Stay the Course: The Urgency of Nurturing Salvation

0:56Next week, we'll be looking at probably the Great Command or Great Commission in Matthew 28. We're going to spend some time in the Old Testament as well. We're going to dig into probably Jeremiah chapter 23 and look at the shepherds of Israel, or shall I say the false shepherds of Israel, and how God judged them for not shepherding in the way they were intended to shepherd. And we're going to spend some time probably in Titus chapter 2 and look at what does it mean for older women to disciple younger women? What does that look like? But tonight, we're over in Hebrews 2, verses 1. Through four, and nothing seems to be there. It is. See, I was right. The title is Stay the Course, the Urgency of Nurturing Your Salvation. If you were here just a few weeks ago in the Sunday morning service, the title of the message was Stay the Course, The Urgency of Knowing Christ. And that was from chapter 1 of Hebrews, verses 1 through 4, and continued on to chapter 3, verses 12 through 14. And in that passage, or in that section of Scripture, those two sections of Scripture, we found that the knowledge of Christ, our knowledge of Christ, must be accurate so that we do not fall away from the living God. And this week, as you can see, the title is Stay the Course, the Urgency of Nurturing Your Salvation. And it's not just your singular, it's yours plural, because in the book of Hebrews here, chapter 2, we're going to see that he's talking to a group of people that he addresses as we, not you, singular, and not I, but it's a group of people. It's the church that he wants to nurture their salvation, not just simply individuals. But before I even get into that, I want to ask you three questions. What if, and I mentioned this this morning, what if someone were to come to you and they were to ask you privately, would you disciple me? What would you say? Of course, Pastor Clyde said yes, and he'd probably take them through Hebrews. He'd teach them the Hebrew language. Language or Greek, right? So they learn that. They learned some wonderful things. But if somebody were to come to you, you don't know Greek and you don't know Hebrew, how are you going to disciple them? What are you going to do? And years past, people would say, well, take them through a Tozier book or take them through a, you know, some kind of book that can sort of give them, you know, three keys to an excellent life or something. Who knows? Or sit down at Denny's and have a cup of coffee and talk through life's most important issues. Well, what are you going to do if they were to ask you that question? What would you say? How would you answer them? What would you tell them? And then how would you do it? Is there a particular book in the Bible or something? Well, that's what this whole series is going to drive us toward: how would we disciple someone? If it's so important, then how do we do it? Well, we know that the original readers to this book of Hebrews consisted of three really separate and distinct groups of people, not like, unlike any other group of any church today. There's three groups. There's the first group. They are sold-out Christians. They have depended on the life and death of Christ, the vicarious atonement that he paid for our sins on the cross. So he's talking to that group, the group of believers. He's talking to a second group, and it's a group of people who heard the gospel. They understood the things about the gospel, but they didn't embrace it. They didn't make it their life. They didn't surrender to the Lord. Lordship of Christ. So they're hearing it. They're involved in the churchy community, but they just haven't assimilated Christ into their life. That's the second group. Well, there's a third group. Second and third group are the two groups that we're going to see a lot about tonight. The third group is a group of people, they heard the gospel, and they said, no way. I know exactly what you're talking about, and I don't want it. And we saw, if you were here, for John chapter 6, at the end of John chapter 6, that was that kind of group. They were healed, they were fed, they were taught, and at the very end of it, when they finally understood the gospel, John 6 says they kept on walking away from Jesus. So those are the three groups of people addressed: those who have embraced Christ, those who have heard it, haven't really assimilated Christ into their lives, and then those who have walked away. Those are the three groups of people the book of Hebrews addresses. As I said last time, the book of Hebrews is an exhortation to discipleship. It's an exhortation to shepherding, of loving one another, taking care of one another in terms of the scripture and walking with others through the challenges of the Christian life. We need to be reminded that this letter was probably written about 30 years after Jesus' resurrection. So you can imagine over a time span of 30 years, there was a significant number of people who never heard Jesus speak. They never saw Jesus. They were taking the words of the apostles and the prophets. Prophets and those who had seen them. They were taking their word for it. And that's why we see in chapter 2 today that they were depending on the testimony of those people.

6:12So Hebrews tells us that what we know about God is communicated by what Jesus communicated through the fathers and the prophets and the New Testament apostles. If you're not there already, turn to Hebrews chapter 2, verses 1 through 4, and I'm just going to read it, and then we'll drill into the passage itself. Hebrews chapter 2, verses 1 through 4. The writer says these, writes these words. He says, For this reason, we must pay much closer attention to what we've heard, so that we do not drift away from it. For if the word spoken through the angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at first, the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to those of us who heard. God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will. That's God's word. That's the authoritative, inerrant, inspired word of God that we just participated in reading. But what does it all mean? Hebrews chapter 2, 1 through 4 is the The so what of Hebrews chapter 1.

7:34It's kind of like the book of Ephesians. In the first three chapters, it's who we are in Christ. Where in chapter 1 of Hebrews, it's who Christ is. He is preeminent, he is superior to the angels, he's the author of the word. Just like in Hebrews, excuse me, Ephesians chapters 4 through 6 is the so what of Ephesians chapters 2 through 3. It tells us how to live our Christian life. Chapter 2 of Hebrews tells us, based on the authority of who Jesus Christ is, here's what you do. That's the practical application of chapter 1.

8:11And at the very end of this letter, the author tells us the reason he wrote it. The very end of the book of Hebrews, he tells us why he wrote it. It's for us to uphold his exhortation. It's for us to apply this message, the whole book of Hebrews, into our lives. If you think about it, just like any other book, the book of Hebrews was written so it would be read in one setting. And that's why we have to understand we can't just read this whole thing and preach through it in one night. But if we look at it in one setting, the purpose of this book is to apply the things that are written. We find in our text tonight both an exhortation and a warning. In fact, a severe warning. He tells us how to apply the message, and then he warns us for the grim consequences for ignoring it. In chapter 1, he lays out the fact that he is a very good thing. Acts of Jesus' superiority. In chapter 2, he demands a response in our lives. Here's how to apply Hebrews chapter 2, verses 1 through 4. It's right there on the screen if you prefer to look at it. You see, we at EBC, we must be compelled to pay the closest attention to God's word for a reason. Here it is, so that we don't neglect so great a salvation. Don't neglect it. The author of Hebrews urges us to see three significant truths that will strengthen our ministry here at Emmanuel Baptist Church. And here they are. We'll drill into each one of these. The message of salvation demands our attention. Secondly, the dire consequences for ignoring salvation are seen in verses 2 and 3. And then on the basis of our trust is the Trinity and his messengers. Isn't that great? The Trinity works through this message. And we're going to see that in verses 3 and 4.

10:02Let's deal with them one by one. The message of salvation demands our attention. And I would say this. I would say there's two critical components to this first point. First off, you should notice right away, right off the bat, that the writer expresses a sense of urgency. And second, he gives a reason for his alarm. Let's deal with each one of them. If you look at your text, you're going to see the words for this reason. You could also say, therefore.

10:30Words like therefore and for this reason are really like road markers telling you where to place your focus, where to put your attention. If you ignore road markers like this, you do it to your own peril. Now, I don't mean to put the Gettermans on the spot here, but I go out to their house, been out there a few times, and there's a road out there. You can be doing 55 miles an hour, and there's about an 80% or 80-degree turn. And if you don't pay attention to the sign, you're going off the edge of that road. We've all seen roads like that, right? We're training our 15-and-a-half-year-olds how to drive or 16-year-olds before they get their license. Those signs mean something. Well, that's what the writer of Hebrews is doing here. He says, for this reason. In short, we have for this reason, this reason encapsulates chapter 1, verses 1 through 4, and the superiority of Christ over the angels and God's messengers. He's telling us you can trust Christ and you can trust his messengers. There's an encouragement sign there, not just a warning sign. In short, Jesus is superior to the angels because he is the exact representation of God. He's the creator of all that exists. We can pay attention to him, we can listen to him. He's the creator of everything, even the angels for that matter. I want you to notice the last verse of chapter one because it's a pivotal point. The chapter tells us the greatness of Christ, and in verse 14, the last verse, he says, Are they not all ministering spirits speaking of angels or messengers sent out to render service for the Sake of those who will inherit salvation.

12:04So, angels are Jesus' ambassadors. They are there to serve people who will inherit salvation. There's a second critical point here: the purpose for the writer's alarm. Since Jesus is superior to the angels and they are his ambassadors, they're his messengers rendering service to those who will be saved. We find in verse 1, quote, we must pay much closer attention to what we've heard so that we don't drift from it. The idea here is that since God speaks through Jesus and since God speaks through his messengers the truth about salvation, we mustn't ignore the message.

12:47You might immediately recognize the severity of this warning, or you might not. But if we unpack how the original readers would have understood this text, I assure you that you'll have a much greater understanding of verse 1. How did they get it? First of all, it's clear that the writer paints word pictures with nautical terms, with nautical terms. Keep in mind that the area that this letter would have been written was in an area where a lot of boats were in use. You got the Mediterranean Sea, the Sea of Galilee, you've got the Jordan River. So a lot of nautical terms are used to help these first readers understand where the writer was headed. So the phrase in verse First one, we must pay much closer attention as a common nautical warning to keep ships on the path that they're on so they don't have a shipwreck. My family has always been an avid group of water skiers ever since my childhood. I skied in a lot of wonderful places around the country. But one place is my favorite, as my kids were growing up, was a place called the Tom Bigby Waterway. It's about 400 feet wide, and it was a shipping channel. Big barges would come through there, and we'd have to stop the boat, put the kids in the boat, and wait for the barge to go by. Actually, I'd have to get up about 20 miles an hour as it was coming by, otherwise it would kill us. But there were also big old buoys out there to guide the way. And if we weren't paying attention to those navigational markers, we could hit one of those buoys. We could hit one of those big old barges. They were probably three or four football fields long. So there's this understanding that there's this nautical terminology that he uses here to pay attention to these guide markers. If we didn't pay attention to these guide markers on the water, you could be seriously hurt or even killed. So these nautical terms are more intense than they appear. The idea is that we must be excessively compelled to pay much closer, especially the closest possible attention to the things that we've heard. Do you get the point? It doesn't come out in the English like we would read it in the original language or how they would originally hear it, but this was so important. He had them sitting on the edges of their seats to hear what he was about to say so that they wouldn't drift away from the messages about, as verse 3 puts it, so great is salvation. So great is salvation. This is an intense caution, and it's reminiscent to how Paul warned the captain of his Alexandrian ship and Acts 27. If you remember Acts 27, I'm not going to develop the whole thing, but they were on the ship. Paul warns the captain to be careful of the storm and the winds and to take certain actions, and they ignored those directions. Paul's warnings were clear.

15:39They were clear so that they wouldn't perish. The warning signals from the horrific weather should have led them to believe they should have docked and sat still for a couple of months and let these bad storms blow over, but they didn't. They didn't take the prudent advice. And we can look at bad weather. We can look at the warnings. We have a lot of advantages in our society today. We have the weather channel. We have weather.com. We have AccuWeather or whatever. They didn't have any of that stuff. We have warnings. Well, this is a different kind of warning. And the word drift in Hebrews 2:1, it has a whole different connotation than what Paul was facing here. The word drift indicates a gradual sort of unsuspecting movement in time when you come to realize that the course you're on is on a course of no return.

16:29I think the Bible says, Waterfalls of the world, Niagara Falls, you're heading towards the edge, and there's coming a time if you're in a little boat and the motor goes out, you're done. You've reached the point of no return. One of our family's favorite vacation spots was Lake Tahoe on the state line between California and Nevada, about 8,000 foot level. We looked forward to drifting down the lazy Truckee River, and there were parts in there. You'd had to literally get out of your little raft or your inner tube and move it along because the water was moving so slow. But then there were parts where the rapids would increase. But then the very end, there's this little house or this little restaurant on the end, and it's off to the right. And if you go to the left, there's plenty of warning signs. Stay away from the left, go to the right. Don't drift. Pay attention. And there were people who drifted and they didn't pay attention. They didn't get over in the lagoon to the little house. And the warning signs kept saying there's rapids down here. There's a waterfall down here. And people that weren't paying attention found themselves going about a half a mile an hour and immediately going over the edge because they didn't pay attention to the signs. They drifted towards it. And that's what the Hebrews author is telling us here. Don't drift. Don't find yourself in a situation in your walk with Christ or where you're just a listener and you haven't embraced Christ and you just allow yourself to drift away. He wants us to pay especially closer attention. So the exhortation, he Hebrews 2.1 tells us that if we might be apathetic about God's message of salvation, we will neglectfully set ourselves gradually adrift towards a course of trouble and eventually uncontrolled spiral towards catastrophe. Or, as verse 2 puts it, a just penalty, a just condemnation, which is God's wrath. You see, you mustn't allow the world's arguments to send you away from so great a salvation. Listen to the word of God. That's his point. As I mentioned early on, the writer's alarm includes personal pronouns like we. And if you'll notice in verse 1, the word we in the New American Standard is used three times. And in verse 3, the word we is used once. And so it's this collective experience. You see, it's not just one individual person who's susceptible to neglect or to drift. The word we includes people exposed to the gospel who've heard the message but haven't embraced Christ. They haven't trusted in that atonement. It would also include those people who have high-handedly rejected him. He's saying, don't drift, don't neglect. Therefore, as the body of Christ, we have a responsibility. And it's critical that we take serious our call to discipleship, take serious our call to shepherd the body of Christ. It's not just the pastors and the elders in the church who love one another, who care for one another. Who teach one another. Yes, that's our responsibility as leaders, but it's the body of Christ who are called to come alongside one another and to do the same so that our church is not set adrift with those who are set adrift. This kind of drift is common in Christian colleges, isn't it? In Christian seminaries, this kind of drift happens, even in churches. It's called institutional drift. Have you ever heard of that term? Institutional drift. They set on a course and they say that they're going to be about a particular thing and their teachings, and over a period of time, they relax and they become heresy teachers.

20:10Same concept holds true in business or in project management. You've probably heard the terminology scope creep. Having come from a business background, I promise you, I've been on many corporate meetings where scope creep took place. You set out to accomplish a particular important segment for your business to succeed, and you have 15 people who have all kinds of ideas that have nothing to do with the plan. And it's a scope creep. You go away from what your original plan was. You business folks are smiling at me. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. That's why EBC has a philosophy of ministry, don't we? Emmanuel Baptist Church. We have a philosophy of ministry. We have a doctrinal statement. Those are our guideposts. They tell us what ministries to embrace and which ones to run from. They tell us what to believe and what to teach and what to believe. What to lay hold, to lay fast of, that we wouldn't drift and that we wouldn't go down a path that is not biblical. If we lose our moorings and we drift from these guideposts, we'll embrace beliefs and actions that are contrary to the purpose of our very existence and we will deny the very God that we proclaim that we serve. So important. Case in point is Revelation chapter 2. Jesus warned the church of Ephesus. He complimented them for their great theology, but then he warned them and said, You've left your first love. Oh, they were great Bible teachers, all right. They just didn't love God and they didn't love each other. He says, I'm going to remove your church. I'm going to take your church away unless you get it right. They were set adrift. It's critical that we pay very close attention to those whom the Lord has brought to us here at Emmanuel Baptist Church. We are responsible. We must disciple them. We must shepherd them and carry them along towards a vibrant, intentional relationship with Christ so that they can walk in a manner worthy of their calling. Ephesians 4.1.

22:09Do you see what's going on here in the text? The writer exhorts the people to give excessive attention to the messengers and their messages of salvation so that they won't drift away from God's word. We are responsible. This neglect and this drift describes the broadest stream that is. The entrance through the gates of hell. You think that maybe Niagara Falls is a bad thing to go over as they drift into it unsuspectingly. There's people that enter these doors that don't know that they're on a drift that will set them into eternity without Christ, and we are responsible. Oftentimes, we think of people destined for hell. We picture the evilist, the vile, wicked kinds of character like Hitler and Pol Pot and tinpot dictators like Kim Jong-il in North Korea and his son. We think of terrorist couples like the one in San Bernardino. Last week, Debbie and I were out in Los Angeles, and we found out that those two terrorists were buried just a little bit up the street from where we used to live, out in the desert where nobody would know. And yet it was in the front page of the newspaper. Scary thing. We think those are the ones that deserve hell. But the wide, lazy river to hell is a slow, moving river on one where people don't sense any danger at all. They're oblivious to what awaits them. They could care less about the cliff of destruction before them at the end of the river and will be justly recompensed for their neglect, for their abandonment of Jesus' atoning work on the cross. They said, Jesus, I don't want it. And for his clarion call for salvation. But what about us at Immanuel Baptist Church? Do we stand on the edges of the river as they float on by and idly watch those among us set adrift without much so much as a friendly greeting after the service? Do we mind our own business and let them walk out the door because, well, we don't know who they are? Do we pray for them, encourage them on toward a solid walk with Christ, or do we neglect them because, well, we don't recognize them? Maybe they're different than us.

24:28We must let the church be the church. Turn over to John chapter 13, would you? John chapter 13, we're going to start in verse 34 here in a moment. But if you're walking with Christ, then you must pay the closest attention to what the Savior has said. We find in John 13 that the world will know us by our love for one another. John 13, 34 says this, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. How? Even as I have loved you, that you loved one another. By this, all men will know that you are my disciples by your love for one another. Neglecting one another is ignoring one another. That is not what the church is to be.

25:16So Emmanuel Baptist Church must be a church that is recognized by three things. I'll put them on the slide. We must be recognized by sound expository preaching. That is, pastors who are dedicated to be in the Word for hours during the week and to. Bring before the body of Christ what the text says, what the author intended for us to know from that text. We have to be a church like this. We are. We have to be a church that has music that exalts Christ. Praise God for our musicians tonight, teenagers leading us in worship of our Lord. And third, we have to be a people who love one another, as is evidenced by our service to and for each other. We have a church here that serves each other, we have a church that serves the Lord. So, this message of salvation that demands our attention, if we don't take these warnings serious, then we see in verses two and three some very serious consequences. Well, that brings us to our second point: the dire consequences for ignoring salvation. Verses two and three.

26:19It's the second significant truth, the dire consequences for ignoring salvation. I would direct your attention to verses two and three. Let me just read them again. I think it's important. He says, For if the word spoken through the angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? I'll just stop right there. How shall we escape? In these verses, we see that the writer uses the reliability of the Old Testament to illustrate the dependability of God's word in the New Testament, which is where we are now. First, First, we see the historical basis for the dire consequences of ignoring our salvation. There's a historical basis for that. And second, we see that there's a justification for the reason for the dire consequences for ignoring salvation. So there's a historical basis in verse 2. In verse 2, you should know the phrase, the word spoken through the angels, is a direct reference back to Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 through 4, where the writer says this. God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers, in the prophets and in many portions and in many ways, I won't read the rest of it, but God spoke long ago to the fathers, in the prophets, in many portions and in many ways. In these last days, he speaks to us in his son.

27:47Let's see how this works. Turn over to Acts chapter 7. How did God speak long ago to the fathers and the prophets? And to what effect does it have on New Testament believers? In Acts chapter 7, both Stephen and Paul tell us that one of the many ways God spoke long ago through the angels, Stephen says this to the religious leaders in verse 52. Acts chapter 7, verse 52, we read these words, which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers you have become?

28:30You who received the law as what? Ordained by, you see it there? Angels. You received a law ordained by angels and did not keep it. Stephen confronted the religious leaders of the day, and Paul, as I mentioned in Galatians 3, verse 19, you don't have to go there. He says this, that the law was ordained through angels. When Moses got the law, it was ordained through angels. And so the law, back in Hebrews 2, the law in Hebrews 2.2 tells us that it became binding. It's a legal term. So to what extent did God use angels to communicate on his behalf? Why is it that we have to listen or read these words? What they said was legally binding because what they said was the same as if God himself uttered these words. Their words were God's words. God's words were their words, as it was recorded, so that, as we see in Hebrews 2.2, every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty. Those who broke the Mosaic law were judged. They received a just penalty. The just penalties for disobedience of God's law were known in advance. There was no hiding it. God was very clear about what would happen as laws were broken. It couldn't come as a surprise or as a shock so that people could point to God and say, that's too harsh. You're unfair.

30:01Every violation and disobedience received its just punishment for the people and the nation of Israel to whom these laws applied. Notice the severity of sin and its consequences throughout the Old Testament. Let me just give you a few of them. You see, insulting God had a just penalty. You know what it was? It's the death penalty. Committing adultery resulted in the death penalty for the nation of Israel. Incest resulted in the death penalty. They knew it ahead of time. If you commit these things, you will die.

30:38You want to know something about the severe consequences for Israel and breaking God's law? I would invite you to turn to Deuteronomy chapter 21. It seems so severe, but this is what God says. In Deuteronomy chapter 21, we see that disobedient children in the nation of Israel were to be stoned to death. Lest anybody say we need to do that today because that's what was done in the Old Testament. We are not the nation of Israel. We're not under the law. But notice what happens here. Deuteronomy 21, verse 18. If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them. Verse 19, then his father and mother shall seize him and bring them to the elders at the city at the gateway of his hometown. They shall say to the elders of the city, This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not listen or obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death.

31:44That sounds harsh, doesn't it? So, here's the reason. So you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear it and fear. Wow, that sounds harsh. How do we deal with this? I like the way Pastor MacArthur puts it. He wrote this, John MacArthur wrote these words. He says, God is often accused of being unjust when his punishments seem to us to be out of proportion to the wrong committed. But God, by his very nature, cannot be unjust.

32:22Under the old covenant, he punished severely those who were determined to live without him and to defy him. Those who high-handedly rebelled against him, he punished them. Back to MacArthur, quote, he removed them from among his people for the sake of those who were pure and holy and wanted to live for him. His judgment on the people of Israel was severe because they knew better. That's a just punishment. If our judges of the land say to us today, you know what? If you exceed the speed limit by 10, Miles an hour, I'm going to fine you $500 so that when you do exceed it by 10 miles an hour, you will receive a $5 or $100 or whatever the number is, whatever his determination is, it won't be a surprise. Verse 3 is the justification for the reason for the dire consequences for ignoring salvation. Verse 3, here it is. You can see it in your text. He says, How will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

33:29You should be immediately asking the question, escape what? What is he talking about? How shall you escape? Escape what? Back to the historical reason for his argument in verse 2. How shall we escape a just penalty if we, in verse 3, neglect, meaning ignore, pay no attention to, abandon so great a salvation? How shall we escape? Or in verse 1, refuse to pay close attention to the things that we've heard and thus drift into eternal separation from God.

34:03The idea is, if the penalty was that severe under the law in the Old Testament, and we neglect so great a salvation in the New Testament, how much more severe do you think it's going to be? You think stoning a child because he disobeys his parents is severe. I've got news for you. Knowing the gospel and high-handedly rejecting it is much more severe. Ladies and gentlemen, that's why discipleship is. Shepherding is so important. We have to be about loving God's people and shepherding them through the truth of God's word. This doesn't mean that genuinely saved people lose their salvation. That's not what he's talking about here. Remember, there's three kinds of people: there are those who are genuinely saved, they're not going to lose their salvation. He's talking to the other two kinds: people who've heard the gospel and displayed a marginal interest in Christ, but were not yet saved, and the other group who just high-handedly rejected him. They knew the truth. They were John 6. They just kept walking away.

35:02How would you escape if you neglect so great a salvation? Scripture has a lot to say about the reality of hell for those who drift away from the Lord, paying no attention to the fact that hell is a very real place and that one day they won't escape their just reward, which is a quote-unquote just penalty for the refusal to assimilate the atoning work of Christ on the cross and the work of God, the Word of God in their lives, when you neglect or ignore or pay no attention to so great a salvation in verse 3, hell is a just reward by a just God.

35:45The Lord describes hell as a place of eternal fire, Matthew 25, 41, as a place of outer darkness, as an abyss, meaning a bottomless pit. Hell is the location where the Will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And some might be tempted to dismiss this message just as another one of those hellfire and brimstone sermons. How do we know that what we're reading here is truthful? How do we know the writer got it right? How do we know Hebrews is genuine? There's got to be a way for me to escape from this, right?

36:23How can we have such great confidence about all this talk of drifting of angels and that punishment and salvation are all authorized by God Himself? How do we know that what we're reading here is not from the pen of some disconnected human author? Well, that brings us to the third significant truth intended to strengthen the ministry at Emmanuel, and it's the basis for our trust, the Trinity, and his messengers. How do we know that what this author wrote got it right? Well, he testifies to the Trinity being behind the whole message. That's the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

37:05We know that what we're reading in Hebrews is genuinely from God for three reasons. You can see them there. The first, the message of our great salvation was first spoken by the Lord. Second, in verse 3, the message of our great salvation was spoken by the Lord and was confirmed by those who heard him speaking. And third, God, God the Father, testifies with those who heard him. Heard the Lord's spoken message about our great salvation, both by signs, wonders, and various miracles, and by the gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his will.

37:42You say, well, that's circular reasoning, right? How can we trust these people? They say God is the author of this thing, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's a great question. Is it circular reasoning? Well, how do they prove it? That's the question. I would direct your attention to verse 4. Let me just read it. God testifying with them both by signs, wonders, and by various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his will.

38:10Verse 4, because what they said was backed up by their activities, by their actions, meaning signs and wonders and miracles, many kinds of miracles. And one more thing: by the gifts that the Holy Spirit had given them, which authenticated what they said. Go back to John 6. We looked at it so recently. All the things that Jesus said directed them to believe one thing: that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. They didn't want to believe that message, so Jesus kept doing miracle after miracle before and even after.

38:46And they didn't want to believe it. So they walked away from him. But he authenticated his message through what he did. Notice what happened in Acts chapter 2, if you would. Turn to Acts chapter 2. Verses 22 to 23, Peter says this in Acts 2. I'll wait for you to get there. Peter is arguing or presenting the gospel to the people who killed Jesus, the very people responsible for his death. He says, Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus, the Nazarene, a man attested to you by what? By God?

39:25With what? Miracles and wonders and signs. In other words, what he said was backed up by what he did, which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know. This man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and the foreknowledge of God, you. You see it? They're all gathered around, and he is implicating them. He is indicting them for a crime, the greatest crime in world history. And he points and he says, you killed Jesus. You nailed him to the cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. You know what he did. You know the signs. You know the miracles. You know how he fed people. You know how he healed people. Yet you put him to death. I want you to see how the signs and the wonders and the miracles authenticate the gospel message, which leads people to faith in the gospel and ultimately eternal salvation. Look at verse 36 in chapter 2 of Acts.

40:22He continues, and he says, Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, both Lord and Christ. And Savior. Just as a side note here, God made Jesus Lord. He is Lord. You don't make him Lord. He is Lord. And He is Christ. He is the Savior. He says, This Jesus, whom you crucified, I could just see him pointing at them. Verse 37. Now, when they heard this, like Hebrews 2:1, they paid the closest attention, didn't they, to the message? And they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do? Like, you're right. We've heard the message. We saw the miracles. We killed him. What do we do?

41:09They were convicted to the core, and so now they have a question. What do we do? Verse 38, Peter said to them, Repent. Turn the other direction. Stop acting like that. And each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises for you and for your children. Might I add that just hours before they said, His blood be on us and our children. He says, This is for your children too. Now there's forgiveness. And for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God would call to himself. And with many other words, he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, Be saved from this perverse generation. So then, verse 41, those who received his word were what?

41:58Baptized. An outward expression of an inward change. And so, what happens after this baptism? And that day there were added 3,000 souls because of the signs, wonders, and miracles? No. Because of what the signs, wonders, and miracles authenticated, the truth of the word, that Jesus was sent from the Father. They were continually, verse 42, they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to prayer. You know what that is? That's discipleship. That's shepherding. That's saying, I'm new in Christ. I need help. That's somebody saying to you, I'm new in Christ. I need help. And you're thinking to yourself, what do I do?

42:41That's why we're here. Jesus is killers. They saw the signs and the wonders and miracles and they heard the message of salvation. And 3,000 people joined the church. Not that they joined some institution, but they became of God's body of called-out people. So the Trinity is involved in our salvation. The Son spoke the message. The Father testified the truthfulness of the message through the signs and wonders and miracles. And the Holy Spirit distributed gifts to God's people, just like He distributes them to us now in accordance with His own will. These gifts are given to all believers, aren't they? If you've trusted Christ, you have a spiritual gift. If you're not applying your spiritual gift, you are saying to God, I'm not interested in what you want me to do with my life.

43:26That's a tragedy. That's a tragedy. These gifts are given to all believers. The gospel message never changes. It was authenticated by Jesus and his apostles through the Holy Spirit so that you and I can have confidence in the authenticity of his word so that when we sit down with somebody and walk them through the scriptures, we can do it with confidence. The same confidence that Jesus and the apostles had. If you've repented of your sins, if you've placed your trust in Christ, who paid the price for your sins on the cross, then you, my friend, have a spiritual gift.

44:01The Holy Spirit has given you a gift to glorify God and to build up the body of Christ, and you are responsible. You're responsible. Over the next several weeks, we're going to do this deep dive into the critical nature of what it means to serve Christ and his church with those gifts. You need to be here. You need to be a part of this as we worship God through the teaching of his word. We're going to see that shepherding and discipleship must be the hallmark of Emmanuel Baptist Church. You'll get help, and you'll see how this vital role applies to you to that very end. Well, what have we seen today? As a church, as an Emmanuel Baptist Church, we've got to be compelled.

44:49We have to be compelled to pay very close attention to God's Word so that we don't neglect so great a salvation. We can't neglect it. We can't spurn it. We can't. Walk away from it. We can't drift. We can't watch people drifting away. We saw that the message of salvation that demands our attention. There are dire consequences for ignoring salvation, for those who have been exposed to it and said no, or been exposed to it and said, I'm just thinking about it, Lord.

45:20I want to live a few more years and just party and have fun. And I just pray that I don't die in a car wreck. Don't neglect the truth of the gospel. Don't neglect it for yourself and don't neglect it in the life of another. The basis of our trust, the Trinity and His messengers. We can believe what's said here because the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit has been involved in it. The Holy Spirit has gifted each one of us to serve Christ and to serve this body and to reach this world with the gospel of Christ. That's why we're here and we're not in heaven, right?

45:52That's the message for today. Come back next week because I'm excited about next week, too. I hope you are too. Let's pray. Father, we're so grateful for the truth of your word. Lord, what would we do if you didn't give us this message? We would be those who are drifting. We would be those who are neglecting. We would be those who can't even find moments in the day to spend time in your word, much less time with somebody else who is struggling and needs help. Lord, would you use these next weeks to implant in our minds and in our hearts the truth of discipleship, the truth of why you love us? Left us here. Your last command ought to be our greatest concern, and that is to make disciples, Lord. That's what you told us in Matthew 28. Make disciples, but Lord, we don't know how. We just fess up. We don't know how. And we're asking, Father, for you to teach us. We're asking you to give us tools to make it so that we can do this for your glory. Not as a guilt trip, but Father, we want to love you with our lives. We want to love one another and show the world that you're a God of love because we love one another.

47:04Teach us, Lord. Prepare us for these last messages in a few weeks from now that tell us how to do it. And we thank you in Christ's name. Amen.