Jesus Our Great High Priest (1 of 2)

Before we look to God's Word, let us ask Him to bless our time together. Indeed, our Heavenly Father, as we turn our minds and our hearts toward Your truth, we ask that You would protect us from distraction, that You would help us to hear Your Word, to make applications, that we might be obedient servants of Yours, to the honour and glory of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

For it is in His name that we pray, Amen. If you were with us last time, that we were studying the book of Hebrews anyways, you know that we had just worked through a fairly difficult portion where the writer is very strongly warning against those who might not enter into God's rest.

You remember these strong words really going through chapters 3 and 4. And the warning coming out of the 95th Psalm, there is a rest that many of the people who were delivered from Egypt did not enter into, though they had seen mighty and miraculous works of God, though they had seen Pharaoh's army destroyed, though they had seen the plagues, and they had been delivered in so many miraculous ways, yet, because that sight of the miraculous was not joined with faith in their hearts, they did not enter into the promised land.

They did not have faith. And so you have those words in verse 7, today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. And we finished with verse 11,. Therefore, let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience.

And so once again, we had a reminder of the fact that we are looking at a book that is intended to be delivered to people who are under pressure. They are under pressure to go back to the old ways. They are under pressure to renounce this belief in Christ, to go back to the temple, to offer sacrifice, to once again follow in the ways of Moses, as understood by the Jewish people of that day.

And though it was a logical stopping point to end at the end of verse 11, it's also a little bit of a tough place to stop, because you have these strong words. There are going to be people who are in the congregation, yet they're not going to enter into God's rest.

It is a recognition of the fact that the congregation is a mixed company. Though we desire to see everyone who makes a profession of faith, to have true and saving faith, the fact of the matter is the Bible tells us that there are people who go out from us, so that it might be demonstrated that they were not truly of us.

And so, while it was logical to stop there, the problem is we stopped right before all the encouragement. When we read through the book of Hebrews, and we encounter these difficult probing sections, they will immediately be followed by words of encouragement.

And so, today we get to pick up with verse 12, and while we only have a few verses left in this chapter, I confess that it would be very easy. Were I to give in to the temptation to camp on any one of these verses for a very long period of time, but I shall do my best to resist that temptation, though I make no particular promises.

The Living and Active Word of God in Hebrews 4

Hebrews chapter 4, beginning at verse 12, for the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow, and is able to judge, or is a discerner, a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And there is no creature, no created thing hidden from his sight, but all things are open, naked, laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do, or to whom we must give an answer. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things or in all manners, as we are yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the gracious throne, the throne of grace, so we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

And so you can see how very encouraging this section of the book of Hebrews is, but once again, we need to see it in context. There are a couple of verses there that we have frequently heard in our presence before, but very often they are separated from their context.

We've all heard that the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. But how often did we hear that text in its context? Don't forget what has come before. Why is the author saying the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword?

Well, if we go back and look at what has come before, we remember what was going on. There is this application of the 95th Psalm, and there is this warning in verse 6. Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter, because of disobedience, he again fixes a certain day.

Today, saying through David after so long a time, just as has been said before, today if you hear his voice, not harden your hearts. There was a promise in Scripture. There was a promise of arrest, but also a warning in Scripture.

And the people of God, some they listened, some they hearkened, some did not. And that Word of God, that Word that came from God, discerned, it divided, it showed something about the people as to how they responded to that Word.

And so it is in the context of the fact that there is, the author has just finished in our English Bibles, two chapters for him, just a number of sentences really, but he has just finished from chapter 3, verse 12, all the way through verse 11 of chapter 4, this exhortation based upon an interpretation of this text from the Psalms.

And so it is in that context, that application that he then says, the Word of God, that Word of God he's just gotten done making application of, that Word of God he's just gotten done preaching, is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.

Now, I just have to stop for a moment, first giving into temptation, to note how different the writer to the Hebrews view of Scripture is than what is found in so much of what populates the shelves of your local Christian bookstore.

For today, sadly, in so many contexts, the Bible is viewed as merely an artifact of history, an ancient text that in essence needs to be updated to meet our modern needs. And yet it is so very clear that the writer to the Hebrews sees the Word of God as living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.

And he's not talking about John chapter 6. He's not talking about Ephesians 1 or Romans 8 and 9. He's talking about the 95th Psalm. Yeah, that part, you know, back before Matthew, that a lot of folks today struggle to see as being overly relevant.

It's just a bunch of bronze age sophistry is how many people would look at it today. But for the writer to the Hebrews, long after those words were originally written, the Word of God is living and active and sharper.

And remember, we pointed out when we went through that, that David is the one who's writing these things. And there is a time gap between when he said today. And the author points that out, that today keeps going.

It was relevant to the children of Israel in the wilderness. And it was relevant in David's day and even after Joshua's day. The point is, he sees the Word of God as being alive and active in every generation.

Every generation has to be accountable to the Word of God. Is that not exactly how Jesus viewed it? In Matthew chapter 22, when the Sadducees came to him and they tried to trip him up with that question, his response included saying, Have you not read what was spoken to you?

Then he quotes from Genesis. But it was spoken to you. He held men accountable for what had been spoken long ago, as if God had spoken it directly to them. And so that means to us, brothers and sisters today, is we can never hide behind the excuse that, Well, you know, that was then.

This is now. I'm not saying that we do not recognize, for example, that Jesus in the book of Mark said, you know, made all meats clean. I'm not saying we don't see fulfillment and all that kind of thing.

I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that this attitude that, in essence, elevates modern man. We are so technologically advanced. We know so much more than the ancients did. We look at this and, well, the ancients wrote this, so, you know, they just couldn't have understood what our life is like today.

No. There had been advancements between the days of David and the writer of the Hebrews. He doesn't take that view. He sees that what was written by the psalmist, even as David was the instrument, is the very Word of God.

And the Word of God is not dependent upon the technological level of the people who originally wrote it for it to be relevant to us today. The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.

The two-edged sword being one of the most fearsome weapons you could have. You could cut with it going both directions. It didn't have to flip over. It was dangerous any way that it went. And it would divide.

It would cut. It would cleave in a way that we might only see in well-made movies that have really good special effects because it's really a horrible thing to see the kind of warfare that it would have been involved with.

But it pierces as far as the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Obviously, he's using this in a metaphorical way. He's not talking about a physical sword or physical joints and marrow.

The point is that things that are normally joined together intimately, it is able to divide asunder. It is able to cut apart things that we would not even be able to tell what the difference was spiritually and physically.

So that it is, in one translation, able to judge. The term that is used there in the original language at the end of verse 12, you would recognize it. It's kritikos. And we know what a critic is. We know to criticize something.

But we should be very careful. Just because we see the connection, the words, doesn't mean the meanings have not changed over time. And when you look at the use of this term before the writing of the book of Hebrews, and especially since it seems that the writer of the Hebrews is very familiar with the writings of a man by the name of Philo the Jew, and he uses a lot of his terminology, which would make sense because of the people he's trying to reach.

He wants to utilize language that would be familiar to them. When we look at that train of use, it always involves a sifting. A sifting, a discernment, an examination. When you are asked to examine something carefully, you look at all the possibilities.

You want to have all the information that you can have, so you can make the proper decision. And the writer tells us that the Word of God is able to judge, to sift through, to discern, and to properly understand the very thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Well, that's a wonderful thing because I don't know about you, but most of us human beings can't make heads or tails of the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. So often they are a jumble of emotions and desires and sinful ideas and good and holy ideas, and it's all mixed up within us.

And thankfully, the judge who will judge us, He is able, His Word is able to accurately judge and to discern the very thoughts and intentions of the heart. And yet, still speaking of just those words from Psalm 95, what the author is saying is, look, you can see here how the Word of God had this effect amongst the people of God.

Those preached words, today if you hear His voice not hard in your hearts as you did so long ago, that Word, that message for some, they hear and they don't harden their hearts. There is a work of grace for others where there is no work of grace.

Just as the rebellious child, when you say, no, don't do that, you see the stiffening of the back and the intention to go ahead and break the rules, even right in front of mommy and daddy. That happens in the heart of the sinful man as well.

When he hears the Word, says, do not harden your hearts, who are you to tell me? Who are you to tell me what to do with my heart? My heart is my domain. And there is a stiffening. There's a division. And you see those who are sensitive, those who are not, those in whom God's Spirit is working, and those who are not.

So, the Word of God was in Psalm 95, living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. It remains that way today. One of the reasons so many are afraid to preach the whole counsel of God is that when you do so, it must, of necessity, bring reflection, and sometimes painful reflection, to the heart and mind of any person who hears seriously what the Word of God is saying.

That's exactly what the next verse tells us. There is no creature. There is no created thing, the verse tells us. Nothing under creation that is hidden from His sight. Nothing has found a way to pull the covers over them to find something that is impenetrable to the very sight of God.

There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked, open, laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do, or to whom we must give, and it's the very term that we normally use, the word logos, word.

To whom we must give a report. With whom we must have doings. It's a very wide word in its application and its estimation. So, what is being said here? Well, it's fairly straightforward. The Word of God searches us out.

The Word of God demonstrates where our heart really is. And while we may fool everybody else, while there may have been many people who the day before the spies came back and told about the promised land, and they said, no, we can't do it, we can't do it.

The day before, they sounded like they were all for the true worship of God. They were going to trust in Him. They were going to follow Him wherever. And then the spies come and all the disbelief that comes out.

But the day before, if you had just looked, if you had said, well, who here is a true believer? We wouldn't have been able to tell. We wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between the true believers and those who are going to shrink back into destruction.

And that's the same situation that the writer is facing in the Christian congregation to whom he's writing. It'd be nice to be able to look out and tell who's really hearing, who's really listening. You can't tell by body language.

There are some folks who've learned over the years to look very intently. And they look like they're really focused in. But right now, their minds are a million miles away. I could start speaking Swahili.

They wouldn't even notice it until other people started to chuckle. Then they'd tune back in for a moment. But then there are others that look like they are on planet Venon, but they are hanging on every word.

I mispronounce one word. And Pastor Fry will tell you how this works. I mispronounce just one word and they're going to be on me afterwards. But I can't tell. There's no way of me knowing. But the Word of God discerns these things.

God knows. There is no creature hidden from His sight. And we cannot help but think of little children. And we see the conscience as it develops within them. And as they do things and they recognize right and wrong, how they start trying to find ways, see if you can do something bad, but no one can see you.

And yet, in every culture, no matter how degraded it becomes, for mankind, there is always this sense that no matter where I hide, I still have shame. Oh, I know that's not a real popular word in our culture anymore.

I'm not supposed to have shame. Psychologists helped us to get rid of that. But the reality is, you watch some of those television programs where closed-circuit TV catches people. And all of a sudden, they become aware of that and what you see.

It doesn't matter what the psychologists say. There's embarrassment. There's shame. You've been caught. There's always this sense, even when you think, I'm free of all of that, there's always this sense that there is one who sees.

I think that's behind what you see in some of those who attempt very fully to completely throw off all restraint. People like Nietzsche, who proclaimed the very death of God, who gave full vent to his visceral hatred of God.

If you really listen closely, what could he not escape? But the very presence of that God that he hated so deeply. And as you listen today to a modern atheist, a man by the name of Christopher Hitchens.

It cannot help when you listen to Hitchens speak. And he pretty much only gives one presentation over and over again and gets paid for it repeatedly. It's an amazing thing. He's got quite the gig going on.

But what you hear him say over and over again is I don't want to live in a celestial North Korea. Where there is a God who is constantly examining my every thought and faulting me for everything. Christopher Hitchens hates a God who would know his heart and mind.

Why? Because he knows what's in his heart and mind. And he knows if God is God and God is holy, and sin must be punished, that's why he hates God. So, there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

And for the unbeliever who is not clothed in the righteousness of Christ, the unbeliever who is in a false religious system where he has to be going on the treadmill of works and indulgences and things like that trying to earn forgiveness from God, that kind of text is no encouragement.

But this is supposed to be an encouraging text. And it is an encouraging text within the Christian faith. Because the believer whose heart has been changed wants to have intimate communion with his Creator.

Wants to have that searching light of God's truth probing his or her heart and saying there is an area of darkness. There is an area of ignorance. Lord, what must I do? The believer wants that because the believer can claim the promise there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

And the believer can look at the next verse and say, oh, we have a great high priest, Jesus the Son of God. He is one who stands before that holy God. I have submitted to Him. Therefore, to hear that God sees me at every moment is a wonderful promise.

There is nothing that happens to me. There is no act of persecution. There is no act of rejection of me because of my faith that God does not see. How often have the saints cried out, Lord, do you see what they're doing?

And the answer always is, yeah, I do. And if we recognize that He has a purpose and that in His time and in His way justice will be done, then this is a great promise. God sees. I am not hidden from His sight.

And all things, including the hurts that we receive, including the times when we're falsely accused of things that we've done nothing, but others say, oh, you've done something. God knows. God knows the intentions of our hearts.

God knows our thoughts. He knows the thoughts and intentions of those who are falsely accused. In many countries in the world today where sharia or portions of sharia law, Islamic law have been established, it has become commonplace for Muslims to accuse Christians of violations of sharia.

I heard him blaspheme the prophet. I saw him tear a page out of the Quran. Maddened men rush to beat and to kill and to burn and to imprison. We look at that and we say, where's the justice? Well, God knows the thoughts and intentions of the heart and justice will be done.

Maybe not in this life, but in that time to come, justice will be done and it will be handed out by one who is fully equipped to give that justice in its proper way. So, with those words then, we have more encouragement.

Christ Our Great High Priest Who Has Passed Through the Heavens

Therefore, because of this, since we have a great high priest, and that sort of goes back to chapter 2, where that had been, Jesus had been introduced to us in verse 17. Therefore, he had to be made like his brethren in all things, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

There's sort of been an excursus, a discussion of something and now returning that. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

There's the encouragement. If that congregation that first heard these words, at this point, there's much introspection. Am I one of those who has hardened my heart? Am I one of those who's going to enter into peace?

Enter into the promised land? Well, therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, there always comes a time. In all the years that I've met with people and we've talked about this before, you have on the one side the great crowd of people who tend to be just apathetic about spiritual things, but then sometimes on this side, you have the people who just can't stop navel-gazing.

They just can't stop looking inward. They can't have happiness. They can't have joy. And it's always, oh, I wonder... And in every situation in speaking with someone like that, eventually, I think, every counselor has had to say, can you not look to Christ?

Can you not look outside of yourself? And that's what you have here. To that congregation, they're not told, well, just keep looking inside. Just keep looking inside. Who are you to look to? You look to Christ.

And if you find in Him your great High Priest, if you recognize, I need a great High Priest. I need One who can bear my sins. I need One who can intercede before the Father. Then you are one in whom a work of grace has begun because certainly, one of the most obvious things to me is that the vast majority of those who've gone out from us, somewhere in them was a root of self-righteousness.

Trusting in self. Trusting in what I've accomplished. Trusting in what I've given, what I've done. Therefore, since we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens. Now, some people build entire cosmologies and multiple heavens and things like that, but the fact of the matter is in the Old Testament, Shemayim, heavens is plural.

And so, it's probably just taking the standard language. I suppose you could talk about, well, the ascension and you've got the natural heavens and then the supernatural heavens. I don't know that that's necessarily the case.

The point is that He has entered into... This is going to become specifically stated in chapter 9. He has entered into the holy place. He's not just an earthly High Priest. We have an echo here that's going to build and build and become very explicit in later chapters.

He, because He lives forever, is able to save the uttermost. That's coming up in chapter 7. He has passed through the heavens. We have a great High Priest. And who is He? It doesn't say Jesus, the Son of Mary.

It says Jesus, the Son of God. And why did I say that? Well, because that's the terminology that's almost always used of Jesus in the Quran. He's called Isa bin Maryam. We don't know where Isa came from.

It's not even the right word, actually. But that's the Quranic term for Jesus, Isa. And He's called Isa bin Maryam all the time, always. Son of Mary, Son of Mary, Son of Mary. Because, of course, the Muslims deny that Jesus is the Son of God.

And we gather here this morning and we do so one malfunctioning detonator away from sitting here only a day or two after what would have been the next greatest attack on American soil since 9 -11. If you aren't aware of the fact, maybe you've been in a lead mine or a golf course or something like that on, was it Christmas Day or Christmas Eve?

I think it was Christmas Day, wasn't it? A Nigerian man with a very highly technical bomb made in Yemen by al-Qaeda seated in the perfect seat in an A330 right over the wing next to the window. All planned.

Attempted to set off a bomb which was hidden in his underwear. It had to be put together. And so, what happened? Well, word is, the detonator didn't work. Thank you. Someday it will. The fact of the matter is it was specifically timed to spread death and burning wreckage and bodies all across a major American city as a plane went down in flames.

Which it would have had the detonator worked. It didn't. People immediately jumped on the man as specifically a video editor from Dutch or something like that. I forget where he was from, but not sure how a video editor got to do this type of thing.

But he jumped to it and got the thing out of the man's hands and he's under arrest and all the rest of this stuff. And here we are again. And we go, why? Why does my every... Now you can't even get out of your seat for an hour before the end of a flight.

That'll be fun. That's exciting. Why is my life having to be impacted by these things? Believe it or not, it's relevant to verse 14. You go, how can that be relevant to verse 14? Because that phrase, Jesus, the son of God, is offensive.

It's offensive to Muslims. They consider that an insult. I've mentioned to you before, I think, maybe not from the pulpit, that there was an imam in Indonesia who said, hey, you know, we could all have peace if you just realize that Muslims are offended when you ascribe a son to God.

So if you just stop ascribing a son to God, we could all get along. What does that mean? If you just stop being Christians, we could all get along. Well, yeah, I guess that makes sense. But see, Islam is not just a religion.

It is even more so a political system. And so what that does, that gives a basis for building the idea that you have the Dar al-Islam, the world of Islam, and then you have the world of war. And unless you're in the world of Islam, you're in the world of war.

And those who do not submit to Islam, they are opposed to Islam. It's a black and white thing. And therefore, you can have almost 287 people, I think, on this aircraft, the vast majority of which know nothing about Islam.

They don't care about Muhammad. But yeah, there'd be some Christians on board too. It doesn't matter. They were born as a Muslim. Everyone's born as a Muslim. Everyone's born knowing there's only one true God, Allah.

And so if you do not then continue on in the Islamic faith, what are you? You're an apostate. And what is the penalty for apostasy in Islam? Death. And so it's perfectly fine to hit that detonator, blow the wall out of that window, right over the gas tank, and blow the plane right out of the sky.

Theology matters. There are many, many, many people this day. We pray about it all the time. I've seen a real, because it is the holiday season, Christmas time around the world, I've seen a huge number of articles over the past couple of weeks about the murders of Christians.

There was even a man just a few days ago, as far as I can tell, not even a Christian. But he's the head of Middle Eastern Studies at a university. Stabbed to death with a six-inch knife by a Muslim. Evidently had something to do with just must not have been nice to Islam.

And I hear these things and I think about the Christians who are suffering. And what is the one thing that if they would just compromise on, they wouldn't suffer anymore? It's right there. Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

We confess that. We confess that. That may not be a term we use a lot. Maybe because it's been somewhat altered, mutated because of Roman Catholicism and confession. Confession, profession, that's what is being spoken about in verse 14.

And we are told, let us hold fast to it. Hold on to it. Now, we know in the original context, what one of the major forces was. These people are holding on their profession. Jesus is the Son of God, but their family says, no, he was from Galilee.

Don't you see? He died in the Romans. The Messiah was supposed to be this. The Messiah was supposed to be that. And we see now, as we look at Hebrews, now we're far enough in, we can start to look back.

Oh, I see some of the things he's emphasizing here. Wow. Chapter 1. Jesus, the creator of all things. And now he's the high priest. And he's building this case all the way through. But you see there is this exhortation.

Let us hold fast our confession. Family would come along and they're trying to pry the fingers up. Muslims to this day come along. They're trying to pry the fingers up. The world comes along. Secularism.

We won't let you succeed in our society. Let go of that confession. Years and years ago, when I was but a small child, my dad would sometimes play a game with me. And you learn things with your parents and you do it with your kids.

And so, Summer and I used to do this. And I would take my ring off. I can still get it off anyway. And I would put my hand and I'd hide it. And so she'd start pulling at the fingers. And eventually she got strong enough.

It hurt. But that's what I did to my dad too. And she'd get one up and I'd make it go back down. I'd pretend I put some glue on it or something like that. And she'd keep trying that. And the whole idea was you eventually get to that ring.

Pry everything out of the way. Well, that's what the world does to us. Prying. We are holding fast to our confession. But the world has so many ways to try to loosen that. And if we know someone's trying to get something away from us, well, we're not just going to sort of hang it on our pinky now, are we?

We're going to make preparation to hold fast to our confession. And let's face it, for most people who call themselves Christians, we get up in the morning and we just stumble out in the world. Come get me.

We're like soldiers bumbling down the main street of Baghdad in our bathrobes wondering why we get shot. We have an enemy. And if we are told, hold fast your confession, then we should be thinking, what do I need to do to hold fast?

My confession. What are going to be the forces that are going to come against me? You know your own heart. You can ask and pray, God, show me my own weaknesses. Show me how it is I keep stumbling. Show me how it is that I keep losing grip.

What do I need to do? There's nothing unspiritual about going to the Word of God and saying, Lord, help me. Give me practical guidance as to how I can hold fast my confession. Because the last thing we want to do is to deny that Jesus is the Son of God.

But the world wants you to deny that. Oh, you can understand why the Muslims do. They have a religious reason, a religious political reason. But why do secularists want you to stop saying this? Because if Jesus is the Son of God, their worldview is bankrupt.

Everything they're promoting, their views of embryonic stem cell research, evolution, abortion, marriage, it's all bankrupt. If Jesus was who He said He was, they will stand before Him in judgment. And nothing drives them more wild than that.

How dare you say, I will stand before your Jesus! That's the Christian message. And the very fact that you would dare to believe it. They don't want to allow you to have your religious freedom. Because your religious freedom is a reminder to them of their sin.

And remember always, that picture from Romans 1, suppressing, holding down the truth of God. It takes time. It takes effort. They don't like it. When you come along and remind them they're doing it, they don't like you.

Let us hold fast our confession. In light of all that stuff, you might say, I'm not sure how encouraging this is, but remember, who is this Jesus? The Son of God. He's our Great High Priest. He's already passed through the heavens.

He's already gone to where He's promised we are going to go. And what that means is, this life, we hear about the man there in Pakistan, remember just a few months ago? There is a, they call them suicide bombers.

I call them homicide bombers because that's what they are. They're murderers. And no murderer has a place in heaven. They're following after their father who's a murderer from the beginning. He was heading for a cafeteria filled with whom?

Muslim girls. And he was stopped from being able to kill three to four hundred Muslim girls at lunch in the cafeteria. You know who stopped him? A Christian janitor. You see, in Pakistan, they don't really allow Christians to do anything other than, you know, sweep the sewers and do janitorial work.

But it was a Christian janitor that saved the lives of all those Muslim girls. He died. He died when the bomb went off. But there have been a lot of people in Pakistan who've been caused to think by that.

No greater love has this than a man lay down his life. Got to be a lot of people, a lot of the parents, those young girls going, a Christian gave his life? How many opportunities for the gospel were presented right there?

But you see, that homicide bomber could not stop that Christian man from going to where his high priest is. No walls, no prisons, no persecutions. There is no power in this world that can stop Jesus, the Son of God, from bringing his people to the fullness of their salvation.

That is why it is an encouraging text. That is why we must hold fast our confession because the one who will enable us, the one who will give us that grace to do so is Jesus, the very Son of God. Indeed, our Heavenly Father, we thank You for this opportunity where we have gathered in peace and in comfort in open possession of the Word of God to hear its words and to be encouraged, to be challenged, to be instructed.

We thank You for this opportunity and we pray for those, our brothers and sisters, who would love to be here with us, but cannot because of the persecution that comes to them for their confession that Jesus is the Son of God.