July 16, 2017 A Complete Message by Conley Owens Deacon

More than anything else. And I think the answer is one that we can all agree upon, everyone here, everyone even outside of these walls, that what we need more than anything else is life.

In order to survive, you must have life. How is it that you can have life?

Well, if you believe the Bible, you can have life through the Word of God. It's the

Word of God that gives all things that have life, life. For it is the Word of God that created all things.

Jesus said that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

And the Proverbs say that when God does not speak, when there's no prophet giving visions, that the people perish.

People perish without God's Word. And that is not just because God's Word, some sort of ethereal force that enlivens a man.

It's because the Word of God has truth and it has wisdom. And without truth and wisdom, people tend towards self -destruction and the destruction of others.

Consider every society that has failed. Why has it failed? Why has it tended towards self -destruction?

It's because it did not have truth. And this is what concerns the author of the book of Hebrews as he begins, is where we get the

Word of God that gives us truth, that gives us life. Long ago, at many times and in many ways,

God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. Now you may hear this and you may think many times, many ways, prophets.

This sounds excellent. And I've mentioned before, the last time I stood at this pulpit, that I know several people who wish they lived in Old Testament times, who wish that they had the revelation that God was giving back then.

Because back then, men would talk to God and God would talk back to them, and they would throw out fleeces and ask

God to make them wet. He would make them wet. They would throw out wet fleeces. They would ask God to make them dry.

God would make them dry. God would give them visions in the night. That was a time of good revelation.

And indeed, God did talk to the people at many times. Think of the time of Abraham and the time of Moses, time of Elijah, etc.

Many times God talked to man. However, our author says long ago,

God spoke to men long ago. Now if this is the introduction of a new era, when

God speaks in a different way, why would he say long ago? It's because there has been a long gap.

God has not been speaking frequently. He has been speaking infrequently.

Many does not mean many times, many frequent times. It means infrequent times.

If you imagine a timeline, the time when God has spoken has been little blips across that timeline.

There was a gap for 400 years before John the Baptist. There was a long gap before Samuel became a prophet in the land.

Do you remember why Samuel thought that he heard the voice of Eli and not God? It's because there were no prophets at that time.

He grew up in a world where God did not speak. And there was a gap before the time of Moses, a gap before Abraham, and I guess there was a gap before Noah as well.

God did not speak frequently in the Old Testament. He spoke infrequently. And our author tells us that he spoke in many ways, and indeed there were many ways.

Visions, he spoke through a donkey, he spoke through a still small voice, but these many ways does not mean a wholeness and a completeness of revelation.

Instead, it means that there was variability, there was uncertainty, unreliability.

There were various levels of clearness in God's revelation to man. Sometimes God would speak in dreams and no one would understand what he meant until there was an interpreter to explain.

And sometimes he spoke in prophecies that were not even intended to be understood by the people of that time, things that simply could not be understood.

This was not a wholeness, a completeness of revelation. It was incompleteness. That is what many ways indicates.

He spoke to the fathers by the prophets, so there were also many prophets.

Well, if you're seeing a pattern, many prophets is also not a good thing. In fact, manyness in the book of Hebrews is generally a bad thing.

He talks about the many sacrifices. What's wrong with many sacrifices? If there are many sacrifices, then the first sacrifice wasn't good enough and neither was the second.

What's the problem with many priests? If there are many priests, then the first priest could not continually intercede for your sins because he would die and we needed a second.

And if there is a third, then the second was not good enough. The same thing is true of the prophets.

If there are many prophets, the first prophet was not good enough. If there's a fourth, the third prophet wasn't good enough, etc.

So if you are under the impression that many times in many ways is a good thing, disabuse yourself of that notion.

Imagine that you're living on an island, a desert island, and you need to escape in order to have life.

So you begin communicating with people outside the island, and every once in a while you receive a message in a bottle.

While this message is precious and every word of God is precious, like the

Old Testament revelation, it is clear that that precious message is not good enough when what you need is life.

You need something more, something whole and complete, not little scraps of paper in a bottle.

And so the author says, So in every way, the author is indicating to us that what was lacking in the

Old Testament revelation is made complete in Jesus Christ. No longer are there many times, but once and for all,

Jesus has spoken. No longer are there many ways, but there is a wholeness, a completeness of revelation in the

Son of God. No longer are there many prophets, but there is one prophet who stands above all of them,

Jesus. And so how does Jesus speak to us?

Well, he himself is the Word of God, living revelation. Those who saw

Jesus saw truth in his actions. In his actions, they saw the love of God, they saw the mercy of God, but also in Jesus' words, he spoke truth to us.

Many of those words are recorded in the red letters of the gospels. However, that is not all that Jesus said.

In fact, much of his teaching wasn't recorded until later by the apostles in the epistles.

Now, this author who's writing, he is writing after Jesus has ascended. So when he says that we should hear

God speaking in Jesus, he doesn't mean that we should go to Jesus' physical presence and hear him directly.

He understands that it is the apostles who are giving the teaching of Jesus. And so while the

New Testament has not been written at this time, since not even the book of Hebrews has been finished written yet when the author is writing these first words, we should understand the place that we find the teaching of Jesus is in the teaching of the apostles in our

New Testament. Now by this, do

I mean that the New Testament is superior to the Old Testament? Not exactly.

But the Old Testament does not have the clarity that the New Testament has.

The Old Testament has types and shadows of what the New Testament speaks of. The New Testament comes with a clarity that explains the completeness of God's message to man.

In fact, it is only through the New Testament that we can understand the

Old Testament. What do the sacrifices mean? What do the prophecies mean?

It is only in the New Testament that we understand this. And so we have a completeness and a wholeness in this revelation.

So you should not be saddened that God is not speaking to you, but you should be glad that he has spoken to you and he speaks to you through his word.

No longer do we live on a drip feed of revelation, but we have a finished word of God in the scriptures.

It is complete. The apostles were ones who had been commissioned by Jesus.

Second Peter 1 .16 says, for we did not come to you with cleverly devised myths when we gave to you the coming and the power of our

Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. After Paul was sent and commissioned by Jesus, there are not more apostles.

There will not be more revelation. This is it. This is everything that we need.

Instead of that drip feed that I mentioned, we have an ocean of fullness. And yet, and yet people are not satisfied with what they have.

They are discontent with the word of God. They feel that if God is not speaking directly to me, speaking in my specific issues, then he's not speaking to me at all.

And so I've seen many Christians turn to mysticism, things like astrology. I've seen some

Christians look for signs. I knew a man, I know a very intelligent man, one of the most intelligent men

I know, who was anxious about how much of a donation he should give to one organization.

And so he began looking for a sign, and his computer started giving him an error message, 500, 500, 500.

And so he decided this is God speaking to him. He was not satisfied with the wisdom that the

New Testament has for the principles by which he should be giving. I know others who have turned to eastern forms of meditation, either

Buddhism or monastic practices, not because they wanted to speak to God and prayer deeply, but because they wanted

God to reveal to them something more than he has already given, because they were dissatisfied with what he has given.

Have you ever heard of Lectio Divina? Something that a lot of people are doing these days.

It's an ancient form of reading the Bible that focuses on meditation. Now meditating on the word of God is very excellent.

Everyone should do it. But this modern practice is often motivated by not a desire to understand what has been written, but with a dissatisfaction of what has been written and a desire to have

God tell you more than what has been written. But these issues, they are just symptoms of the real problem.

The real problem is not mysticism. The real problem is dissatisfaction. And you,

Christian, even if you have not engaged in mysticism, if you are anxious for your future, you feel that the

New Testament has not given you wisdom enough, that God has not revealed in his word what it is that he requires of you, that praying to the

Holy Spirit for more wisdom, to teach you all things, those all things being what God has revealed, is not enough, then you are one who finds yourself dissatisfied with what

God has given. So you should not turn to mysticism, and you should not dare tell

God, speak to me while you have a dusty Bible sitting at your bedside. Instead, you should turn to God and you should turn to his word.

But how can this problem be fixed? How can someone crave something that they're already dissatisfied with, something that they do not crave?

How can a sick man who has no appetite be given an appetite for food? The answer is to taste and see that it is good.

Thus far, we've only spoken abstractly of the message that Jesus brings. But what is that message?

It is the gospel. It is that God loved the world so much that he sent his

Son to die for those who believe. That gospel is sufficient.

That gospel is good. Think of the words,

New Testament. What does that phrase mean? A testament is a will.

It is the promise of what is given on the death of someone. On the death of Jesus, we are given life.

That is the answer to our problems right there. Think about how good that is.

You know, people want to speak to God directly. They want God to say very specific things to their very specific issues.

You know who was able to speak to God? Adam. He walked with God on a regular basis, and he spoke with God.

But what we have in Jesus is better than what Adam had, because Adam did not have the gospel.

Adam had no promise of salvation prior to the fall, prior to his sin.

We have something better. We have something wonderful in Jesus, since God has sent him to be incarnate, to be a human.

And so this should satisfy your appetite. If this does not satisfy you, nothing will.

If you are not satisfied by the words of life that we have, then it is because you do not believe them.

Who says, I am right with God, I am well, I am ultimately headed towards glory, and this is not enough for me?

Who says that? So instead, you should turn to the word of God, and you should find everything you need in that word.

You should take up and read daily, because the gospel, while being summarized as I have summarized it, in Jesus coming to die for sinners, it is deep.

That is why there are so many words written. Go to it daily and find everything you need. And when you pray, pray to the

Holy Spirit that he would teach you all things. As I said, all things being those things that are written.

I knew a person who thought that if he prayed, if he prayed during his physics test that he hadn't studied for, if he prayed hard enough and with enough faith, the

Holy Spirit was going to give him the answers. That is not what that verse means. The Holy Spirit teaches us all things that God has already given us.

Pray to him, and when you speak to others, have his word always on your lips, because it is a word that has life.

Taste and see that it is good. It has a fullness. The gospel has a fullness and richness of flavor.

It is better than all the sickly sweet substitutes that the world has to offer. I would like you to also consider what this means for us as a church, that we have the fullness of the gospel in Jesus Christ.

He says, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. Who are the fathers?

The fathers are those ancestors of the Hebrews being written to, the Old Testament Israelites.

He says, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. Who is the us?

It's not just the Hebrews that he's writing to. It's the whole church. So while God has spoken in the

Son and given the gospel, and that satisfies your personal need for life, it satisfies our need for life, collectively.

You know, another problem with there being many prophets, is these many prophets were very rarely for all of Israel.

They were very rarely for all of God's people. They were just for the northern kingdom, just for Judah, just for this one region.

Jesus is a prophet for all. He's a prophet who can unify us despite our differences under a single message, under a single gospel.

It is this that can give the church unity to do its work and to press forward.

And it's this gospel that enables us to be fed week after week. Because if you're living in a time where God speaks in many times, and there's large gaps, you cannot be guaranteed that God's going to have revelation for you today or this week.

But during this time, we always have God's word. Do you know why the

Holy Spirit was outpoured at Pentecost? In the Old Testament, if you have these prophets showing up at various times, and there's only these set few people who it's given to to handle

God's word, there are only a few people who need this special gift of the Holy Spirit to be able to handle

God's word. But we live in a time where God has given the church authority to handle a completed message, and so all of us have this special outpouring of the

Holy Spirit so that we can go to this word. If Josh, if Steve, and I were all to disappear, someone else here had to stand up and speak to you, it wouldn't be up to God to send a prophet.

You would have everything you need right here in this word and the Holy Spirit that dwells within you.

In this completed message in Jesus, God has given the church everything we need to endure.

The gospel that gives life lets us endure. And not only that, it helps us perpetuate the church, because it's not just the message we hear.

It's the message we speak to others to give others life, to bring them within the church.

The author says, in these last days he has spoken to us by his son.

What are these last days? That indicates that this is it, that this is what we have to work with until Christ returns.

We have everything we need to continue on until we see Jesus, and when we see him, no longer will we be living off of the words that the apostles have given us recorded of Jesus' teachings, but we will be able to speak to him face to face, and that is a wonderful hope that we can endure for.

So you, if you do not trust in Jesus, if you do not find this gospel to be sufficient for you, then you must turn to him because this gospel is the only thing which has life.

You might find partial truths elsewhere, but partial truths, incomplete truths, can only give you incomplete life.

There's no such thing as being half alive. There's only being wholly dead. You must turn to the gospel.

You must trust in Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sins. And if you do already trust in Jesus Christ and in his gospel, then

I would encourage you to cherish it. Do not expect

God to give you more than what he has given. Be satisfied with what he has given.

Do not turn to the sources of spiritual truth the word offers, because what you have is good.

It is gold. It is more precious, it's more precious than a thousand visions of angels, and a thousand burning bushes, and a thousand still small voices, because what

God speaks to us through the Son is louder and clearer than any still small voice has been.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that you would help us to find our satisfaction in your word.

Thank you so much for giving us your word and giving it to us through your Son, the one sent to redeem mankind.