Take Heed Lest We Drift Away - Hebrews Series Part 4 - Jason Willis

Today we're going to be looking at Hebrews again. Last week, as I was preparing for Sunday school, I realized that last week's lesson was going to be too long and this week's was going to be too short, so I ended up chopping off the end of last week. So today it'll be kind of— we'll finish up last week's thought in Hebrews 5-14, and then we'll pick up a new thought in Hebrews 2-4. And if you remember back a week ago when we started this study, the author of this book refers to the book as a letter of exhortation.

So today in chapter 13, we're going to see that. This is where the author says this: He says, "I appeal to you, brethren, bear with this word of exhortation, for I have written to you in few words." And so this book that we're looking at contains at least six exhortations, and we'll look at the first one of them today in the second half of our lesson. We'll spend the next three or four minutes or so recapping what we went over last week to bring our minds back to where we were. So I think it was verse 3: "Who being the brightness of His glory"— and so the image there was like the light radiating from the sun—"and the expressed image of His person, the only begotten Son.

And upholding all things by the word of His power." And we looked at last week the illustration of God building a self-destruct mechanism into the design of all things, and that He indeed does hold everything together by the power of His word.

And then after providing purification for sin, "He sat down at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens," and we discussed God's method of purifying us of sins through baptism, and then how He handles sin in our lives after baptism. "And so He became so much superior to the angels as His name He inherited is superior to theirs." And then we'll pick up here. So things are a little bit different today for us today than they were for the Jews. If we say that Jesus is greater than the angels, it's kind of a no-brainer. We think Jesus is God and the angels are not God. It's pretty clear.

But two things we need to remember is that angels interacted and appeared to men more often in times past. They may interact just as much today, but they don't manifest as often. Even the demons we talked about interact differently today. It appears as if Satan has changed his tactics. It seems that in today's time, that he is attempting to present the idea that all of this religious stuff, it doesn't even exist. That all this religious stuff is just primitive superstition that kooky religious people just simply haven't evolved out of like the rest of civilized humanity.

And the second thing we need to remember is that the Son has spoken, that God is no longer using angels to be the messengers to mankind any longer. His word has been spoken or revealed by His Son, and the canon has been closed. But the Jews had a much more hands-on experience with the angelic beings than we do today, and we want to keep this in mind. The prophets spoke God's word and performed miracles, but prophets were still men. Angels, on the other hand, were supernatural beings in the heavens who appeared to the Jews throughout their history. In the first century, angels represented one of the closest experiences with the heavenly realms.

The Jews had a different fear of the angels. And we talked about how almost so often in the scriptures, when the angels show up to men, they would come with the very first words, "Do not be afraid." And then we talked about how one of the most privileged men that ever existed, being able—John—being able to be one of the men on the Mount of Transfiguration with the Lord, when he—in Revelations—when he comes across angels, he falls on his face to worship.

And so it's hard for mere men to know how to act in the presence of angels. It is understandable how in the first century many Christians were confused about how they should relate to Jesus. Is He only a man, or is He only a God?

Some may have been tempted to see Jesus as a part of the angelic creation. After all, they were often sent by God as messengers, and they did mighty deeds. So you can't blame them for thinking that maybe Jesus was some kind of angel, a very special angel. That idea could easily creep into the early church because of the long history the Jews had with the angels. Now, with all this in mind, in these next verses, Paul is going to lay out his case that Jesus is superior to the angels, and he does this by quoting different Old Testament passages.

And then he shows how different passages of the Old Testament were actually fulfilled in Jesus Christ. So let's look at Hebrews 1:5: "For to which of the angels did He ever say, 'You are my Son. Today I have begotten you'?" That is a reference of Psalms 2:7. "And again, 'I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son'"—reference to 2 Samuel 7:14. So in the Old Testament, angels as a group were called sons of God. We see this in Genesis 6:2, Genesis 6:4, Job 38:7, Job 1, and Job 2:1. Here we have the prophet saying that the Messiah would not be called a son of God or among the sons of God, but He would be the Son of God.

And we see this echoed in Psalms 18:27: "I will make my firstborn the highest of the kings of the earth." And then again in John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, the only Son that was of His nature or of His kind begotten by God." And then he continues in verse 6: "But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, 'Let all of the angels of God worship Him.'" And this could be a reference to either Psalms 97:7, or this could also be a reference to Deuteronomy 32:42. If you're reading the Septuagint, you won't find the Deuteronomy reference there if you're reading the Masoretic text.

Now, I feel like the author could have just started with this argument and then wrapped it all up. So who's greater, Jesus or the angels? Let's see. "Let all of the angels of God worship Him." Well, seems like that settles it, right?

Not only is Jesus greater, He's even worthy of the worship of all the angels. But again, that's easy for us to say who have never been face to face with an angel. Verse 7: "And of the angels," he says, "who makes His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire." And this is a reference to Psalms 104:4. Now, the word minister, it means to be a minister or to serve. And so we see that angels have been created to be servants of God. But the Son is more than this. Let's read verse 7 again. He says, "And of the angels," he says, "who makes His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire."

But to the Son, he says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom." So here we have God the Father calling the Son God, calling Jesus God. "You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God"—there it is again—"Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. And you, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain.

And they will all grow old like a garment, like a cloak. You will fold them up, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will never fail." So again, Paul brings our minds back to the power that the Son had in the beginning to create all things out of nothing. And then wanting to show the utter power and control that Jesus has over His creation, he says, "You, O God, will fold up this creation like you're doing a load of laundry. The elements will melt away with the fervent heat, but your years will never fail."

Paul says all this about Jesus, and then he turns his attention once again back to the angels in verse 13 when he says, "But to which of the angels did He ever say, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool'?" And now this here is a rhetorical question. The answer is none of them. God didn't say this to any of the angels.

What Paul is saying to the Hebrews, he's saying, "Listen, I know that the angels, when they show up, it's kind of a big deal. I get that. But next to Christ, they're nothing." After all, verse 14, are they talking about the angels? Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to those who will inherit salvation?

Now, when he says this, those who will inherit salvation, he's referring to men. He's referring to us. We are those who will inherit salvation. Not only is Jesus the Alpha and the Omega, not only is He worthy of the angels' worship, the author says that salvation has not come to angels but to men. If you think about it, men and angels have fallen. Many angels have fallen, and all of men have fallen. But salvation has not come to the angels. It has come to men.

But the angels do have a role in this salvation that is being ushered in. At least one of the reasons that the angels were created is to be ministering spirits to the men who will be inheriting this salvation.

So the author paints this picture that God is up here, and the angels are here, and men are down here. The angels, they're not up here. They exist right here. But at least one of their purposes for existence is ministering to the men that will inherit salvation.

So the conclusion is that Jesus is superior to the angels. And so this brings us back to where I was shooting to end last week. So before we move on to chapter 2, are there any thoughts that anyone has about either angels or the roles of angels in our lives, or how they may or may not interact with us today, or any other questions or ideas you'd like to add to the conversation?

So it's a very interesting thought that the angels have free will, apparently, but not salvation. And when the angels were cast out of heaven, they couldn't repent and go back. At least that's what I take. That's my understanding as well.

We should be honored. Somewhere, it might be—I don't think it's here in Hebrews—somewhere it talks about how the angels, they know there's a big deal going on with salvation.

They know that God has this big thing going on with man, and they would like to understand that. So I think it's kind of beyond them. Can you imagine being one of the fallen angels? How much you'd want to understand that?

Having no redemption. My only thought that always is we are on the earth as men, apart from heaven. We're to represent as Christians heaven on earth, okay? But I'm just trying to make a connection as to why they don't have salvation.

They're in heaven with God, experiencing that. And if they reject God Himself, that's a lot bigger. I hope I'm communicating that thought. That's a lot bigger deal. They're there with Him. And so when they reject Him, there's only one place to go. There's no salvation.

I think there's something to that connection. Yeah. If the creation we see removes our excuse, imagine how little excuse they have with what they see in heavens.

Thank you for explaining that. Going through the process of explaining this chapter, because I don't know if I ever quite grasped what he was talking about. Yeah, I got the thing about Jesus being greater than the angels, but just to bring it into the—to bring in the context of the fact that he's talking to the Jews because of their, you could say, their infatuation with angelic beings and stuff like that. And if I would have seen what some of them did, I might struggle with the same thing. But it makes a lot more sense now, looking through those lenses, you could say, what was happening. And I just wanted to echo what Kevin said too about the angels experience perfect glory, the perfect glory of the Father being in His presence.

They don't have any mist of human struggles like we do, obscuring some of that they experienced. They experienced all goodness firsthand, so they really don't have anything. They don't have any excuse at all. Thank you for that, Conrad.

All right. So move on here to Hebrews 2:1-4. So this will be the text today. So according to the internet—it's a loaded phrase, isn't it? It's not too bad. Excuse me about my cough again this week. There are approximately 37 miracles performed by Jesus recorded in the New Testament. We say approximately because occasionally it can be a little tricky to determine the difference in the Gospel accounts if the Gospel accounts are referring to different or same miracles. We see Jesus turning water into wine, cleaning a man of leprosy, healing a paralytic let down from the roof, healing the man with the withered hand, commanding a fig tree to wither, and it does, casting demons into a herd of pigs, opening the eyes of the blind, healing a man who was unable to speak, walking on water, calming the storm on the sea, and feeding 5,000 men, plus women and children, and raising Lazarus from the dead.

Now, I think that sometimes that we read about these miracles in the Bible and we hear these things, but they don't really have the impact that they should. Think about it. We're so far removed from miraculous things happening before our eyes that when we read these things, I don't think we really grasp the full implications of them. Just think about the one instance where the priest's servant's ear was lopped off.

When those who were around him saw what was going to happen, they said to him, "Lord, shall we strike with the sword?" And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. And Jesus answered and said, "Permit even this." And he touched his ear and he healed him. And it reminds me of the way that Ben told the story when we were up at the Penn Valley retreat. It really stuck with me the way that his illustration of putting that ear back on. But I want you to imagine. I want you to imagine that you're sitting at home and a freak accident happens. Doesn't matter what happens. All that matters is you're sitting here like this, holding your head, blood's rushing down your face, and you look down and your ear is on the ground.

You pick up the phone and you call 911, "I need an ambulance." But before you even finish that sentence with the 911 operator, a man that you don't know walks in your front door. Now, it's a little weird when someone that you don't know walks into your house uninvited, but under the circumstances, you're a bit preoccupied. The man walks over, bends down, and he picks up your ear and he puts it back on.

And then he says, "Don't tell anybody," and then walks out of the room. The paramedics show up. Your face is covered in blood. You were freaking out, but now the paramedics are freaking out because they see all the blood, but they can't find the wound. What's going on here?

We can read this passage, but Jesus answered him, "Permit even this," and he touched his ear and healed him. We can read this passage and move on with our life and barely even think about it. But imagine if it happened to you.

If it happened to me, I would be shocked for weeks, months, years. I don't know. I may never get over it. I'd be sitting there for decades. I'd always be doing this. What does this mean? What does this mean?

You all would be sick of me. I'd tell the story 552 times. Wouldn't matter. Next fellowship, "Hey, did I ever tell you about that time?" "Yes, Jason. We know. God put your ear back on. It happened five years ago. We've heard the story."

I'd all be wound up like it happened yesterday. What does it mean, though? To witness just one miracle would be such an intense, so intense to process. But think about all of those miracles we just listed. Think about this one here. "Then great multitudes came to him, having the lame and the blind, the mute and the maimed, and many others, and they laid him down before his feet and he healed them." Imagine going home after seeing 50 or 100 people healed and thinking to yourself, "What does this mean?"

It's interesting. I'm not sure if it's this way for any of you, but for me, that question seems to fit perfectly with miracles. What does this mean? To see something that doesn't make sense, that defies reality, the natural question is, "What does this mean?" And so let's keep all this in mind as we look at these verses today. So I'm going to read verses 1 through 4, and then we're going to dig into them. "Therefore, we must give more earnest heed to the things that have been heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through the angels proves steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received as just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him?

God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his will." So let's dig into this. Back to verse 1. "Therefore." We all know the therefore speech, right? You can see the word therefore. You got to ask, "What is therefore?" Well, we just covered all that. Jesus is greater than the prophets. He's greater than the angels. "Therefore, we must give more earnest heed." Now, the footnote of the New King James Version says that, "Therefore, we must pay all the more careful attention to the things that we have heard." And this has two implications in this part of the verse. Implication number one is that the Hebrews, they're not paying close enough attention to the things that they've heard.

They have to give more attention, more careful attention to what they've heard. And the implication number two is that if they don't take heed to this, if they don't pay closer attention, then there will be consequences. And what are the consequences? He tells us, "If this warning is not taken to heart, the possibility exists that they could drift away."

Now, we're going to dive a little bit into this drifting away here in a moment, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself. "Therefore, we must pay more careful attention to what? To the things that they have heard." Now, what does this mean? What things had they heard? What is he referring to? We find the answer to this question in verse 3 and 4. So let's skip forward to that again and where he talks about a great salvation. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him?" So it is the Gospel that the Hebrews are being exhorted to pay closer attention to the good news that the kingdom has come and that this great salvation has been brought to men.

So back to verse 1. "Therefore, we must give more earnest heed to the things we've heard, lest we drift away."

Now, it's funny, the word lest. Before I did this study, I probably read the word hundreds of times, but if you had asked me what it meant, I couldn't have told you the definition of it. It's not really a word that we use today unless you're just trying to sound spiritual, lest you drift away.

So I looked it up in the dictionary, and the word lest, it means with the intention of preventing something undesirable or to avoid the risk of. So therefore, we must give more earnest heed to the things that we have heard to avoid the risk of drifting away.

How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Verse 2. "For if the word spoken through the angels proves steadfast." Now, we talked about this in communion today. Steadfast, it means firm, sure, certain, or secure. Let me tell you what image comes to my mind when I read this. I feel like Paul, he's handing the scriptures to them, and he's saying, "Take these scriptures and find just one example, just one. Show me one instance of God sending a message to man through an angel that did not become concrete reality. Show me." You can't. You can't find one. It's not there. "For the word spoken through the angels proved steadfast." And then he expounds on this, saying that every transgression and disobedience received its just reward.

Verse 3. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" Other words for the word neglect are disregard or careless. So how should we escape if we disregard or if we are careless with so great a salvation? He continues, "Which at the first began to be spoken to us by the Lord." And now he's going back again, and he's reiterating, "Look, Jesus is greater than the angels. And every word that was delivered to man by an angel proved to be steadfast. How shall we escape if we neglect that which has been spoken to us by the Son of God himself?"

Paul, now really wanting to drive the point home, he continues and says, "And was confirmed to us by those who heard him." Now, if I'm understanding this correctly, what he is saying, who he's referring to here is the apostles. Paul says, "Look, I know the respect and honor that you have for the apostles. You believe these men to be inspired men. When they write something, you take that as scripture. And the apostles, they have confirmed this thing that the Lord has spoken to us. So it was spoken to us by the Lord. It was confirmed by the apostles. But in case that's not enough," he continues, verse 4, "God also bearing witness with signs and wonders and various miracles."

Oh yeah, Paul says. Not to mention, he healed the sick. He put a man's ear back on. He commanded the deformed hand to stop being deformed, and it obeyed him. He walked on water. He commanded the storm to be silent, and it was silent. He told the eyes of the blind to see, and they refused to remain blind any longer. He commanded the dead to stop being dead, and the carcass of the dead man obeyed him. He fed 5,000 men with their families, starting with less food than would feed the Brechbohm family, one meal.

These are amazing things. God bore witness of this great salvation that he delivered to man through signs and wonders and various miracles. And he continued, "And with gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will." He just throws that in at the end there. Oh yeah, just in case that's not enough, like you have the Holy Spirit.

Now, I was going to ask everybody, I was going to ask for a raise of hands, but then I realized it might make for an awkward moment. So don't raise your hands, but in your mind, raise your hand if you would.

Raise your hand in your mind if you believe that the Holy Spirit is in you. That'll give you a second.

Next question. And for this, you actually can raise your hands.

Raise your hand if you have personally witnessed in your own life or in the life of someone else personally witnessed a gift of the Spirit, a gift of God manifesting itself in someone else's life. Who has seen the gifts of the Spirit manifest in this world?

This is God bearing witness to you of this great salvation that he has brought to us. So I'm just going to paraphrase what we read today and bring in some of the ideas we've been talking about. So Jesus is greater than the prophets, and Jesus is greater than the angels. Therefore, we must pay all the more careful attention to the things that we have heard to avoid the risk of drifting away. For every word delivered from God to man through an angel became concrete reality, and every transgression and every disobedience received its just recompense. How will you escape? Seeing how in these last days, these words did not come through angels? No. Now they have come directly from the author of life, from the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end, unfiltered directly from the only begotten Son of God.

Even more, the apostles have confirmed these things, the very men that you believe possess the authority to pin scripture. They have confirmed these things to you. And just in case you yearn for more, God has also borne witness of this great salvation with great signs and wonders and various miracles. Not to mention the Holy Spirit, which is now in you, the same Spirit you personally witness manifesting gifts in your own life. Being consumed with so great a cloud of witness, how shall you escape if you neglect so great of a salvation?