Hebrews 2:1-4 | A Greater Warning for a Greater Salvation

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Covenant Reformed Baptist Church April 18, 2021 Pastor Jeff Rice Hebrews sermons playlist https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8sIrq0gsadTndjGu3dBznMGKYtIAWjyd

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If you have your Bible, please turn with me to Hebrews 2, verses 1 -4,
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Hebrews 2, verses 1 -4. That's going to be our teaching text for today.
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But before I read that portion of Scripture, I want to read to you from Matthew's Gospel, chapter 24.
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You do not have to turn there, but if you wish to turn there, that's where I will be reading from.
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Join me in prayer. Father, thank you. Lord, we thank you for loving us.
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We thank you that you have called us as a people and as a church to worship you this day.
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Lord, be gracious to me as I proclaim to your people your word.
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Lord, I pray that you will speak through me by your Holy Spirit and in turn use these words, this message, to feed your people.
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Lord, I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Matthew, chapter 24.
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Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out the buildings of the temple.
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But he answered them, You see these things, do you not? Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.
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And as he sat down at the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying,
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Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?
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And Jesus answered them, See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name saying,
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I am the Christ. And they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.
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See to it that you are not alarmed. For this must take place.
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But the end is not yet. What end? The end of the age. It's not yet. For nations shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.
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And there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginnings of the birth pains.
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And then you, speaking to the disciples, then they will deliver you up to tribulations and put you, the disciples, to death.
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And you will be hated by all nations for my namesake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another.
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And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. We looked at Galatians, right?
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The Judaizers. Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.
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And because lawlessness will increase, the love of many will grow cold.
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But the one who endures to the end, what end? The end of the age, will be saved.
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And the gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations.
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And then the end will come. So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place, let the reader understand.
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And let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. And let the one who is on his housetop not go down and take what is in his own house.
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This sounds local. And let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak.
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And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days.
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Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. For then there will be great tribulation.
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Such has not been from the beginning of the world until now. No, and will never be.
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And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved.
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He's talking about a rescue. No human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short.
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Then if anyone says, look, here is the Christ, or there is, do not believe.
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Do not believe it. For false Christ and false prophets will perform great signs and wonders and lead astray, if possible, even the elect.
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See, I have told you beforehand. So if they say to you, look, he is in the wilderness, do not go out.
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If they say, look, he is in the inner rooms, do not believe it.
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For as lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the
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Son of Man. Wherever the corpse is, wherever the corpses is, there the vultures will gather.
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Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be dark, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
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Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the
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Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
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Now listen to this. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather together the elect from the four winds of the earth, from one end to the heaven to the other.
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Messengers. He will send out his angels, his messengers. Right? I think what we learned last week, his angels are messengers.
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Verse 32. From the fig tree, learn its lesson. As soon as its branches become tender and it puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.
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So also when you see these things, you know that he is near at the very gate.
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Main verse. Truly I say to you, the disciples, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
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Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will not pass away.
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Our theme for this Lord's Day is a greater warning for a greater salvation.
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A greater warning for a greater salvation. And my proposition is this.
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The gospel of the kingdom is to bring the gospel to all nations.
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It's simple, right? That's the message. That's what we're called to do. The gospel of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of God and his
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Christ is to bring that message to all the nations. And that is our theme.
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That's our theme because that is the message that Christians are sent forth to carry out.
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And we have a greater message with a greater salvation, but it comes with a greater warning also.
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So I'll ask you, why should we, you and I, in the 21st century, care to know the differences between the old covenant and the new covenant?
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Why should we even bother to study the old covenant and the new covenant?
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Why should we care to know the difference? Why should we care to know that a new covenant had to come?
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The answer is this. That if the message of the new covenant is different than the old covenant, then the response and our responsibility is different.
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Look with me at our text. Hebrews 2. We'll be looking at verses 1 through 4.
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Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
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For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation that was declared first by the
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Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard it, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the
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Holy Spirit, distributing according to his will.
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So in our outline today, we will see the message spoken of by angels versus the message spoken of by our
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Lord. The message that the angels delivered versus the message that our
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Lord himself delivered. Now you could say, well, the angels spoke us prophets from the
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Lord delivering that message. Absolutely, yes. And this is why it's important for us to understand the difference between old covenant and new covenant.
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Remember, he spoke through his prophets. He spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, these latter days, he has spoken to us by his son.
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So in transitioning to our text, even though this is not directed to us, so I'm going to present this as a preterist view.
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So as I'm walking through Hebrews, I'm presenting it as in a preterist view. So I believe that this book was written before 70
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AD. I believe that the warnings and the things that were to come were warning of a destruction that was taking place at that time.
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Okay? So even though that this warning is not specifically directed to us, it is, however, for us.
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It is given to us for our purpose of understanding the text.
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Would you agree that we, in the 21st century, need to understand what
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God did then so we can understand what he is doing now?
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If we don't understand what he did then, then when we read the Bible, we're going to confuse that what he did then is actually for our future, and we're not going to prepare right for our future.
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So it's important to understand the text. So the message that we have heard is our first point.
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Our first point, the message that we have heard. This comes from Hebrews 2. It says,
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Therefore, we must pay close attention to what we have heard, least we drift away from it.
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So Jesus is greater than angels because he is, remember last week?
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Because he is God. Jesus is greater than angels because he is the creator. Jesus is greater than angels because he is the high priest.
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Jesus is greater than angels because he is king. Jesus is greater than angels because he is the son.
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Because it says, therefore, because of this, therefore, because Jesus is greater than angels because he is the
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God, he is the creator, he is the high priest, he is our king, he is the son, we must pay closer attention.
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You and I must pay much closer attention.
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You paid attention to the angels. This text is saying you must pay closer attention.
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So the writer is calling their attention. He says, because Jesus is all these things, you and I must pay closer attention.
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We have the prophet versus the son. Remember I said it earlier that he spoke through the prophets and now he has spoken to us through his son.
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And the writer is wanting us to understand that these, that Jesus being
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God, Jesus being creator, Jesus being high priest, Jesus being king, Jesus being son, that these are facts.
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And I'm going to say that today, you and I, we need to understand that this is facts.
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These truths are facts. And the Christian church, that if we do not, still today, you and I, if we do not understand this, this one thing that Jesus is
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God, Jesus is the creator, Jesus is the high priest, Jesus is king, and he is the son, then you and I are susceptible to drift away.
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So even though he's not speaking directly to us in the 21st century, this is for us.
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If you do not focus your attention on who the person of Jesus Christ is, you will drift away.
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And as we transition, the words drift away here can also be translated as pay attention.
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Pay attention. Do not live your life carelessly thinking that you know something.
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Oh, it's good. I know who Jesus is. You know, I received him at youth camp.
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Listen, you have to be, like you have to purposely put yourself in the word of God.
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You need to purposely make time to spend with God in prayer and to focus on the attributes of God and who it is that Jesus Christ is.
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Because that's what he's warning them right now. If you are not understanding who it is that Jesus is, you are going to drift away.
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And so he's telling them to pay attention. The word drift away seems to be describing a ship loose from its anchor.
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Hebrews chapter, excuse me, Ephesians chapter 4 verse 14.
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Ephesians 4 verse 14. So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.
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So this is given a scene of the ocean. He's saying so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning and by craftiness and deceitful schemes.
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If you are not anchored on the fact of who it is that Jesus Christ is, you are going to be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine and by deceitful schemes.
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You ask yourself, how did the Galatians get carried away by a false gospel?
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Well, I'd say because they weren't focused on Jesus Christ, who he is. And so you and I, we have to be focused on who it is that Jesus is.
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And that's what the writer of Hebrews is stressing. That's what he is trying to get our attention to focus on.
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Who is Christ? Point number two, the message spoken by angels.
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This is found in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 2. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution.
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Remember Hebrews 1 .7 we looked at last week. Of the angels, he says, he makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire.
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Go down to verse 14 of chapter 1. Are they not, speaking of angels, are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?
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So in this point, I have two sub points.
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Sub point A, Old Covenant confirmation. Sub point
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A, Old Covenant confirmation. Hebrews 2 .2a. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable.
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Turn to Deuteronomy. The last chapter, I believe of Deuteronomy, or close to it.
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Deuteronomy 33. Yeah, it's second to the last chapter.
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Deuteronomy 33 verses 1 through 4. This is the blessing with which
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Moses, the man of God, blessed the people of Israel before his death.
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He said, the Lord came from Sinai and dawned from Syria upon us.
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He has shown forth from Mount Perez. He came down with 10 ,000 of his holy ones with flame and fire at his right hand.
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Yes, he loved his people. Speaking of the Jews, he loved his people, and all his holy ones were in his right hand.
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So they followed in the steps and received directions from you.
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And when Moses commanded us a law, when he commanded us a law, us, a possession of the assembly of Jacob.
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So we have here, we have two groups of people. We have the people that he loved, which would have been the
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Jews. And then we have that when God came down on this mountain, he had 10 ,000 holy ones with flame and fire at his right hand.
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Again, go back to verse 7 of chapter 1 of Hebrews.
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He makes of his angels, he says, he makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame, a fire.
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That when God came down, when God came down on that mountain, he was with angels.
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Turn to Acts chapter 7. This would be the message, the message that was delivered by Stephen.
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Remember, Stephen was before the council, before Pharisees, before a stoning. And he preached a sermon.
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And this is a portion of his sermon that he preached. Verse 37.
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This is the Moses who said to the Israelite, God will raise up from,
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God will raise up from among you a prophet like me from your brothers. This one, speaking of Moses, who was in the congregation of the wilderness, when the angels who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, he received the living oracles to give to us.
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The living oracles is the law of God. All right.
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Our fathers refused to obey him, but he thrusted them aside and they turned their hearts toward Egypt.
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Saying to Aaron, make for us gods who will go before us. As for this
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Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.
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And they made a calf in those days and offered up a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands.
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But God turned away and gave them over to the worship of the host of heaven.
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Sounds like Romans 1. But God turned away and gave them over to the worship of the host of heaven.
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As it was written in the book of the prophets, did you bring to me a slain beast and sacrifice during the 40 years of the wilderness,
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O house of Israel? You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your
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God Rephiam and the image that you made to worship. I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.
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Our fathers had a tent of witness in the wilderness just as he spoke to Moses directing him to make it according to the pattern that he had seen.
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Our fathers in turn brought it with Joshua in the dispossession of the nations that God drove out before our fathers.
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So it was until the days of David who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the
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God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built the house for him.
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Yet the Most High does not dwell in a house made with hands, as the prophet says.
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Listen, heaven is your throne. The earth is your footstool.
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What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord? Or what is the place of my rest?
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Did not my hands make all these things? You stiff -necked people uncircumcise your hearts and ears.
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You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did. So do you.
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Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? Remember Matthew 21 -23.
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Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one whom you have betrayed and murdered.
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Now listen, you, speaking to the Jews, have received the law, the oracles, as were delivered to you by angels.
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And you did not keep it. One more,
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Galatians 3 verse 19. One verse, Galatians 3 verse 19. Why then the law?
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Why then the oracles? It was added because of transgressions until the offspring, speaking of Christ, should come to whom the promise had been made.
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And it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.
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By an intermediary. Remember, Moses goes up to the mountain of God to receive the tablets of stone, the
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Ten Commandments. And so in Exodus 19 and 20, it doesn't say that angels gave him the law.
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In order to come up with the fact that the law was handed to him by angels, you have to do what
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I just did. You have to read other texts. And through those texts, it's shown to us that the angels handed it.
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So God, with his finger, writes the law on the tablets.
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The angels take the law and they present the law to Moses. And so here in our text in Hebrews, where it says to us, for since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, this is the law.
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This is the oracles of God. Angels deliver to them this message.
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Subpoint B, Old Covenant Curses. Hebrews 2 .2b.
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I'll start back at the beginning of it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution.
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Remember as we was going through Galatians and we came across where Jesus became a curse for us.
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And when you study it through the context, when it was talking about the curse, it pointed us back to Deuteronomy 27 and 28.
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And I spent that whole service basically reading to you from Deuteronomy 27 and 28, right?
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Yeah, it was very informational, but it was really a hard sermon.
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But it's something that we had to go through to understand what's going on. That's why I had to read Matthew 24.
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It's a long portion of Scripture, but if we do not understand what Christ is saying, we will not understand the book of Hebrews.
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So remember, I'm not going to read it, but again, go back and read it for yourself.
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Deuteronomy 27, 28. The message was this. God put them in a land and he says, keep the law and live in the land.
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I'm trying to take this big old portion of Scripture and I'm scrunching it down.
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Keep this law and you will live in this land. Break this law and I'm going to remove you from the land.
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Now, what land is he talking about? The land of Canaan, the promised land.
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Keep the law and you can live in the land. Break the law and I will remove you from the land.
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That's the story of the law. Keep it, stay in the land.
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Break it, got to go, got to go. And as we transition, I want you to understand that the law came through Moses, but grace and truth comes through Jesus Christ.
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And we'll pick back up there here in a minute. So the message spoken by the
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Lord is our last point. The message spoken by the Lord. Hebrews 2, verses 3 and 4.
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How shall we escape? Now, the we is not us. How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?
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It was declared at first by the Lord and it was attested to us while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts by the
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Holy Spirit distributing according to his will. How shall we, them, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?
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That's the question that the writer is proposing to his listeners. What I believe is,
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I believe that this is a sermon written down for us. I believe that whoever it was, whether it was Paul or Paulus, they're talking to this church that has true believers, it has intellectual believers, and it has those that just don't believe, they're just attending church.
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And he's saying, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?
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And so you have to ask yourself, escape from what? What are they trying to escape from?
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And so what I gather is that the escape from is the destruction that was about to come upon them and upon the land.
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So I believe that the book of Hebrews was written probably anywhere from 63
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A .D. to 66 A .D. And you have, you know, the
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Hebrew people, they're going back to the temple and they're sacrificing animals. And that's what the whole book of Hebrews is about.
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He's saying, do not go back to temple. Stop going to temple. You are crucifying to yourself once again the
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Son of God. Do not return to the temple. Christ has come. Remember the promise in Matthew 24.
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He says all these things, all these things in Matthew 24, he says all these things must take place and it's going to happen in this generation.
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He said that he is going to return in this generation. Let me not quote that and read it verbarally.
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34, Matthew 24, truly I say to you, speaking to his disciples, this generation, the generation of his disciples will not pass away until all these things take place.
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This would have been around 30 A .D. One generation is 40 years.
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70 A .D. is coming. And Jesus promised that he is going to return in a cloud.
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Remember he goes back, he's coming on the clouds of heaven. You go back to the
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Old Testament, Isaiah chapter 13, that meant judgment. God coming in on a cloud from heaven to judge the nations.
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Jesus speaking of himself coming on a cloud. He said it's going to happen in this generation.
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And so you have this writer telling them, how shall we escape?
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Escape what? This judgment that's about to come upon the nation. If we neglect such a great salvation.
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The word salvation doesn't always mean salvifically.
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Saved, salvation, it isn't always salvifically. It actually just, it means to be rescued.
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How shall we be rescued? If we neglect such a great. If we neglect this, if we neglect who
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Jesus Christ is and the message that we have heard from him, how shall we escape what's about to happen?
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How shall we be rescued? What's about to happen? Remember they are Christians. They profess Christ. God is coming to declare war on the old covenant people for sacrificing his son.
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For rejecting his son. For crucifying his son. And he is coming to put an end to the old covenant people.
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He said, how shall we escape this? If we neglect what we have heard, what we know about Christ, how are we going to be rescued?
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Only those that believe in Jesus took heed to his warning. Only those that believed he was
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God, believed he was the creator, believed he's the high priest, believed he is king, believed that he was the true son of God.
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When they saw this coming about, the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet.
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If you read in Luke's gospel, chapter 21 through 22, it says that, speaking of the abomination of desolation, it speaks about when you see the armies gathered around the city.
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When you see armies gathered around the city, know for certain, run to the mountains of Judah.
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When you see this thing, when you see these things happening, flee, leave, get out of Jerusalem.
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Only those that truly believe that Jesus was God, the creator, the high priest, the king, the son, flee, they fled.
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And that's what the writer is pointing out here. That's what he said, the message that was delivered by angels, our fathers did not keep that low.
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And our high priest are pretending to keep that law. And that law, if you disobeyed it, what took place?
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You were kicked out the land. They disobeyed it. What's about to happen? They're getting kicked out the land.
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They're getting removed from the land. Goes back to Galatians 1, 4.
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It says that, I mean, Galatians 4, 1 through 7, that there's gonna come a time where they were to stop being under the guardian and they were to receive
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Christ as their savior. This time has come. They're no longer supposed to be under the guardian.
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The Messiah has entered the world. He has come down from Mount Zion. But instead of receiving
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Christ, they reject him. They did not keep his law. He sent the Messiah to rescue them.
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They rejected the Messiah. So he is coming to remove them from the land.
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What was it that he declared at first? It says in verse three, how shall we escape this salvation?
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How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first.
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So here's the salvation. So you're gonna see the salvation in two parts.
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It was declared at first by the Lord. So what was declared by the
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Lord? Turn to your
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Bibles, if you will, too. We read this not long ago. It's the last chapter of Luke.
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Luke 24, 46 through 49. This is what was declared by the
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Lord. Thus it is written that the
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Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed throughout all the nations beginning in Jerusalem.
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I mean, you are my witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of the
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Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power on high.
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Verse four. So the message that was declared to us was that death, burial, resurrection of Jesus, repentance and faith for the forgiveness of sins.
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I say that text did not have faith in there, but it's impossible to repent without faith, so it's a double -sided coin.
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Verse four. While God bore witness with signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the
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Holy Spirit distributing according to His will. So this is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And what did He do? Whenever He sent out His people to preach the gospel, to preach the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, He gave them gifts of the
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Holy Spirit that they were able to do signs, to do wonders, to have various miracles that did not point to them, but they were to validate a message.
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So the message they preached was to validate who it was that sent them as an apostle.
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So one more, Mark 16.
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Verse 14 through 20. So this is going to show that the distributing of the,
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I mean, by God giving them signs and wonders, this is what it was to do.
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After He appeared to the 11 themselves as they were reclining at table and He rebuked them in front of their unbelief and their hardness of heart because they did not believe those who saw
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Him after He was risen. And He said to them, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel, the gospel to the whole creation.
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Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
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And these signs shall accompany those who believe. In my name, they will cast out demons.
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They will speak in new tongues. They will pick up serpents with their hands. And if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them.
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They will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover. So then the
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Lord Jesus, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and He sat down at the right hand of God.
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And they went out and preached everywhere while the Lord worked with them to confirm the message by accompanying it with signs.
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So they were able at this time to perform miraculous signs and these miraculous signs were to validate the message that they spoke.
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Now how do we apply this to ourselves? That's the hard part, right?
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This text was not written to us. The destruction of Israel is not upon us per se, 21st century.
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If I walk out to pick up a serpent, I'm stupid, right?
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Like this ain't a snake handling church. When I go out on the street to witness,
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I'm not healing blind people to validate my message. How is what
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I just say applicable to us? Yes, the text is not to us, but it is for us.
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It is for us. We must make sure that, first of all, we must make sure that we are anchored to who it is that Christ is.
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You and I, look, you and I, we need to make sure that we are anchored to who it is that Christ is.
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Who is Jesus Christ? He is our God, right?
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He is the creator. God created all things through Jesus and by Jesus he is recreating the world through the gospel.
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He is our God, he is our creator, he is our high priest. He is our sacrifice.
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I know I got a lot of things written down about it. He's our God, he's our creator, he's our high priest, he's our king.
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He is the son. We have to be anchored. 21st century, right now, we have to be anchored in who it is that Christ is.
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Or guess what? What happened in 70 AD would be nothing compared to what's gonna happen to you and I if we trample underfoot the son of God.
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It would be nothing. Because the day is coming. I don't believe it's near.
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But a day is coming when our Lord Jesus is gonna come back. And the dead will be raised.
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The dead will be raised. You say, how do you know so? I know so because of prophecy.
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I know so because I can look back in Genesis and I can walk through the prophecies. And I can see them prophesying a saver coming into the world.
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And Jesus fulfills these prophecies in hindsight. And I can see that because he fulfilled everything that was said about him, he made predictions also.
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And he predicted that a day was coming when he would come and separate the sheep from the goats.
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And that day's coming. And listen, when that day comes, if you and I have trampled underfoot the son of God, if we're not anchored to who it is the son of God is, because churches nowadays are no different than the church was then.
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It's filled with true believers. It's filled with intellectual believers, people that have been talked into believing.
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And it's filled with people that just don't believe. They're hearing a message preached to them.
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They're being given light. They're being given truth. And because we have this truth, we better walk upright in it.
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Also, we need to make sure that we don't join with the Jews as they dance around the law as if it was the goat and calf.
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There's a big movement in the Christian community today where they're doing a whole lot of law worshiping.
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We need to make sure that we don't join them as they join the Jews. Remember, whenever Moses came down with the
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Ten Commandments, what did the Jews do? They built a calf. They melted goat. They made a calf. They sacrificed to the calf, and they danced around and worshipped it.
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When Jesus came, they were worshipping the law. They did not receive
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Christ. They were worshipping the law, the sacrificial system. And nowadays, we have a bunch of Christians that are wanting to rebuild a temple.
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They're wanting to reinstitute the Jewish sacrificial system. We need to make sure that we're not a part of these groups.
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We need to make sure that we do not join them, join hands with them, and dance around the sacrificial system.
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And I would add that we have been given something greater than signs and wonders that point to something that validates our message.
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We've been given the Holy Scriptures in such a way that they did not have in the
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New Testament. They had the writings of the Hebrew Bible, but we have their writings explaining the
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Hebrew Bible. And this is what validates our message. When we say something, we say, we give book, we give chapter, we give verse.
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And if they don't accept that, that's not our fault. So no, we're not picking up snakes, but we do need to pick up our
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Bibles and read and understand it. And by way of conclusion, we've been given the gospel message of reconciliation.
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If you're a Christian here today, you have been given the gospel message, you are a messenger of reconciliation.
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Remember earlier I talked about the act of obedience of Christ. Because of the act of obedience of Christ, you and I stand before God as if we've never sinned.
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The only way that you and I stand before God as if we've never sinned is because of the act of obedience of Christ, not because of your own works, not because of your own merit, but because of what he has done on earth.
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Because he lived a life you could not live and died the death that you should die, you can stand before God because of his act of obedience.
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You have actively been disobedient your whole life, me as well, probably me mostly.
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But because of the act of obedience of Christ, when I stand before God, it will be as if I've never sinned.
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So we as Christians who are true believers, I hope we're all true believers, that someone didn't talk us into believing, if you can be talked into something, you can be talked out of it.
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We're not believers because of an apologetic argument, we're believers because our heart's been removed, our heart of stone has been removed and it's been replaced with a heart of flesh that longs to be with Christ.
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We've been given that message, whether you go out on the streets or whatever it is that you do, you need to be that light of Jesus Christ.
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And when someone, when you feel the Holy Spirit telling you to tell this person about him, tell him about Jesus, you need to be obedient.
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We need to be obedient, right? Hallelujah. As always,
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I'm available if anyone needs to talk. If you need prayer, please come and talk with me.
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If you need something throughout the week, do not hesitate. Listen, do not hesitate. I am not too busy to stop what
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I'm doing to talk to you. If you have something you need to talk about, please contact me.
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Let's pray. Father, thank you. Lord, we love you. We ask for your grace and your mercy.
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We ask that you forgive us, that you will forgive me, Lord. Help me throughout this week as I study your word to prepare for next week.
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I pray that your hand be upon these saints and that you will continue to provide for their every need.