Jesus Has Spoken

Hebrews 1:1-2

Our reading from God’s Word today
is from the book of Hebrews from chapter 1 verses 1 and 2. We’ll be beginning a new series
on the book of Hebrews today. We’ll make our way through it
verse by verse and there’ll be some breaks and things for Thanksgiving
and homecoming and other sort of events. But the book of Hebrews
is one of the most magnificent books in the New Testament. It
is a book that we do not know who wrote it and we do not know
to whom it was written. It was, we think, written to
some Hebrews, to those of Jewish descent who came to faith in
Jesus Christ. But other than that, we don’t
know. But it’s a magnificent book that
proclaims the superiority of Jesus Christ to prophets, to
angels, to Moses, to anything to which Jesus can be compared,
He is greater, He is superior, and He is the full and final
God-man that all these things pointed to. One has very well
said that the book of Hebrews speaks of the shadows in the
Old Testament and the substance of Jesus now in the New Testament. So let us hear from God’s Word
together, beginning at chapter 1, verse 1 of Hebrews. Long ago,
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. This is God’s Word for us. Let’s
pray now and ask for His help and blessing. Our God, we ask
that you would speak to us as we come to you, so that we might
receive the food of your holy word and take your truth, we
ask. and plant it deep within us so that we might be shaped
and fashioned into your likeness and that the light of Christ
might be seen today in us. That in our acts of love and
our deeds of faith that you would show forth to the watching world
who you are and that you are fully deserving of all the glory
that is due your great name. Help us now to hear and to believe
and live these things in Jesus name. Amen. I wanna speak to the men in the
room. This is something that you are prone to do. If you go
to the home improvement store or to some furniture shop or
somewhere or other and you purchase something and you bring that
item home, the first thing you do is open it and you find the
instruction manual and you toss it over your shoulder. There’s
no need for it. You’ve got it covered. You know
how exactly it is that this thing ought to be put together and
set up. It’s something we do. Well, this
is the story of mankind. We have taken God’s instruction
manual, His holy word, the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments,
and we’ve put it aside. Oh, we never put aside the scriptures. But practically speaking, we
do. We put it aside and we say, you know, this life thing, I’ve
got it covered. I’ve got this. I can handle life. I know how to live. I can make
money. I can provide for my family.
If a little bump comes in the way, I’ll just figure it out.
And that, my brothers and sisters, is a sin of mankind, of men and
women, and boys and girls, and it is as old as the Garden of
Eden. When Satan came into the Garden
and he told Adam and Eve, you don’t need God’s Word. You don’t
need His revelation. You don’t need His instruction.
You don’t need anything except to live life as you see fit.
And so from that point in time, mankind has left God out of the
equation. We’ve taken the instruction manual
and we’ve tossed it over our shoulders and we’ve said, I’ve
got this. I can handle life. One theologian
has well said that we live life as if there is no God. We’re
practically atheists. We believe we’ve got life covered
when we remove ourselves from the book of books that tells
us who God is and who we are and everything we need for life
and salvation and godliness in this world. Now, adults, let
me speak to you for a moment. You may say, I don’t live that
way. I live according to the Word of God. But think realistically,
if you will, about the daily rebellion. And it may be small.
But the daily rebellion, when you say, I don’t have time to
read the scriptures, I don’t have time to pray, or God won’t
mind if I miss another Sunday, or if I don’t go to preaching.
Or you children, when you disobey your parents, when you look your
parents square in the eyes and say, I don’t care what you say. It’s these acts of rebellion
that we need to recognize and repent of. And we need to submit
ourselves again to the Word of God, to the Holy Scriptures,
and say, God knows how life works best because He made the world
and everything in it, and He has given us instruction in His
holy Word. Word. Our Heavenly Father knows
us and He made us. Our Heavenly Father reveals Himself
to us and He gives us a map. He gives us a manual that directs
us how we are to live life. Now this mysterious book of Hebrews,
we know not the author or the exact audience to which it was
written, but we know this. God wrote a letter to His people,
most likely some Hebrews who had come to faith in Christ.
They were the second generation of Christians. after the ministry
of Jesus and the apostles, and they are in hardship. Their faith
in Christ is costing them everything. They’ve lost their economy, their
job, their resources. And as you know, the early history
of the church, many of them faced death at the hands of the Romans. They were put into the arenas.
They were tortured. They were persecuted in every
sort of way. There was loss of life and limb
and family and all sorts of other valuable things. And so the writer
of the Hebrews writes to them and to we who live in a crazy
and strange time as well. And he says, hold fast to the
confession you have made. Hold fast to Jesus. And one of
the reasons he speaks of Jesus so often is they are tempted
to go back to the Old Testament way of living, to their old practices
of Judaism, of sacrifices and temple worship and all the rituals.
And so this letter, which is basically one very long sermon,
says to them, Jesus is superior to all those things. If you’re
going to make it to the end and persevere in the faith, You need
to keep your eyes on Jesus. Fix your eyes on Him for He is
the author and the perfecter of our faith. Here’s the thing
I want us to understand very clearly from these opening verses
of Hebrews. And it is this. God has fully
and finally spoken to us in Jesus Christ. God has fully and finally
spoken to us in Jesus Christ. Now there’s three things for
us to help us understand that main point. And the first is
that God speaks. Our God is a speaking God and
you may say you’re stating the obvious. But our God speaks. He spoke to our fathers, Hebrews
chapter 1 tells us, and He speaks to us. He speaks to our fathers. He has spoken to our fathers
and He speaks to us. But think about God being a speaking God
in other ways. We open our Bibles to the book
of Genesis and we see that when God speaks, creation comes into
being. We believe that God spoke. And
by the word of his power, all things that exist came into being.
He said, let there be light, and there was light. Let’s make
man in our own image, and there those things took place. But
our God is a speaking God. If we read the Bible from Genesis
all the way to Revelation, we recognize that in these books
of the Bible and throughout the history of redemption, our God
is a speaking God. Francis Schaeffer, one of the
great prophets of Our times in the last century said in the
title of one of his books, God is there and he is not silent. Our call to worship today came
from Psalm 19. I understand if you were in the
Westminster Confession of Faith class this morning, you were
taught this principle, God speaks through creation. I exist. We look at the stars and the
handiwork of all that he’s made and it says to us, there is a
God. And we must reckon with that
fact and that truth. But God more specifically and
especially savingly speaks to us in His Word. The law of the
Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. God speaks. He is the divine
God of the universe, but He is personal. And He speaks to us. Now think about the places where
God has spoken. He spoke to Adam and Eve in the
garden. He came to Noah and instructed him to build an ark. To Abraham
he came and told him to pack his bags and move to a land that
he would show him and give to his offspring. To Jacob, where
with Jacob he wrestled in the night. He came to Moses through
the burning bush. He spoke to him at the mountain
of Horeb. To Samuel he awoke him in the
night, and Samuel said, Here I am, Lord. What is it that you
wish? He spoke to Saul and David and
the other kings and the prophets. Now our God is not like the Wizard
of Oz who speaks and a thundering voice appears but we see not
his face. We know nothing of him except that he’s mean and
scary and hidden. No, our God speaks and he speaks
to us. He is not like idols who are
mute and dumb. But our God is a speaking God.
In fact, listen to what the writer, or to Isaiah the prophet says
when he’s speaking to God’s people. He says, I am the Lord who created
the heavens. I formed the earth and I made
it. I did not create it empty, but I formed it to be inhabited.
I am the Lord and there is no other. I do not speak in secret
in a land of darkness. I do not say to the offspring
of Jacob, seek me in vain. I, the Lord, speak the truth
and I declare what is right. Our God, brothers and sisters,
is a speaking God. He speaks to you and he speaks
to his church. Our God is a speaking God who
speaks to us of His will and His ways. We know from the scriptures
who God is and what He has done and what He requires of us. Think
just practically about the value of God’s Word. Those who attended
the Wednesday Bible study heard from the book of Joshua where
Joshua says, do not let the book of this law depart from your
mouth. Meditate on it day and night. God’s Word is to be treasured
and loved and read and meditated upon. It is to be lived so that
we have the grace of God in our lives as we face hardship and
giants, as we face sickness and death, as we face enemies. All these things are helpful
to us. Psalm 19 speaks of the glory of God and how He speaks
in creation, but also through the Word. And then think of Psalm
119, the longest psalm in our Psalter. hundreds of verses about
the greatness and the beauty and the majesty of God’s written
Word. Friends, God speaks, and we should
love and delight in His holy Word. The Apostle Paul speaks
of God speaking. And he says in 2 Timothy to Timothy,
the young pastor at Ephesus, he says, all Scripture And at
this point in time, he’s speaking of the Old Testament Scriptures.
All Scripture is breathed out by God. It is from His very breath. And it is useful for teaching
and doctrine and for correction and reproof. And the result is
so that the man of God may be fully equipped, fully furnished
to please God and to live well for Him. In the Apostle Peter’s
second letter, to the exiles who were scattered in the early
church. He says, of the scripture, the scriptures did not come about
from the will of men. These things did not come from
the mind and the hearts of men, but they came as God, the Holy
Spirit carried them along and they wrote down the word of God. Holy men of old were moved by
the spirit to write down the scriptures that we have. Yes,
they were written by men, but God is the ultimate author. There’s a proverb that many people
quote in the church, and it’s this proverb, without a vision,
people perish. And many people use that to say,
if you have no vision, no hope for the future, you’ll just perish.
We need a mission statement, a purpose statement. We need
some goals, and yes, we need all that, but you know what that
passage really means? It means that when God removes his word
from the church, guess what? There’s death. And when God was
silent, and God did not give a vision to the prophets and
to the seers, there was no word from God. And therefore, there
was no word of God. And so, brothers and sisters,
God speaks and it gives us life. Jesus affirmed the Scriptures.
Read through the Gospels and see how many times Jesus says,
you have heard it said or it is written. He not only quotes
the Scriptures and affirms it, but he gives it greater truth
than it had before because Jesus himself is the great prophet
who speaks and speaks for God. So why does God speak? God doesn’t
need to speak. He could leave us as we are,
ignorant. on our own. It’s fine. We got it. We don’t need a map.
We need no instruction manual. Well, our confession of faith
as we professed in our creed this morning tells us why God
gives us the Word. It goes through assorted Scriptures
and it puts these together. But God reveals Himself to us. He declares His truth to us. He does it to establish His church,
to maintain the purity of truth, to comfort us, to help us as
we live life in a world that hates Him, as we live with remnant
sin or the flesh within us, as we live where the devil has influence
and strength, God gives us His written Word that we might know
Him and live for Him. Friends, God speaks. He speaks
clearly. We know about Him in the Word,
but Job says it well. Job says these are but the outskirts
of His ways. We just get a glimpse of God.
He’s far greater than the Scriptures tell us. And we read of Him as
a majestic and wonderful and great God. It’s enough to blow
our minds. But these, as Job says, are but the outskirts of
His ways. God not only speaks and tells
you about Himself, but He speaks and tells you about yourself.
He tells you that you are a sinner in need of grace. He tells you
of the way of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. And He tells
you how as a Christian you ought to live for Him, for His glory
and for the good of others. He provides everything we need,
as Peter says, for life and godliness. It’s laid out for you in His
Word. It’s a manual for pilgrims. It’s
a manual for the Hebrew pilgrims for whom this letter was originally
written, but it’s a letter for you who are pilgrims in this
strange and weary land. It’s a manual for those who are
living in difficult times. Martin Luther wrote the great
hymn we sang earlier, A Mighty Fortress is Our God. And he says
in verse three, and though this world with devils filled should
threaten to undo us, we will not fear for God has willed his
truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim,
we tremble not for him, his rage we can endure, for low his doom
is sure. And guess what that last little
stanza is. One little word shall fail him. Brothers and sisters,
God speaks. And what a blessing that is to
us in many ways. Second thing is God has spoken. Notice how Hebrews chapter one
begins. Hebrews chapter 1 begins by saying,
God has spoken. God has spoken in the past. God has spoken long ago at many
times and in many ways. He spoke to our fathers. And
in these last days, He has spoken to us. And so there’s this past
tense we need to understand. God has spoken. He has said. He has laid down
His Word. Now, put yourself in Adam’s shoes
for a moment. Wouldn’t it have been great to
have walked with God in the garden every day and talked with God? And to receive that revelation
and the beauty of Eden directly from God Himself. What a blessing
that would have been. Or to have been Abraham and to
have God call you. and say to you, rise up and go,
take your family. Or to Jacob, to have wrestled
with God. Or Moses, to have seen the burning
bush, or to have God pass by in the mountain and speak directly
to you. Or to be like Elijah, and God
did not speak in the earthquake or the wind or the fire, but
he spoke in that still, small voice. God has spoken to our
fathers long ago in many times and in many ways. Now, what are
we to understand of this? God has spoken long ago. This is how God previously worked. He formerly spoke in this way. He spoke to the prophets and
to the lawgivers. But now he speaks through Jesus.
We’ll come to that in just a moment. But long ago shows us that this
is the way God used to operate. And now as history and revelation
and redemption have progressed, God speaks to us through Jesus.
But long ago, he did it this way. and at many times in fragments. Aren’t we so blessed to have
an entire copy of God’s Word? We have it all. Sixty-six books.
History has confirmed it. The Holy Spirit testifies that
it is the very Word of God. But we do not have fragments
and bits and pieces as previous generations of God’s people had.
God has spoken long ago and at many times. God’s revelation
was progressive. It was ongoing. He spoke to Moses
and then he spoke through the prophets and then he spoke through
the gospel writers and then he spoke through the apostles. And
now the canon being closed, he speaks through Jesus. But God
spoke in the past, in these many times and in various ways, and
in different geographic locations, through different methods. You
read your Bible. You have poetry and narrative. You have love
songs. You have proverbs. You have hymns. You have parables,
apocalypse. You have long stories and prophecies. God has spoken through Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob and Isaiah and Jeremiah. He’s spoken through
Peter and Paul and Luke and Matthew and Mark and John. In our Old
Testaments, we have 39 books. And when we read that God has
spoken in former times, He gave us the Old Testament. And guess
what the Apostle Paul says to Timothy about the Old Testament?
He says, you have heard the sacred writings. How did Timothy hear
them? He heard them from his mother and his grandmother. Paul
says, you have heard the sacred writings and they are able to
make you wise unto salvation. The Old Testament can convert
a sinner to Christ. For the Old Testament speaks
of Christ, it points to Christ, and it gives us Christ. God speaks. God has spoken. But what does the apostle or
the writer of Hebrews say next? He says, thirdly, Jesus has spoken. The old era has passed, and there
is a new era. Jesus has spoken. Some of you,
I imagine, are readers, and you read various installments of
series of books. And when the next one comes out,
you purchase it. And over time, you line your
shelf up with these books. And at some point in time, the
author completes the series, and you have it all on your shelf,
neatly arranged. We go to the bookstores, and
they sell collector’s editions. We get the gold leaf edges and
all these type things that we take pride in. And that is what
we have in Jesus. The collection is complete. The
series is full and final. We have the Canon of Scripture,
the 39 Old Testament, 27 New Testament. We have 66 books of
the Bible. And God is the author. God is
a speaking God. God has spoken. And God has spoken
fully and finally in and through Jesus Christ. He has used holy men of old who
were carried along by the Spirit to write these things down that
we might have them in our possession. In a few moments we’ll sing How
Firm a Foundation and there’s that wonderful line in that hymn,
What more can he say? Then to you, he has said, we
have the fathers and the prophets of the old era, but now we have
Jesus Christ, the full and the final revelation of God. It is not partial. It is not
waiting for a future installment. It is full and final and finished
in the word of Jesus. And let me encourage you, friends
and brothers and sisters in this way. When Jesus speaks, it is
enough. And he speaks to you in his written
word. He does not speak to you through
the latest guru. He does not speak to you through
the latest Christian book that is produced by someone who sat
in the garden and they believe God came to them with whispering
sweet nothings about himself into their ear. Friends, that
stuff is out there, but God has spoken fully And finally, in
Jesus. And we need to dust the Bibles
off our shelves and open them. And we need to hear the voice
of Jesus say, my word is sufficient, it is clear, it is authoritative,
it is necessary, it is relevant, it transcends the ages and it
is for you. No more is necessary for I, Jesus
Christ, am the great prophet. I am the way and the truth. and the life. How does Jesus
end the scriptures? In the revelation of Jesus to
John on the Isle of Patmos, I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am
the beginning. I am the end. Do not add to my
scriptures or take away from it. And we need to hear that
warning very carefully for there are people who are speaking in
our times, they are writing in our times that say Jesus comes
to them and speaks to them. No, he doesn’t. because his word
is full and final and no one can trump God. It doesn’t matter
what they say. It doesn’t matter how many followers
they have or how many channels they are displayed on the television. God has fully and finally spoken
to us in Jesus. And we bless God for that and
it is enough. It is sufficient. And we can
discard all the wisdom of this world that says it’s from Jesus
and we can say we have his word and it is sufficient. It is life-giving. It creates and it destroys. It
tears down and it builds up. Friends, it is a living Word.
All of the Scriptures pointed to Christ, and God fully and
finally speaks in His Word. How does the Scripture speak
of Jesus? In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Friends, that
is Jesus. There is no greater word than
Jesus. How does Jesus speak of himself?
If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. I am the eternal
Son of God. He is the creator of the universe,
the sustainer of all things. He is the Son of David and he
is the heir of God. John the Baptist, in the third
chapter of John, he says to his disciples, I’m not Jesus. I speak
a word from the earth, but one named Jesus comes and he speaks
to you a word from heaven. Friends, brothers and sisters,
we need to tune our ears away from the voices of this world. Even the voices that say they
are the voice of Jesus. And we need to tune our ears
into King Jesus, the prophet, the one who speaks. Now, why
does the writer to the Hebrews speak to the Hebrews in this
way? Because they’re tempted to quit the Christian faith.
They’re tempted to give up. It’s too hard. It’s costing them
everything. And what does he say throughout
this letter, throughout this epistle, this long sermon? He
says, you need to await the Son, Jesus. who has appeared and he
has inaugurated the end times. God spoke and did things in this
way through sacrifices and prophets. But this king, this prophet,
this priest, he has removed sin by his own sacrifice. Brothers
and sisters, we need to pick the instruction manual back up.
We need to repent of our arrogance in saying, I’ve got life. I need
no road map. I need no instruction manual.
I am helpless without God and His Word and His instruction. Friends, we have it full and
final here. From God and from King Jesus. And we need to recognize His
good and excellent Word, His Word which is proven from generation
to generation. We need to listen up. We need
to tune in. We need to read the Word. We
need to hear it read and preached. It is a divine event. God Himself
is speaking to us through the reading and preaching of God’s
Word. How does Hebrews speak of God’s Word? Hebrews 4.12.
God’s Word is living and active. It is a double-edged sword. You
young boys who are in love with weapons and things like that.
A double-edged sword, you can swing both ways. And it’s effective
everywhere it goes. That’s what God’s Word is to
us. It convicts. It gets down into our hearts.
It goes to our joints and marrow. It gets inside us. Maybe like
a drug to an infection in our body, and it cleans it, it heals
it, it cleanses. God’s Word is a wonderful and
divine event. We should not have our ears stopped.
Our calendars on Sundays should be clear for the hearing of God’s
Word. Our Bibles should not be gathering dust on our shelves
or our night tables or left in the car or, heaven forbid, in
the pew. We need God’s Word desperately. The world and the church is in
trouble. And how does God show us the way? He says, you lift
Jesus higher and it’ll solve your troubles. Think of John
on the Isle of Patmos in prison for the sake of the gospel. What
did God do to comfort him? He sent Jesus to him. Or Stephen
when he was being put to death by the early church or in the
early church. He saw a vision of the Son of
Man standing at the right hand of God the Father. And what is
God saying to you, who live in a crazy and depraved and crooked
world, where it’s tempting to say, this is too tough? He says,
here is Jesus, and He has fully and finally spoken God’s Word
to you. Believe it. Hold fast to your
confidence. And as He says in one place in
the letter of Hebrews, today, if you hear His voice, Do not
harden your hearts. Friends, Jesus has spoken. But
are we listening? Pray with me.