What to do with the warnings of Hebrews | Clip from Hebrews III: The Offering of the Body of Jesus

So, as we kind of bring these wonderful matters down to just some practical applications, we've thought about a few. So let me throw in a couple, and then you can bring us to a close. One I thought of is the very nature of how God revealed these truths to His Son through His Word is mysterious and wonderful, but to stop and remember that the portions of Scripture that are mentioned here are mostly Psalms.

The Joyful Response to Truth Revealed in the Psalms

Yeah.

So, what we have is God giving the Son and us, as we're allowed to kind of peek over His shoulder, soteriological, life-altering, eternity-altering truths in a song. So that immediately ought to alert us to the fact that what's being said is not appropriate if we only discuss it back and forth.

It must lead to the man, or the woman, or the child who grabs ahold of these truths, it must lead to an eruption of joy that we think of as producing song, you know? And whether that is expressed in childlike, you know, happy obedience, cheerful consecration, or whether it's, you know, song together with believers, songs in your home, whatever is appropriate, the joyful response.

And again, a quote that we've repeated here is a quote from Richard Roll, an English Bible translator prior to the Reformation, so he was in the Catholic Church, and God had done something in his soul, and so it kind of formed a great, you know, it was the turning point for him, and he described it this way, I was compelled by God's work, I was compelled to sing what I had once only spoken, you know?

So I think that, you know, you and I have both been in seminary, and we've been in discussions after seminary classes, where you can kind of battle back and forth people's views, but what an infinitely superior thing to do, you know, to take these truths, and instead of discuss them, to bring them into the life in such a way that it erupts in song.

Christ and His Church in the Psalms

Another application, which by the way, there is a book that was in print, no longer in print, at least we've had some trouble finding it, by a man named Andrew Bonar, B-O-N-A-R, 18th century Scott, who also wrote the memoirs of his friend Robert Murray McShane.

And Bonar put together a book, Christ and His Church in the Psalms. I think it was, well, we forget, I think it was, because it may not be Bonar that did.

It originally.

So if you go online, you ought to be able to find in our show notes a link to where you can find that, but it's just, it's not a technical commentary, he's just giving kind of warm thoughts of how would Christ have read this psalm.

So really, kind of unique book. Um, my final application is this. I don't know how you felt about approaching Hebrews as a pastor to preach it, but I remember many years as a pastor, the earlier years, saying to myself, I am not ready to preach this book because of the harrowing warnings.

And people immediately just want to interrupt the sermon and say, wait, wait, wait, I just have one question. Is he talking to a Christian or not? Can I lose my salvation or not? Okay, first off, that is the absolute wrong question.

These are warning signs along the path of the Christian life. If you believe the signs, you will benefit and you will not fall. If you are an unbeliever and demonstrate it by ignoring the signs, you will prove you're an unbeliever and fall.

But the point I want to make is, one way we know the measure of the preciousness of the truths that you just mentioned from chapters 9 and 10 is the level of warning that God the Father gives us if we don't treasure these and if we turn back, because those are really just terrifying.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so I think what we were saying earlier about the tightrope of obedience and just embrace of the beauties of Christ or indicative imperatives. If we only think of the high priest and it doesn't bring into our life some obedience, we do set ourself up justly for the import of those warnings.

So I'll just close with a high priest contemplation command that leads to obedience. It says it in Hebrews, Hebrews 3, 1. Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession.

And it goes on to talk about his faithfulness. And so if you're considering Jesus, this glorious high priest of chapter 10 that we've talked about, then the life of faithfulness like flowed out of him will also by his power flow out of us.

Closing Thanks and Sign-Off

Yeah.

Thanks for watching the clip. We hope it was spiritually beneficial for you. We really do appreciate being able to interact with you through the comments. So if you have questions or just comments you'd like to leave, leave them below and we'll get back to them as we have a chance.