So Great Salvation — Paris Reidhead

Hebrews 1–2: Giving Earnest Heed to God's Word

Would you turn, please, to Hebrews, the first chapter? I want you to notice, then, carefully, the first two verses of Hebrews, chapter one, and without delay, without comment, we'll begin reading with the first verse of the second chapter.

Now, there's a reason, and I'll explain that. The balance of the chapter, from verse three on, exalts the Lord Jesus above angels, sets him forth in his character and in his office above angels. And we recognize this, and we receive it, but we're desirous tonight of knowing why God has, through the writer of the book of Hebrews, made this emphasis that Christ is above angels.

And we'll see that in the second chapter. God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world.

Therefore, and whenever you find a therefore in the scripture, don't leave it until you find out what it's there for, and it's extremely important right here. Therefore, because God has in times past spoken unto us by the prophets, and now has spoken unto us by his Son, therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard from the Son, lest at any time we should let them slip.

For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him?

The Four Tenses of Salvation

Now the emphasis of this that I've read is as follows. The word of angels was steadfast. The commandments they brought, the message they gave, God respected, and it declares that every transgression and every disobedience received a just recompense of reward.

God honored the word of angels. God attested the word of angels. If this was true, and it was, how much more ought we expect him to honor, respect, and confirm the word of his Son? If his Son is infinitely above all angels, then God would put infinitely more concern to seeing that the word of his Son was respected.

Now notice also, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Obviously our temptation would be here to say, oh, salvation. That means pardon from sin. But you know the word salvation is an immense word, far greater than we generally associate with it.

If you will take that word and trace it through the New Testament, you will find that there are actually four tenses of salvation. Tense in this sense I use the word. There's the past perfect tense, the past tense, the present tense, and the future tense.

Now let me explain. The past perfect tense. I have been saved from the pleasure of sin. Repentance. The past tense. I was saved from the penalty of sin. Justification. I am being saved from the power of sin.

Sanctification. I shall be saved from the presence of sin. Glorification. Now if somebody comes to you and says, are you saved, brother, sister? You would be quite in order to say, how do you mean? I have been, I was, I am being, and I shall be.

Now let's talk about the one you're interested in. The word saved has been generally compressed by us to be equivalent to forgiveness. But the word in its use in the Bible is far larger, far more inclusive than just pardon.

For instance, you find Paul saying something like this. Now is our salvation nearer than when we believe. Sounds strange, doesn't it? If he has saved us by his death, how much more shall we be saved by his life?

We find that the word saved is an immense word, just as the word sanctification is an immense word. In the mind of God, our sanctification was planned before the world began. It was accomplished at Calvary.

It became ours potentially at the point of repentance. It became ours experientially as we saw ourselves in our union with Christ. And it will be effected throughout the endless ages of eternity. These are vast words, immense words.

So when we read in Hebrews 1 .3, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? No one can say, well, thank God, my sins are pardoned, I haven't neglected salvation. The word here used includes everything that God in grace has done for his people through the cross work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the warning given in this third verse is not respecting pardon from past sins. It is neglecting anything that the Lord Jesus provided for his people. And thus deals with that heart of indolence that says, well, I'd like this from the Lord, but really I'm not the least interested in any more.

Utterly cutting across this attitude that says, well, I'd like to take certain things from the sacrifice of Christ, but you see, really, I just don't want to go all the way. I'm not interested in some of these other things.

The Danger of Letting Truth Slip Away

The word in the first verse is equally explicit. We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard. Why? Because there's a tendency to allow precious things to slip through our hands.

Things that are of tremendous value can be easily lost. I had given to my wife before we were married an engagement ring. One day out in Africa she was taking some weeds out of the zinnias. The ground was muddy, she was down there working.

When she came in, washed her hands, she found the set in her ring was gone. And she was concerned about it. Now had she had any thought that the mud would have been sufficiently viscous to have drawn the stone out of the ring, she certainly wouldn't have worn it.

And so in that little task, it was just in passing that she was going from one house on the station to another, stooped down, picked up some weeds, pulled them out, put them away. And when she came in, something that meant a great deal to her was gone.

And so it could be that this is implied in the text. Becoming concerned about other things and interested in tasks which are more appealing to us, truth which was in the eternal mind and heart of God and purchased at the tremendous price of the blood of Christ, just slips through our fingers and slides away with the common cares of the day.

And so we have a warning here. We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard. Lest in our preoccupation with many things, this truth, just like sand in our hands, slip through, slide away, and we be left with nothing but regrets.

Again, we see it here. How shall we escape if we neglect? It isn't refusal. It isn't rejection. It isn't a matter of taking one's stand against. It's just a little matter of saying, well, another day, another time.

There are other things more important, other things more challenging, other things more demanding of my time and thought. And the question isn't whether or not we will neglect it. The question is this.

What are we going to do? How are we going to explain it? How are we going to face him who purchased these priceless privileges with his precious blood, included them in his word, and had them expounded to our hearts, and then we, in our indolence and in our carelessness, were prepared to just neglect the things which God purchased by the poured-out blood of his only begotten Son?

How are we going to escape it? How are we going to escape it? This is the question. Well, what are the consequences? You understand, of course, that if a person neglects repentance and neglects faith in Jesus Christ, that they'll be forever in hell.

The Consequences of Neglecting Repentance

I am confident that in hell tonight, there are multitudes of people that intended someday to repent. I can't for the world believe that everyone there made up his mind at some point of crisis that he was determined to be lost.

Years ago, down in Richmond, Virginia, I was talking to a young man who said, Well, religion is all right for the old. Christianity and salvation is good for people when they're on their last legs, but anybody as young as I am doesn't want to be saddled with a lot of do's and don'ts and a lot of religion.

And when I get old enough to take my Social Security, I'll also take my Heaven Security and I'll get along with it then. But right now, sir, don't bother me. And so I said, Well, what else? What about that?

Well, he said, Well, frankly, I don't even know that then I'm too interested. I said, All right, I'm going to draw up a contract and you sign it. So I took a piece of paper that his mother handed me and I drew up such a contract as this.

Because I do not know that I'll live to be old enough to take my Social Security, and because I have no certainty of tomorrow, and because I made up my mind that I am not going to do anything with Jesus Christ until I get to be at least 65, I hereby relinquish now and forever all interest in the death of Christ.

And I declare to one and sundry to whom this paper may come that I refuse hereafter to consider myself a candidate for salvation. I am determined, therefore, to go to hell. I have made up my mind that I shall be lost, if lostness there is as the consequence of my action, because I am simply not interested in Jesus Christ.

I said, Would you sign that? He read it over, his face blanched, the blood drained from it. He said, No, I wouldn't sign that. You think I'm a fool? I said, Yes, I do. I actually do. Because you have essentially signed it by telling us, your mother, your wife, all of us here, that it is your intention to do nothing with Jesus Christ until some point in the indefinite future, and there's no reason to suppose that when you reach 65 that you won't postpone it again.

And so I said, You might as well get the thing off your mind so that when people trouble you in the future, you can say, No, I've settled that. One Sunday afternoon in my mother-in-law's house, I just made up my mind that I wasn't going to be bothered about it anymore.

I said, I think that would be the wiser course, rather than just somehow going to do it in the meanwhile, case-hardening your heart against any work of the Spirit of God. He said, Mister, you put it to me in a hard way.

I don't know what I'm going to do about it, but I assure you this, I'm going to think more than I have in the past. Well, I don't know what happened to him. I wasn't able to follow it up. But it's my conviction that hell is filled with people that have said, Well, someday, someday, someday.

And we know that it is fatal to neglect repentance and faith. And we have every reason to believe that when we find that word in Thessalonians saying that the Lord Jesus Christ shall come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them, that know not God and obey not our Lord Jesus Christ, that it will include that company of people that have just neglected to repent, neglected to deal with the issue that was exposed by the gracious love work of the Spirit of God.

And so, to sinners, we say, you have an option. You must face Jesus Christ. You have to face Him. God has promised that every knee shall bow to His Son. When the Lord Jesus Christ left heaven and took upon Himself the form of a man, the Father said to Him, Every knee of man shall bow to You.

And then He gave to man the option as to when they bow. You can either bow now in time entreated by the Spirit of God, warned by the Word of God, wooed by the love of God, bow now in repentance and faith and live, or refuse to bow now, go out of life with your head unbowed and your back unbent, and then to meet Jesus Christ, not at the mercy seat as He is now beckoning and waiting, but to meet Him at the great white throne where He shall be seated in judgment and where it will then be that the books are opened and the Lamb's book of life in which the individual's name will not be written, and then calling for the rocks and the mountains to fall upon Him, He will be forced to bow before the Lord Jesus.

Now listen, God promised that every knee would bow to His Son. Now they're either going to bow willingly in repentance and faith and live, or they're going to bow coerced and forced by the majesty of God and the promise He made to His Son, and then to go out into the eternal darkness having knowledge under pressure, what they refuse to acknowledge under grace.

This is the tragedy of neglect. This is the crime of neglect in respect to the matter of past sins and the matter of the pardon and justifying love of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so we recognize that this is fatal in its consequence, and I'm sure that there are few here that would challenge that tonight.

Salvation Includes More Than Pardon

But then there's another thing that comes along. We somehow have gotten the idea, you know, that whereas it is of tremendous importance that we should acknowledge Jesus Christ as Savior, and we should accept the salvation that He died to provide, it isn't nearly as important to take the other things that were included in His death.

And so we find that there's a matter of option there. I think it grows out of our misuse of the word saved. I think we have failed to understand that that word was never intended to be used as we customarily use it.

First, I'll call to your attention that no one in the Bible claimed He was saved. No one ever said that word of Himself in personal testimony. Oh, Paul said, Who hath saved us and called us. But because the word is such an immense word, there would be no point in the pilgrimage that all of the word implied could have been completed by a man living and walking in time.

And so no one used it, being consistent with the book itself. The Spirit of God just didn't record such a testimony. Paul said, When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me. And there were others who testified one way and another to the grace of God in their life, but they didn't use that word saved.

And I think because we have misused it, we've misled a lot of people into thinking that the only thing God is interested in is sort of getting them signed up to occupy a room in the mansion He's building in eternity.

As though God were afraid He wouldn't have enough people to fill up the house, and so He's just terribly concerned about getting people fixed up with a hell insurance policy. And as soon as they have that, then that's all He's really concerned about.

Now, some of them, He realizes, according to this misconception, may be a little more enthusiastic and a little more eager, and so He puts some challenges for them. And if they'll scale the hill, He's got a little reward at the top for them.

And they may be first-class citizens and the other second-class. But after all, the important thing is to get people, quote, saved, unquote. And then if some want to go on to the deeper life or the higher life or the fuller life or the sanctified life, that's up to them.

Now, brethren, I believe this is an utter misconception. I believe this is not defensible from the Word of God, and I believe that it's something that every one of us ought to do our very best to stomp out.

For instance, when John the Baptist was preaching, he never taught in any such way at all. For you'll find him saying, Repent! For there's one coming after me, who's preferred before me, the latchet of whose shoes I'm unworthy to lose.

He it is that baptizeth you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. In other words, John said to his generation, Repent, because repentance is the means whereby the barrier between you and God is removed, and the end of God's grace is to bring you into fellowship with God, not simply to take you to heaven.

God's Purpose Is Fellowship and Christlikeness

Now, here's a misconception that carries along with what we've been discussing. Too many people have felt that God's great purpose in grace was to take us to heaven when we die. Oh, how many things can grow out of the wrong emphasis.

God's great purpose in grace is not just to take us to heaven when we die. It is to save us from sin. It is to make us like Jesus Christ. It is to bring us into vital, living, warm, experiential fellowship with him now, during the days of our pilgrimage.

And then, because he's already brought heaven to us, it'll be a simple matter for him to take us to heaven. But heaven was to begin in our hearts. Now, I'll say another thing that I think you'll agree with.

And that is that if God were to take you to heaven, send you to heaven, rather, and wouldn't come himself, give you a mansion, give you a house right down on the main street of glory, right next to the river of life, and even give you the franchise to take up the paving in front, the gold paving, and sell it to the rest of the inhabitants, God still would have doomed you to hell if he didn't come there.

Because I assure you that heaven cannot consist in a mansion. It can't consist in any of the things which are generally associated with a heavenly abode. The thing that makes heaven heavenly is not the mansion, not the street of gold, not the river of life, and not the harps in which the angels will play.

The thing that makes heaven heavenly is the revelation of God, without restriction or inhibition or anything to obscure him. And if he were to send you to however blissful a situation you can imagine, and not come himself, he would have simply relocated hell and renamed it.

For that which your heart demands is not a place and not things and not a situation. Oh, I can understand how some of the slaves in other days could say, when we get to heaven, we're going to put on our shoes, and we're going to walk all over God's heaven, and they never had shoes.

And it gets cold down there. And they could imagine this was going to be a tremendous improvement on their state, and I'm sure that God took care of that when they got there. But if your concept of heaven is mansions and shoes and so on, then it is simply a kind of an idea of marrying Mr. Dayton and moving into the department store, so that you could change your furniture every month and everything else.

Oh, this is the most sensual concept. This is the most materialistic concept. What we are seeing is that heaven is a place, but that which makes the place heavenly is the presence of the King of the place, the Lord of the place, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And therefore, God's purpose in grace isn't just to give us a ticket to a place, but His purpose is to bring that, the atmosphere and the government and the blessing of that place to our hearts by bringing the person who will make the place heavenly to our hearts.

Now, if this is the case, then we'll understand that everything that the Lord Jesus provided is important. Everything that was included in His cross work was important. And you can't sit back and say, well, I'm justified, I'm pardoned, I'm forgiven, that is salvation.

And I have that, and I have what He came to bring, and I know He's left a few little heights for people to scale one way or another, but as far as I'm concerned, I have the important thing. What is important?

Everything is important. Everything He intended, everything He provided, everything that was procured by the shedding of His blood. And therefore, how are we going to escape if we neglect anything that God intended to be ours?

Yes, there ought to come into every heart an avid hunger to have all that the Lord Jesus died to make ours, to be all that He intended us to be, and to experience everything that was ours. Let me give you an illustration.

Neglecting God's Provisions of Grace

Suppose, dear heart, you could be justified and born again and have an attitude of complete indifference to the things of God, and you get home to heaven, and the first thing the Lord does is say, come with me, child, and He takes you out to the warehouse of His grace.

He throws back the big double doors, and there are the deep shells lying with things which He purchased with His blood, signed, sealed, packaged, and addressed to you in the various stages of your pilgrimage.

Here, here was health when you were sick. Here was victory when you were tempted. Here was the power of the Holy Spirit when you were entrusted with tasks. And as He begins to just point these things out and take the promises that He put in His book, and says, why didn't you take this?

Why didn't you claim this? Here I have made provision for you. And then He gives you a flashback of your life, and you see how that you went along broken, went along defeated, went along creeping when you could have run, when you could have mount up with wings as eagles, you prowled as a worm in the dust.

And He says, see what your life was? And then He gives you a preview of what your life could have been, and there is the cupboard filled with the blessings that He provided with His own blood, purchased for you.

And you were too indifferent and callous to even want to claim. How are you going to escape the heartache and the grief that comes from realizing you have robbed the Lord Jesus of the glory He could have gotten out of your life if you cared about the provisions of His love?

Stubborn? Hard-hearted? Indifferent? Preoccupied? Satisfied with a crumb when you could have had a loaf? And all the time you've been dishonoring Him because you've been less than He provided, less than He expected.

Suppose I were to send my children to school, and they were to go with their clothes in tatters, now I mind you they have some overalls that have been well patched that they use when they're climbing trees, and we insist that they put them on.

But we've also managed along the way to scrape up a pair of shoes now and then so that they don't need to go with their soles flapping and their feet letting blood on the snow in the wintertime. But suppose my children should have forgotten completely about the box up on the shelf which is a new pair of shoes, or the ones in the back of the closet which they use for school, and they simply wear these bedraggled old things to school, and they wear them all the time, and there they go with nothing but rags and tatters, neglect the food that's put on the tables, refuse to eat the provisions that are there, refuse to take all that's given for them, and they go out in the community thus caricaturizing their father.

Because it isn't them that's being dishonored, it's their father that's being dishonored. For the father is responsible to provide for his children. And so it is that when the children of God spurn the provisions of God's grace and neglect that which He has given, they are actually shaming their Heavenly Father.

They're dishonoring Him because here were provisions of love that in His infinite wisdom He knew His people needed in order that being strengthened and helped and encouraged and delivered they could walk in the presence of a skeptical world, and by their walk and their attitude and demeanor and expression and their victory and their joy and their peace, they could honor their father.

But they were unwilling to dress in the clothes that He provided, to wear the shoes that He gave, unwilling to eat the food that He provided, and they skimped along on what they had, and all the while they dishonored Him.

What are you going to do about it, dear child of God, if and when you get home to Heaven you discover that though you've made it by the skin of your teeth, yet every step of the way you've dishonored the Father that loves you and whom you profess to love by simply neglecting the provisions of His love and the provisions of His grace.

Can you see the tremendous importance that's attached to the text? Well, you say, if God wanted me to have these things, wouldn't He force them on me? Oh, I think not. God has given us promises, and we are, by these exceeding great and precious promises, made partakers of the divine nature.

And you see, He has told us that we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. Because the God of this world is trying to make these things seem unimportant, and the pressure of occupation is trying to make us seem too busy with other things to give our time here.

And we seem to get along too well without some of the things which are set forth in the Word. And then we meet someone who claims to have had these things, and they don't seem any different than we are.

And so we say, well, what's the use? What's the value? And the net result of it is that before we know what's happened, we've just let them slide through our hands. We've let it slip away. And consequently, we have robbed the Lord Jesus Christ of what He had a right to expect from us.

Christ's Teaching on the Great Salvation

Now, what is this great salvation? What does it include? What did our Lord have to say? It's this that is of tremendous concern to all of us tonight. I think we will see it if we take the Word. Now, on another visit, I've given you this message, but I give it just in review because I want you to see it.

I'd like to have you remember now and review with me what the Spirit of God has recorded for us of the ministry of our Lord. For it says here, "...with which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord.".

What did the Lord have to say about this so great salvation? Well, if we turn to Matthew 5, in verse 20, we will have the beginning statement. And if you would like to record these, it might be helpful to you in the future.

And we'll add this word that will be the key. You'll hear it. For our Lord is speaking to a company of people on the most important subject in the world. And this is what He says, "...I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.".

What was their righteousness? It was the righteousness that a dedicated mind and a consecrated intellect could produce without the Holy Spirit. They fasted. They tithed. They prayed. They abstained from eating meat.

They observed holy days. They memorized Scripture. They were enthusiastic in talking about their religion. And all of these things can be done without the Holy Ghost. All of this can be done. You can be orthodox in your theology and you can be evangelistic in your zeal.

You can be missionary in your fervor. You can be devout in your practice. You can fast. You can tithe. You can pray. You can do all of these things and do it with the natural energy with which previously you served the devil.

And so the Lord Jesus Christ said, the righteousness which prepares you for heaven is not that which you produce by your energy, but it is that which is produced in you by another source entirely. It is that righteousness which is from above.

It is the work of God in you. And so this is something he has to say about salvation. The second thing we find that he is saying is in Luke 13, verses 3 and 5. Here he speaks to this wonderful subject again, our great salvation.

And he tells us twice in these two verses that except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Have you repented? Or have you neglected it? How are you going to escape? For he has declared that except you repent, you will perish.

We have defined repentance as a change of mind, of intention, and purpose from pleasing self to pleasing God. For in it is the seed of all righteousness and all holiness. As a sinner your purpose was to please yourself and your direction was aimed that way.

Then you came to the place of repentance. You made a right about face and a complete turn and from that moment on your intention was to please God and your purpose was to glorify God and the end of your being was his satisfaction.

Not your being satisfied with him, but his being satisfied with you. Now have you repented? Except you'll repent, you'll perish. You see the fatality of neglect here. You can see how important it is that you shouldn't overlook this.

Conversion and the Renewing of the Mind

Well, come with me then to Matthew chapter 18 in verse 3. For here we find our Lord speaking about something else. He's been out walking with his disciples and they've been arguing as to which one of them would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Our Lord called the little child, set the child on his knee and turned to his disciples and said, except you be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. The word converted means turned again and our Lord is saying that though they've repented, though they've received him, the evidence of the genuineness of his work in their heart that is that every time their mind is in conflict with his mind, his mind prevails.

And thus you find it stated in Romans 12, 1 and 2, verse 2 especially. We are transformed by the renewing of our minds. And there it is that many of the things you've carried into this life of forgiveness and pardon were not ordained of him nor were they according to his will.

And so at every step of the pilgrimage you're going to find that some attitude is in conflict with what he prescribes. The evidence of the genuineness of his work is that every time you find that your way is in conflict with his way, his way prevails.

And you're turned again. Perhaps you're going this way. He's allowed you to go this way. But all of a sudden the Spirit of God stops you and says you can't go that way. The evidence that you're a child of his is that you follow him, that you turn again and go his way.

A constant attitude of rectification. It's like driving. You have to decide which town you're going to. Suppose you were leaving today for my town back in the east in New York City. First thing you've got to head right.

Don't go west. It's such a long way around. But even after you've decided to go east, don't just lock your wheels and step on the gas. You'll be in trouble. Because after you've decided to go to New York and you've headed east, you've got to make many minute corrections.

Because as your car is riding along the road, there's a slant on the road and you have to correct against this slant. And so there's a bet in your disposition and a bet in your nature. And you purpose to please God.

But the evidence of the genuineness of His work is that whenever the car begins to drift away from His will, you bring it back again. You keep bringing it back again. Because your purpose is to please Him.

And you're not going to allow the drift to pull you into the ditch. You see? Except you be converted and become as a little child. It's the attitude of constant correction to the will of God and continuous concern that you please Him.

Not simply that some place in the back, in the past, you made a transaction and signed a decision card. But today, the attitude of your heart is, I want to please God. And if He shows you that some action, some attitude, something you're doing doesn't please Him, you don't rest in the past.

You aren't simply resting there. You're saying, Lord, I want to please You today as much as that day back there when I first met You. And you have a continuous attitude toward His will. Then we come to something else.

Being Born Again

If we turn, please, to John, the fifth, the sixth chapter, we'll find a statement. Let's turn first to John, the third chapter. And we'll see there that our Lord had something to say about this great salvation.

We'll hear three times in His many verses He says something about it. In verse three, He says, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. In verse five, He says, Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

And in verse seven, He says, You must be born again. And so our Lord Jesus has made it expressly clear that that which prepares us for salvation is not something that we've done toward God, but something that God has done toward us.

Oh, there's something you must do toward God. You must repent. And you must believe. But the evidence of the genuineness of your repentance and your faith isn't that you can remember when you repented and when you believed, but the evidence of the genuineness of your repentance and your faith is that when you repented and believed, God regenerated you by the Holy Ghost and gave you the witness of the Spirit that you'd passed from death to life.

And you knew you'd been born again. Now, this is a point of tremendous, tremendous significance. How are we going to escape if we neglect it? You can't get by, He said, except a man be born again, except a man be born of the Spirit, except you must be born again.

And you can see how fatal it is to neglect at this point and so it's of tremendous importance that you should make absolutely sure that you've repented, that your righteousness is not the righteousness produced by men, by effort, but it's the righteousness that's produced by God through the sovereign and the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.

Oh, it's a tremendous thing, this salvation. But then we come on to something else. If you'll go to John, the sixth chapter in the fifty-third verse, here he's talking to a company of people that were going to make him king.

And they were going to be his disciples. And we find that they've asked him, however, for a certification to do a miracle, predict it, have it come to pass, to prove that he was who they thought he was and who he said he was.