Believers must give earnest heed to the teachings of Christ, lest they let them slip, drawing parallels to the consequences of disobedience under the Mosaic Law given through angels. It highlights the tragic possibility of spiritual erosion or sudden shock causing believers to drift away from God, emphasizing that sin, regardless of its perceived size, incurs a just recompense. The message stresses that neglecting salvation, which was confirmed by the Lord and the Holy Spirit, leaves no room for escape, urging listeners to remain fixed in God's will and live fully for Him.
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Well, let's turn to the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Chapel. Now realize it's a long book with a long way to go and a short time in which to do it. But the opening hymn was very appropriate for us this morning. We sang in the first verse, O teach us more of thy blessed ways, thou holy Lamb of God, and fix, and root us. in thy grace as those redeemed by blood. Fixing and rooting. That could well be the title of the time we spend together this morning.
Chapter two is where we're going to read from, but I just would like to make a reference to the earlier verses here that we read and then link them with a verse just a little further down in chapter two. It says, verse thirteen of chapter one, to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? Now look at verse five. For unto the angels have he not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak.
Now actually what we have there is the continuation of the sentence, or rather of the thought, which means that we have four verses that are sort of inserted. We call these parentheses. These are portions in a bracket. It's not actually a departure necessarily from the thought, but it is as though the writer... has a spiritual impulse to drive a lesson home. Now there are five such insertions in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
But I just want to speak about four of them for two reasons. One is, I've only got four mornings, and the other one is, these four stand together because they are linked by similar expression. Now let me point them out to you before we go any further. Chapter two, therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. Now the exhortation there is, and each of these four insertions is an exhortation, a challenge. Therefore heed, that's insertion number one.
Now look at chapter four and notice in verse one, let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. And the expression there is, therefore fear. Go down to verse eleven. Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. And, of course, the exhortation here is, therefore, labor.
And then finally in chapter six, the first verse, therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, or the rudiments, let us go on unto perfection. Therefore, go on. Now this indicates to me that God has certain expectations. When he says, therefore heed, it's obvious to me that God expects our attention. And when he says, therefore, fear, it's just as obvious to me that God expects our devotion.
And when he says, therefore, labor, he is thinking and mentioning his expectation concerning our occupation. And then finally, therefore, let us go on. God is expecting our progression. So there are four things that we want to cover briefly in our morning session. giving God our attention, giving to God our devotion, giving to God our occupation, and giving to God, or seeing before God that we experience progression. Now the Spirit of God links these four very beautifully with that word, therefore.
And I've told the folk at the park time and time again, whenever you see the word, therefore, find out what it's there for. and is always there for one reason, to link what follows with what has gone before. Now on Sunday we were seeing how wonderfully the writer, whoever he was, was bringing before us in the bulk of the epistle the person of Christ. How we were, through his letter, finding ourselves taken up with that person, directed to that person, beholding that person, having that person in several ways presented to us.
Now we've covered the first of these, the Lord Jesus as a revelation of God. And in that we have seen that he is superior to the prophets, better than the prophets, and better than the angels. Now before finishing that last comparison comes this insertion. And then the writer goes back to the angels. Let's read it. Chapter two, verse one. Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape?
If we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him, God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will. Now, I'll get this microphone right in a moment or two. Just have to see... some of the things I wrote down here. I want to just suggest four things to you out of these four verses.
There is first of all a tragic possibility. It's very obvious in verse one, lest at any time we should let them slip. We've all of us lived, have lived long enough to learn that there is no guarantee that we'll finish well for God. The man who started the work of the Permanent Preachers, to which I belonged for eleven years, he seemed to me a very old man when I first met him. He had a white little beard, not a goatee, but a little beard, and...
I could tell you some wonderful stories about him. But the very first time I ever met him, and the very first week that I was in contact with him, at his invitation, I went down to Frinton on C in Essex to join him in his little Bible bookstore so he could talk together. I had an exercise about joining the work, and he wanted to meet me, having told me... six times when I learned your age, I picked up my pen to write and say, no, wait a little while. He said, I couldn't do it, and so on the seventh time I'm compromising, please come down and see me.
So I went down. But you know, I could hear that man each of those mornings. Six o'clock I met him to pray with him in that little bookstore. Most interesting thing, the very first day he said to me, after we had had our prayer. Now he said, after breakfast, if you go down the road, you'll find that a lady has her carpets out on the line. Now I know she is not well. It would be a good thing if you could go down and beat those carpets for her. That's what I did. Very first day. In the afternoon, he said to me, it's a beautiful day, a little chilly, but there's a lady living in this direction, and I think she hasn't been out for several days.
It would be nice if you could take up a chair there and wheel her up and down the promenade for a little while. So that's how I spent the afternoon of my first day. But I'm digressing. I heard that man preaching, or praying, after we had prayed together, or in some instances, when I got there a little early, praying audibly. One day I heard him pray, in the words of another, I'm sure. Lord, keep me from becoming... a wicked old man. Now here was a man, and I learned a man who walked perhaps more closely with God than anybody else I ever knew, and yet he was conscious all the time that it's possible to end up very differently from the way we've lived all of our lives.
I tremble sometimes when I look back upon some of the experiences in my own life. that could have ruined my testimony, that could have spoiled my work for God. We've all of us had times like that. I'm quite sure. The possibility of letting things slip. Then after that, there's a divine principle, for it says here, if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience... received a just recompense of reward. Now there is a divine principle. It's expressed elsewhere in the Word of God, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
If we insist on sinning, then we shall suffer because of our sinning, and the examples come to us from the past. And then thirdly, there is a fearsome problem. How shall we escape? if we neglect. And finally, there is in the last verse a controlling influence, the Holy Spirit. Now let's just sort of bounce very briefly from one to the other of these four, so we can get the content of this first insertion in the epistle.
The tragic possibility letting things slip. Now that's why I was struck by that expression in our verse about rooting and fixing. If we are rooted and we are fixed, we shall not let things slip. In the verse there is an imperative and there's also a superlative. Now the imperative is not immediately apparent. It goes like this. Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard. It's that word ought. It is three little letters in the Greek, and fifty-eight times it's translated must.
That's an imperative, and that's exactly what it is here. We must. give earnest heed to the things which we have heard. We must listen when God speaks. We'll never get to the place where we no longer, after all our Christian experience, need to listen afresh and intently to what God has to say. Now the superlative covenant in immediately following it. We must give heed. But that's not enough.
We must give earnest heed. And even that is not sufficient. We must give more earnest heed. Now, if we are going to do that, it will be because deep down in our hearts there is a realization that unless I hear the word of God, unless I comprehend what God is saying to me, unless I bring to that listening a willingness to obey, I'm going to mess up my day, I'm going to give the devil an advantage.
We must, therefore, that is in view of what has gone before, and the superiority of the Lord Jesus over everything, over the prophets, over the angels, since he is the all-important one, therefore we must, imperative, give the more earnest heed, superlative, to the things which we have heard, because there is a possibility, even for us, spiritual as we are, fade for so long as we've been to let them slip.
Do you have a marginal reading there? In my Bible, I have a little four, tucked against that word let, and it points me to the margin. Does anybody have one of those? I'll write, does it read like this in the margin? And I can find it. Run out as leaky vessels. Is that what it says? Run out as leaky vessels. Now that intrigued me. So I looked up to see what the original words meant, and they actually have the thought of flowing through or after. Flowing through or after a leaky vessel. Now why do you have a leaky vessel?
What causes a vessel to leak? Well, if you put the vessel down, and it's made of metal, in the same place, and you rub it along, and you pick it up, put it down, pick it up, pick it up, put it down, pick it up, put it down, what happens eventually? You wear a little hole in that vessel. Now it's possible for wear and erosion to cause the vessel to leak. Now what do we mean by wear and erosion? in our lives well I think that ill health can be an erosion if we are sick and sick for a long time we can begin to ask why does God allow this why doesn't God give me some relief it's erosion it's wear and those are the other times when we've got to be so much on our God and to realize Even those things, and at those times, and especially at those times, God is particularly aware of our needs.
He makes no mistakes. He never takes his eyes off us. And it is true. Our light affliction, even though it doesn't seem light, which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Even that illness. that trial, that wearing experience is going to be something as long as we walk with God through it that we'll look back upon and thank God for. Don't let us let wear and erosion cause us to let things slip.
But you know, you can produce a leaky vessel by banging it. Having an accident. An emergency, and there your vessel begins to leak. And that's how sometimes it comes to believers. Something suddenly comes into their lives. And they back up with horror from it, and instead of realizing, and it's all very well for me to speak at this time when I'm not facing such a situation, but you know, think of Mr. Christens. Two weeks ago, never been sick in his life. Two weeks ago, suddenly something happens, he trusts to the doctor, and the doctor says to him, You have cancer.
As suddenly as that, his wife, she recoiled because she said he could have said it a little differently, and I suppose he could. But now a shock like that, an emergency like that, can cause you to reel and to let things slip. I hope you've been praying. for Brother Harold, and for Karen, that the experience will do what God intends it to do in their lives. You know, she was talking to me in the hospital while we were waiting for him to come out from surgery, and she said, God has been so wonderful to me in bringing just the right things to my mind.
We had a reading just at that time when he went into the hospital, my wife and I, in our devotions. And I said, oh, how I hope that Karen and Harold read this section, read this reading today. I asked her, did you read the reading in the daily devotions? She said, yes, I did. And it was meant for our hearts. So, although it's been a blow, I believe that they are seeing the will of God in it and are not going to allow it to make them let things slip. But it is a tragic possibility, and it can happen to any one of us where, or damage, emergency, can cause us suddenly to fall back and to say, I'm going to give up.
We mustn't allow it. God's in charge of the situation, as we'll see at the end. Now, there is an alternate thought here. In the water flowing by, a picture that is quite often and usually used is that of a vessel trying to dock at the pier, and it misses the pier, and it goes on. The thought there is not just leaking like a vessel with a hole in it, but we ourselves drifting by, rather than letting them slip, drifting by them. And you know that can happen. It doesn't matter how old we are, we can get taken up with other things, we can become so...
I'm thinking of a word, but it won't come, so the stultified, so that our Christian lives get dulled, and what happens? We slide by and we miss the things of God in our lives. It is a tragic possibility. Then there's a divine principle. Verse two says, if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, if the word brought to us, and you know this well may be, in fact it is, a reference to the law, But did you know that angels were associated with the giving of the Lord?
Let me read a verse to you here. I'm not going to take time to read others. There are two or three others, but this one will serve the purpose for the moment. It says, I can find it, and I know that it's here. Let me just a minute. Galatians chapter three, if you want to look for it yourself. Galatians chapter three and verse nineteen here it is wherefore then serve the law it was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator if you didn't know that they were angels associated with the giving of the law you know it now you can find other references though there are not many Now, if, when the law was given by the help, let me put it that way, of angels, for I don't know exactly what their function was in the giving of the law, if, according to that law, every transgression and every disobedience was judged and dealt with, and when we read the Old Testament we know
that that was true, the writer's saying, in effect, Do we really believe it's any different today? If a Jew under the old order could get away with nothing, do we really think that we Christians, because we are under grace, can sin with impunity and figure it's not going to come back on our heads? That's not what the New Testament teaches any more than the old. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. If I'm going to sin, I'm going to pay the price. And even though God loves me, and although I'm a child of God, and even though for forty years I've walked closely with God, if I allow myself to be foolish and to disobey and to sin, the just recompense is going to come.
We still cannot get away with things. That's what the writer is saying. That's why we need to listen, to heed, and to remember the lessons of history. Now comes the fearsome problem. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Now it may well be that the writer here has in mind some Hebrews, who may be reading the letter, who may not have closed in with God's offer of mercy and salvation. It may be he has those in mind, but there is certainly a word here for those of us who have experienced that salvation, because it is indeed a once and for all salvation, but it is also a continuous salvation.
How many preachers have you heard say, I have been saved? I am being saved. I am going to be saved. Keep that in mind as I read. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him, God also bearing witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost? Now the important word here, of course, is the word neglect. And we all of us know we've been guilty of neglect in our own lives.
Basically, that is what leads to erosion and damage. Not giving heed. Neglecting. It's not being an apostate and stormily turning my back on the things of God and moving in the opposite direction. Neglecting is simply letting down a little here, letting down a little there, and you haven't lived all of these long forty-five years that you've lived without learning. It's very easy because you're human to let down a little here and to let down a little there.
Do you ever neglect your Bible reading, in spite of the fact that you love the book? I'm convicted sometimes when I realize how long it's been between this point and this point. And I hurry up and try to remedy it. Letting things slip a little at a time. Neglecting. Now, that's the important word here. And you'll notice that there is no answer. Because the question is unanswerable. How shall we escape? There isn't any escape. So to the question, this fearsome problem, there is no answer. Therefore, we've got to make sure that we do not neglect.
That's the thought. All right. I noticed Dr. Meyer in one of his books says, Did the Israelite escape who failed to sprinkle blood upon the doorposts of his house? There wasn't any escape. He says, did the men who gathered sticks on the Sabbath escape? There wasn't any escape. He asked, did Moses escape, though leader of the people, when he struck the rock and should have spoken to it? He didn't escape. He didn't enter the Promised Land direction.
He didn't lead the people into the Promised Land, but who was it that talked with the Lord Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration? It was Moses. Oh, he entered the Promised Land, but because of his folly, he didn't have the privilege of leading the people into the Promised Land. He did enter, but he didn't lead the children of Israel. There's another important word here. It's the word every. Verse two, every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense.
That's verse two, but the thought is allied here. Every. We are not going, there is no such, oh, you know this, I don't even need to remind you of it. The Chinese proverb says that you never say little when speaking of snakes. And if you've seen one of our coral snakes, you backed off in a hurry if you were wise. Just a little snake, but the most deadly that we have in Florida. You never say little when speaking of snakes. And if you're wise, you never say little when speaking about sin. And you never, never say white when speaking about lies. Every, every one of them. But as we finish, there's a controlling person here.
The Holy Ghost, and the word gifts, by the way, here is a word that means distributions. Distributions, not the gifts in themselves, but the distributions of the Holy Ghost. They're according to his own will. We have one who is in control of every situation. He's in control of every influence that comes into our lives. According to his own will, will things take place. According to his own will, because while he may not send them, he may allow things to come into our lives.
And because his will and the Holy Spirit is the controlling factor. There is never a moment in our lives. when we can justifiably look at the way that God has led us, is leading us, is going to lead us. And ask the question, is it worth it? Of course it's worth it. And you know it's worth it. But there's only one way to be where God wants us to be. And as we get older, it's something we need to constantly remind ourselves of.
and that is he wants us to be found in the center of his will and living one hundred percent for him and we've learned that's the only happy way we've learned that that's the only worthwhile way we've learned that's the only productive way and in these in these days when you know much of our lives are behind us there's one way to get over that feeling of I'm finished. I've run my course. What can I do? What value am I? And that's to realize that in the hand of God, in the center of the will of God, one hundred percent for God, you're still as great a power for accomplishing the will of God and the glory of God as ever you were.
Therefore, feed. Let's pray, shall we? Our Father, we thank thee for this insertion in this portion of this lovely epistle. We thank thee for the appropriateness of the place where we find it. We thank thee for the Lord Jesus upheld in all of his greatness and the reminder that we need constantly to tap the source that he is. May that be our experience from hour to hour. And day to day we pray in His precious name. Amen.