Hebrews 1:1-4 | Part 1 | The Supremacy of God's Son

Hebrews as a Sermon to the Hebrews and the Question of Authorship

If you have your Bibles today, we are gonna be in Hebrews chapter one, Hebrews chapter one. I have been studying and preparing for this book now for quite some time. As we've been going through the Galatians, probably since chapter four, I have been adding a chapter to my reading schedule.

Chapter a day, I have been listening to it over and over. So we're finally here. Hebrews chapter one, verses one through four. Hebrews one, one through four. Pray with me. Oh God, my God, how majestic is your name?

Lord, we come to you in the name of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ. Filled with your spirit, God, I ask you again to fill me as I proclaim your word to your people. Give me grace and give me mercy in Jesus name.

Amen. So like I said, I've been preparing my mind, my heart for this lesson for some time now. And you wanna talk about a rollercoaster, Hebrews will put you on a rollercoaster. So I started out this book, thinking I knew something.

And as always, it showed me I really didn't know anything. So if you would join me as I read to you the first four verses. Hebrews one, verses one through four. Long ago, at many times in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature.

He upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become much more superior to angels as the name he has inherited is much more excellent than theirs.

And so it comes down, as you see, we see what's not here. We don't see to such and such church from such and such a person. Hebrews does not tell us who wrote it. It does not tell us who is it to or when it was written.

And so detective work is something you have to do. So I started out this book thinking that Paul wrote Hebrews and that it was scried by Luke. And after looking at many seminary lectures and study Bibles, I came to the conclusion that it was not Paul and it was not Luke.

And then days, days, listen to me, days before after digging in back into this, I made a full circle. I'm once again convinced that Paul is the author of Hebrews and that it was scried by Luke. Now, do I know that for sure?

No, I have no idea. There's a great theologian in church history said that only God knows exactly who wrote the book of Hebrews. Tradition has it as Paul and Luke. Paul preaching the book, Luke is the scribe of the book.

An early church father by the name of Tertullian argued for Barnabas. You remember Barnabas, right? He was one of the companions of Paul. So Tertullian argued for Barnabas. Thomas Aquinas and the Puritan John Owen, as well as the Belgic Confession of Faith endorsed a Pauline authorship.

So most of the early church fathers for the most part agreed and the Puritans that it was Paul, but when the Reformation came, Calvin thought it might be Apollos. Some thought Priscilla or Luke himself.

Paul, Peter, and the Audience of Hebrews

So I'm gonna give you reasons for Paul and I'm gonna give you reasons against Paul, just like it's laid out to me. So reasons for Paul, reasons why I think Paul wrote this book. First Peter, if you wanna turn there, First Peter chapter one, look at verse one.

And verse one is not gonna make sense until I read the next verse. So verse one, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to those who are in exile of the dispersion of Pontius, Galatias, I can't ever say this word, what was it?

Cappadocia, Galatia and Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. All right, so Peter is writing to an elect people in the dispersion. So if you remember in Acts, the Jews had to disperse, they had to leave Jerusalem.

And so this is some areas that some of the Jews had went, they went to Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. All right, now, if you turn to second Peter verses chapter three, second Peter three, look at verses 15 and 16.

This is Peter writing about Paul. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you, who's he speaking to? To Jews, wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all of his letters when he speaks in them of these matters.

There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures. Now, if you go to verse one of chapter three, Peter says that this, now this is my second letter that I'm writing to you.

So who is he writing to? Go back to chapter, first Peter chapter one, to the dispersion, to the elect exiles and the dispersions of Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. Bithynia. So Paul, Peter makes it clear that Paul wrote to these Jews.

We don't have a letter in our scripture of Paul writing to these Jews. There is not a letter where Paul's writing to these Jews, but Peter says that Paul wrote to them. So reasons for this is because the Hebrews were written to, the Hebrew people.

So we believe that this could be what Peter is referencing. Reasons against Hebrews two, chapter three. I mean, Hebrews chapter two, verse three, excuse me. So in Hebrews two, it says, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

It was declared first by the Lord and it was attested to us by those who heard. Now, if you remember in Galatians, we went through Galatians, Galatians chapter one, verse 11, Galatians one, verse 11. This is Paul writing, I would have you to know brothers that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel.

Verse 12, for I did not receive it from any man nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. So right here in chapter two, verse three, he says, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

It was declared first by the Lord and it was attested to us by those who heard. It seems like this message that's being spoken here in Hebrews was passed down to the writer, the speaker by someone, but in Galatians, Paul makes it clear that he did not receive the revelation from a man, but was given it by Jesus Christ.

So personally, that's the dilemma, that's the struggle. Paul said that he did not receive the gospel by any man nor was he taught it, but he received it by a revelation of Jesus Christ. But the writer of Hebrews is saying that it was attested by the Lord at first and it was passed down to those who heard it.

Now, the Greek seems to be saying the same thing. So the English rendering is right on. So there's no way that I can argue. Like, as we stand before you now, I'm not gonna try to fix that puzzle. We'll get there when we get to chapter two.

And so we have to say, who is it? I'm going with Paul. I'm going the route that I believe it's Paul that wrote it. I believe Luke scribed it and I believe it says to the Hebrews. Now, there's three different people groups that we have here in the Hebrews.

We have true believers, we have the intellectual believers and we have non-believers. So we have true believers. The letter is written to true believers. It's written to those who intellectually believe, they might've been convinced by apologetics and it's written to non-believers.

The Parable of the Sower and the Three Kinds of Hearers

So if you would turn into your Bibles for a second to Matthew chapter 13 and we'll try to put some meat on the bones here. Matthew 13, look with me at verse one. We'll read through verses one through nine.

That same day, Jesus went out of his house and he sat beside the sea. A great crowd gathered around him so that he got into the boat and he sat down and the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables saying a sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil.

But when the sun rose, they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seed fell among the thorns and the thorns grew and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some 100, some 60, some 30.

He who has an ear, let him hear. Now, if you go to verses 18 through 23, he gives the explanation. He explains what he means in this parable. Now, here's where our answers come from. Verse 18, Jesus speaking, says, hear then the parable of the sower.

When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and he snatches away what has been sown in their hearts. This is what was sown along the path. Now, I'm going to say that this is people who want nothing to do with Jesus.

They're unbelievers and they don't want to hear you preach. Like, they want nothing. So this will be people that I would not see in a church. You know, people like, when I preach on the side of the rows, I preach, you know, they hear the words, but it does nothing for them.

They go on about their day. Verse 20, verses 20 and onward are going to be dealing with our texts today. I mean, the book that we're looking at. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the ones that hear and immediately, hear the word and immediately receive it with joy.

Yet it has no root in himself, but endures for a while. And when tribulation or persecution arises on the count of the word, immediately falls away. So this is what I would call the intellectual believers, the intellectual believers.

They believe, you know, that they're convinced in their mind that Jesus is the Christ. But when persecution happens, whenever their faith starts to be challenged, they run away. And according to Hebrews, they're running to temple worship.

They're being persecuted by the Jews, they're being persecuted by the Romans and they run to temple worship. Verse 22, as for what is sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitful riches choke the word and it proves unfaithful.

So this is what I would say are the unbelievers, those that are in the church, but they are unbelievers. They hear it being spoken, they hear the word of God being spoken, but their mind is so focused on worldly things, worldly things.

Verse 23 would be the believers. As for the ones that were sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case, a hundredfold, another 60 and another 30.

Now listen to me, as we're walking through Hebrews, there's gonna be portions of this section where it's talking about true believers. There's gonna be portions of the scripture where it's talking to the intellectual believers and there's gonna be portions of it where it's talking to the non-believers.

If you do not separate where it's talking to each people group, this is where you come up with bad theology. You start thinking that true believers can leave the faith. True believers do not apostatize.

The intellectual, those who believe because they've been convinced, you know, they've been convinced, but in their heart, they don't believe. They have not been born again. And we see this as true in churches today.

All, you know, churches are filled with true believers. They're filled with people that have been convinced by apologetics and they're filled with people who are unbelievers. So as we're walking through Hebrews, we need to keep in mind who it's speaking about and at what times.

Hebrews as an Expository Sermon Before AD 70

All right, so we have to ask ourself, what is the book of Hebrews? So I don't believe that Paul sat down with Luke and Paul explained something to Luke to write. I believe that this is expository sermon.

It's either a expository sermon or it's many expository sermons. Because as you're walking through here, it talks about Jesus being greater than angels, Jesus being greater than prophets, Jesus being greater than Moses.

It gives a sermon about the, an expositional sermon about the priest, Mechizodek. It talks about covenant theology. And so I believe what, I personally believe that it's many expositional sermons. And as Paul might have been writing, preaching these sermons in a church, a Jewish fellowship with unbelievers, and he's going through how Jesus is better than angels and how Jesus is better than the prophets.

Jesus is better and greater than Moses. So my attempt in this book is we're going to expositionally exposition, we're going to expositionally preach and break down an expositional sermon. All right, so I was listening to James White and another guy, Tom Buck, and he says that this is one of the reasons why people run away from the book of Hebrews.

One, is because they cannot figure out who it's speaking to. And two, they don't know how to direct the terms and what's going on because it is a sermon. It's not a letter. It's not like it's the letter to the Galatians.

It's not a personal letter to Timothy. This is a expositional sermon. And so it comes down to, well, when was it written? And it has to, like in my opinion, from what I see, it had to have been written before AD 70.

So if you remember what happened in AD 70, the destruction of Jerusalem, the temple falls. So after AD 70, there is no more temple. And the argument here is, is that those that believe intellectually, those that are unbelievers, when things get rough, they're going back and they're sacrificing at the temple.

And the argument here is Paul is saying, don't go to temple. Don't return to the temple that Jesus is our sacrifice. So we know who wrote it. I believe it's Paul. We know what was written. It's a sermon to the Hebrew people, and it had to be written before 70 AD.

And when we look at where it was written, I think we have to go back to what I was looking at earlier where Peter talked about in chapter one, verse one, to the dispersion. So it was written to the Jews that were in dispersion.

It was written to those that were, remember, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bethany. So I believe that whenever this letter was distributed, that's where it was distributed to. Now we have to ask ourselves, why?

Why was this letter written? And it was written because of the supremacy of God's son. Now this takes us to our theme. Our theme today is the supremacy of God's son. And I wanna look again at Hebrews chapter one, verses one and two.

God Spoke in the Prophets and in His Son

Now, there's no way that I can faithfully exposition everything that Hebrews chapter one, verses one and two is teaching today. A lot to do with because of the background that I just had to cover. There's no way that I can faithfully explain everything.

So this is why this is just part one of the prologue. Next week, we'll finish looking at the same, verses one and two. And then the weeks to come, we'll finish one through four. So Hebrews one, one and two.

Long ago, and at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

All right, so in this, Jesus from what I can tell, Jesus is being declared here as God's final revelation. His definite final revelation, like there is no revelation after Jesus. You wanna hear God speak?

He has spoken through Jesus. So when it comes to the prophets, you remember as we talked over the weeks, what was it that the prophets prophesy? And I brought to you two things. They prophesied the judgment of Jerusalem, when you go back and you read the prophets, they prophesied the judgment of Jerusalem, two judgments, and they prophesied the coming of the Messiah.

The judgment of Jerusalem and the coming of Messiah. All right, so in our scripture today, it says long ago. Long ago is a period of time in history. A period of time in history. And the Jews would have called this period of time, this age.

Long ago, this age, a period of time in history, God spoke. So then God had speech, God spoke to them. And the audience that he spoke to were the fathers. So this will be the Abraham, like Isaac, Jacob, the fathers and his passed down.

So God, long ago in what was called that age, spoke to an audience, who is the fathers by messengers, who were the prophets. Long ago, God spoke to the father by the prophets. And then it says, but in these last days, again, last days, a period of time in history, it's also what the Bible calls the age to come.

This will bring the age of the Messiah. The Jews believe that when the Messiah came, he would bring in a kingdom that what they knew of this age would end, and the age to come would be the age of the Messiah would begin.

So in these last days, the age that was to come, the age of the Messiah, again, God spoke with speech. God spoke, and who was the audience? It says to us. So first it was to his apostles, and then the apostles passed it down as we see in chapter two, verse three, and now he's speaking to us today.

But he sent a messenger by his son. So at one time, this age, he spoke to them by the prophets. The age of the Messiah, he spoke to his people by his son. And this is where we get the shadow of the substance.

So when you go back and you look at the prophets, the prophets prophesied, we see in the Old Testament that there would be the offspring of the woman, the offspring of Abraham. The latter in Jacob's dream.

The line of the tribe of Judah from the family of David. The book of Daniel tells us the time of his birth. The book of Malachi tells us of his forerunner. And the book of Jonah tells us of his resurrection.

So this right here is what's called the shadow. This is the shadow. Jesus came, and when he did, he revealed the substance. So we know that when God came to Adam and he pronounces the curse, and the curse was that not only was he to be cursed and he was going to die, but the whole land, the whole world would fall under a curse, then he spoke to Satan.

And he said that he was gonna put enmity between him and the woman. I mean, between the woman's seed and his seed, and that a seed was gonna come from the woman that would crush his head. And again, we know that that seed was brought to Abraham, Abraham's offspring.

So from the line of Abraham, that one would come that would be obedient to the covenant of works. One was gonna come, and he was gonna be able to keep the covenant of works. He was gonna be able to walk before God blameless.

Because that was the part of the covenant. He says, Abraham, walk before me blameless. Abraham couldn't walk before him blameless. That's why he had to be declared righteous. Right, and from Abraham, Abraham has Isaac, from Isaac has two sons, Esau, Jacob I love, Esau I hate, the younger son, it was passed down.

This lineage was passed down to Jacob. And Jacob on his way to his cousin, his uncle house Laban, lays down and he has a dream. He puts a rock under his head and he has a dream. And in his dream, he sees a ladder and the ladder it's fixed from the bottom of it's on earth, but the top of it is in heaven.

And in this ladder, he's able to see angels were ascending and descending on this ladder. Well, we get to John chapter one and Philip witnesses to Nathaniel and he tells him, he says, man, come see this, he is the Messiah, come see this guy.

And Nathaniel says something about, can anything good come out of Nazareth? And so he says, come and see, come and see, you have to meet this guy. And so as Nathaniel approaches Jesus, Jesus says to him, Nathaniel, in whom there is no deceit.

And Nathaniel falls down or he starts to worship, he believes, and Jesus says, you believe, no, no, Jesus said that he saw him when he was under the tree. And Jesus says to him, you believe, because I said that I saw you when you were under a tree.

He says, you will see greater things than these. He said, you will see angels ascending and descending on the son of man. So this dream that Jacob has is a shadow and the substance is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the ladder of Jacob's dream.

Jesus is the offspring of the woman. He's the one that comes to crush the head of the serpent. He is the offspring of Abraham who obeys the covenant of works. He obeys the law. He is the dream. I mean, he is the ladder and the dream.

He is from the line of the tribe of Judah. To him, all the nations owe obedience. He is from the family of David, son of Jesus, son of David. The book of Daniel, remember last week we touched on it, the book of Daniel tells us when he will be born.

That's why whenever, at the time of Jesus, people were looking for the Messiah because of the book of Daniel. 70 weeks are declared for you and your people, 70 weeks. A week is seven years and they had 70 weeks.

The Israel disobeyed for 490 years. They were put into slavery for 70 years and they were told that God was gonna deal with them for 70 weeks. One week is seven years, 70 weeks is 490 years. So he was gonna deal with them the same length that they disobeyed him.

They disobeyed him by not keeping the Sabbath law. That's every seventh year you were not to till the ground. And so the decree of Artaxerxes went out. If you count 490 years from the decree of Artaxerxes, it comes out to AD 33.

They knew that the time of Messiah has come. Jesus' birth, he came to them, but he was rejected. The book of Malachi tells us his forerunner. It says that one would come that will prepare the way of the Lord and they called him John the Baptist.

And Jesus made it clear that John the Baptist was Elijah who is to come. The book of Jonah proclaimed to us the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So what the prophets did, like God spoke to the fathers by the prophets.

He gave them a shadow. Jesus came and revealed to them the substance. So there was a shadow and then there was the substance. Again, next week we'll get to all the theological aspects that it has. And verse three, I mean, verse two, it says, whom he appointed the heir of all things, whom also he created the world.

Christ the Creator, the Heir, and the Image of God

Okay, so when you look at it, it says, God spoke by the fathers, God spoke by the fathers through the prophet. No, God spoke to the fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, he, me and God, being God, spoke to us by his son, whom he, the he here is still God, appointed the heir of all things and through whom he, God, also created the world.

So there's this joint area of creation where God, the father and God, the son created the world. So if you will look with me at John chapter one, John chapter one opens up with, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

He was in the beginning with God and all things that were made, I'm sorry, and all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. So in the beginning was the word and the word was with God.

So the word here, it's kind of, there's a separation. So the word was with God and the word was God. And so there's a separation, but then there's a oneness. He was in the beginning with God and all things that were made through him and without him was not anything made.

So we see that there, so this is that Jesus is God. He was appointed by God. So God, the father created the world through Jesus Christ. And it makes more sense when you look at Colossians one, Colossians one, 15 through 23.

Again, this is speaking about Jesus. It says, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth visible and invisible where the thrones or dominions, where the rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

He is before all things and in him, all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead that in everything, he might be preeminent. For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

And through him to reconcile himself, to reconcile himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross. And you were once alienated, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.

He is now reconciled in his body, a flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless above reproach before him. If indeed you continue in the faith, stable, steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to you in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

And if you pay attention right here, that God and Jesus created all things, that God through Jesus created the world, and through Jesus, he is reconciling the world to himself. But then it talks about, remember the church is full of true believers.

It's filled with intellectual believers, and it's filled with non-believers. It says, if you continue in the faith steadfast and not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which is proclaimed to you in all creation.

So the biggest stumbling block, the biggest stumbling block whenever you get to the book of Hebrews is the passages in Hebrews where it seems to be speaking about we can lose our faith. I mean, that's the biggest thing that you hear.

As Baptists, as Reformed Baptists, we believe that once a person is born again, they cannot be unborn again. You heard the saying, once saved, always saved, right? Well, we don't hold to once saved, always saved.

We hold to, if you are saved, you will always be saved. Nor do we hold to, like, at the end of the service, you don't hear me have Cal play just as I am 20 times. And me walking back and forth, trying to convict you of your sins, you can walk up here and shake my hand and pray a prayer and sign a card, right?

We don't do anything like that. We don't try to manipulate the spirit. The point is, is that we're up here to preach the gospel, and by God's power, you are rebirthed and if that rebirth takes place in your life, you cannot be unborn, but you can walk away from a manipulation that has been put on you by a preacher.

I can convince you that there is a God. It's easy to do. Like I was talking to my wife the other day, it might've been yesterday, I can't keep up with this stuff. Was talking about how no one ever had to convince me that there is a God.

Like, you know, I have a really good memory as a child. My memory isn't so good these days, like over the weeks, but you know, like I remember being three years old and there was a knock at the door and this evangelist comes in.

And he starts talking about Jesus. And I knew at three years old, I knew,.

I knew that this guy that he's talking about, this Jesus he is presenting to me is God. I knew he was. And I knew at that moment that there was gonna come a day where I was gonna live for this Jesus. My parents did not have to teach me there was a God.

I knew because creation. I knew that life came from life. You cannot, you couldn't convince me. Like, there's no way that you can take a chair or a couch and a love seat and rub it together and make a chair.

Things that are non-living don't produce life. But two living creatures, a male and a female can, they can produce life. And I knew because of this, that there had to be an ultimate source of life. Living at three years old, I knew, no one had to tell me, no one had to convince me.

I knew because of what I saw that there had to be an ultimate source of life. And when that guy came into that house and he started talking about Jesus, that trailer, excuse me. I mean, that guy came into our trailer, started talking about Jesus.

I knew, I knew that this was God. I knew it. I understand why there's Muslims. You know, if you're living in Arabia,.

You know there's a God.

You know it. The problem is, is they've been convinced of the room God. But their worship to them is because of their common sense that there is a God. Creation declares the glory of God. These Jews that are non-believing, they know there's a God.

And they're going back to the temple. They were going back to what they know of God. They haven't been convinced that it was Jesus. They haven't had that moment when Paul was talking about Jesus, like when I was three and I heard, I was like, man, that's God.

That's him. And one day I'm gonna worship him. And let me tell you something, as a 12-year-old and a 16-year-old kid and an 18-year-old kid that was living in the gangs and stuff like that, every time I was offered to go to church, I would look back at that time when I was three.

And that kept me from going to church because I knew that when I did, I was gonna live for him. I knew he would change me. I've always knew. I've always known. You cannot convince me that there is no God because creation declares his glory.

And so it says in these last days, God has spoken. And so I'm convinced that he has spoken in two ways. And we'll close with this. I'm sorry, all the, you know, like the trying to find out the who, the what, the when, the where, and the why.

You know, that was really hard for me to study. Like, it wasn't exciting to me, if I wanna be honest. It didn't do it for me. I wanted to just start in verse one and just expositionally walk through it.

The who, the what, the when, the where, the why, like, it wasn't exciting for me. But this was, God spoke in two ways. And you know it's true. If you're a believer in here today, you know it's true just like I said.

One, he spoke through creation, just like I was talking about earlier. No matter where you are in this world, you know there's a God because of creation. Romans one, right? You know there's a God because of creation, but you don't know who he is.

So that's why many people in this world, they worship Buddha, they worship Muhammad, Allah, Confucius, they worship all these other gods because they don't know him. John 17 three says this, Jesus praying in his high priestly prayer.

He says, father, and I don't know, hold on. He says, for some reason it's not coming to mind. Let me turn to it real quick. Oh yeah, he says, now this is, it came to me. He said, now this is eternal life.

So what he's about to say is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. The only way to know, to have eternal life and to truly know God is to know him through Jesus Christ.

So in these last days, he has spoken to us through his son and that is through scripture. You wanna know there's a God? All you gotta do is walk outside. Creation declares his glory. You wanna know who he is?

You have to read in scripture. He is revealed to us by his son, Jesus Christ. And ultimately that's what Hebrews is gonna declare to us, that there is a God and Jesus Christ is greater than everything.

Jesus Christ is greater than everything. He's greater than angels. He's greater than Moses. He's greater than Mechizedek. He is greater than everything. He's greater than the old covenant. He's greater than Torah worship.

He's greater than the, he's greater than everything. He is greater than everything. And so, that said, if you do not know Jesus Christ as greater than everything, I would just point you to that law. That law says that you have to walk before God blameless.

You have to walk before God blameless. That covenant, the first covenant, the covenant that Jesus is greater than, through the new covenant, says that you have to walk before God blameless. And if you can't, listen to me, if you can't, you are covered in the stained sin of Adam.

And when you die, you are going to bust hell wide open. You're going to bust hell wide open. Because you don't know God through Jesus Christ. Muslims don't know God. They know there's a God, creation and the closure of glory, but they don't know him through Jesus Christ.

They're living under the law and the law condemns them. They cannot live upright. You do not live upright. You've lied, you've stolen, you've looked with lust. You haven't, listen, who in here has obeyed their parents fully?

No one. You're going to die and go to hell unless, unless you know God through Jesus Christ, unless you repent and put your faith in Christ. So that's the gospel of Jesus. Jesus came from heaven and he fulfilled all the substance.

I mean, all the shadows, he fulfilled every shadow by being the substance. He is the substance of every shadow in scripture. He is the fulfillment of all these things. And as we walk through this sermon that was preached by Paul, we will get a clearer vision.

So I, I beg you today, if you have not received Christ by faith, you will not let this message pass you by. That as we're going through this, you will see Jesus Christ as the one and only son of God. And the only way that God has spoken to us now is through him.

God is speaking to us now, but it's through Jesus Christ. Next week, we'll look, we'll examine more about the prophets and what's being taught and propagated today. If you need me, I'm always available.

Pray with me, Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for the book of Hebrews, Lord. It has challenged me in so many ways. Most of all would be academically, Lord.

Listening to all these great scholars and how none of them really had a handle on it. I'm so grateful for your presence and how you are with me and how you hear me. I pray for this church. I thank you for them.

I pray that you will bless them and keep them and cause your face to shine on them. I pray that you will bless our fellowship after the service as we have a meal together. Be with us, I pray in Jesus name, amen.