Clough Hebrews Lesson 12

First Warning Passage – Hebrews 2:1-4

Before we get into the drift of this thing I want to recall to your attention the big picture. The big picture is a picture of exhortation. Exhortation means that you destroy neutralism, in a nutshell, that’s what’s happening here in this epistle. Again I remind you that those of you who believe you have the gift of exhortation would do well to learn from watching how the author of this epistle exhorts because how this man exhorts is how it should be done. Here’s a Biblical model of how to do it; here’s a Biblical example that you can follow. And you’ll quickly find that Biblical exhortation is quite strong. It doesn’t allow for neutrality in any way, it’s either or. So we being with Hebrews 2:1-4 which is a section by itself. I summarized the content of verses 2-4 by saying (quote) “we must, therefore, in the light of chapter one, be more careful not to neglect the Son’s instruction than we were toward the Old Testament.” We must, therefore, in the light of chapter one, be more careful not to neglect the Son’s instruction than we were toward Old Testament instruction.

And the key word in Hebrews 2:1, which now we’re going to talk about, last time we didn’t have a chance to talk about, the key word in verse 1, “Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed,” “more” is a comparative adverb and it means something is being compared. And while it’s very nice to read it as it is, it stands pretty strong—that it is necessary for us to give constant attention and more constant attention to the things we’ve heard, lest at any time we drift by the docking point. In verse 1 that we worked with last time you’ll recall that “ought” is not a moral ought, it is a logical “ought.” The Greek language has two verbs, dei and opheilei which is another verb which we won’t deal with tonight. This is a verb that means it is logically necessary for us to do this; you have no choice, this is the way the universe is made.

Now we come to verse 2; when we come to verse 2 we come to an explanation of verse 1. Verse 1 is all the doctrine is in verse 1 but verses 2-4 explain verse 1. When we come to this explanation in verses 2-4 I want to remind you of the difference between an interpretation and an application. Any given passage of Scripture has one and only one correct interpretation, but it has many applications. And you will find as part of your Christian experience that when you are prayerfully seeking the Lord’s will in something, either for exposure of personal sin or for guidance in some area, that the Holy Spirit will speak to you out of various passages of Scripture. Please notice I said out of passages of Scripture. God wrote the book and He would appreciate it if we’d pay attention to it instead of trotting around looking for some mystical writing on the wall or (quote) “leading of the Lord” (end quote) which translated means I have this queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach and when I get it, it means God tells me to do something. Now if God intended that that be the way of divine guidance He never would have had us read The Book. Why preserve The Book for nineteen centuries? The reason is that God does not like us to get guidance by trotting around from point to point. He wants us to get guidance by looking at Scripture.

Now in verse 2 we begin application versus interpretation. Many times the Holy Spirit will use these verses in ways of application that are going to differ from the interpretation. Again, why is there one and only one interpretation. Let’s pause here and just comment to this problem that will often be raised, why there are so many denominations and why there’s so many different viewpoints of Christianity. Let’s look to the Christian system itself for an answer to that question.

First, an interpretation means that when I ask somebody a question and they talk back to me, they give me an answer, I expect one answer. When you talk to somebody you don’t expect somebody else to take it five different ways, do you or you wouldn’t have communicated it. Now sometimes we play games and we refer to it as a double entendre or something, we say something and it means two different things but even then we really want the person to get the second meaning, even though he said it so that it’s kind of cleverly disguised. So I never can understand why people have such hard trouble with this. And I know some of you have asked questions about this and I…inevitably from non-Christian you’ll get it, is that why do you believe in a literal… taking the Bible literally? Well, how else are you going to take it? How else do you take any form of verbal communication? Don’t you take what somebody says to you literally? I never have understood what is going on in the minds of people that don’t communicate literally. When you read the paper, don’t you take it literally. I’ve just never figured out what the problem is.

So literal, I take it literally like I take anything else literally, no problem there. Now why are there many different kinds of interpretation? Because number one, man is finite and number two, man is a sinner. Those are two very good reasons. By finite we mean that we don’t know all there is to know about Scripture when we’re first Christians. In fact, the early fathers of the Church did not have an appreciation for dogma that we should today. It wasn’t until the Reformation that believers really pinned down what was meant by justification of faith, wasn’t it? Well, doesn’t that mean that for fifteen centuries that doctrine was rather vague? Yes. It wasn’t until the 19^th century that prophecy was really pinned down, so for 19 centuries there were many, many different views of prophecy, as there are today, but there wasn’t any big fight about it because it was vague.

Well what’s happened? Finite man increases his knowledge by increments and as he increases his knowledge by increments the areas of disagreement do change and do decrease. What happens is that you have a more consistent anti-Christianity and you have a more consistent Christianity; you have a spreading of the views. And I might just say that you people better get serious about training to meet this situation. See, a generation ago you could exist in a quasi Christian culture which meant that the average person on the street kind of believed in “Christianity,” (quote, end quote) but today that is not going to be true. There is going to be far more battles fought. It makes it more exciting to be a believer, but the battle lines are being drawn in every area and we are in the minority in every area. So it behooves you to know your position and be able to state. So that’s basically the reason for bad interpretations; one, man is finite and man is sinful, which means he doesn’t want the truth, frankly. How long has it taken the Lord to get some spiritual lessons that you now know through your thick head? And just think, how long did it take Him to do it, through every circumstance in life, beating your head against the wall, everything else. Did you understand that right away? You did not. Probably argued with other people about it; now you understand it. Was the learning process easy? No, it was difficult because you didn’t want to know it, that’s all. So those are two very good reasons for interpretation. Mow, application, the Holy Spirit will use this passage in your life in many different ways. So please, what I am doing now is giving the interpretation of the passage and if you can grasp the interpretation you can see why the Holy Spirit makes all these different applications.

The first word of Hebrews 2:2, “For,” the word “For” tells us… those of you who know Greek, gar, gar is explanatory and it refers to what preceded and this is the explanation for what preceded; why is it necessary that we “give more earnest heed.” “For if,” the Greek language has many conditions, classes, actually four but three major in the Bible, the New Testament, “if” this is a first class condition, “if and it’s so.” So this is a first class of supposition, what’s happening here is definitely true, it’s assumed to be true by the author. “For if the word spoken by angels,” the word “spoken by angels,” now we’re going to get the angels part in a moment but let’s just concentrate on the word that was spoken. It’s an aorist tense, passive, it was spoken at a point in time. The aorist concentrates our attention on a point, it doesn’t mean the event took just an instant but conceptually it reduces things to a point, “the word was spoken.”

Now does the verb to speak ring a bell? Where have we seen that one before, the verb to speak. It was the main verb of Hebrews 1:1, 2 and 3; remember 1:1-3, who did the speaking? God. And the verb was used twice. Why? In verses 1 and 2? Having spoken He spoke. Now there are two speakings mentioned, “having spoken, He spoke. What is the first one? [someone answers] All right, the former one, He spoke, notice, unto the Father, and this is a Jewish expression which means he has conceptually in mind from Moses on, or from Abraham on, we’re not talking about Gentiles on. So this is Jewish revelation and we’ll just summarize it as the old covenant, and the new covenant, there’s your contrast.

But that doesn’t really answer the problem, what we’ve got to answer is in verse 2 now, when it says “the word spoken by angels,” that appears to be… see, “the word spoken by angels” in verse 2 versus verse 3, what is spoken of in verse 3? Jesus, so there you’ve got the new covenant and the old covenant. So 1:1 old covenant; 1:2 new covenant; 2:2 the old covenant, 2:3 the new covenant. See the contrast. Notice in the first one the old covenant is mentioned as being spoken by prophets and the new covenant is spoken by the Son. Now you come to chapter 2, the old covenant was spoken angels and the new covenant spoken by Jesus. See the contrast. Now obviously he’s linking Old Testament prophets up with angels. And this probably sets us up for why it was that he spent so much time in chapter 1 talking about angels. Now somehow angels are connected with that old revelation.

But what we have to answer precisely at this point is what the word “word” means. We have two possibilities. The word “word” means only the Law delivered at Sinai or it means the Law and it’s subsequent development by the prophets. So if the word “word” here refers to just Sinai, then the angels worked just at Sinai; or the word might refer to Sinai plus prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc. etc. etc. all the Old Testament, in which case the angels were the mediators of all the Old Testament. Let’s see how we can decide this, where the focus is anyway in this passage. Turn to Hebrews 10:28, now this is a warning passage, I’m turning to two other warning passages to try to see if you can get this either/or business straightened out. What is the contrast? It’s between all the Old Testament or just the Law, no Moses. In 10:28, he’s talking about [26] “If we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins.” Verse 28, “He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. [29] Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God,” now what’s the contrast between verse 28 and 29? All the Old Testament or just the Law of Moses. It would be the Law of Moses.

Let’s look at Hebrews 12:18, another warning passage. What’s the picture in verse 18, “For you are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, [19] And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice they heard entreated that the word should not be spopken to them any more. [20] For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart. [21] And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. [22] But you have come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, [23] To the general assembly and church of the first-born… [24] And to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant.”

See the contrast, it’s between Mount Sinai and what Jesus Christ said. Now what is this, Mount Sinai and what Jesus Christ had said? Let’s go back into the Old Testament and see where this business of angels at Sinai got started. Turn to Deuteronomy 33:2, this is the blessing of Moses on the nation. It says, “The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; and He shone forth from Mount Paran, and He came with ten thousands of saints,” but in the Hebrew it’s the holy ones, “From His right hand went a fiery law for them,” except the word “law” is not law, it is “rays,” and some Jewish commentators have noted that they believe these rays were the angels. So here you have Mount Sinai with God appearing with smoke and fire and everything else on the Mount, an awesome sight, we have a colloquialism in English, you know, so and so put the fear of God in him. Do you know where it got started? Mount Sinai. God put the fear of Himself in the nation Israel. Whatever this was it was scary and it says “rays” came out of this thing. And Deuteronomy 33:2 says, equates in the poetry, “he came with ten thousands holy ones, and “From His right hand went fiery rays for them.” So the angels are tied in with the physical phenomenon of fire.

Now again you recall Mount Sinai, there was smoke, fire and tempest. Do any of you recall in Hebrews 1 what God makes His angels into? Fire and wind, remember the Psalm that that came from? It’s an Old Testament psalm, not a teaching in Hebrew, Hebrew is just quoting it. Psalm 104:4, fire and wind came from Sinai. Now from the 20^th century person who operates on Greek presuppositions, this is incomprehensible. People who tell you this is ridiculous, I don’t believe it and all the rest of it, every once in a while you get somebody like that; well I don’t believe that. Well so what, are we supposed to be impressed. I don’t believe that! So what, I don’t care whether you believe it or not, the issue isn’t whether you believe it or not, the issue is whether it’s right or not. So it’s immaterial whether you believe it or you don’t. The point is it’s true and it goes back to that attitude that you have to have. Once you’ve thought something through biblically and you know that this is what God the Holy Spirit is saying, then you have to take the attitude if you agree then God bless you and if you disagree then God damn you. That just has to be the way it goes because it’s God’s Word we’re talking about. It would be different if God was a super intelligent person and He said this is My opinion, won’t you consider it. But God doesn’t come to you like that: this is the truth, period. And He gives us facts and He gives us evidences and He wants to learn and this thing’s true, there’s no compelled thought here. But there’s all the difference in the world what kind a God people tolerate.

So when they were at Sinai this God showed Himself via physical phenomena and Deuteronomy 33:2 historically is the first place in the Bible where that phenomena begins to be interpreted as angels. In Exodus 19 it’s just described but in Deuteronomy 33 Moses himself, and I also footnote this, Deuteronomy 33 even on liberal standards of higher criticism is one of the oldest passages in the Bible. These psalms are considered to be very, very ancient. So even if you operate in a liberal framework you’ve got to say that this is an early, early, early development and it’s not something that the Jews picked up when they were in Babylon which is always the thing that you get in religions class, that the concept of Satan and angels started with the Persians, and it’s just simply not true. Ask Eve.

Deuteronomy 33:2 is the first place and now we go to Psalm 68:17. This again is a look back, it’s a looking forward, it’s also a looking back to Mount Sinai. “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, and thousands of angels; the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.” So again God’s presence is accompanied by thousands of angels. So Psalm 68 testifies that at Sinai there were angels. And at this point we might again have a little extended thing here on Erich von Daniken and his Chariots of the Gods, since every once in a while questions about it. Some of you may or may not be aware but one of the big things going around in the newsstands are two books written by a German man, Erich von Daniken. One book he’s written is The Chariots of the Gods and the other book, more recently is God’s From Outer Space.

Along with reading of Daniken and his two books is an evangelical archeologist, Clifford Wilson who wrote a book Crash Go the Chariots, obviously a criticism of von Daniken. But though Wilson does point out things of Daniken’s thesis that are absolutely anti-Biblical, for Daniken basically is a pantheist who argues that there’s a god some place, I don’t know he is but the God that we know in history all are visitors from outer space, and he has such things as the ark of the covenant was charged with high voltage and that’s happened to Uzzah when he touched it, and of course that doesn’t explain the fact that the thing didn’t ground when it was on the cart. But anyway, he goes on and has these convenient explanations for various phenomena. But the point of where von Daniken has to be listened to, as Christians we just don’t radically dismiss him, and that is that Daniken is struggling with two things, two basic [can’t understand word], apart from all the rest of the flim-flan that goes on in the book.

One thing that he is struggling with is why is it that you have bursts of high culture in the ancient world and he’s very troubled with this, and a lot of people are troubled with this. And von Daniken has popularized a human viewpoint explanation for it and that is that… just a slow gradual evolution of culture doesn’t explain it so now they’re saying that culture was brought to this planet by visitors from outer space. So that’s one part, the sudden bursts of high culture. Another thing that von Daniken is interested in is why is there always such a strong astral motif in ancient religion. Why is they’re always concerned by the hosts of heaven? What is it about the stars, you can go out and look at the stars and they don’t really turn you on too much; what turns you on abut the stars? Daniken points out that this compulsion to placate the deities of the skies carries through many, many cultures, so his explanation is that beings from outer space came. Now what is our response, besides Wilson’s argument of specifics.

We would have to say this: Christ is the cosmic Lord, not just the Lord of the earth. When Jesus Christ is confessed as the Lord Jesus Christ, expand your sights; you’re not just confessing Christ as the Lord of this earth or this planet or this solar system. When you say the Lord Jesus Christ you are confessing that Jesus Christ is the supreme Lord of all the universe, outer space included and everything included and everything in outer space is under Christ’s authority. So the Lordship of Christ is a cosmic Lordship. We have to remember that. The second thing we want to remember is that before God ever does anything in history He’s usually quite careful to prepare people for it. For example, before Jesus comes to set up His millennium God obviously in the 20^th century has made us aware of the need for global world government, the United Nations, League of Nations and so on. So there’s an awareness of global government that would not have been appreciated in centuries before. And so now if Jesus Christ comes to set up world government it will be appreciated in a way it wouldn’t have been appreciated five centuries ago. The concept of world government began actually with Immanuel Kant in the Western world. Before Kant the idea of world government just isn’t there. Maybe Dante hinted at in Divine Comedy but apart from that there’s just no discussion. So this being the case it looks like God is preparing us to receive the millennial solution to our problem, which is a problem of a needed world government.

But if Jesus Christ is the cosmic Lord, His kingdom must include outer space as well as earth and therefore we question whether or not some UFO phenomena, not all, but some UFO phenomena might not be angelic in nature and that as a matter of what we are seeing in the 20^th century is simply the angelic realm getting ready and man being made aware of the fact that it’s there, that the universe basically is populated at other points, and that because it is that any lordship over the earth, to be significant, must be a lordship also over the universe. And so when Christ comes it will be empirically obvious that He is the cosmic Lord and not just Lord of the earth. So we question whether or not this is a phenomena where God is letting us, as mankind, get ready for something He’s going to pull of next, and this is a slow process of educating us so we’ll appreciate it when it happens.

Now as to the objection that is always lodged at this point, well angels don’t materialize, isn’t it true that at Christmas time you read about the shepherds out in their fields and all of a sudden the heaven opened and there the angels were. It didn’t say the angels flew in, it just says that all of a sudden, just like boom, a new dimension opened up and you could see that they were standing there, singing. They were not moving, the had been sitting there all along, and then, as it were, God opened the curtains and there they were and the shepherds looked out and saw it. So therefore we don’t see this kind of phenomena but that comes because people don’t study the Bible too carefully. There are at least two very good illustrations of angels materializing and associating themselves with something that is of human in culture, and coming, moving to the earth: Elijah’s chariot is one, the fiery chariot in 2 Kings, and Ezekiel’s vision of Ezekiel 1. In both those cases angels materialized, they are associated with something cultural, such as a chariot, which is a mode of transportation. And not only do they materialize and associate with that but they also appear in human and animal-human form. They appear in odd, queer forms and you can read the descriptions for yourself in Kings and Ezekiel.

So as far as Erich von Daniken’s hypothesis we simply say if von Daniken had operated in a divine viewpoint framework then we could accept some of his material but von Daniken insists that he is going to decree what God must and must not be; Daniken makes a god after his own image, therefore he’s autonomous, therefore he’s idolatrous and therefore we cannot agree with his framework. But we can look for pieces in his system that may be true when they’re interpreted correctly.

Now there’s another passage that talks about angels at Sinai and it’s Acts 7:38, Stephen’s speech. He’s talking about Moses and he says, “This is he that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel that s poke to him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers,” see, “with the angel,” now there the word “angel” is singular in Acts 7:38, probably the angel of the Lord, but then in Acts 7:53 notice what it says, “Who have received the Law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.” In extra-Biblical materials, if you’re interested in tracking this one down, Josephus quotes Herod as saying, “Those Jews,” of course he was a Jew himself, but “Those Jews learned their law from angels,” and it was [can’t understand word] some Roman Emperors, so in Herod’s time it was common knowledge that the Law had been given through the intermediary agency of angels. Stephen mentions it here, it’s the same time in history and he’s talking about the same thing.

Galatians 3:19, here Paul does the same thing and here we learn even something more, particularly about the language, which helps us interpret Hebrews 2. In Galatians 3:19 Paul contrasts two things. He says look at the Abrahamic Covenant, and then look at the Mosaic Covenant. The Abrahamic Covenant was given without a mediator; the Mosaic Covenant was given with a mediator. Therefore, the Abrahamic Covenant is superior to the Mosaic Covenant. In the course of developing his argument, verse 19 says, Why, if the thing was inferior, why was the Mosaic Covenant ever added, why add something inferior to that which was superior. He says it was added because of sin, “transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.” Now in the Greek the “ordained by angels” is dia, plus the genitive, which refers to agency. “It was ordained by means of angels,” but then, by “the hand of a mediator” is the preposition en, which is in, it’s more locative and instrumental, that means that Moses’ hands were involved in the thing, “by the hand of a mediator.” Moses was involved, he was the instrument, but between Moses… here’s Moses over here, and here’s God. God communicated to Moses through angels; angels were involved. He heard God’s voice but apparently it was, if you want to use modern expressions, it was modulated to him in frequencies the human ear could hear through angelic agencies.

[Tape becomes hard to hear] And interestingly, you could make a… sometime ago United Airlines came up with something that looked kind of interesting, if you’re interested in an omni-directional speaker for your stereo system, that is one that would broadcast sound at the amplitude in 360 degrees you can do it with fire and you can put a flame there and you can modulate the flame and the flame will actually generate the sound, this was a discovery made quite by accident. But anyway it’s kind of interesting because you’ve got a 360 modulation; now whether God used that as a system or not… It’d be kind of interesting to have two bowls of fire sitting there in the living room with music coming out of them.

So these are two prepositions, dia and en. Now let’s come back to Hebrews and watch how those same two prepositions are used. First let’s look in Hebrews 1:1, that the Law came “in time past unto the fathers in,” that’s en, “in the prophets.” So the prophets are corresponding to Moses. See, this process isn’t just at Sinai, this process is, in verse 1, it’s talking about the whole Old Testament, angels to Moses, it was dia, through angels, it was in Moses, en, it was in the prophets and here in Hebrews 2:2 “the word spoken” dia, “through angels.” So this, now, pins down why our author taught referring to angels, doesn’t it, in chapter 1, over and over and over, you say why just didn’t he start with Moses. Why does he have to deal with the angels? Because what the people could have done was, they could say well, Jesus is just an angel, because remember, these people in the first century, we know this from Stephen’s speech in Acts 7, these people in the first century knew that the Old Testament Law had some through angels. So why couldn’t they argue that just as God spoke through angels to Moses, He just simply peeled Moses, or the human out of the way and let one of His angels talk.

Well, the whole point of Hebrews 1 is that the Son is higher than the angels so now God speaks to man through Jesus Christ, which is a superior mode of communication done through angels. This also sets the New Testament at a higher level than the Old Testament. And we’ll see this when we conclude tonight but before we get there let’s look at, “if the word spoken,” now we get that “through angels,” we’ve got that, now the next one, “was steadfast.” Now what is “was steadfast,” those of you who have Greek know that there are two verbs for being; one is eimi, and that means the verb to state, to be, just to be in a state constantly, that’s your position. But the other verb, ginomai, is a verb that means to come to be or become. It means to come into the state. This is why in John 8, remember when it’s talking about proving Jesus deity, there’s that famous statement, remember what Jesus said about Him and Abraham? Proves the eternality of Jesus. Before Abraham was, I AM, it reads. Do you know what it reads in the Greek? Before Abraham ginomai, before he came to be, I eimi, before Abraham came to be, before he was born into history, I was. It’s a very powerful statement.

So in Hebrews 2:2 we have a remarkable statement because what it’s saying is that “the word spoken by angels,” the Law at Mount Sinai, “became steadfast.” Now how did the Law in the Old Testament become steadfast? You say wait a minute, isn’t God’s Word always steadfast? How can it become; you mean there’s a time when God’s Word is not steadfast and it become steadfast? Yes, from the Jewish point of view it is, because remember how the Jews always looked? What did the Jews always look for in the Old Testament? The Greeks wisdom but the Jews seek a sign. And the Jewish mentality is always trying to get empirical evidence. God made them that way. He determined them, providentially in the environment so they’d have this kind of thing, this providential [can’t understand word] for empirical data. If you’re going to accuse the Jews of making up myths you’ve got a wrong problem, a big problem. A lot of other cultures you can accuse of making myths but you’ve got some problems with people that are so empirically minded as the Jewish people. They want to see evidence, yeah, the promises are great, give me the evidence God. That’s the Jewish mentality.

Now when you look at verse 2 that’s what that’s saying, yeah, God blows off at Mount Sinai but let’s see, does it come true or not. So you have the next clause that explains it, “every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward.” That’s how the Law became steadfast. Four fourteen centuries, 1400 years, every time they fooled around with God’s Law they got it. How many saw the film last night on channel 13. The first one, they returned, shows you… it was a demonstration there of the fulfillment of Jewish suffering down through the centuries of history, over and over and over and over again and people would argue, how could a God of mercy tolerate that kind of suffering. There’s something wrong, but He warned them about it. Furthermore, He was going to… we often say how do you know God’s Word is true? Because its prophecies come true. Yeah, but how often do you think of the bad prophecies coming through? Let me show you a few, let’s take a little trip in the Old Testament a moment.

Turn back to Leviticus 26:14; this is how God spanks His nation. God is a Father, now that’s another interesting thing, people call God the Father and then they don’t want Him to be their father, because what would a good father do to a disobedient brat? Beat him. And yet we always say we want a loving heavenly Father and what it is is man wants a father that he would make, the 20^th century man, a father with no authority, some sort of a spineless milk toast that would sit in his evening rocking chair and say everything’s all right. That’s the kind of heavenly Father we want. But unfortunately God does not oblige. Let’s look at verse 14-17, these are the five stages of discipline, the five degrees of intensity, the five degrees of discipline on the nation Israel. This is going to be the framework, right here in Leviticus 26, tonight I’m just exposing you very quickly to the whole framework of history that the prophets used.

Leviticus 26:14-17 is the first degree, “But if you will not hearken unto Me, and will not do all these commandments; [15] And if you shall despise My statutes [or your soul abhor Mine ordinances, so that you will not do all My commandments, but that ye break My covenant,] then verse 16, “I also will do this unto you: I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague [fever],” these are the diseases, “that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart; and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. [17] And I will set My face against you, and you shall be slain before your enemies; they that hate you shall reign over you, and you will flee when none pursues you.” That’s what I’m going to do to you, now does that sound like a loving merciful God. If it doesn’t, you’ve got a problem because that is love and that is mercy. So if your categories of love and mercy don’t line up with the Word you’re wrong.

Leviticus 26:18-20, second stage, “And if you will not yet” see that shows you that they didn’t pay the attention the first time He hit them, because man is a rebellious autonomous being, he doesn’t like to submit to God’s authority and so, if you’re not, “for all this hearken unto Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. [19] And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass.” And verse 20 continues, [“And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.”]

Leviticus 26:21-22, this is the third cycle, “And if ye walk contrary unto Me, and will not hearken unto Me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.” Notice he does not say psychological disturbances, mistakes, hang-ups, he says sins! [22] And I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your highways shall be desolate.”

Leviticus 26:23-26, “And if you will not be reformed by Me by these things, but will walk contrary to Me, [24] Then will I also walk contrary unto you, [and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.] [25] And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge by covenant,” see the word covenant in verse 25, that’s the control for all this, it’s not just arbitrary hitting somebody, it means hitting according to a schedule, according to a framework. Verse 26, “And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven,” it means famine, [and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight, and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.]

Then Leviticus 26:27-39, the most horrible fifth degree of discipline, that you saw in the film, that was the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. To some degree the fall of Samaria in 721 and then the later fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Now look at some of the things that are prophesied here. Verse 27, “If you will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary to Me, [28] Then I will walk contrary to you also in fury;” “in fury,” look at the word, fury, don’t tell me that it’s an academic question whether God gets angry at the ones He loves. Bologna. He gets furious with us. [30] “And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, [and My soul shall abhor you]. [31] And I will make your cities waste, and bring the land into desolation, and I will scatter you among the heathen,” there’s the prophecy of the Diaspora, it’s all here in the Jewish book. Then verse 39, “And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ land,” think of how many Jews have died outside of the land of Israel, “and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. [40] If they confess their iniquity….” And then he goes on to what happens if they will confess their iniquity, then I will so and so and so and so. So God is always gracious, it’s just the fact that God is going to have His way and not man, that’s all. That’s what man cannot stand and ultimately, all objection against God is founded at that point, man cannot stand to be told to do something.

Now let’s look at it in Deuteronomy 32:15, we want to get a good solid dose of the judgment of the Old Testament so now you’ll have some background for Hebrews 2. This was a song that had to be sung by every citizen, at least it was planned that way, this is kind of their national anthem. It’s an interesting national anthem because this national anthem prophesied their history and after God blessed them, God blessed them, now we come to verse 15, “But Jeshurun waxed [grew] fat, and he kicked. You are waxing fat, you’ve grown thick, you are covered with fatness; then he forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. [16] They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods,” see, it’s all written in past tense, even though this hasn’t occurred yet, “with abominations provoked they him to anger. [17] They sacrificed to demons, not to God,” by the way, that verse 17 proves what the Bible says is behind false religions, “They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods whom they knew not, to new gods who came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. [18] Of the Rock that begot thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God who formed you.” [19, “And when the LORD saw it, He abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons and His daughters.”]

Verse 20, now here’s the judgment, “And He said, I will hide My face from them,” do you know what that means? I’m not going to answer their prayer, that’s what hiding the face is, they’re going to pray to Me and I’m not going to answer; they’re going to beg and scream and yell in the concentration camps and I’m not going to answer. Cruel God, I’m not going to answer. “I’ll see what their end shall be; for they are a very forward [perverse] generation, children in whom is no faith. [21] They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is no God; they have provoked Me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to a jealousy by those who are not a people…. [22] For a fire is kindled in Mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.” And it goes on and on and on and describes this awful agony. God gets furious with His elect! That’s one of the signs of the elect, by the way, if they weren’t elect He wouldn’t bother with them.

Joshua 23:11, Joshua warns the people in his day, just a generation beyond Deuteronomy, and what does Joshua do? “Take good heed, therefore, unto yourselves, that you love the LORD your God. [12] Else if you do in any way go back, and cleave to the remnant of these nations, even these who remain among you, and shall make marriages with them,” that means believer and unbeliever marrying, “and go in unto them, and they to you, [13] Know for a certainty that the LORD your God is not going to drive out any of these nations” until you perish off the land. And you can read the fulfillment of that prophecy in Judges 2 but let’s go to Isaiah and read what Isaiah says centuries later, same message, same problem, same God. The word spoken by angels becomes, in the course of God’s administered discipline, [can’t understand word].

Now you think of what I’m showing you tonight, the fury of God Himself and contrast it with the sweet little evangelism, Jesus is your sweet little friend, [can’t understand words] kind of thing. Just compare what the Word of God says God really is like and this fruity, stupid, ignorant evangelism that goes on. Accept Jesus and He’ll be your friend; He sure will, He’ll knock you right through the chair too. You see, there’s a difference, there’s a firmness, there’s a masculinity about the God of the Bible that just is not present in most evangelistic content.

Look at this in Isaiah 1:2, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the LORD has spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me.” And then very unflattering, [3] “The ox knows his owner, and the ass knows his master’s crib, but Israel does not know; my people doesn’t consider.” A dumb ass knows more than you believers. God does not call them stupid asses, He calls them worse than that, an ass is intelligent, so God does not call His elect stupid asses, they are worse than stupid asses, He calls them something far worse than that. You’re stupider than the dumbest ass, if you want a good solid translation. And then he goes on in the rest of the verses, look at Isaiah 1:8, “And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage [booth] in a vineyard,” see the desolation here, the desolation, [7] your country is desolate, it’s burned with fire,” in verse 9, if the Lord hadn’t saved you a remnant you’d be as Sodom and Gomorrah.

Isaiah 3:1, ‘For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, does take away from Jerusalem, and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,” how is God going to judge? He’s applying Leviticus 26; Isaiah’s warning the nation, look, Leviticus 26 prophesied this and it’s surely going to come to pass. Just as sure as the prophesies for blessing, so the prophecy for cursing and famine comes in verse 1. And then verse 2 is very interesting from out point of view today, “The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, [3] The captain of fifty, and the honorable man, and the counselor, and the cunning artist [skillful craftsman], and the eloquent orator, [4] And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.” Do you know what that’s saying? From verses 2-4 God is saying I am going to remove smart leaders from your country and replace them with idiots. I don’t want to go too far on application.

Let’s go to Isaiah 29:1, you detect, I hope, as you read this, behind God’s fury there’s a love. God’s fury here is a frustrated love. “Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! Add year to year; let them kill sacrifices. [2] Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow; and it shall be unto Me as Ariel. [3] And I will encamp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mound,” see again, this is a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem as predicted in Leviticus 26.

Now the Jews that read the epistle we’re studying tonight had one more threat which we haven’t covered yet, but it was one more definite threat that was not spoken by Isaiah, it was not spoken by Moses, and it was not spoken by Joshua. It was not spoken by any prophet of the Old Testament. It was a warning to the nation in the 11^th hour by Jesus Christ Himself. Turn to Matthew 24. This had not yet taken place when Hebrews written; this was still prophetic. Those of you who saw the movie last night I hope you looked carefully when they showed you Herod’s temple, that was a model, it was done in the city of Jerusalem, and they showed you that model of Herod’s temple. And I hope you got an idea of the expanse of it because if you didn’t it’s going to be kind of hard to visualize what’s happening here. But if you can remember what you saw there with this tremendous white, very beautiful looking thing; Herod’s temple was so great that in the ancient world people would see it from miles around, just reflect the sun, it was a fantastic thing. And the Jews were naturally very proud of what Herod had build for them.

Look what Jesus says here in Matthew 24:1, “And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple and His disciples came to Him, to show him the buildings of the temple.” That’s the temple that you saw in the film. [2] And Jesus said unto them, See ye all these things? I say unto you, There shall not be left her one stone upon another, [that shall not be thrown down],” now can you imagine this carpenter from Nazareth, walking out of this tremendous temple, beautiful, one of the great wonders of the ancient world, remember how high that thing was and how beautiful it looked and He said don’t worry about this thing, there’s not going to be one of those rocks on top of another when God’s judgment gets through. And obviously the disciples were shocked. [3] “And as He sat on the Mount of Olives,” the place where the film ended, the man sitting there, this is exactly the place, they were sitting there and you could over and see Herod’s temple, “And they sat upon the Mount of Olives, and the disciples came to Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be?” See, apparently they were bothered, as He walked out He made this statement and He never said anything more. And so you can just imagine these guys, gee, what does He mean by that? And talking among themselves until finally their curiosity got the better of them, so after they got down and settled on the Mount they said hey, let’s explain that, what was that You said again, and so Matthew 24 and 25 is Jesus’ amplification of the judgment on Jerusalem.

And then He goes on and He says that these things are going to come, etc. etc. etc. and then He says in Matthew 4:15, “When ye, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place…. [16] “Then let them,” now this is a fore view of the Second Advent, but by a secondary fulfillment it occurred in 70 AD also, “Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains. [17] Let him who is on the housetop not come down to take anything,” just get out, in other words, this is a warning. He said it’s got to come because this nation has rejected Me, but when you start to see the signs of the armies beginning to come, and Titus gave the Jews lots of warning, as it pointed out in the film, it was 66 AD that he started his siege at Jerusalem; actually it was Vespasian, his father, and Vespasian was called back to be the Emperor of Rome and left his son, Titus, in command of the army. So the were fiddling around there for four years. There was no need for them to get trapped in that city because Jesus had told them that’s what’s going to happen, when you see those armies, you just get out of here, don’t stay in Jerusalem. What did the movie say? How many Jews stayed in Jerusalem and were killed? A million, over a million Jews were slaughtered, more than American soldiers in all our battles were slaughtered within a matter of hours by the Roman legions as they moved in, hacking them to death. Now you say God is a cruel God. What did He tell them? Get out stupid. Oh I don’t believe God God’s Word, you take it literally? Okay, that’s the warning.

Now come to Hebrews 2:2 and we’ll see if we can tie it up, put it in context. “For if the word spoken by angels became steadfast,” and it did, first class, it did by the fourteen centuries of the fulfillment of Leviticus 26, every time they messed around they got judged. So it became steadfast; “and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward.” Then he asks that sixty-four dollar question, [3] “How shall we escape,” who’s “we?” Jews that had heard the words of Jesus Christ. “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation,” now the salvation mentioned here, notice, is doctrine. See what it’s done; and this is another little verse to remember next time somebody says well I think you concentrate too much on doctrine and not enough on the reality; well then why is it that the word soteria here that refers to salvation is obviously talking about doctrine, because what’s the verb used with it? “Which first began to be spoken by the Lord,” and then was repeated, now that isn’t salvation, that’s the message of salvation that’s repeated, it’s the doctrine, the content of the gospel. And yet because the content and the doctrine is linked so closely he just doesn’t say the doctrine of salvation, he says “salvation.” We could expand it by saying “How shall we escape if we neglect so great doctrine of salvation.” See our context in verse 1, pay attention to the things which you’ve heard, teaching, doctrine.

“How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” Now look, here we have the principle of relative responsibility. And the author of Hebrews argues this way: he says that in the Old Testament you guys had a responsibility; you saw from the way God enforced His laws of the Old Testament He wasn’t messing around. When He told you to do something, He expected you to do it, no excuse. Now if that severe discipline happened just by something mediated by angels, how do you expect He’s going to enforce the words of His Son, when He sent His Son to you and told you to do something by Him and you don’t do it, you screw around? What’s going to happen then? You can obviously see the application, the interpretation in that day was that the Hebrew Christians were in danger, through their relatives in Jerusalem and through their messing around with Judaism, they were in danger of not separating themselves from the Jews when the persecution came. And the persecution would come because Jesus in Matthew 24 said it would come. That’s fine, that’s the interpretation.

But how do you suppose the Holy Spirit can use this is in your life by way of application? Many, many applications; an application to you, if you’re an unbeliever, if you have not accepted Jesus Christ as Savior, Jesus Christ’s words are the final authority. You can say well I don’t believe in the Old Testament, all right, Jesus told you believe on Me or you’ll go hell. And I don’t know anything in the Old Testament that’s quite as blunt as that. Hell isn’t mentioned much in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ talked about hell far more than he talked about heaven, and He said that’s where you’re going if you disobey Me; I’m God’s Son and I expect what I tell you to be obeyed, with no excuses. You see, that’s why we’re so far away; we don’t have any concept of authority today, but this author had authority and he demanded that his people hear this and obey it. So the unbeliever is in trouble. And the application is that the unbeliever better listen to what Jesus Christ has said in the New Testament because he’s going to have a face to face confrontation and Jesus will square him away on all the answers to his questions. And it won’t be the kind of answers he likes. But the unbeliever who persists in his rebellion, not hearing God’s Son’s words will suffer consequences.

The second application, the principle as the Old Testament saints and the New Testament saints were responsible because of a greater authority spoken, it means that you and I as Christians are up against God in more fierce terms than the Old Testament people were. You know, you normally think of the Old Testament as oh, they got kind of rough back there but boy, the God of the Bible, the New Testament, oh, He’s such a loving, God, why, I saw pictures of Jesus holding sheep, so that shows that the God of the New Testament is a real loving God. He is, but if this passage is right, what does that tell you about when you read the Old Testament and you read about how some of the people rebelled out in the wilderness and the ground opened up and boom, they disappeared. When you read about Jerusalem and the women that had to eat their babies, during the course of the siege because they didn’t have enough food, had to rip the shoe laces and the soles off their sandals to eat that, that was pretty cruel and pretty tough, but you know what this passage is saying? Christians who are exposed to the words of Jesus Christ open themselves up for more judgment of a fiercer nature than even that. These are rather serious phrases in the New Testament. God is going to hold us to whether we obey what His Son has told us or not; it’s as simple as that. You can have fantastic blessings, richer than any Old Testament saint but you can have discipline that’s worse than any Old Testament saint.

And that’s the story and it’s either/or; you see why exhortation in the book of Hebrews is such a fierce thing; such an awesome thing? There’s no room left after the exhortation, it’s either/or, no neutrality.