God Has Spoken

seated. At this time, we'll go ahead and dismiss our kids uh that are heading to the little district class. They can head on out. And for the rest of us, go ahead and grab your Bibles. Uh we're going to open up to the book of Hebrews. And so, with our 10th anniversary last week, uh we closed out our latest series where we were walking through the book of First Peter.

And so, now we're starting a new series today in the book of Hebrews. Um, and it's a great time, again, as I mentioned, last week we celebrated our 10th anniversary. And I think one of the things that's really important for us in regards to that is to sort of think about it in the same mindset that I think about it. Um, not that I'm saying you should think like I think, but I'm just saying like I I feel like I've got a good uh mindset around anniversaries as a church. And so, someone asked me last week like, "Hey, how are you? Um, what did you think about the 10th anniversary?"

Or, "What do you think about 10 years?" And I just kind of jokingly said,"Well, we're in our 10th first year as a church." Um, and that's really the way I actually like to think about it because I think sometimes churches when they hit kind of milestones, whether it's 5 years, 10 years, 15, 20, 100 years, and they're celebrating the longevity or they're celebrating that they've somehow arrived or that they're still in existence. In some ways, there can create a complacency there. there can create a a bit of like we we've been established now. Therefore, we don't have to continue putting our hand to the plow.

We don't have to continue planting. We don't have to continue growing. We don't have to continue reaching. And I just want to throw all of that out and say, "No, no. We're in our 10th now moving into our 11th first year where we continue doing the very thing that we set out to do. So, we're going to treasure Jesus and we're going to help others follow him."

And so we want to make sure that we're continuing to do that. But as I continue to say, the way we do that is by opening God's word to learn and opening our lives to love. Opening God's word to learn and opening our lives to love. And so kicking off our 11th year, we're kicking off a new series in the book of Hebrews. And what a couple of verses to start off with in centering us back. Not saying that we've strayed away from it, but just keeping the main thing the main thing as far as the source by which we actually grow as a church.

The source by which we actually reach those who are outside of uh these walls or even outside of our relationships. And so Hebrews 1 is really just a phenomenal text as you'll see um as we walk through this. And and at first we were going to shoot to knock out the first four verses this morning. Uh but in all honesty, it's it's barely even scratching the surface getting into verse two um as we'll look at this. And so we're going to take our time through Hebrews. Um, and so what I mean by that is I'm not putting a an an end goal on it by saying, "Hey, we'll try to knock this out by Thanksgiving."

We're going to walk through it slowly because um, as as far as me being from Tennessee, things that are cooked in crockpots always taste better than things that are in microwaves. It's just true. All right. Things that take time taste better. And so we want to make sure Yeah. We want to make sure that we are are uh distilling out and pulling out everything that God would have for us to know about him and again what he ultimately um requires of us as well.

And so Hebrews 1, here's the the what I titled this one today is God has spoken. God has spoken with the big idea being that God has spoken so that we may know. So that we may know. And so I want to read for you Hebrews 1 1-2 together and then um we'll unpack it. Starting in verse one, here's what he says. 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, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. Now, that back half, the the heir of all things and through whom also we he created the world. We're going to be getting to more of that next week. But really what we're going to be looking at today is just this idea of that God has spoken again long ago at many times and in many ways through the prophets, our fathers, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. That's what we're going to be looking at. And as I mentioned, the big idea is that God has spoken so that we may know.

That we may know what my wife actually, she has a side business. This is a shameless plug. And so go buy this shirt if you'd like it. But she has a shirt that she created that says that we may know on it. I should have worn it today. That would have been incredibly smart.

Hindsight's 2020. Uh but 1 John 5:20 says this, "And we know that the son of God has come and he has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true and we are in him who is true in his son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life." And I actually think John's uh verse there is a phenomenal summary for what we're going to be seeing in the entire book of Hebrews. That anything and everything that they want to turn their attention to, what the author of Hebrews is going to be pointing us back to is that Jesus is better. Jesus is better than the prophets.

Jesus is better than the sacrifices. Jesus is better than anything and everything that you want to look at or put your hope in. Jesus is the true. In other words, Jesus is the substance and everything else is a shadow. Everything else is a shadow. And so the big idea again is that God has spoken to us so that we may know him.

But then the question we must ask and answer today is how has God spoken? How has God spoken? Because if he's spoken and by which the way in which he has spoken is how we may know him then we need to know the way in which he has spoken to us so that we may hear it so that we may read it so that we may study it so that as Psalm 1 showed us that we may meditate on it day and night. We need to know what it is that he has spoken and where we can find it, where we can hear it in order for us to know the one true God, to know Jesus. And so what I want everyone to do is I want you to grab your Bible. And if it's your phone, you can you can shamelessly hold that up, but I want you to hold your Bible.

It's an absolute miracle of God for you to have his word in your possession. It's an absolute miracle of God for you to have his word in your possession. It is the most extraordinary possession you own. It truly is. Actually, what what I'm about to show you, it's probably, even though you spent $30 to $50 on it, probably it's the most priceless possession that you own. I want you to indulge me for just a moment to explain to you just what it took for you to come into possession of God's complete word.

Anytime I go back home to Tennessee, my dad always has this show on the TV called How It's Made. Uh where it's a show they show you the whole process of uh anything. I mean, it could be toothpicks. How are toothpicks made? Um it could be brake rotors, you know, it could be anything and everything that you can think of. Uh and probably you could just Google how it's made anything and everything and this show will pop up because it's been airing for like a hundred years now.

But this is the how it's made Bible episode. Okay, here's a few things you should know. God, and we'll actually see this more as I unpack the text, but God revealed himself progressively over time. Progressively over time. So, it wasn't all at once. So, I'm going to come back to that.

But his revelation, the way he revealed himself, unfolded over approximately 1,500 years. Okay, 1500 years. This was revealed over a time span of 1500 years written by more than 40 human writers that were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So, 1500 years, more than 40 authors over that time span. These authors included kings, shepherds, fishermen, priests, prophets, tax collectors, physicians, military leaders, even scholars. Written on three different continents.

Okay? Africa, Asia, and Europe. Also written in three different languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. God also used many literary styles. So the Bible isn't just one type of book. It's a library of books.

It contains origin almost like a biography of creation, law, history, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, personal letters, and also even apocalyptic literature. Again, it's a library of 66 books that all are pointing to one unified story. I want to show you this graphic. It's a picture of cross references that the Bible includes. So, if you were to be able to pull this up, this is actually provided by a guy uh named Chris Harrison. Uh if you ever watched The Bachelor, it's not that Chris Harrison, it's a different one.

Um but on the bottom are books of the Bible and the references pointing to another book of the Bible in which they are connecting the dots. In other words, a cross reference is simply one place in the Bible pointing you to another place in the Bible because they are talking about the same person or promise or prophecy or event or theme. So, it's one passage explaining, fulfilling, or illuminating another passage. And so, as they've done incredible work in looking through all of the 66 books, they have found over 63,000 cross references that connect the books to one another. So although written over 15 centuries, every book is pointing to one central storyline, creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. Or to put it more personally, God creating, man rebelling, Christ redeeming, and God restoring.

And here's why that's so fascinating. If someone today were to write a collection of books, take Lord of the Rings for example, and J. R. Tolken were to include in his collection of books, the same ratio of c cross references among his books where his books are, you know, in the similar they're talking about something that's in the first book of Lord of the Rings or they're talking about something that's in the third book of Lord of the Rings. People would literally say that that author is the greatest author of all time. Yet, it's one man within a span of 17 years.

Yet, our book, the Bible, spans 1,500 years, more than 40 authors on three different continents in three different languages. And yet there's no other written text in all of the world across any heritage, any country, any world that comes close to the ability of cross referencing like this one does. And there's only one way to actually explain that away. It has to be one author inspiring all of these different people in these different times in all of these many ways in order to bring about one story. So the second question I want to ask is how was it written? How was it written?

Well, the Old Testament was primarily written, this is like a history lesson for you. So written on papyrus or leather scrolls which they called parchment or also animal skins. The New Testament was written primarily on papyrus. Everything was handwritten. So no printers, no computers, no copy machines. Handwritten.

Every copy was made by hand. Professional scribes would literally copy scripture and it was their full-time job, if you will. Every copy was made by hand and they did it letter by letter and if they made a mistake they had to start over. Jewish scribes even developed astonishing safeguards where they would in some traditions they would count every single word. They would count every single letter. So they knew just as an example if it was supposed to have a thousand words in it if there was a thousand and one words when they counted it by the end of it they would say you got to go back and start over because you messed up somewhere.

They would count every letter. They would even count the middle words to make sure that they lined up and things weren't out of order. They would count the middle letters to make sure that they were in order. And so in order to verify accuracy because again accuracy is of utmost importance if you believe you are coping copying the spoken word of God. So they developed all of these safeguards to make sure that what this was was this and this was that and it just continued on and being passed down over time. And accuracy is so important because if you get one word wrong or you omit one word, it could have some very lasting consequences.

Take 1631 for example. King Charles I commissioned Bibles to be printed and one word, just one word was omitted in this Bible, probably by accident, but it was the word not. Not was omitted from one verse, Exodus 20:14. And without the word not, here's how Exodus 2014 read. Thou shalt commit adultery. Sort of important to make sure that that one's included, right?

That Bible, uh, I can't remember how many were produced, but literally the king fined the printers, a very hefty amount, took their license from printing, basically put them out of business, asked for all of the Bibles to be brought and burned because it was now called the wicked Bible. Literally, that's the name it was given. There are actually still about 18 to 20 copies in existence and they sell for quite a lot of money because they are very, very rare. But coming back to just the immense detail and the copying by hand, here's something that's really important. Again, you probably spent $30 to $50 for the Bible that's in your hand. In the first few centuries, the first few centuries, owning an entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation, was almost impossible.

Almost impossible. A complete handwritten Bible could require hundreds of animal skins, over a year of labor because someone's handwriting it, and thousands of hours of copying. And so this would cost the equivalents for an average laborer or worker multiple years of wages. So that would be like us today saying, "Hey, let's let's spend $200,000 on one copy of God's word." That's what it would have cost in the first centuries. Most churches in the first few centuries, they only had a single copy of God's word.

a single copy. Which is one of the reasons why I believe Paul even writing in um tells them devote yourself to the public reading of scripture. Why? Because they only had one scripture. They only had one Bible. So people didn't go home and read the word.

They came and heard the word preached. They came and heard the word uh read. So to get all of it in one place, early Christians, they made a revolutionary decision. Instead of scrolls, they preferred what was called the codeex. The codeex, this is where they would start taking the scrolls and they would start not only just printing on one side, but they would print on the back side and then they would bind them together and put them into what was called a codeex. So they made Bibles.

This was easier to carry, easier to reference. Both sides of the paper were used. many books were bound together. Christians actually help by doing this process, modernizing the the book format that we have today. So if you have a book that is binded, you can thank the early Christians for thinking of this because before that it did not exist. But as they started doing it this way, they started producing many more manuscripts and copies of the complete Bible.

Christians helped by doing this. And today we possess nearly 6,000 Greek New Testament manuscripts, over 10,000 Latin manuscripts, and over 5,000 manuscripts that are in other ancient languages, which pro which provides for us over 24,000 manuscripts in other anc or uh that are New Testament manuscripts that survive today. No other ancient work comes remotely close to the amount of manuscripts and copies that we have to the original text of scripture. Take the Odyssey for example, Homer's Iliad since it's popular right now. It was written in 900 BC. That's the original.

Just so you know, nobody in ancient literature has any originals. The only thing we have that is surviving today are copies, manuscripts, even the Bible like what Paul wrote. There is not the original surviving. What the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, what they wrote. There is not a surviving original. We don't have their ink.

We have all manuscripts, all copies in every ancient literature text that exists. So the original Iliad that was written in 900 BC, the first copy we have comes in 400 BC, which is a 500year time span between the original and the only known copy we have. And of the copies, we have about 643. So when you go watch whatever you're going to watch on the big screen or you read Homer's Odyssey, we're guessing that in that 500year time span, nothing was changed and we're hoping that it's accurate. And so what you see today is a depiction of a 500year gap. Take Plato for example.

People will quote Plato and say this is what he said. Plato, we have about seven manuscripts with a,200year gap between the original writings and the earliest known copy that we have. Now take Aristotle. We have 49 manuscripts with a 1,400year gap between the original and what is known as the earliest copy that we can actually read today. You can put your eyes on it. The Old and New Testament is by far the best attested document from the ancient world with many of our earliest copy copies dating to actually less than 100 years from the original written documents by the apostles themselves.

Which means right now you can go and put your eyes on an original manuscript copy that dates to I think it was one It's like 113 or 112 AD. I mean, it's less than 50 years to when John was writing the Gospel of John. You can see this P-52. I should have brought one. I've got a I've got a copy of one at the house, not the original, cuz that's crazy. That'd be awesome.

But you can see these. You can go all the way around the world and see all of these 24,000 manuscripts that actually allow us to be able to look at and see with pinpoint accuracy what the original thing actually said. Wesuff says it this way. Think about that. Some of the earliest copies we possess today were within a timeline that the disciples of the first disciples could verify the accuracy. That's impressive.

No one no other ancient manuscript or ancient writings can say that. Many skeptics today however say things like well the early church they created the scripture. They organized what what was in what was out. They created the scripture. Again the church did not create the scripture. The church only recognized what was scripture.

The books God had already inspired. Questions the early church fathers also or oftentimes asked were was it written by an apostle or a prophet? Did it agree with already received scripture? So are there any contradictions? Was it widely received by faithful churches at the time that were witnesses? Was it and did it ever or did it bear witness of in divine authority?

Divine authority. The books of the Bible possessed authority before councils ever discussed them, what should be in and what should be out. Council simply affirmed what Christians had already recognized as God's word. The Old Testament cannon was no different. It was simply recognized and affirmed by Christ himself. So when Christ shows up on the scene on the scene, what they would have as their Old Testament cannon, the 39 books of the Old Testament, he looked at it, he said, "Yep, it's good.

Nothing to take away, nothing to add to it. It's complete for the most part, as you'll see here in a moment." But Jesus himself, he quoted Moses, he quoted David, he quoted Isaiah, he quoted Daniel, he quoted the Psalms. He treated the Old Testament as God's authoritative word. And so did the apostles. So did the Apostle Paul.

As for the New Testament canon, in which books made the cut, by the second century, most churches were already using the four gospels, the book of Acts, Paul's letters, the 13 epistles, and many of the general epistles like Peter and and Hebrews and so forth. By AD 367, Athanasius listed the exact 27 books we use today. One of the early church fathers and the councils of Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397. They did not select the 27 as many people would like to say, but they affirmed that there was nothing else to add and there was nothing else to take away. It was complete. It was complete.

They only recognized just as all of the authors were carried along by the Holy Spirit to write it, they were carried along by the Holy Spirit to recognize what was written, what was God's word. Then comes the Middle Ages. Most Bibles by the Middle Ages were translated in Latin only. So they're taking it from the Hebrew and the Greek and they're translating it ultimately into Latin only and distributing that. Most ordinary people could not read Latin. Many of the priests themselves couldn't even read Latin very well.

But the average believer depended entirely on hearing the scripture taught in a language they could not read. Now, what maybe started out as a way to preserve truth also allowed for a door to open in order to pervert it. In order to pervert it. A little bit more of that here in a moment. But this enters the dawn of the translators of scripture. John Wickcliffe comes in in 1328 to 1384.

He's known as the morning star of the Reformation, which I love that because Reformation didn't kick off until 1517, but he comes in a couple hundred years earlier than that. And he basically starts the Reformation before the Reformation started. He believed that every Christian should have God's word in his own language. Every Christian should be able to read God's word in their own language. And so he oversaw the first complete English Bible translation from Latin. This however was against Roman Catholic rule at the time.

Why? Well again as I said what maybe started out as a preservation of truth. Only priests could read and teach the Bible turned into at that time a perversion of truth that only priests could read and teach whatever they wanted. not a good time for teaching accurately what was the scriptures. So the copying and translating the Bible was against the customs of the church at the time and had severe consequences if you translated it into anything else. And remember this is before computers and printers.

So every copy had to be handwritten. Producing one Bible could take months. Months. And so Wickliff's followers called the lowers. Actually, I don't know why they're called that, but risked imprisonment for distributing scripture. And 44 years after John Wickcliff's death, here's what the the at the time the Roman Catholic Church authorities did.

They they decreed him a heretic. They had his bones dug up. They burned them. And then they scattered the ashes in a river to try to erase his influence. What they didn't realize and as other um commentators mentioned is that by scattering his ashes in a river, it actually creates an illustration for what happened with his influence because the rivers ultimately flow into the ocean. The ocean flows to the world and that's exactly what happened with his influence.

As it goes in sports, when one man when one man goes down, the next stands up or the next man up. Here comes William Tindell. William Tindell in 1494 to 1536. Perhaps the greatest Bible translator in history. He translated directly from the Hebrew and the Greek, not merely the Latin as Wickliffe did, but he famously said to a priest, "If God spare my life, I will cause the boy that drives the plow to know more of the scriptures than you do." His English Bibles had to be secretly written, smuggled into England, hidden in grain sacks, and then hidden in cloth shipments.

Many were publicly burned. And Tindell ultimately paid a costly price with his life by doing this. He was arrested. He was imprisoned. He was strangled as an act of mercy. And then he was burned at the stake.

And his final prayer was, "Lord, open the king of England's eyes. Open the king of England England's eyes." And within a few years, the king of England authorized an English Bible to be printed. In the middle of all this came the printing press that changed everything. Around 1455, Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type printing in Europe, allowing for the first major printed book. And you want to know what the first book that was printed from the printing press was?

The Bible. The Bible. The Gutenberg Bible. So what took a year or longer to copy one book, one Bible, now they were printing hundreds of them per year. There were 180 Gutenberg Bibles printed in 1455 and today there's only about 48 that still exist uh and are essentially priceless. The last one that sold was in 1987 for $5 million.

Today they're estimating that if one were to go to a auction because of the rarity of it being the first book ever printed, they're going from$25 to $50 million if one were to put a price tag on it. You can actually, if you want, for your own collection, you can buy a page from a Gutenberg Bible that are selling anywhere from 50,000 to $500,000. If you want to add one to your collection or if you want to gift one, that'd be totally fine, too. But with the printing press, scripture spread across Europe like wildfire. Again, remember Tindell, who was executed by the Church of England under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire. Tendel's last words, Lord, please open the eyes of the king.

That prayer got answered. Uh and because a few days le few decades later we my words are falling today. A few decades later we get the King James Bible in 1611. And the King James version built heavily upon Tendell's writings. Literally 80 to 90% of the KJV New Testament follows Tendell's wording. And just so we're also straight for us today.

I don't hate on the KJV English translation. It was good for its time, but we don't speak that way anymore. We don't thou and shouts and all that. Um, again, it's not the best, but we still have some churches today who would say, "Well, if it was good enough for Paul, it's good enough for me." And I'm like, "Okay, all right. That's Paul didn't use the KJV."

Okay. Um, but I digress. brings us to the modern day translations we have today. Here's what's phenomenal about the Bible you hold in your hand. As we have progressed through society and have created things like computers and copers and scanners, all of the ancient manuscripts that we have, the 5,000 New Testament Greek manuscripts, the 10,000 Latin Greek ch transcripts that we have, the 5,000 others that are in other ancient languages. You can actually Google any of those translations and they are just putting them up on the internet left and right.

So if you ever wanted to do what Crossway has done in creating translations, you can create your own. Now I would suggest that you uh do so with incredible caution and you learn Hebrew and Aramaic and Greek first before you tackle it. But you have access. So that the translations that we are coming out with today have more literary access than translations 400 years ago, 700 years ago, a thousand years ago. So that the Bible you have in your hand is more accurate to all of those translations or those manuscripts than any other time in history that the Bible was written and recorded, which is absolutely astonishing. The Bible has now been translated into over 770 complete languages with portions available in thousands more.

organizations like Wickliffe, Bible Translators, they're continuing to work so that every person, every people, every tongue, every tribe can have God's spoken word in their language. So that they may know. So that they may know. And why does this matter? You're like, "This is the longest introduction that we've ever done." from Moses to the prophets to the apostles to the scribes to the persecuted translators to martyrs to printers to missionaries.

God has faithfully preserved his word through thousands of years. As Isaiah 48 would declare, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. It will stand forever. So hold that Bible in your hand again. The miracle isn't merely that the Bible survived. That's actually not the miracle.

Even though everything I just explained in giving you the history of how it came to be in your hand, that's not the miracle. The miracle is that God spoke to us in the first place. That God spoke to us. That God spoke long ago at many times and in many ways. and lastly spoke to us in his son Jesus. And that he spoke and what Jesus represents has not only been preserved but is actually transforming the lives of those who possess it and hide it in their heart as Psalm 1 tells us to do.

That's the miracle that's actually taking place. As Hebrews 4:12 through13 puts it this way, the word of God is living and active. So this isn't just another book with just text and paper. It is the word of God that is living and active. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. It's piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow.

And it discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Which means when you read this, that's actually not what's happening. It's reading you. It's reading you. God's speaking to you and he's communicating to you who he is and what you are. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

So yeah, it's a miracle that you possess the Bible in your hands. But even more so, I want to show you now the absolute miracle of what the Bible actually is, the spoken word of God. And so, as verse one says, long ago and many times in many ways, God spoke. The God who created galaxies, the entire universe, everything that we can see and perceive and touch and smell, everything. The God who created everything spoke spoke to us. Every religion in the world is fundamentally man's attempt to climb up to God, to speak to God in order to get a response.

Christianity begins with the exact opposite. God came down. God condescended. As Jesse likes to say often, God revealed himself to his creation. God makes himself known to us. God spoke.

And it says that long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to us by our fathers, the prophets. In our last series, if you'll recall back to first Peter 1:10-12, Peter describes this process. He describes the prophets. Remember what he said, the prophets, they searched, the prophets long to know what they were writing and of whom they were writing about, when this was going to happen. The pro the prophets investigated. Why?

Because they themselves didn't fully understand the revelation that they were writing. It's like receiving puzzle pieces one at a time without having the cover of the box in front of you. What am I actually looking at here? What am I piecing together here? I'm only seeing little fragments of it and pieces of it that are pointing to something and I'm searching it out. I'm investigating it.

I mean, just imagine that for a moment. Isaiah writing Isaiah 53, but doesn't know who the suffering servant's going to be. Daniel receives visions but told to seal them. David writes Psalm 22 yet cannot fully comprehend the coming Messiah. Peter says even the angels desired to look into these things without full comprehension. And so Hebrews opens by saying God spoke by revealing many puzzle pieces but in Christ he reveals the full picture.

The full picture. So, we know physically how you got the Bible in your hand, but let's look at the theology behind how it got into your hand. The theology here, number one, God speaks. Why is it important that God speaks to us? Because simply put, without revelation, there is no Christianity. Without revelation, there is no Christianity.

Without revelation, there is no salvation. Without revelation, there is no knowledge of God. There is no knowledge of God. And here's what I mean by that. Romans 1 tells us that creation nods to the existence of God. It just nods to the existence of God.

But creation never tells us his name, his gospel, his covenant, his son. Creation reveals that there is a God generally, but scripture, the way God speaks to us and what he reveals to us reveals who that God is personally. Personally, John Calvin said it in his institutes that creation is a magnificent theater of God's glory. But because of our sin, we are like people with blurred vision who cannot interpret what we see apart from the spectacles of scripture. I love that. I love that.

And here's why that's so important for us. It means we do not discover God, but rather God reveals himself to us. We do not discover God, but God reveals himself to us. Every conversion begins not with man's search for God, but with God's speech to us. That's where it begins. And so, the second thing I want you to see that I also alluded to already is that God speaks progressively.

Unfold the history here. Imagine laying again this thousandpiece puzzle across the table. Each prophet receives another piece and is adding to the puzzle and slowly connecting the dots. Moses, Joshua, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel. Each piece is true but incomplete. Each piece is a shadow but not the substance.

Each piece is inspired but nobody possessed the whole picture yet. through many ways even so through many people and through many ways dreams visions burning bush law poetry wisdom prophecy historical narrative theophanes angels even Balam's donkey's revealing himself and speaking to us every method was divine but every method was partial partial so it's a progressive revelation that doesn't mean that it's a changing truth like modern progressive ideology. Don't combine those. Instead, it means growing clarity. Growing clarity. The more you see, the more it makes sense as God speaks.

And so, the third thing I want you to see is that God speaks purposefully. Purposefully. Why speak at all? Why create at all? Because as the Westminster Catechism wisely declares, the chief purpose of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. To glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Well, we need to know why God is glorious. And we also need to know how to glorify him. And the revelation of God, the word of God is what points us to this instruction. It's what points us to this instruction. In other words, God speaks purposefully in order to provide clearly who he is and why we exist. That's what this is communicating.

Who he is and why we exist. So the scriptures from the Old Testament to the New Testament are God's progressive and purposeful revelation of who he is and what he does. Who he is and what he does. And so the entire Bible is God's self-disclosure. He isn't hiding. He is revealing.

That naturally answers why scripture matters for us. Because God didn't give us information necessarily. He gave us himself. He gave us himself. Which is what transitions us from verse one to verse two from progressive revelation to perfect revelation. From progressive revelation to perfect revelation.

One little word here, but greatest contrast in Hebrews here. Long ago, progressive pieces of the puzzle, but now perfection, the full picture. You You get the box that all the pieces go in with the image on the front. This is what they all represent. This is what they all come about and bring about and is fulfilled in Christ. And so the fourth thing I want you to see here is that God speaks finally.

God speaks finally in these last days. And that's not the end of the world. It's the final era of redemption. The Messiah has come. The kingdom has begun. Verse two says, "He has spoken."

He has spoken. In Greek, this is a perfect tense meaning it's complete. It's final. It's full. It's full. Going back to the puzzle analogy, it would be like saying, "All right, you have all the pieces now, including the box for which they go in and the picture on the box that tells you what all of those pieces reveal.

Piece them together. Study it. Read it. Look at it. See what the picture is actually declaring. There's no higher revelation to expect because there is no greater revelation than the son himself.

And so that's why he says here in these last days he has spoken to us by his son. By his son there there's actually when you really look at it not a great English translation for what the Greek actually communicates here. It would be better to say he has spoken to us in son. That's the better translation. It just doesn't sound correct in English. This isn't just another messenger of God like the prophets who God spoke through.

This is the messenger of God himself. God in which God speaks. He's not a messenger of God like the prophets, but he is the very nature of God now speaking in the person of Jesus Christ come incarnate and now living among us. John 1 would declare it this way. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. That's giving the deity and the eternality of who the word is.

And then in verse 14 says that word condescended came into the earth and is now flesh. So now the word that God used to speak creation into existence and the word that was spoken through the prophets that gave us puzzle pieces, that word has now become flesh and is speaking as Jesus Christ, the man God or the God man, the hypothatic union, God in flesh. This may be the most important thing you take away from this message. It was certainly the foundation that the author of Hebrews intends for the audience to understand because this is the foundation upon which the entire rest of the book of Hebrews is built upon. You have to know who Jesus actually is. God speaking, God intervening, God incarnate.

And that everything that they are tempted to go back to, he's saying, "No, no, no, no, no. Those were puzzle pieces. This is the final. This is the substance. Those were shadows. Trust in this Jesus, the son in whom God speaks."

Notice the justosition between the two verses. The prophets deliver words. Jesus is the word. The prophets pointed forward. Jesus perfectly fulfilled. The prophets were shadows.

Jesus is the substance upon which the light casted shadows. The prophets announced salvation. Jesus accomplishes salvation. He is salvation. They spoke for God. He speaks as God.

That was Peter's point in Peter. That is the author of Hebrews point. And that was also John's point. It's what all the the New Testament is pointing to. Don't miss Jesus. Don't miss him.

It's all about him. Everything hinges on him. And so long ago, but now is like a paraphrase of Genesis and John. In the beginning, God spoke creation into existence. And in John 1, that word that created everything is now walking among us. God didn't merely send another sermon.

He sent himself. He sent himself. When thinking about the puzzle, look at this story from Luke 24. I actually want you to turn there with me. Luke 24 on the day of resurrection. That's an important day in history.

I would say on the day of resurre resurrection there's a couple of disciples who are walking on a road to Emmas and Jesus shows up and at first because he's God he can do whatever he wants. He does not allow them to recognize who he is. So, he's he's veiled, if you will, and then he unveils himself. And really, in this one story pulls together everything we're talking about in these first two verses. Here's what he says. What is it?

Verse um 13. That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmas about 7 miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?"

And they stood still looking sad. Then one of them named Cleopus answered him, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened these uh there in these days?" And he said to them, "What things?" And they said to him, "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes.

And besides all this, it is now the third day since these things have happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning. And when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and they found it just as the women had said, and him they did not see. And he said to them, this is Jesus, saying to them, "Oh foolish ones, slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And here's the key. beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Don't ever argue about a long sermon. I feel like that probably took some time. So they drew near to the village to which they were going.

He acted as if he were going farther. Oh, I'll just stop there. He began with Moses and all the prophets and he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. That means that Christ is not introduced in Matthew. That's not when he's introduced. He's not just a character of the New Testament.

He's unveiled there. He's always been the point. So when people ask how did we get this? Old Testament, God spoke through prophets to testify about the coming of Jesus. That's the purpose of it. New Testament, God spoke through apostles who remembered and were carried along by the Holy Spirit to testify all that Jesus did and accomplished and commanded to them to observe.

As Matthew 28 tells us, both inspired by the Holy Spirit, both are the word of God that testify to who he is and was as the word of God. Here's how Peter says it in second Peter 1:16-21. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. That's Peter remembering and talking about Jesus's baptism. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven for we were with him on the holy mountain as well.

Now he's talking about transfiguration. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in dark place until the day dawn and the morning star rises in your hearts. Knowing this first of all that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. The church was not gathered together thinking what should we write in regards to these days that we are experiencing and these events that we are seeing. No, no, no. No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man.

But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 2 Timothy 3:14-17 puts it this way. As for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. Why do we open this up every single week? Because we want that to happen.

We want that to happen. That's the only source of hope we have in all of life. in all of life that the man of God may be equipped complete for every good work. The Bible is not just a collection of man's thoughts about God. It is God's revelation of himself and his thoughts about man. That's ultimately what we're talking about here.

God's eternal purpose has always centered not on man, but on his son. On his son. So, we don't open this up to figure out what is God's will for my life. We open this up to figure out what is God's will. And his will is always going to point to the person and work of Jesus Christ. That's what the whole book is testifying to.

The will for your life is to find Jesus and to glorify him and enjoy him forever. As we'll see next week, creation itself was made through him and for him. redemption unfolds that eternal purpose rather than replacing a failed plan. The cross was not God's improvisation after Eden or even a lastditch Hail Mary, pardon the pun, after Israel's rebellion, but the historical accomplishment of what he had purposed before the foundation of the world. In other words, Jesus for eternity has always been the scent son. The cross has always been the plan.

It wasn't a backup plan. It wasn't a whoops, we made man and look what happened. This testifies to all that Jesus eternally has been purposed for. Has been purposed for. And that's why it's so important to read it. And so, let me ask you a question.

The same question I ask my kids each morning in a catechism I'm reading with them. What's the foremost purpose of man? The foremost purpose of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. And a second question that's just as important. What rule did God establish for man to glorify God and enjoy him forever? And that rule is the scriptures.

Both the old and new testament are the only rule by which God tells us what we are to believe about him and also what God requires of us to glorify and enjoy him forever. And so if your Christianity does not involve this, it is not Christianity. It is not Christianity. It's not. TED talks are not going to help. Illustrations are helpful but not full.

not complete. Preaching the word of God, which is living and active, is what we need. It's what we need. And the day we stop, go find another church. Go find another church. And so, let me close with this.

What is God inviting you to today? What is he inviting you to today? Because honestly, what they were experiencing in the first century is no different than today. They would show up and they would publicly read the scripture and they would hear the scripture taught and they would respond with devotion to the apostles teaching and to fellowship in the church to the prayers to the breaking of bread and prayers. There was a response as the word of God was preached and proclaimed. The people responded to it.

They heard it as Romans 1 tells us or as Romans tells us is anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on him in whom they've never heard? So we must preach and proclaim and share the word of God. And as you're hearing it today, there is a response for you. Have you heard it? Have you called on the name of the Lord and are saved?

And if so, are you continuing to devote yourselves as Psalm 1 encourages us to plant yourself in it so that you are like a plant or a tree by streams of flowing water so that it is producing fruit in you? And that fruit isn't for you to pluck and eat yourself. It's for those around you to enjoy. Have you heard not merely with ears, but with faith? Have you received by faith the son in whom God has spoken? Because it's only in him that we actually hear that we actually hear.

As we come to communion, Hebrews will spend the next 13 chapters warning us that the greatest danger is not that God has failed to speak. The greatest danger is hearing him and hardening our hearts towards him. The greatest danger is actually receiving the word and then rejecting it. Let's be reminded of the sacrifice Jesus, the word of God, the one that became flesh, the sacrifice he made for us to have the possibility of being able to receive the word of God and come to him and know him to actually know him. He broke his body and he shed his blood. The word that became flesh, Jesus Christ, lived the perfect life that you and I could not live and have never been able to live and will never be able to live.

We always have the philosophical questions. Yeah, but what if by the time I'm 75 years old, I've been able to reach a day in which I did not sin. Does that mean you reached perfection? What are you going to do with all of the imperfection that's trailed behind you? You still got to answer for it. So even if you reached a day, and I would even still argue the person who says, "I am no longer sinning," is sinful.

First John even talks about that those who say they are without sin are sinners. They're lying to themselves. So, because we are imperfect and in need of a savior. We're we're we're in need of righteousness. We're in need of perfection. Jesus comes and fulfills it for us.

For us. He lives the perfect life that you could not live. He earns the measure of righteousness, the standard of righteousness. Everything that the Old Testament, all the laws and the prophets and the sacrifices, they get fulfilled in him. And so just the measure of righteousness, thou shalt not commit adultery, right? We're not reading the wicked Bible.

Thou shalt not commit adultery. Guess what? Christ never committed adul adultery. Thou shalt not lie. Christ never lied. Thou shalt not murder.

Christ never murdered. He never even looked at someone with anger in that same type of way. Doesn't mean that he was never angry. He was angry without sinning. But Christ earned for us perfection. And then because we're imperfect and we deserve death because the wages of sin is death, as Romans 6:23 tells us, we are to go to the cross and offer up ourselves to God as punishment for our sin.

And Christ also substitutes us there as well. And he says, I'll take their punishment for them. They don't have to do anything. They don't have to live the perfect life. and they don't have to die for being an imperfect life. And because God's wrath towards our sin was satisfied on Jesus at the cross, he exalted his humble state and resurrected him on the third day, guaranteeing for anybody who hears the message, hears the gospel, sees Jesus unveiled, sees everything pointing to his perfect life, his sacrifice on the cross, his death and resurrection.

Everyone who sees it by faith places trust in him and says,"I'll uh take what he's offering to me." Because if I'm looking at it myself, I'm not going to earn perfection. I'm not going to pay enough money to be able to get in. I'm not going to do do enough good deeds in order to be able to get in and reconcile my relationship with him. Well, anything that I do is going to fall short. Isaiah even says, "Even your good deeds are like filthy rags.

Nothing's going to measure up." So if he's offering me a free gift of grace, I will humbly, gratefully, joyfully receive it because in myself I am hopeless and helpless. But in Christ there is a living hope for me as Peter told us and taught us. And we place our trust in him that I want to be team Jesus and nothing else. And that's what he's telling them here in Hebrews. God speaks by his son.

He speaks in his son. He speaks as Jesus is God. Put your faith in him and nothing else. Nothing else. Let's go ahead and stand together and pray. Father, we thank you so much for your the glory of your son Jesus.

We thank you that you sent him to us to be the life that we could not live, to die the death that we deserved, and to bring him back to life three days later, exalting him to the right hand of the throne fully in glory. sitting where he belongs. And the only natural really supernatural response for us is to bend our knee and submit our lives to Jesus. to surrender and say just as the biatitudes declare blessed are those who are poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the humble.

Blessed are those who literally come to the end of themselves and say, "I can't earn God's love. I can't earn God's forgiveness. I can't do enough in order to receive it." And God says, "That's exactly what I want you to understand. And I want you to understand that I sent my son Jesus to help you and to redeem you and to purchase you by the blood that he offered at the cross. So God, as we remember this sacrifice of your son Jesus, breaking his body and shedding his blood, may we come with humble hearts, grateful for what you have accomplished and what you have done.

And if there's anybody who has never surrendered and bent their knee to the Lord, God, right now, I'm praying that your Holy Spirit, because we know it's it's it we're incapable of discovering you ourselves, I'm praying your Holy Spirit, who has carried us along right now in this moment, will bring men to you, bring women to you, bring children to You help them see your son Jesus and believe in the work that he has done. Believe in him as the son of God. Believe in him as the full and final revelation of all that God has spoken to us. Thank you. Thank you. It's in Jesus name that we pray.

Amen.