's a day when things are going to be straightened out in the light of his presence. Are you and I willing to just leave it? Well, brethren, he's left us this example, and he made himself of. No reputation took upon him. The form of a servant was made in the likeness of men, but he went lower than that.
He became obedient unto death, but even lower than that, even the death of the cross, not just obedient unto death, but even the death of the cross. And I want to stress this one point before we move on, that the Lord Jesus never digressed from the past that the Father had set before him, never digressed from his joy and desire in fulfilling that work. For a moment. It's true. He prayed in the garden and said, If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. But he immediately says not my will.
But thine be done, we digress. I digress often from the past, but there was one who never for a moment digressed from the past, and as a result, now God has given his Amen to the work and set him at his own right hand.
So beautiful. The Lord Jesus there in the garden of Gethsemane with that cross before him, all that it would mean to him and how he shrunk from that. If you're mentioning Jim that there was perfection in his person and it couldn't be otherwise, that he would all that was within him, holy Son of God, would shrink from the thought of contact with sin.
And that sin, all our sins were laid upon him. Just to think of that. I mean, when he thought of it, when he contemplated it, that that was a head for him. Everything that was within him shrunk from it. And yet, in complete submission and subjection to the will of God, he says, not my will, but thine be done. And I think it's so beautiful to see. And Luke's gospel is where you get that suffering seemingly most intense.
In the Garden of Gethsemane it is the only gospel that mentions that he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And in the Luke's gospel is where when you get to the actual forsaking of God.
The three hours of darkness. There is no cry from the blackness. Why? Because it was so settled in his own mind as a man to go through with it in the subjection that the cry isn't given there.
What a wonderful object we have, brethren. What perfection ought to be more occupied with him? It is as we are more occupied with him that it will transform us as well. The Lord help us to get our eyes up into the glory unto that man who went through it all.
We are sanctified unto the obedience from Jesus Christ.
The mayor of that obedience was the father's will of them.
If you can measure it.
It was a father's will. If it would be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. There was no answer.
And yet the fact that there was number answer, that was the answer.
Employee says now. And so the measure of his obedience to his father was the father's will.
01:10:00
There was no other way that the will of God could be completed, the will of the Father could be completed other than He rise from Gethsemane, go forth to pilots judgment hall, and from pilots judgment hall go forth bearing His Cross, and take up the work of atonement of redemption there on the cross.
And it was alluded to earlier, but I think it's precious to see that the first recorded words of the Lord Jesus in the New Testament.
Are the verse that I believe our brother Buchanan quoted. Wish ye not that I must be about my father's business. Those I say, are the first recorded words of the Lord Jesus in the New Testament, and the last recorded words of the Lord Jesus before he yielded up his breath to God, where it is finished beautiful. To think that this work was before his soul, and at the end of it all he could say it is finished, bow his head, and lay down his life. Everything had been finished to the satisfaction.
And to the glory of God.
He never despises. He could despise the shame of the cross, but he doesn't. Never does he despise the cross himself.
He could despise the shame of the cost and reproach of it.
Not to cross itself.
The joy that quite a bit is mentioned been mentioned already, but the joy that was set before him.
Of that moment when he went back into the glory of God.
Having finished the work, what a glorious moment that must have been. No human eye there to witness it, but we have little hints of it in Scripture. Here's one. Another one has been suggested in Psalm 24, and I just love to think about it. The end of Psalm 24.
There's a challenge given to.
The Ever, the Gates and the everlasting doors.
Verse seven of Psalm 24, lift up your head.
O ye gates, and be lift up ye everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in. Who is this king of Glory?
The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord and mighty in battlefield figurative of that time, when the Lord Jesus having won that tremendous victory of Calvary, once goes back into the glory, and he has the right to go right back in and set himself down on the right hand of God. Second time that challenges given lift up your head so ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors.
And the king of glory shall come in. Who is this king of glory? The Lord of hosts.
Post there's going to be hosts of others within and that's that coming day when we will all accompany him.
As we are introduced into the Father's house, he is the King of Glory. But what must have been the glory of that moment when the Lord Jesus ascended from this earth into the Father's presence?
Having accomplished that work perfectly. What a glory at that moment.
We have a little.
In Ephesians and here in Hebrews connection with what Bob has said.
Because in Ephesians it says God has sediment his own right hand, That is the resurrection, the ascension, and the glorification of Christ. If I can put it this way, it was God's Amen to the work of Calvary. It is the proof that God is eternally satisfied with what his Son accomplished here in this world. But in Hebrews, as Bob has brought out, if you notice in the first chapter in the third verse, it ought to read, he sat himself down and sometimes illustrated it this way.
When I was in business, I would sometimes be called to do a job for a large company or corporation, and I would go in and service or install equipment as was needed. And then I would usually have an interview with the man who hired me, be he the owner, the president of the plant foreman. And I would be taken into this man's office to sit down in his presence, to go over the work and to present my invoice. But when I would be taken in to sit down with that man, it was rarely with a feeling of real confidence.
Because there was always in the back of my mind that maybe the job hadn't been done to his satisfaction. Maybe I'd left something out. Maybe I hadn't included something in the job that he thought I should include. I say it was rarely with a feeling of real confidence, but I just think of the blessed Lord Jesus as he returns to the glory. It's true God set him at his own right hand, but in Hebrews, here he set feet himself down in perfect confidence, brethren, knowing that everything had been accomplished to the glory and satisfaction of God.
01:15:30
He knew that not one thing of the work given him to do had been left undone.
He could say with perfect confidence. At the end of those hours of darkness, it is finished. Sometimes my I give one of my children a task to do, and they come and tell me they're finished. But when I review the task, it may be finished to their satisfaction but not to mine. But all I say, speaking carefully, the Lord Jesus, as he entered those courts of glory, as he entered the presence of the Father and sat himself down, all he knew, that everything that God had set before him had been done.
To God's satisfaction. Oh brethren, what a blessed person we have before our souls this evening.
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