Hebrews 1, 2 & 3 - Part 2 — T. Austin-Sparks

Lord, we do now adjust ourselves to the deepest truth, that only thou thyself canst make us understand thine own things. It is not possible for the natural man to understand the things of the Spirit of God.

Only the Spirit of God can give that understanding. And unless thou here in this very hour dost do that with every one of us, we have come in vain. Lord, do thou the speaking. Beyond all human instrumentality, may we be given to hear the Lord speaking in our heart.

The Warning Not to Drift from Hebrews

That will be fruitful. We pray that it may be so. In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen. Will you turn again to that letter from which we have already read the letter to the Hebrews in chapter two. We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that were heard, lest happily we drift away from them.

For if the words spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Which, having at the first been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that have God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his own will.

Refusing the Voice That Warns from Heaven

You turn to the end of the letter, chapter twelve, and verse twenty-five. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh, for if they escaped not when they refused him that warned them on earth, much more shall not we escape who turn away from him that warneth from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth.

But now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven. This word, yet once more, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.

Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe. Our God is a consuming, those words, of course, sound very terrible, holding over people.

I feel that they are encouraging a beginning for a time like this. I have read them with one object, and I think they constitute a very good starting point. Such a consideration as is before us at this time.

No one will question the solemnity of those words. There is something almost terrible about them. When you hear them, you say, Well, you cannot, you dare not, fail to recognize that we are in the presence, very serious, very serious on hand when have to be spoken.

In the presence of just light, superficial, and interest, we are evidently in the presence of something momentous, something which, if on the one side can be put into such a language of fear, for it says, Let us fear a warning.

On the one side, it's like that. You don't talk like that about anything unless it's something of tremendous value. A very glorious possibility and consequence. Magnificently important. I'm not exaggerating, I'm not making that up.

The Earnest Exhortations of Hebrews

There you are. I started at the beginning of the letter. Let us fear rest. I've gone right over to near the end of the letter, and the same words, or similar words, again, as summing up, and in between the beginning and the end, you just have any number of these earnest entreaties, these solemn warnings, examples taken out of the life of others who did not give heed and go through.

And what happened in their case? You have all these exhortations, entreaties, admonitions, warnings, beseechings, and we shall come on to those in particular probably before we are at the end of these gatherings.

What is it all about? Now, therefore, friends, I suggest to you that this letter has to be a very vital letter. If that's the nature of it, the realm of it, if that is the portent, something tremendous in view for Christianity which can be missed.

That's what it's all about. This afternoon will occupy my time mainly in talking about the letter. Later we will get into the letter itself probably. Talk about it. Now, you see, when you have language like that, when someone is speaking in this way, and it's put on record, and turns out to be, allow me to put it in this way, not man writing or speaking, but God.

Hebrews and the Crisis of Jerusalem

You surely must be in the presence of a crisis, be a crisis that is on hand. That is, on which and at which tremendous issue. When you hear something has got to happen, it's the ultimate that is brought to bear upon this moment, this situation.

Now, we know, of course, that this letter itself took its rise from a crisis. It's impressive to realize that not only was it related to a historic crisis, introduced the ultimate crisis, built upon that the ultimate issue.

You need that explained. The historic crisis was this. This letter was written probably about approximately two years before that full scattering for the whole of this age of the Jewish people. The destruction of Jerusalem which the Lord Jesus had foretold.

Things, notice in our reading, which were in the first place spoken by the Lord himself. Give the more earnest heed. And some of the things which were spoken by him related to this crisis. He said, the day is coming when they will cast back around you their siege.

They will leave not one stone upon another. That whole terrible twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew's gospel, spoken by the Lord, was bearing upon the thing that was now within a year or two of actual fulfillment.

When the Roman legions besieged Jerusalem, starvation, so that literally according to a Jewish historian, they did not leave one stone upon another. It is on record that as they went about their work, they literally leveled the whole thing to the ground.

And the temple finished. All the temple worship finished. The priesthood finished. The sacrifices finished. The people scattered to the ends of the earth, never to be recovered again in the dispensation.

It has been like that according to the Lord's word. Your house is left unto you. It has been like that. These two thousand years. That's the historic crisis that is here of the things of the earth. Now the Holy Spirit takes hold of the historic and superimposes upon that something bigger.

The Shaking of Earthly and Heavenly Things

Shaking of the heavens also. The heavenly things. This is Jewish Christianity. Now Christianity as a whole will be shaken at the end. This is an end of one phase. Another phase is coming. Everything in Christianity will be shaken.

Shaken to its fund. This tremendous two-fold crisis is the occasion of this letter. Why did the Lord? This person, whoever he was, we won't debate who he was, to write this letter at that time. And this is where it comes to us.

With just as much force it ought to come as it came to the Jews at that time, or was intended to do, will come. It is fixed in the counsels of God when everything in this creation and in this universe is going to be subject to a tremendous shaking.

Peter speaks about it in terms of the atomic age as you know. Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved. The elements on fire. Now the issue is this. That comes. If we have, we'll abide the shaking.

But we'll go through it all and survive. What have we got? Let the greatest shaking in this universe never go to these Hebrews. The effort of the Lord to get their feet established upon ground that could never be shaken.

You see, they were wavering. They were wavering. They were already being shaken. They were being moved from their steadfastness. Some of them were thinking of going back to the old associations, the old Jewish system.

This letter is an object of getting them established. A terrific storm broke. These winds were let loose. They carried away, carried away, so many and so much. There would be that. As I have said, he used the historic as the occasion for bringing in the eternal.

Preparing Before the Storm Breaks

He leads on to this for all Christians. Now dear friends, there are two things about that that are important for our notice. One is this. That you cannot, you cannot settle that matter when the storm breaks.

If you have ever been in a storm, a real good storm, you know very well that that's not the time to get. If you haven't got them settled before then, you are just going to be all at sea indeed. Forces would be too much to cope with.

Be thrown all over the place. An emergency is not the time to quietly get down to our foundations. We are caught up in things too much. It's like that. Not all settled beforehand. If you don't know where you are beforehand when this thing breaks, you'll not be able to see to it then.

That's important to recognize. Therefore, this letter would say, in the light which will come, in view of that which is bound to break upon us, now's the time, now's the time to make sure that our position is an absolutely sound one.

An absolutely true one. That there is nothing doubtful about our position at all. No question about it. We know where we are. We are not at the mercy of other people's judgments and ideas and what not.

We know the Lord. We know the Lord for our sins. We know where we are. Let everything go to pieces. We know. Now that is a thing that has got to be settled. It cannot be settled when everything is going to pieces.

Finding What Will Stand in Trial

But the other thing that is important. I'm very serious, aren't I? But it's very important. We should recognize that it may not be necessary for the great ultimate upheaval and chaos and cataclysm to take place in order to bring that issue out.

Is not this every trial that comes into the Christian life? Any day, any day. A temptation or an adversity, some suffering, something that just is calculated to throw you all over the place. In the end, the question arises, what have I got of the Lord that is going to get me through this?

What have I really got now of the Lord that will stand me instead in this crisis? Maybe something in any day life. Family matter. A business matter. Testing. Upsetting. Comes like a shock or a blow could knock you to pieces.

What have you got of the Lord that is going to see you through it? That will not go with the wind. Will not be carried away in this hour of trial. It will stand. Now that is the issue of this book, you see.

Whether it is a historic crisis in the life of Israel or Jure or in the ultimate experience of the Church and its coming and its already come to multitudes of the Lord's people on this earth. That is the position today.

In a large part of this world, the test is, what have we got that will see us through this, this terrible time? It is the question for many today in the East. It is the ever present question. And that is the message of this book.

And so it has to be solemn. It has to be serious. It has to use words like these. We ought to give, we ought to give more earnest heed to the things that we dread. Now that is a poor interpreting the original language.

Our English language just so often fails to give us the real sense of the words which were originally used. Here it is, less happily we drift away from them. The picture there in the original language is the picture of a ship.

The Ship Drifting in Rough Waters

A ship in rough water with strong currents. That ship is having a very difficult time trying to make calm water. There are moorings there in the harbor. She can make those moorings and lay hold on those moorings and get moored up.

She's all right. But here she comes. And those responsible are a bit careless about it. And just as she comes up on the moorings, they are too careless to grasp, to lay hold of them. She drifts away. The picture behind the Greek words here.

We ought to give them more earnest heed, less on this strong adverse condition being.