Hebrews 4:1-2

Guarantee you that wasn't sung in too many places this morning.

But if you understand it, You

are absolutely thoroughly blessed.

Well, you have your Bibles turn to Hebrews 2.

And there is a lot here.

I've done my best to condense for you, and your hearing,

But there's so much here that

you're gonna have to listen a little faster than I preach.

for us to get through this in any type of timely fashion.

We just completed a, I think

you would agree with me a staggering chapter one that

gives us the absolute supremacy and preeminence

of Jesus over everyone and everything.

And today, we're turning our page to Hebrews 2.

And I will be delivering an exposition of

verses one through four, which

is the exact text

of the very last sermon that R.C.

Sproul ever preached in his life at St.

Andrew's Chapel, this exact text right here.

And I understand the issues that

we have with, so called, celebrity pastors,

and there are issues, but at

the same time, I don't believe that it's

wrong to recognize

the most gifted expositors of church history

for what they are, and he certainly was.

And with words, I can't explain to you how I don't ever mind

recounting what a special, absolute blessing

from God it was for me to meet R.C.

Sproul, and to shake his hand, and

to even have him crack a joke with me.

I will never forget that as long as I live.

That was God blessing me.

Go to liganeer.org and look up this sermon.

It's on there on the app, and I promise you, it'll far

exceed whatever you hear from me today down

here on Hooper Road.

Now, I want you to think back to where we've been, an earlier

message, I've given you the three types of people that

the writer of Hebrews addresses at

different times throughout this epistle, and

it really, not only were these people in that

Jewish congregation that he's writing to, but they've been in the

church for all time.

First, you had the true, genuine Jewish

believers, gen

genuinely regenerate people,

Then, secondly, you had absolutely Jewish

unbelievers who absolutely rejected

Jesus as Messiah.

And for today, in this little passage, Paul

is going to zero in on that third group that I told you

about, these verses

will be aimed directly at those who

know the truth, who've heard the gospel,

who believe the truth, but

who have never truly surrendered to Jesus

in Bible repentance and saving faith.

They just drift on through life.

With an intellectual assent, like the

demons have, to believing in Jesus, they

may even attend church.

They may even make a public profession of faith, but

they never really surrender to

possessing faith as evidenced

by the marks of the new birth in their life.

Let me remind you that some

of the overall motives that this writer has in

addressing all three of these groups in

this first century community of Jewish

people, he wants to show, all

of them, at the same time, that Jesus

has brought a tremendous new

covenant into the human reality on

earth called the New Testament.

That he died on a cross, that he is the Messiah, that

he rose from the grave, and that he shed his blood on

Calvary's tree for the forgiveness of sins of all who believe.

From the start of this book to the end.

The writer is continually proving that

the new covenant is better than the

old covenant.

That the new mediator, namely, Jesus,

is better than anybody connected with

the old covenant ever.

And you can go from Moses on down.

And he wants to show these Jews not that

the old covenant was wrong.

I want to keep repeating that to you.

It's not that it was wrong.

It was just incomplete.

It hadn't been fully fulfilled God's

covenant with man in a big general sense, until

the new covenant, and that is only made complete,

as we've been learning, in Jesus Christ.

He fulfills it all.

And that they needed to learn and accept

that this new covenant of shed blood and

sacrifice for their sins, and accept Jesus as

this mediator.

They needed to accept him his way.

Not the way that they think about it.

But in Bible repentance and saving faith, the only way you

properly come to Christ.

Thus verses one to 3 of chapter one, the brighter

is proving, as we saw, that Jesus, as I said,

is superior to everybody, and to everything

in existence, and because of this high esteem,

think back, this high esteem that the Jews had

for angels.

And remember, they had some pretty crazy views on angels.

We went over those.

You have to go back and look at those in previous sermons.

The writer starts in chapter one verses 4 to 14 to

demonstrate that Jesus is superior to all the angels.

That's what we've been going through.

You can go back in the last 2 sermons and watch those sermons to get all those details.

I won't go back over them.

But then, right in the middle of

this treatise on angels, as we've been studying, because

he's going to pick up with angels again later, as we're going to see, the

writer just all of a sudden, right here, starting in chapter two, he just

stops that discussion to interject an invitation.

All along, he's been proclaiming, again,

the absolute supremacy, and pre minutes

of Jesus over everything, that Jesus is God,

that Jesus alone can cleanse your sin, that Jesus is

the creator of all things, that Jesus is worthy of

your worship, and he's exalted over everything in the universe,

and now, starting in chapter 2 and verse one, he just stops that conversation.

And all of a sudden, he gives this personal

invitation.

And it's first for these first hearers and that Jewish

little congregation, and then branch it

out for the readers of all of human history,

including us here today, and what he's wanting,

what he's getting at, is, hey, you need to be responding

to what I've just been saying in chapter one.

That's what he's getting at.

Because the word of God always demands a response,

always.

And let me add that this is the first of

five great warnings that

we are going to encounter that are sprinkled throughout the book of Hebrews.

This is the first one.

It's almost kind of like, as you read this, that he could only

go so far, giving you the supremacy of

Jesus and how magnificent and glorious and wonderful

Jesus is over everybody and everything.

It was like he could only go so far, telling you that before

stopping and saying,

Now, what are you going to do about this that I'm telling you, with your life?

How you going to live?

based on what I've been telling you?

And again, is specific, target,

audience, in today's text, are

the intellectually convinced that believe in

Jesus, as we're going to see, but they've

not really truly yet completely surrendered to

Jesus in Bible repentance in 2nd and their life shows it.

And there have been people like this in the church, all down through church

history, and they exist right up to this very day.

Now, let me demonstrate this for you.

This text can't be a warning to Christians, because I want you to look at verse three.

Look what verse 3 says.

How will we escape if we neglect so

great a salvation?

Well, Christians can't be in danger of neglecting salvation

in the way that it means here in the context,

because they've already got salvation, right?

So we can rule that group out that we're not talking to.

And this also can't be directed at people who have never heard

the gospel because they can't neglect what they don't know exist, right?

So what does that leave us with?

That leaves us with the intellectually convinced about the

truths of Jesus and his gospel, but not yet truly

committed to him with their life.

Notice those words, we, and us.

And of course, the writer's not saying that he is not a Christian either.

This, right here, is a general use

of these words directed

towards any of us who have heard the truth.

If you've heard the truth.

This is directed at you, no matter how you've responded to it.

And this is a warning, a warning

now, to those who have heard the gospel, know

the facts about Jesus, know that he died on the cross for them.

Know that he can forgive all of their sins, that he can

really come into their life, and they can change their life,

but they are just not willing to come to Christ fully

and completely on his terms.

That's who this is a warning, too.

This right here, these people, are the most tragic

category of people in existence

that live on the earth.

Let me give you a quick story,

a true story, from John MacArthur himself that

tells us a dramatic example of this.

He had a prostitute come into his office.

And she needn't help.

She was desperate.

He gave her the only thing that could help her.

He gave her the gospel.

Then he asked next.

Would you like to trust in Christ, for your salvation?

And she said, Yes, I would.

I've had it with this life.

She'd been on drugs.

She'd been living at the bottom end of society.

They prayed together.

And then he asked her, Do you have

the little book with all your contacts in it?

And she said yes.

And he said, well, let's just take out a match right now, and

let's just burn that book.

And she said, What do you mean?

He said, just what I said?

If you're going to believe in Jesus, and

you're going to live for him, then

you've got to burn that book, and you've got to be completely

done with that life.

And she said, well, that's worth a lot of money.

And he said, Well, good.

And she said, I don't want to buy my book.

She put it in her purse.

She looked him right in the eye, and she said, I

guess I don't really want Jesus, do I?

And she left.

That's the classic.

I'll give her this.

At least she was honest.

Right?

At least she was honest, and not fake, and didn't, oh, baptize

me and pretend, while she was continuing to

live the life she lived before Christ, not being really regenerate,

obviously, or she wouldn't have been able to live that way.

She had to count the cost.

As all of us do.

As I did when I was living completely opposite of the way that I live

now, had to count the costs.

live that way anymore.

Not if you're going to truly come to Jesus.

She believed in Jesus.

If you asked her, do you believe in Jesus?

Yes, I believe in Jesus, but she wasn't willing

to let go of her old life and to begin

a new life living for the glory of God every

day in Christ.

Now, the writer of Hebrews knows there

are kinds of people, right

here in this congregation, and the Holy Spirit also

knows, who inspired the writer, that these type of people

are going to be in the church until Jesus returns.

That's why these words are in here.

And so here we have this warning for them.

And in this text, he gives us three great

reasons for us not to neglect so

great salvation.

You ready for them?

Number one reason is the character of Christ.

Number two is the certainty of judgment.

And number three is the confirmation of

God, and that's going to be our outline for today.

So let's start with number one, the character of Christ.

Simply put, you are a fool to neglect the

salvation that is offered in Christ because

of who Christ is.

Look at verse one.

For this reason.

We must pay much closer attention to

what we have heard so that we do not

drift away from it.

Now what does that verse have to do with the character of Christ?

One phrase keys the whole thing.

First phrase is for this reason.

You know what that phrase is also translated in other translations, therefore.

And you know, when we come to, therefore, we got to know, what's it there for?

And, of course, what does it always do?

It takes us back to what was said, right

up to the therefore, right up to this for this reason.

Everything that we just learned about Jesus, in

chapter one, everything that we studied, now,

for this reason, because you now know that,

all those tremendous truths.

So because of that, for this reason, of who Jesus is

that we just learned about in the prior chapter, we must

pay much closer attention to what we

have heard so that we do not drift away from it.

What do we hear in chapter one?

Jesus is the son.

Jesus is the heir of all things.

Jesus is the one who made the world.

Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God.

Jesus is the exact representation of his glory.

Jesus upholds all things by the word of his power.

There's nobody like Jesus.

There's nobody that comes close to Jesus.

He purged our sins.

He's seated at the right hand of the majesty on high, and

he's better than and far superior to all

angels holy and demonic.

This is who he is.

And so the writer is saying, for this reason, you now all heard that.

How?

Can you reject?

God incarnate.

Who came in the world to pay the penalty for your sins and forgive your

sins and to bridge an unbridgeable gap between

you and God and give you peace and purpose and

joy beyond imagination in your life, how can you neglect him?

How can you neglect so great a salvation with your life?

Jesus, by virtue

of his character alone, makes rejection,

the most foolish act that anyone can ever commit.

Jesus was, God, in the world, in human flesh,

when he was here, to reject Jesus, is to reject

God, to reject God, is

the reason to reject the reason

for your whole existence.

You don't exist apart from God.

Now, let's zero in on some more,

on these words in verse one, after he

says, for this reason.

Look next.

We must pay much closer attention to

what we have heard.

Now, that phrase is very emphatic in the Greek, on

the basis of who Jesus is, we must pay

much closer attention to what we have heard.

We cannot just hear these things, and

just let them slip on by.

We've got to give serious attention to what

we are hearing about Jesus.

And we have to do that.

Look next.

We have to do that so that we do

not drift away from it.

Now, this is terribly interesting.

The Greek words for pay much closer attention, and the phrase

drift away from it.

It's actually nautical language.

It's used in nautical language.

What I mean by that.

It has to do with ships and sailing in boats.

And so, there are multiple commentators that

make the following kind of examples of the meaning, and I

kind of, what I did is I kind of compiled a summary of

different commentators, and it

comes out like this, and what they mean by using this kind of language.

Listen to this.

For this reason, we must

pay much closer attention to

anchor our lives, to

what we have heard, so that the ship of

life does not drift away past the

harbor of salvation and be lost forever.

The idea is of a boat, that

is not anchored, and it's just drifting past

the harbor that it was supposed to stop at in the current,

and it just keeps on going.

The idea is this.

Most people don't go head first,

diving into hell with great gusto.

Most people don't have the Satan horns on

and slaughtering goats in the backyard and saying,

Hail Satan.

That's a very small percentage of our population.

Most people just drift into hell.

That's what they do.

Like an unanchored ship, drifting past the harbor.

Oh, they don't curse God, ever.

They just slip on slowly

past the harbor of salvation, and where do they wind up?

They wind up on the rocks of eternal destruction.

as they drift.

That's why.

The writer right here is imploring, imploring

that we pay much closer attention to what we

have heard about Jesus.

Many of these Jews have heard.

Think about it.

They had heard the gospel from apostolic missionaries.

Remember?

I told you that.

Actual apostles had come and planted it.

You'd realize what a small group of people that is in world history?

I ain't branch that out.

I mean, really, comparatively speaking to how many people have lived on planet art.

A small group of people actually saw Jesus and encountered him.

And he's addressing these people.

that had heard the gospel explained from apostles,

but they had not yet made personal application of

what they had heard in their lifestyle.

The emphatic seriousness of this is

comparable to what Jesus started off saying in

Luke 9:44,

Look at what Jesus himself says.

Let these words sink into

your ears.

That's Jesus.

It's not enough to hear it.

Let it sink into your ears.

Let it get down in your bloodstream, as RC used to say.

so that it makes a change in your life.

Drifting is easy.

It's quiet.

All you need to do to go to hell is don't

do anything with Jesus, with your life.

Just live secular.

and say, Hey, I believe in Jesus.

Don't act upon what you've heard about Christ.

And many people drift along, trusting

in their good deeds, trusting in their church attendance,

their religiosity, their intellectual belief, and guess what?

They drip just as strongly into destruction as the rest.

Why?

Because they are not coming to Christ and

what they have heard about Christ on his terms.

Instead, whether are they doing?

Well, I'm just going to have Jesus my way.

Look, Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandment.

I'm not talking about absolute sinless perfection.

Just talk to Christie about my sinless perfection afterwards.

You find out in about five minutes.

But I'm talking about the direction of your life.

How are you living your life?

Are you living it for the glory of God?

Is that the most important thing to you in your life?

Do you speak the language of Zion easily when you get with

other people, and talk freely and easily about Jesus and his

gospel and what he did for you?

Is it more important to you than anything else that you be here on

Sunday with the saints?

Church attendance can be legalistic, and you can think, oh,

going to church, check the box off.

I guess I'm a Christian.

You can be one of these intellectual believers, do that, and account for nothing.

But a genuine believer wants more than anything to be here,

with the motivation of wanting to worship God and bring glory to God

and fellowship with other believers.

That's what I'm talking about, evidences of the new birth,

and how you live, and how you think, how you speak.

A lot of people like to just have Jesus their way.

When in reality, there's only one way.

is his way.

And no other way will do.

Sorry.

I'm just a mailman.

I'm not writing this mail.

I'm just delivering it to you.

OK?

So it's foolish to reject

so great a salvation because of the character of Jesus.

Now, secondly, I want you to see it's foolish to reject

salvation because of the certainty of judgment.

And oh, it's certain.

Look next at verse two.

And this gets a little thick, but hang in there with me.

Now, if the word spoken through angels proved

unalterable.

Now stop right there.

What in the world is that?

Well, I want you to think back.

We learn.

In chapter one, the old covenant was mediated

to men by angels.

Somehow, they played a role at Mount Sinai,

and bringing God's law to His people, Deuteronomy 331,

Psalm 68, 17, Acts 738.

Remember, we don't get the specifics about exactly what

they did, but they were there,

and they did play some kind of role in

delivering the law.

So that's what it's talking about here.

So let's read verses 2 and 3 together, and you'll

make more sense of it when we read it together.

For if the word spoken through angels proved

unalterable, that's the delivering of the law, and

Old Testament, and every transgression and disobedience

received a just penalty, that's

talking about the Old Testament, how will we escape?

If we neglect so great a salvation after

it was at the first spoken through the Lord,

it was confirmed to us by

those who heard.

And that's talking about the apostles.

We're gonna get to that in a minute.

But here's the point.

If nobody got away with breaking the old covenant in Old Testament

times, brought my angels, by the way, you

don't think you're going to get away with breaking the new covenant, brought

by the Lord Jesus himself, do you?

The writer is arguing from the lesser to the greater here.

Two Testaments.

Two covenants, the old, that angels were

used to bring to the people, and any breaking of

that law, followed by strict, severe,

just punishment.

Hey, you committed adultery, stung to death outside the camp.

I mean, we can go down the list, right?

Lots of stone to death penalties they had, and they did it.

And then the new, which came through Christ.

Why?

Because he was a greater mediator than those angels, with

a better covenant, but with a better covenant,

it carries with it a greater punishment.

Simply put, you are a fool, if you think you

are going to escape the punishment of the new covenant, if

nobody ever escaped the punishment of

breaking the old, because this new covenant is

an ever greater covenant, how in the world will you

escape judgment if you neglect so great

a salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone?

People today have this idea.

Oh, well, God is love.

And God is a God of grace.

He is.

But that's not all.

They don't even like to think about the fact that he's holy.

And that he's a holy God of perfect justice.

If, in your one short life that you are living right

now, you decide not to come to Christ

on his terms of repentance and faith, God's

holy, perfect justice cannot

do anything for you, but condemn you.

That's all it will do when you stand before your maker when he makes

your heir quit breathing.

Because we're all guilty.

We're all guilty.

Of breaking God's law, many times over,

God is holy, and His holy justice

requires punishment for that, just

like if I go next door, and I murder the next door

neighbor, and it's on video, the state of Louisiana

requires punishment for me.

That I either go life in prison, or death by

lethal injection, that's the law.

Well, the law of God says, I have a standard to

be right with me, and if you don't mean it, the

punishment is outer darkness forever.

Same principle.

Perfect justice though, compared to man's justice.

And as I've explained many times,

There's only two choices here, folks.

And whether people believe what I'm fixing to say or not does

not affect the reality of what I'm fixing to

say one little bit.

You can either bear the punishment and penalty

for your lawbreaking in front of God in

the outer darkness of hell, yourself, or choice number two.

You can come to Christ his way.

He will pay your penalty, and he will absorb your punishment

as your substitute on Calvary's tree.

Notice again, verse 2, referring back to the Old Testament times,

and every transgression and disobedience received

a just penalty.

I want to say, again, there was absolutely no escape from the law of the Old Covenant.

In Old Testament times.

If you blaspheme God out loud, stung

to death was going to be your end.

Why was it so severe?

Because God likes to make examples.

God wanted to make sure that Israel's purity

remained amongst all the pagan cultures and Molech

burning kid nations that were all around them.

So any false prophet and blasphemer in Israel,

they were dealt with immediately and severely.

In numbers, you can look this up.

There was a man who was caught picking up sticks on the Sabbath day.

What?

He was only picking up sticks.

What was the penalty, stoned to death?

Why?

God is holy.

This man was willfully, outwardly, in

public defying the law of God.

They brought him to Moses, Moses goes to

God, and what does God say?

Put him to death.

That's an example.

That's an example given to us for all time.

Let me ask you.

What if that law was still in effect today about Sunday church attendance?

Would you be live or dead right now?

Ask yourself that question.

Saying God.

Same holy God.

God's in charge!

That's what you have to get.

He's revealed himself clearly in his word what's important to him.

It's his world.

It's his law, whether you like it or not doesn't matter.

People of Israel knew this far better than anybody else did, right?

They saw it on a regular basis.

All of God's laws moral, judicial, ceremonial.

Again, they were put in place to maintain Israel's

purity and their uniqueness and being different from

any other nation around them on the earth.

So God's judgments on Israel were so severe.

You know why else?

Because they knew better.

They knew better.

They had the most light from God of

any other people group on the earth.

And so when they got out of line, because they

knew better, it was severe.

They were being held accountable.

As you well know, the more light you receive,

the more accountable you are.

That's why it's dangerous to come to Providence Baptist Church.

Because we're flashing the light.

Here, all right?

Brightly.

You're accountable to respond to this light that's being shined brightly

from this pulpit in the way that God wants you to.

Don't worry about me.

I'm just the messenger boy.

How God wants you to respond.

And in the same way, there's no escape from judgment in the new covenant.

What do I mean by that?

Well, what is the issue?

In the new covenant.

Well, there's just one issue in the new company.

You want to know what it is?

What do you do with Jesus?

Boil it all down.

If you believe on his terms of repentance and faith, that

secures you to the new covenant as

well as remarkably freedom from the wrath of God.

Romans 8, verse one.

You know it well.

Therefore, there is no condemnation

for those who are in Christ Jesus.

None.

Jesus took your wrath.

Jesus paid for all your sins.

It's Jesus righteousness is put on your account.

I believe that, brother Philip.

Okay, well, how you living?

One old preacher said, used to say, what are you doing about it?

What your life?

Do you give evidence that you live, your

life, that shows and

demonstrates, yeah, he's in Christ Jesus.

She is in Christ Jesus.

Those are the things that are most important to them.

Now go back to our text.

If a man could not neglect the revelation

that came through angels in the Old Testament,

how much more should he not

neglect the revelation that came through Jesus himself?

This is pointed out again very clearly, very clearly later.

Some years from now, we'll get here in Hebrews 10, verses 28 29.

Let's look at it.

Anyone who has set aside the law

of Moses, dies without mercy.

on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

That's what happened.

They had to have the two or three witnesses, and, boy, if they did, you died without mercy.

The stones were popping you upside the head till you died.

Verse 29.

How much severer punishment

do you think he will deserve, who is trampled

under foot, the Son of God, and

has regarded as unclean the blood of

the covenant, by which he was sanctified,

and has insulted?

the spirit of grace.

That's pretty clear.

In other words, if you think it was bad for those under Moses law.

How much worse will the punishment be for those who

know the truth of Jesus Christ, who

make a mental assent to believing the truth of Jesus Christ?

And they still trample him underfoot with their life.

and still insult the spirit of grace anyway.

Any person who knows the gospel, who has intellectually

understood it, and even believed the facts of it, and still drift away.

Let me tell you something.

They will experience the most severe punishment possible.

in hell, because there's degrees, as we've

seen, a punishment in hell knows what the most like, or

at the most extreme intense form, of

outer darkness, because they were given the most light.

Gospel light.

Which America has been full of, since its founding.

There are still, even in this depraved nation that we're

living in, there are still plenty of people in this nation that can give you the gospel.

There's still enough churches left that are preaching the

Word that you have no excuse in America not to believe.

Look, nobody likes to think about it.

I don't like to think about it.

But hell is a very real place.

And the consequence of breaking God's law,

and his perfect holy justice being meeting out, happens

in a place called a place of everlasting fire, where

the worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched.

Again, it's called outer darkness, and

Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus, King Jesus

himself said that people there are weeping

and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

gritting or tears like this.

Said more about hell than he did about heaven.

I'm just telling you the truth.

Nobody can really wrap their mind around hell.

I don't even try.

I don't even try.

But if we believe the Bible.

And the words of Jesus himself, we simply cannot

get around it or pretend like it's not there,

as so many people do, sadly even in the church today.

And what our text is saying.

This is what our text is getting at right here.

How can a man or a woman escape judgment if

he rejects the new covenant in Jesus Christ?

And the answer is he can't.

He can't.

There's no way to escape.

If we neglect.

So great a salvation.

That's what Hebrews is teaching us.

So to treat the gospel of Jesus Christ, of neglect is

foolish, first of all, because of the character of Christ,

secondly, because of the certainty of judgment.

Lastly, for today, because of

the confirmation of God.

And this starts as we continue in verse 3.

How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

After it was at the first spoken

through the Lord.

Now stop there.

Who was the first preacher of the gospel, Jesus?

He came preaching repentance.

Remember that great scene in his own hometown?

He goes back to the synagogue in Nazareth,

where he grew up as a boy, and he's on debt

for the public reading of scripture at the service.

And look at Luke 4, 18.

He quotes straight out of Isaiah 61, The Spirit of the Lord is

upon me, because he's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

And remember, that's not just the physically poor, that's the spiritually poor.

And he sent me to proclaim, release to the captives and recovery

of sight to the blind.

That's also the spiritually blind, to set free those who

are oppressed.

And then he sat down.

And then, look what he said in verse 21.

Today.

The scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

And by the time he finished talking, what did they do?

They drove him out to a cliff, and they wanted to throw him off the cliff for what he said.

But he escaped from their midst, the Bible says, because it wasn't

yet his time, because he's God.

Hebrews 2.3.

Says the Lord Jesus was the first one that spoke the gospel.

After it was first spoken through the Lord, then look next.

Look next, in the verse, Hebrews 2.3.

It was confirmed to us by those who heard.

Now, just remember, this small Jewish congregation, this letter is written to,

they didn't hear the gospel straight from Jesus himself.

They were the second generation hearers.

They heard it first from those apostolic missionaries, those apostles.

Jesus preached it first, but it was confirmed to us by

them who hurt him.

The apostles heard him first.

Preach it.

And that's what's being said here in this verse.

And then verse 4 is the key.

God also testifying with them,

both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and

gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will.

Now, remember this from our study of the gospel of John when Jesus preached the gospel.

He also did some other unbelievable, quite wild

things to make it believable,

namely, jaw dropping, no way to be faked miracles.

What were their miracles there for?

They were there for to confirm the word

that he was preaching and who he was claiming to be.

And that was part of the message that Peter preached on the day of Pentecost.

Look what he said in Acts 2.22.

Men of Israel, listen to these words.

Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you, by God,

with miracles and wonders and signs, which

God performed through him in your midst, just

as you yourselves know.

And guess what?

Do you know that the same thing was true from the apostles?

Listen, even during the time of the early church, there were false

prophets running all around.

There were false Messiahs claiming to be Messiah.

So how were Jesus' apostles

going to be believed as opposed to all the

rest of those false prophets that were out there preaching?

Well, God gave them the ability to do the same things

that Jesus had done.

Signs, wonders, and miracles.

They even raised the dead.

Like Jesus did.

So this is not some pie in the sky, reality here.

This is historical truth.

God's gospel was substantiated by signs

and wonders and miracles that were performed by the apostles

after Jesus went back to heaven.

Just look for yourself starting Acts 5 and reads all the way through Acts 19.

You'll see it over and over and over, one after another of these miracles,

in the ministries of these men, leaving no

doubt that the true preachers of God's truth really were true.

Not only did God testify with them, as verse

4 says, by signs and wonders and various miracles, look next, what else?

And by gifts of the Holy Spirit.

And then lastly, very importantly, according

to his own will.

Now, I want to emphasize that signs,

wonders, and miracles, and gifts of the Holy

Spirit were given according

to God's will.

Now, some of you might know why I am emphasizing that.

And without taking you into another hour on this particular subject,

I just want to say that this is just another solid demonstration

that all of the apostolic signed

gifts of the early church, of which, I believe, there were

four healing, miracles, tongues,

and interpretation of tongues, were God's

will, and only God's will for

the apostolic age.

And this is proof of it right here.

They were not for forever throughout the rest of human history.

They were not for today.

They were for conforming and confirming

the word of God.

So, here's what I believe, and what we teach

here at Providence, that the apostolic,

sign gifts, ended with the apostolic era.

Doesn't mean God can't do miracles today because he does them all the

time, but not the apostolic sign gifts.

There is no need for the apostolic sign gifts today, because

there's no need to confirm the word.

It's complete.

Because if somebody comes along, when we have to

ask, well, how do we know if what he's preaching is for real?

I don't need a miracle?

I don't need a signed gift, I just take my Bible out and say,

okay, what you got to say there, brother, and see if it matches up with the word.

That's what we do in this time and age.

The tremendous theologian, Benjamin Breckenridge

Warfield, said this.

These miraculous gifts were part of the credentials of

the apostles as the authoritative agents of God in

founding the church.

Their function thus confined them to distinctively

the apostolic church, and they necessarily passed away with it.

I can't explain it any better than that.

Let me give you a quick example with tongs, since that's the hot button deal.

First, Corinthians 14:22 should settle the matter,

but unfortunately, it doesn't for so many.

So then tongues are

for a sign.

not to those who believe, but for unbelievers.

They never had any relationship to believers whatsoever.

They weren't far believers to be doing amongst believers.

They were for unbelievers.

They were simply a part of confirming these miracles

in the early church to unbelievers to show them, Hey,

these men, these apostles right here, they're speaking from God.

Watch this.

They can speak in your language, and they don't even know it.

And when the word of God became complete, it's clear.

That was it.

They ceased.

No, we don't need to sign gifts anymore.

Now, that's why

what we see in so many churches today is clearly false,

clearly false.

And not only are people babbling in

unknown languages in churches when biblical tongues

are always in identifiable language, not a babbling.

They are also babbling within the context of a worship

service, where supposedly there's not any unbelievers.

And oftentimes, those babblings that are not even human language

are not even being interpreted.

So they're breaking the rules all over the place.

And isn't it interesting?

How if it's the Holy Spirit of God who

makes this miracle happen?

Why isn't it never one time ever

that the Holy Spirit decides to do

the gift of tongues in a reformed Baptist Church ever?

Only in those churches where they teach the babbling tongues?

Just a, hmm.

What I say to that, that's interesting.

And that connects us to the last point of our last verse.

God also testifying with them both by signs and wonders

and by various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Here's the kicker.

Here's the kicker.

Look in it, read it well.

According to his own will.

That's how the tongues, and the healings, and the raising

people from the dead came about in the early church.

Let me tell you something.

No apostle ever had to take a class on how

to speak tongues, as many people do in charismatic churches today.

Just start saying, da, da, da, da, it'll come along.

No apostle ever had to do that.

Ever.

They spoke identifiable languages that weren't theirs.

That's the miracle of tongues.

Not this insane babbling that they do today.

True biblical tongues and all the rest of the apostolic

sign gifts were empowered by God, according to

the will of God, and God always does everything right.

And what you see today is not right.

Sorry, it's just not.

All right, let's wrap it up.

What have we learned?

Three biblical reasons for why any person is

a fool to neglect salvation.

Number one, the character of God.

Number two, the certainty of judgment.

Number three, the confirmation of God.

Make sure.

Make sure, that it's never, ever said of you.

that you neglected so great a salvation.

Don't drift.

past the harbor of grace, and

land on the rocks of eternal destruction,

because there's no return.

There's not another ship that's going to come along for you.

Put your anchor down, to day,

into the solid rock of Christ Jesus, King Jesus,

and his gospel, but not only that, then go out and

live and give evidence with your life.

that you have.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for Hebrews.

Wow.

Oh, I don't deserve to do such work.

Some kind of way, you got this old fool up here doing it.

And I thank you.

I thank you for the clarity of your word.

I thank you for the Holy Spirit that inspired the writer to write with such clarity.

Take this word and seal it to our minds, and our hearts,

and our thinking, and may we come away from this place today

with a deeper understanding of who you are,

and how you operate in our Christian lives, and in the lives of

all people, all to your glory.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.