The Holiness, the Justice, the Wrath, and the Mercy of a Holy God

It's a real joy, a real blessing, privilege to share with you this morning.

I'd like to open our thoughts by using the verses from Acts chapter 1, and especially verse 3. But I'll start with verse 2: "Until the day in which he was taken up. After that, he, through the Holy Ghost, had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God."

That is why we're here, is to hear again the infallible proofs of God's word. It is yay and amen.

To begin with, I'd like to have us come to prayer again. Shall we pray?

O Lord, our Lord, anytime we hear your word, we are overwhelmed with gratitude and awe for it. Tells us what and how we are to live in this life to please, to praise, to glorify you. We know that you have placed your power in your word.

You will not permit your word to return void.

Bring to us illumination that the shackles may be removed from our wrists, the wax from our ears, the scales from our eyes, the calcium from our hearts. For we ask this in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.

Before going on to any further with this message, permit me to say that I have borrowed some phrasing and sentencing from others, bringing some clarity and value to my message.

The scripture texts that I want to use are from the ESV this morning, as well as the King James.

So if you'll permit me, use my cell phone, which I have this ESV on yet. I don't have it on anything else, but I'd like to use that rendering.

I thought of that beautiful verse from 1 Timothy 3:15. We were in chapter 4 this morning in our Sunday school teaching. But he says in verse 15 in that, "From a child, you have known the Holy Scriptures." So my concentration to begin with in this message is from the Old Testament.

These are the Holy Scriptures. These are the words that God has spoken.

We find it difficult to understand sometimes what all is being said through all the passages. Oh, we can understand many of the Psalms and many of the Proverbs and many of the other parts of Scripture that are very, very clear, not difficult, and there are great stories. And I'm going to be concentrating on a couple of those great stories.

So I want to look at as a theme for the message that I have to share with us the holiness, the justice, the wrath, and the mercy of a holy God, concentrating first of all on his holiness. So for an opening passage of Scripture, turn in your Bibles with me to 1 Chronicles 13. 1 Chronicles 13.

And I'll be reading verses 1 through 12.

David consulted, starting with verse 1, David consulted with the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, with every leader. David said to all the assembly of Israel, "If it seems good to you and from the Lord our God, let us send abroad to our brothers who remain in all the lands of Israel, as well as to the priests and the Levites in the cities that have pasture lands, that they may be gathered to us.

Then let us bring again the ark of our God to us, for we did not seek it in the days of Saul. All the assembly agreed to do so, for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people." So David assembled all Israel from Nile of Egypt to Lebo-Hemoth to bring the ark of God from Kireth-Jerum.

And David and all Israel went by to Balah, that is Kireth-Jerum, that belongs to Judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord who sits enthroned above the Cherubim.

And they carried the ark of God on a new cart from the house of Abinadab. And Uzza and Ahioh were driving the cart. And David and all Israel were celebrating before God with all their might, with song and lyres and harps and tambourines and cymbals and trumpets.

And they came to the threshing floor of Chidan.

And when they came to the threshing floor of Chidan, Uzza put out his hand to take hold of the ark, but the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza, and he struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark, and he died there before the Lord, before God.

And David was angry because the Lord had broken out against Uzza. And that place is called Terez-Uzza to this day. And David was afraid of God that day, and he said, "How could I bring the ark of God home to me?"

David has assembled the whole nation of Israel for the placement of the ark of God, this covenant, the ark of the covenant, to a more permanent place. They wouldn't have had a permanent place for the ark of God. Remember in the tabernacle of the Old Testament or the days of Moses and Aaron, they would have had that ark in a tabernacle, not in a building or a temple or anything like that. Now here in David's day, here he wants to bring this ark back to him. Well, where had this ark been?

This ark had been captured. Remember back in 1 Samuel chapter 4, 5, and 6, we have the story of where the Israelites were in battle with the Philistines, and the Philistines killed 400 men or 4,000 men, excuse me, 4,000 men in the first battle. And so in the second battle, they said to Eli, "Why don't you allow us to take the ark of the covenant with us in the battle? This time we'll be victorious because the ark of the covenant will be with us." Well, we know what the answer in the story was. It's very plain. 30,000 men were killed this time, not just 4, 30,000. And the ark of the covenant was stolen, captured by the Philistines, and taken into Philistia.

And we can read the story of what happened there in the next couple of chapters following of what took place in Philistia because of the ark being captured by the Philistines. Finally, because it was so terrible after seven months of going from this city to that city, from Ekron to wherever the other cities are there in Philistia, they finally decided, "We're going to have to send this ark back."

So they hooked this cart to two cows that had just had calves, and they're going to send this ark back to Israel.

Now that's not the way a cow would be. A cow would want to be with her calf. She just had a calf. Both these cows just had calves. The nature of a cow is to be with her calf, and the calf would be with her mother.

But these cows were hitched to this cart, and the scriptures blatantly tell us that they went straight to Beth-Shemesh. They didn't look to the right. They didn't look to the left. They went straight to Beth-Shemesh.

So David is saying, "Okay, if the Philistines were successful in using our cart to pull and take the ark of the covenant wherever it needs to go, and he wants to bring it back to where it's going to be in a proper place." It doesn't say exactly where it's to be taken to. It just said David wants to bring it back to a proper place. The temple wasn't built yet. That wasn't until Solomon that the temple was built. We don't know exactly whether the tabernacle was in use yet or not because the tabernacle, through the book of Judges, somehow it probably would have disappeared. It may have been recreated. I don't know. It doesn't say.

But I read, "They're going to bring this throne back." And these cows are carried. It comes back into Israel by way of Beth-Shemesh on the field of Joshua on the stone floor. It kind of indicates that. And this ark is taken off of the cart. The wood is broken up into kindling, placed underneath the cows.

And they light that wood and burn those cows as a sacrifice.

It doesn't say that they cut their throats and killed them. I'm not saying that they did. I won't say that. You would think that that's what they would do in order to keep those cows right there so they could offer them as a sacrifice. But it doesn't say.

You can look at it as strictly as you want to.

So David is thinking, probably along with the others who are there, by the way, the ark was only to be carried by the Kohathites. And they were of the tribe of Levi, this family of the Kohathites. And how was it to be transported? It was to be transported on stays or poles that went through the rings at the top of the ark. There were four rings at the top of the ark, and it was supposed to have gone straight through those rings. And they were to carry this manually on foot, not on a cart.

But David is thinking probably, "Well, the Philistines, they had success in bringing it back to Israel on a cart. I can do the same thing." So he decides he's going to do the same. Well, Uzza and Ahioh are walking beside this cart alongside it to try to make sure it's not going to tip or fall or whatever.

But we know that the oxen stumbled. It says, "They stumbled." So Uzza reaches out his hand in order to steady the ark. And immediately, the Lord struck Uzza, killed him. Why would God do this? Why would he be so irrational, we would say, or could think?

Doesn't make sense. But the law is given back in Exodus chapter 25 through chapters 36, 37. Plainly, it is stated very carefully that they are not nobody is to touch that ark. I don't know when it was being constructed by Bezalel or whoever else was helping him and all that. I'm not sure exactly when the cherubim were placed on top and the rings. And I don't know. We know what was inside. It tells us plainly what was inside.

But irregardless, David is not using what the law stated plainly that they are to do to move this ark.

The poles and rings were placed such so that man would never, never, ever come in direct contact with the ark. Every detail and building in and of the tabernacle and the sacred vessels in it were designed to make manifest the holiness of God. These Kohathites would have been instructed from generation to generation about how they were to treat the sacred vessels, that they were never to touch the sacred ark of God. Uzza and Ahioh probably were assigned this task.

It has been stated that the sin of Uzza was the sin of arrogance. Arrogance?

Let me explain arrogance. Uzza assumed that contact with the dirt, with the ark falling off the cart into the dirt, would be a greater desecration than if he was to put his hand out and steady that ark to keep it from falling off the cart.

Anything sinful about dirt, mud, gravel, whatever you're going to have as a path? What was so awful and terrible about Uzza and his desecrating and touching that ark is because there was no sin in dirt, but there is sin in the hand of Uzza.

So he profaned

this most holy object in Israel, profanity.

Now come with me to Leviticus chapter 10.

Leviticus chapter 10.

And we'll look at verses 1 through 3.

Leviticus 10, 1 through 3. Now Dadab and Abiyu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censor and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, "This is what the Lord said.

Among those who are near me, I will be sanctified, and before all the people, I will be glorified." And Aaron held his peace.

We don't know, for we are not told, but whatever it was or wasn't, what Aaron or what Dadab and Abiyu did did not please God.

Experimental worship, changing liturgy to be mere appealing to us is not the design that is set forth by our God.

The most successful worship service recorded in the Bible is found in the Old Testament that drew more people, breaking all attendance records. And the singing was so full of gusto and jubilation that when the voices of the singers were heard miles away on a mountainside, one of the men who heard this celebration thought a war had broken out. But the noise he heard sounded like a war had broken out, the noise of battle.

But after he investigated, it was not war, but a worship service to the golden calf.

Nothing attracts greater crowds than to practice the sin of idolatry.

But Dadab and Abiyu were only trying to improve worship by a new way of sacrifice, where they offered strange fire before the Lord.

These young priests were just involved in a little experimental worship, maybe to change the liturgy to make it more appealing to the worshippers. But they misinterpreted what is pleasing to God by profaning

and making worship appealing to man.

And the fire came out from the altar and consumed them. The scriptures tell us what Aaron's response was, and we read that in the third verse.

Okay, if we would have been there and we would have seen this take place, we could or would ask ourselves, "I wonder what Aaron is thinking. God, these are my sons. They've been ordained to this priestly college."

Let's go back once again to the account of Uzza and notice who got angry with God. Who was it? David. Even David had trouble dealing with the wrath of God. And before David and Uzza, we have the very sons of Aaron executed by God.

So Aaron is asking as a father, "God," or we could say, if we were there, we would think to ourselves, "God, what are you doing? These are my sons. They're walking in my footsteps." All they did was tinker a little bit with the fire from off of the altar.

So he goes and he speaks to Moses in verse 3. In Aaron's obvious distress, Moses may have asked Aaron, "Do you remember what the Lord said to you at your high priestly ordination when you were consecrated to your holy vocation? Do you remember?"

You can find that in Exodus 29, verse 46.

Do you remember? By those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy, and before all the people, I must be glorified. That's in that third verse also of the passage there that I just read from Leviticus chapter 10.

But rather than regarding God as holy, Dadab and Abiyu came in profanity with strange fire.

Aaron held his peace. What else could he do?

The law was plain. Moses was very explicit in telling him what the law had required, what it had already said. There wasn't anything Aaron could do but hold his peace.

Those who come before me in my presence fully and justly must regard me as holy.

I am the Lord, and beside me, there is no other.

Also, we have the story, the example of God pouring out his divine wrath and justice on who? Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.

Numbers chapter 16, you can read that.

There are those who have said that this wrath of God of the Old Testament is not the same God of the New Testament because of his sudden outbursts of anger and wrath, because the God of the New Testament is a God of love. He's a deity of love, of compassion, grace, and mercy.

But they forget the story that's in Acts 5 of Ananias and Sapphira.

You would have said, "Judgment from God?" Obviously, it was when they told the untruth and what they sold their property for and said that they were giving it all to the work of the church or to the apostles.

And Peter, you know what he said very plainly. "You've not lied to me or any of us. You've lied to the Holy Spirit, and it's the Holy Spirit that took their life and caused them to die."

That's my concentration this morning is on recognizing and appreciating anew the holiness of God. We serve the same God today as what David and all those in the Old Testament served, same yesterday, today, and forever. He hasn't changed not one bit.

We must be aware of what is happening and taking place in this horizontal life that we are living as responsible, accountable human beings. For we look around ourselves and among ourselves and can begin to flatter ourselves as if we were just less than demigods.

So let us turn our gaze to heaven and contemplate the kind of being that God is.

For we know the testimony of saints of old, especially the Old Testament, are reduced to trembling in dust and ashes. So I bring you this message to aid us in shifting our gaze afresh to that high plane of holiness and sovereignty of our holy God.

If I call our attention to Isaiah 45, if you would turn with me in your text, your scripture passage to Isaiah 45.

And I'll be reading verses 1 through 8. Isaiah 45.

Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, "Whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him, that gates may not be closed. I will go before you and level the exalted places. I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron.

I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hordes in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name. For the sake of my servant Jacob and Israel, my chosen, I call you by your name. I name you, though you do not know me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. Besides me, there is no God. I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is no other.

I form light and create darkness. I make well-being and create calamity." In the King James, that says evil. "I am the Lord who does all these things. Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness. Let the earth open that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit.

Let the earth cause them both to sprout.

I, the Lord, have created it."

This is a very interesting and somewhat strange text of divine revelation from God to address to a man, Cyrus, who at the time this prophecy was given was not yet alive.

At the time of this prophecy, Israel was caught up into bondage in the Babylonian captivity, destroyed and under bondage to the most powerful nation on earth, Babylon.

But the message in this text is not addressed to any king or ruler from there, but addressed to the future king of Media, Persia.

This empire, which would defeat the Babylonians and ultimately liberate the people of Israel to return to their homeland. So God announces this message to this king of Medio-Persia, whose name is Cyrus. Therefore, we read in Isaiah 45:1, "To Cyrus, to his anointed Messiah."

Which language or wording scandalizes the Jewish people that God for a second would call a future Gentile king a Messiah?

Let's read again the first three verses of Isaiah 45.

Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, "Whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him, to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him, that gates may not be closed. I will go before you and level the exalted places. I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hordes in secret places, that you may know that I, that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.

I will take your right hand and arm. I will break the bars of iron and the bronze shields." Why is God going to do this? Why?

"That you, Cyrus, may know that I am God. That you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who you call by your name.

I'm going to do this, Cyrus, so that you may know that I am the Lord, God of Israel, not for your sake, but for the sake of my servant Jacob and of Israel, my chosen. And I have called you by your name, though you do not know me. I am the Lord. There is no other besides me.

Besides me, there is no God." And that's one of the strongest emphasis I want to place. We can think about other gods, and there's a whole bunch of other gods that are out here in this world. We know of all the different nations that are out there. We're speaking all kinds of idols and worshipers.

There is no other God but our God.

The only one, the only true and living God.

So imagine with me what might be going through this Gentile king's mind when he regards this prophecy after he is old enough to hear or is born and is a I guess he hears it. Something comes through his mind. God is writing to him. So I'm believing that he heard it for the first time, particularly when we get to this refrain. "I am the Lord, and there is no other," which is mentioned two more times in this chapter, verses 14 and verse 22. So think with me, this Gentile king who doesn't know the God of Israel is thinking, "Ah, Yahweh?

This foreign God of Israel wants to have a summit meeting with me and assist me in the military plans and the strategies and future conquests of my great nation. He's the deity of Israel, but I am the Lord, the deity of Medio-Persia."

Maybe that is what Cyrus is thinking in the first clause. But God won't allow him to rush to that conclusion. For God declares, "I am the Lord, Cyrus, and there is no other. There is no other God."

That just sounds very familiar to us. But we read from the pen of Moses in Exodus 20:2, as well as in Deuteronomy 5:6, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." So now let us focus our attention on the otherness of God.

This declares the uniqueness of God. The God of the Old Testament, the God of Scripture, the God of the New Testament, the God that is and there is no other. When we talk of the holiness of God, we must think of God's otherness, the sense that he is different from anything else in this created cosmos. We want now to think on the word holy. This term has two references to it.

Number one, the primary meaning of the word holy refers to God's otherness. And that's what I mentioned just prior to stating this. The sense that he is different from anything in the created universe. The secondary meaning refers to his purity, his perfection in righteousness. And we think of this meaning often. And in this sense, holiness is a communicable attribute. We were talking a little bit about that this morning when he says, "You shall be holy as I am holy." Read that back in First Peter chapter one.

But that can only be true in the secondary sense because the primary meaning of holiness describes something about God that you and I cannot be in this world or in the world to come.

It truly refers to God's divine, transcendent nature, the sense in which he is other from us. When we think of the attributes, the uniqueness, the holiness of God, we struggle with wording to describe God. There are three distinct methods that are known to describe the character of God. And one of the most common methods is the method of the way of negation.

Let me explain. Stay with me. This way is defining something that is by what it isn't. For instance, we talk about God when we talk about God, we say that he is infinite, which means what? He's not finite.

We are finite, and that simply means we have boundaries. There is an edge, a limit of where we live and move and have our being.

Acts 17:28.

When Esther and I traveled to Mexico City end of May, 1st of June, just back in June, we went from BWI to Miami, then to Mexico City, being in each place at separate times. But of course, that being not being in each of those places at the same time, for we are finite. But God is not bound by the borders of creatureliness. He is not finite. He is infinite.

We can send spaceships to outer space and try to probe the deepest places in the universe. And it's amazing how far they're going. It's just amazing to me. They've reached Mars, and they put people on Mars. Hey, it's reality.

But beyond that, they've only touched what space is all about. They'll never be able to reach the end of God because there is no end to a being that is infinite.

Number one B is the second meaning or way of negation. I was talking about negation. So this is the second, that it is used to what is that method? We talked about infinity. God is infinite. Now we go to the term immutable. What does that mean?

It means he's not mutable, right? Absolutely. He doesn't change.

Didn't I say he was the same yesterday, today, and forever? Absolutely. Nothing describes creatureliness more completely than does change. Everybody in this room since we've come in here has changed.

The change may be imperceptible, but if nothing else, we are more than one hour older, one and a half hours.

One hour greyer, one hour heavier or lighter.

But whatever it is, you have changed because that is the divining attribute of all created objects and all created creatures. And that's the world we live in, for it is constantly changing. We know that. That's a reality. That reality doesn't apply to God. It does not apply to God. He's immutable. He doesn't change.

The same yesterday, today, and forever.

This characteristic of God is most comforting, knowing that he does not change, not subject to change in his person, in his behavior, or in his being.

Number two, the second way to define and describe God is omniscience, omniscience, all-knowing.

We take normal capacities to learn and accumulate knowledge. In our presence are some very knowledgeable people that can teach us many things. But what they can't do is teach us everything, for they are not omniscient.

All science. We possess elements of science, but God possesses all science. Many of us have seen the powerful destruction of God from a creaturely level of hurricanes to tsunamis and maybe volcanic eruptions. Some here may have seen the devastation and overwhelming destruction of the atomic weapons of atomic you've seen pictures of that, I know, from World War II and all the terrible things on Nagasaki and Hiroshima over there in Japan.

The awareness of the vast destruction that could take place by nuclear power, but these human-developed methods of power are mere pop guns compared to the power of God, whose potency is impotent, impotent

because God has all power, is all-powerful. "I am the Lord. There is no other. Only God and God alone has all power."

Number three, the third way to explain a holy God is the way of affirmation.

This way takes us to the supreme edges to comprehend who this holy God is, that God and God alone is self-existent.

Any of you ever heard of the word Asceity? A-S-C-E-I-T-Y, A-S-E-I-T-Y, Asceity.

Well, I have a piece of paper here with me that will help us to explain. I had my son-in-law copy out from a dictionary, which he gave to me. "Asceity is the property of being of which a being exists and of itself, from itself, or exists as so and such of and from itself." The word is often used to refer to the Christian belief that God contains himself within himself, the cause of himself.

It's a first cause, or rather a simply uncaused. Well, anyhow.

Asceity has two aspects, one positive and one negative, absolute independence and self-existence. In its negative meaning, which emerged first in the history of thought, Asceity affirms that God is uncaused, depending on no other being for the source of his existence. In its positive meaning, it affirms that God is completely self-sufficient, having within himself the sufficient reason for his own existence. So there is no way we can ever come to the place where we can define, "Where did God come from? Where did he start? When did he start?" God always was, always was, always will be. That's what the word Asceity refers to. Maybe you're saying, "I never heard such a word." But of all the words in the human language that captures the awareness of or the otherness of God, it is the word Asceity, that God and God alone has the power of being in and of himself.

After the Hubble spacecraft was launched into space, one of the well-known cosmologists declared, "What I'm excited about with the launch of the Hubble spaceship is that we're going to learn all kinds of things about the origin of the universe. Because this much we know already is that 12 to 18 billion years ago, this gives a $6 billion window, the universe exploded into being." What?

Was it before it exploded into being?

And being opposite of not being, and not being is a synonym for nothing, Jonathan Edwards defined nothing as that which sleeping rocks dream of.

Nothing is the opposite of something, which tells us that it is the absence of being. So if there was ever a time when nothing existed, what could exist now?

Therefore, everything that exists now had a beginning. Everything that existed, exists. Everything that existed, exists now. And that will ever exist. Derived its being from a being that has eternally existed, and that is our God and our God alone.

He eternally is.

I am who I am. I am the Lord. There is no other. I alone, Cyrus, have being in and of myself. Cyrus, you could never be apart from my being because Acts 17:28, "In me you live and move and have your being." The Apostle Paul was telling those on Mars Hill.

Some of us here have read or heard about Thomas Aquinas, who has written about and for the existence of God, states that God possesses necessary being. Have you ever heard of that? Necessary being. This is what makes him holy.

God is God alone, and God alone has necessary being. What might that mean? This definition of God can be defined in two ways, logically and illogically. Anthologically would be another. Anthologically would be proper.

And Aquinas used both. By the way, Thomas Aquinas lived in the 1250 to 12 something like 1225 to 1275, something like that.

The study of being and God is the only kind of being who cannot possibly not be.

God is what he is and cannot stop being what he is, eternally in and of himself. Because if he could be something other than he is, what would that require? What would that require? That would require God to change. He's immutable. He cannot change.

He will not change. So he would stop being God if he changed.

You know that great hymn that Charles Wesley wrote, "And can it be?" And we get to the end of the course, "That thou, my God, should die for me?" Charles Wesley, what are you saying? God died? If God died, then the hill on Calvary where Jesus was crucified would disappear.

Jerusalem would have vanished as well as all the rest of created cosmos. God die? Never. The God-man died? Yes. God-man, the one who took upon him the flesh of a serpent, just like we are. Yes, he died. Hallelujah.

God die, though? It's a ghastly thought to think that God died. We know what Charles Wesley was saying. We understand that. But it is. You have to edit it a little bit. You have to look at it.

Because apart from the being of God, nothing could exist. God didn't die. The God-man died. The God that took upon him the human nature died touching his humanity. But the deity didn't perish. Yes, it sounds great in our hymns, but it is a ghastly thought to a being that cannot stop being.

And his being is logically necessary.

There is no reason that I can offer why I should ever exist. Daniel Wadle should ever exist. For there was a time when I did not exist, and there was a time when you did not exist. And we cannot provide a logical conclusion for your existence. So we must park our logical reason along with our scientific reason in the parking lot. For as soon as you explore the foolish reason that God does not exist or believe that you or something or anything created came from nothing, you've just traded in science for ignorance and for nonsense.

Nothing could be more irrational than to believe that something comes from nothing.

Let me conclude our discussion this morning with this great message of salvation.

And I would ask you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 6.

I'll read this from the King James since I have it here with me. Hebrews chapter 2, verses 1 through 4 is what I want to look at. Hebrews chapter 2, verses 1 through 4.

Therefore, we ought to give the most earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, a just retribution is another way another translation says it. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by them that heard him? God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and with gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will.

These words in Hebrew absolutely declare the absolute supremacy of Christ. And that in him, we have received not a little salvation, but a great salvation. For not only are our minds to grasp and behold fully this glorious gospel,

but we ask it in Jesus' name, through the power of his word, through the power of his Holy Spirit, to inscribe in our hearts and our minds the truth of the gospel.

Now, after completing the great and awesome testimonies given in chapter 1 of Christ's superiority over the angels, the author begins the second chapter with the word, "Therefore," based upon the conclusion, a concluding question of the first chapter, signifying the answer that is coming to that question.

The word, "Therefore," reveals to us a perfect marriage, a union between doctrine and practice.

We were talking about doctrine in Sunday school this morning from 1 Timothy chapter 4. If we believe fully the truth given in the first chapter of Hebrews, it gives radical implications as to how we live our lives. And he is beginning to show us, therefore, we must pay much closer attention.

The author crunches together the tension of the words, must and much. For he could have said that we must pay the most possible attention to what we have heard, lest we drift. That's what another translation says, drift away from truth. Think of the image of drifting.

Some people go fishing in boats. And if they don't set the anchor down, just allowing the boat to move with the current, and where they end up could be problematic. And the scripture uses this image for our soul's need, an anchor.

Hebrews chapter 6, verse 19, we have this anchor. I'm sorry. We have the author warning us not to allow ourselves to drift aimlessly away from what we've heard.

From what you've heard here. Again, he is speaking of this marvelous comparison between the superiority of Christ over the angels and all created things. We've heard that. Don't drift away from it, but pay the most closest possible attention to it. For if his message was given by angels, referring back to the account in Deuteronomy chapter 33, it gives the idea that there were myriads of angels when the law was given. For when the law was given to Moses, there were thousands of angels there, myriads of them, present on that occasion. And since the message that was declared to angels or by angels proved to be reliable in every transgression or disobedience, and that's what I was even explaining back there of what happened to God's use of wrath and judgment against those who disobeyed his law, they received a just retribution, a recompense, a punishment.

How much more are we responsible to that which has come to us directly from Christ? Beloved, the central theme of this chapter, or at least this portion of the chapter, is the theme of escape. When you think of escape, you think of some kind of deliverance from a dire and life-threatening situation.

Escaping from a kidnapper or an angry wild animal. Or like David escaping from the life-threatening anger of King Saul.

But most common idea which we associate escape is that of imprisonment. Not just from a county jail, but from those notorious prisons that are virtually inescapable, such as the former federal prison of Alcatraz off the west coast of San Francisco.

Alcatraz.

Or the one called Devil's Island off the coast of French Guiana, down there in the Caribbean, down there just up north of South America, off the northeast coast of South America. Or again, another French prison, the most dreadful of all. I don't know if it still exists today or used at all. We know that Alcatraz is a museum now. It's not used as a prison anymore.

Anyhow, this dreadful French prison off the eastern coast of France in the Mediterranean Sea is called the Château d'If.

This is a real place. I think it's still used today. But there was a novel written based on the true facts. It was based on true facts, entitled The Count of Monte Cristo.

Edmund Dante's was falsely accused of treason and is sent to the most dreadful prison where the most dangerous political prisoners are kept. He was placed there in solitary confinement, of which there was no escape. But through varied circumstances, he came in contact with an agent priest who also was imprisoned there.

The old priest was slowly digging a tunnel to escape the prison, but ended up he didn't do his math quite right and ended up digging into the chamber of Edmund Dante, into his cell. But he didn't have he didn't do his math right. They spent much time together. The old priest taught Edmund Dante's many things about science, philosophy, and theology. And he also told him about this map that led to the hidden treasure, to hidden treasure in the rocks offshore of the prison, the Château d'If, in the water in the sea.

And then the old priest died. And through extraordinary circumstances, the death of the priest led to a possible escape from the Château d'If, where Edmund Dante's found the vast treasure that financed the rest of his life, becoming the Count of Monte Cristo.

What an escape story that was. But as dire and dreadful as the circumstances in the Château d'If, there is a greater and more dreadful captivity than any human mind can imagine. And the author of Hebrews speaks of an escape from that.

And asks the question, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Beloved, this is a rhetorical question.

And the answer is very simple. We can't.

There's no escape route. By the way, that prison is hell. There's no escape route. You can't dig under it. You can't climb over it. No guard can be bribed. And the sentence will never, ever change.

So the author of Hebrews is saying, do you realize what you have heard? That we have heard about a great salvation.

Let's take a little time at this point to examine this word, salvation.

One of the first commandments or one of the first comments or questions could be, say, from what? We use it frequently in church, in songs we sing, from reading the Bible, and so forth. The idea of salvation suggests a deliverance or escape from a dire circumstance. And the Greek word, sozomai, is used in a variety of ways. If you are saved from a threatening illness, as people were in the New Testament by Jesus' touch, by the touch of Jesus, Jesus might make the comment, your faith has saved them. He's not speaking about their eternal salvation, but he is speaking of having been saved from the dreadful disease that they had or whatever the condition was that they had.

And in the Old Testament, it was speaking of when they went into battle. God intervened whenever the children of Israel went into battle many times on the behalf and saved his people from military defeat. That was rescue from a clear and present danger.

So this word, saved, is used in many ways in different times. So the tense of this Greek word, sozomai, you are saved, you are being saved, you have been saved, you were saved, you were being saved, and you will be saved.

Salvation takes all of these different tenses of the verb. But there is a salvation in which, in the general sense, that has its manifold applications. But when the Bible speaks salvation about salvation in the ultimate sense, ultimate sense, it's speaking of the ultimate escape, escape from the ultimate dire human condition.

What does it mean to be saved from what the scriptures tell us? But to be rescued from the wrath that is to come. We can read signs on bumper stickers making maybe along the highways and so forth, telling us that God is a God of love, that God is not angry. And it's a pernicious heresy.

It's a pernicious heresy. If God is not angry, and the Bible tells us in Psalm 7:11 that God is angry with the wicked every day. But if as those signs and worldly churches say that God is not angry, but only full of love, then there's a need to live in the fear of an eternal judgment, that there is no need to live in the fear of an eternal judgment from a God of wrath. Because God is a God of love, a God of mercy.

But we read in Romans 1:18 that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And God, and could it be, excuse me, and could it be that we are living too much at ease in Zion because we can assume that God is not a God of wrath, but a God of love, a God who is not angry? God will save everyone. That all you need to do is to die and go straight into heaven.

Yeah, but all you need to do to get into hell is to die.

The Bible makes it very clear that when we forsake the God of truth, readings from Romans 1:19-32, you can read that. The God of untruth controls our minds, our hearts. And the greatest calamity that we humans can face is to be sentenced to hell. The Château d'If is a luxury resort compared to hell.

The Bible makes it clear.

That if we are not going to be able to live a holy and a consecrated life before him, I'm glad that God knows those that are him. The Lord knows them that are his. Let all that name his name depart from lawlessness, depart from iniquity.

So now the author raises the question, how do we escape if you neglect that salvation? Beloved, there is no escape. So another question we can ask is this. To whom is the author speaking? He doesn't say, how shall they escape if they neglect so great a salvation? He's not talking about the run-of-the-mill pagan that goes through life, who not only neglects the gospel of salvation, but is utterly disinterested in it and may be outwardly hostile to it. And there are multitudes of people living in this country and around the world that despise the gospel. They don't just neglect it. But the author isn't talking about those people. He uses the word, we.