Hebrews 2:1-4
Therefore
we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away
from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and
every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we
escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the
Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness
by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit
distributed according to his will. (Heb 2:1-4).
A narrative from this church goes something
like this, “I am reformed. I attend a very good reformed Baptist church. Our
pastors teach from the Bible – consecutive expository preaching. We love
fellowship, we even have lunch together on every Sunday! We are not compelled
to plant the so called seed in order to be blessed as some of preachers compel
their members in some of the churches. And yes, we are very involved in
missions. We have planted churches all over the country!” Perhaps you can even
hear your voice, saying these things. Really?
Let me ask you some questions so that I may I try
to understand where you are. We ask why question when perplexed by what one is
saying and how they are living:
·
Are you sure that
this church is what you say it is?
·
So, do you really
believe that you are spiritually privileged as you say?
·
Why do you not
come for Sunday School or attend the afternoon meetings?
·
Why did you
arrive so late for the worship of God today/last Sunday?
·
You are not
intending or planning to be there for the afternoon worship service, are you?
·
We gather for worship
of God, is there a greater or better appointment on the Lords Day?
·
Why have you not
believed the message delivered?
·
And what is the
message but what God has spoken?
·
Are you involved
in any believer within the week for mutual encouragement and edification?
·
Why do you not
fellowship with other Christians and yet you will spend eternity with them?
·
Is there a sinner
you are reaching out with the gospel?
·
If I said you are
a Sunday Christian would you deny it?
·
Why, my dear
friend have you cherished sin in your heart?
Imagine a boat, on an anchor on the
shore abandoned. The anchors and the ropes sooner begin to rust and to wear out
because of one thing – neglect. A neglected boat, might by and by, very slowly,
drifts away. Some of you have neglected your faith. After days, weeks, months
and years of neglect, it has been rusting and corroding… Why? Perhaps you may have forgotten how great a salvation
we have. But the warning today is this – Wake up. Shake up and shake away all
the dust of neglect and arise with a new vigour. For while you may and actually
can afford to neglect your boat, but you cannot afford to neglect your
salvation! If you neglect your salvation then you condemn yourself to the worst
peril.
1.
Your duty - Pay much closer attention
to what we have heard.
The
four verses are applying what we have heard in the last chapter. Your knowledge
of the supremacy of Christ has to distil to a transformed like so that you
become Christ-like. The alternative is presented in these verses by a very
strong warning. But before the warning is your duty – “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to
what we have heard…”
The
teaching on the Supremacy of Christ has direct implications on how you live.
You must listen to the Word of God taught, know and understand what He says and
seek to live accordingly. When you read your Bible you must pay attention to
it. When you come to church you need to be very attentive. When you listen to
the sermons on-line you have a responsibility to seek to understand everything said
for the purpose of committing it into action.
It
is no good ever learning but never able to arrive at the knowledge of truth (2
Tim. 3:7) so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him,
bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God
(Col.1:10).
How would you be able to pay much closer
attention to your salvation?
Then you need to do the following:
1)
Know the
doctrines of the gospel
The
way to know God is by hearing the Word He has given. Faith comes by hearing God’s
Word. Be there every time there is an opportunity of hearing the Word of God.
Show me a Christian who is there for every ministry of the Word and I will show
a person who will sooner mature in the faith. But show me a Sunday Christian
and I will show you a malnourished spiritual baby.
Never
be tired of hearing the Word of God. God says in His Word,
Like newborn infants, long for the pure
spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have
tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2:2-3)
Long and crave for the pure spiritual milk. This is the way to
grow up into salvation. The balanced and regular diet of food for spiritual
babes is the pure, or unadulterated Word of God. And we are told that for us to
grow in salvation, we should have a great desire and appetite for the word
of God, which is the proper food for the nourishing and strengthening of
the soul.
From the point of regeneration, that is new birth, to the growth
into the old age a child of God is fed and sustained by the regular intake of
the Word of God. Strong desires and love for the word of God are a sure
evidence of a person who is being born again. If one has such desires as strong
as the baby has for the milk, he proves that he is born from above. Growth and development
in spiritual wisdom and grace are to be the design and desire of every Christian.
There is no doubt that the word of God, when it is rightly used and applied,
can never leave a man as it finds him, but improves and makes him better.
There
is a general consensus among the older people and especially the ladies who
believe in complementarity not to develop or grow in their knowledge of God
(theology). Yet, how will your faith be built since it comes by hearing the
Word of God? How will your hope be solidified if you do not highly esteem the
Word of God? It should be your great desire to know the truth of the gospel by
regularly attending to it by reading, hearing, studying, memorizing, meditating
and applying it in your life. It should be your great delight to highly value
and esteem it, to heed with uttermost diligence what God has said, and to be
conformed to the Word of God. Matthew Henry puts it like this:
We must embrace them in our hearts and affections, retain them in
our memories, and finally regulate our words and actions according to them.
2)
Consider the
evidence of salvation in your life
The
evidence that you are actually not in your sins, guilt and condemnation, is
that you have faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. Unless you have
gone to the cross of Calvary and repented of your sins you remain under
condemnation. Repent and live. Confess and renounce your sins to Christ. I do
not mean that you confess your sins to the priest – I mean to the great high
priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. Only he can pardon.
Secondly,
Anyone who names the name of Christ must depart from iniquity. Paul, told the
Ephesian elders in Acts 20:21 that he testified both to the Jews and Greeks of
repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So unless you have
learnt the doctrine of trusting in the Saviour of sinners, even the Lord Jesus
Christ who died for the forgiveness of our sins, and learnt to renounce your
sins, there is no hope that you are paying a close attention to what you have
heard.
3)
Consider the
fruit of your faith
The
fruit of your faith is godly living. Living as one whose sins, Christ has taken
and atoned for. Living as one who has been conveyed from the domain of darkness
to the light of His marvellous kingdom. Living as a child of light. Walking in
the Spirit and not gratifying the desires of the flesh. Putting to death all
the deeds and passions of the flesh and put on Christ. Dying to flesh and
living to Christ. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you – sexual
immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness which is idolatry
because on the account of this, the wrath of God is coming. The fruit of your
faith is putting them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander and obscene talk
from your mouth.
The
fruit of the Spirit is to put on the new self which is being renewed in the
knowledge after the image of its Creator. Put on then, as God’s chosen ones,
holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and
patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another,
forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
And above all these to put on love, which binds everything together in perfect
harmony. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. May the Lord help us to
see where the fruit of the Spirit has not been manifest in our lives that we
may seek to grow as we ought by His help. And in so doing we shall keep in step
with the Spirit and not neglect our salvation.
2.
The warning: You could drift away
Therefore we must pay much closer
attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
The fact that it is possible to drift
away from the good news of our salvation and live as if we never heard it is
real. The Bible gives us a strong warning, lest
we drift away from it. We must realize that it is possible to hear the purest
gospel, but have it leak and run out of our heads and hearts. Our minds and
memories are like a leaking jug, if we do not pay much closer attention. This leaking
comes from the corruption of our natures, the enmity and subtlety of Satan (for
like birds of the air, he steals away the seed of the word), from the
entanglements and snares of the world, the thorns that choke the good seed so
that it does not bear fruit.
The Lord in His kindness, does give us
various incentives to enable us to keep in step with the Holy Spirit and to be
in His grace. In this passage He employs a strong warning of the possibility of
drifting away. Just as a boat that is not anchored can slip, and drift into the
sea, and be forever lost, it is possible for a professing believer, even a
member of the church to lose his profession and be lost in his perdition. I did
not say that it is possible for a true Christian, a true son or daughter of God
to be lost, I said a member of a church, even this church. The phrase means to
flow or drift aside like a ship that a contrary wind causes it to drift past its
harbour so that it is prevented from reaching its destination.[1]
This is what happens to spiritual
children that Paul describes in Ephesians 4:14, who are tossed to and fro by
the waves and carried about in every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness
in deceitful schemes.
I began by pointing out the fact that
you need to be solid in your beliefs, that are based on the living Word of God.
If this is not the case then the risk of drifting away is indeed great. So great
that you should give this warning the seriousness it deserves.
It is possible to drift away and make
a shipwreck of your faith just as Hymenaeus and Alexander did. They were unable
to hold faith and good conscience and the result were catastrophic – they were
handed over to Satan! It is possible for you to come to a point where you are
lost in sin, and in rebellion.
Therefore, I adjure you from the Word of God,
pay close attention to what you hear. Hold fast the mystery of the faith with a
clear conscience. Do not entertain speculations, dissensions and seemingly
clever doctrines, that lead to doubt and drifting away. Rather, only accept the
doctrines that are in the Bible. It is the life-giving truth that will make you
a serious believer. Live the truths of the Bible you hear. Put them into
action. Walk the talk of faith. Fight the good fight of faith. Run in order to
win the prize of the upward call.
3.
The reason: You have heard God’s
message
For since the message declared by
angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received
a just retribution,
Why should you pay a much closer
attention to what we have heard? Several reasons are given from verse 2,
1) The message declared by the angels proved
reliable
2)
The Word was
declared to us initially by God the Son
3)
The word of
salvation (the gospel) was attested to us by the Apostles
4)
God bore witness (of
the gospel) by signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy
Spirit
5) There is a just retribution for those who transgress
and are disobedient
This is the logos which was mediated by the angels. The law that was given to
Moses by God in Mt. Sinai was through the angels. This is what Paul says in
Galatians 3:19 that the law was added because of transgressions, until the
offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in
place, through angels by an intermediary.
Stephen’s indictment against the Jews
is also clear that, “…You who received
the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.” (Acts 7:53).
Therefore, angels somehow participated in the giving of the law. But this
participation of the angels in so far as the giving of the law was concerned,
shows that the law was inferior to the gospel, which was given to us through
the Son!
But either way, the message proved
reliable and those who did not obey were dealt with accordingly, for every transgression or disobedience (of
God’s message) received a just retribution. The threats of the law came
into effect, not one of the word was empty rhetoric. God will punish every
unrepented lie; every gossip, every covetousness, every lust. God is holy and
he will vindicate his holiness by his justice in due season. Are you ready to
meet your Creator God?
What does it mean that God bore
witness? He testified that the messengers were authorized
and sent by him to preach Christ and salvation by him to the world. And how did
he bear them witness? He bore witness by signs, and wonders, and various
miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will:
1)
Signs of his gracious presence with them, and of his power working by
them;
2)
Wonders, works quite beyond the power of nature, and
out of the course of nature, filling the spectators with wonder and admiration,
stirring them up to attend to the doctrine preached, and to enquire into it.
3)
Miracles,
in which an almighty agency appeared beyond all reasonable controversy;
4)
Gifts of
the Holy Ghost,
qualifying, enabling, and exciting them to do the work to which they were
called.
Such is what God did to authenticate the message of the gospel in
order that all should believe. Such will be the evidence against those who live
in disobedience. Those who refute the claims of God’s Word will attest that
they acted against knowledge, they suppressed the truth to their own detriment,
for the wrath of God will soon be revealed from heaven against such (Rom.
1:18).
It is God who distributes spiritual gifts according to His will.
It is not according to the desire of the recipient or of the preachers that the
gifts of the Spirit are given. All we can do is earnestly desire, and God
determines how to distribute according to His own will. It was the will
of God that we should have sure footing for our faith, and a strong foundation
for our hope in receiving the gospel. As at the giving forth of the law there
were signs and wonders, by which God testified the authority and excellency of
it. Therefore God witnessed to the gospel by more and greater miracles, as to a
more excellent and abiding truth. How can you not believe this and neglect that
which God has so wonderfully bestowed? To whom shall you go? Only God has words
of eternal life.
4.
The possibility: Neglecting such a
great salvation
The next question does presuppose the
possibility, not of rejecting the message of salvation, but of receiving it and
neglecting it. To neglect is let it lie
unattended. It should be clear to everyone here that being indifferent to
salvation is a huge crime, but for the youngest believer to contemplate that he
can profess salvation and neglect it and think that he is on the right road to
heaven, is to deceive himself. Salvation is the supreme solution that every
sinner needs, whether he knows it or not. But to receive it and let it lie in
neglect is to sign your own eternal death warrant.
Yet, my dear brothers and sisters,
some of you have neglected your salvation, not once or twice but many times and
for some of you – for many years! You wake up to go to work every day Monday to
Friday and sometimes Saturdays as well. You go to make money in order you would
be more comfortable here on earth. And yet, you put so little effort in your
intake of the Word of God either privately or publicly. How would you explain
your coming to church so late and for so few hours? How would you explain
spending so much money on yourself and your family when you spend so little in
the cause of Christ? How would you explain your lethargy in building lasting
relationships in the church and yet are so keen to do networking in your
profession in order to ascend the career ladder? This is neglect of salvation.
This is taking for granted the fact we have been ransomed, not with perishable
things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that
of a lamb without spot or blemish.
Do we all realize the magnitude of our
salvation? It is substantively a great
salvation because God the Father had to give the Son and so great that the
Son of God had to bring it to us. It is qualitatively a great salvation because
the Son of God had to die for the salvation of sinners. It is such a great
salvation because effectively every single sinner for whom Christ died is
saved. It is such a great salvation that it contains and brings rescue from
mortal danger and brings us to the land of safety in the arms of the sovereign
God. Ours is such a great salvation that ought not
to be neglected.
The
description of the gospel is it is a great salvation. So great salvation that
no other salvation can compare with it. So great that none can fully express
its extent. None can yet conceive, or perceive how great it is. It is a great
salvation that the gospel discovers, for it discovers a great Saviour, the Lord
of ages, the King of kings, the Lord of lords. The gospel reveals the one who
has manifested God to be reconciled to our nature, and reconcilable to our
persons. It is a great salvation for it shows how we may be saved from so great
sin and so great misery, guilt and and be restored to so great holiness and so
great happiness.
This
salvation that we have in Christ is so great that we can not afford to neglect
it. How can you neglect such a great salvation in sanity? How can you neglect
such a great benefit of eternal bliss and joy for your soul? How can you
neglect such a great salvation offered so freely? How can you neglect such a
great salvation offered so fully? Our salvation is offered full and free –
absolutely graciously. Completely priceless!
This salvation is fully secure in Christ
– it cannot be reversed or withdrawn. Christ said it is finished – that is, it
is complete. It is eternally done, that there is a way to come to God and be
fully reconciled to him and be adopted into his family and be made his son or
daughter and enjoy all the blessings of eternal bliss. Therefore, this
salvation is firm and sure. It is good and perfect. It is well and done. The Christian
message of the gospel is the news that those who are saved are actually saved
and remains in salvation for ever! Saved not by their good works for they have
none, but for ever saved by the perfect good works of Christ who is our great Saviour.
But the warning is sure - you shall not escape if you neglect such a great salvation. In other words, there is no way to flee and there is no where to flee for anyone who neglects such a great salvation. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him in contempt (Heb. 6:4-6).
And if you neglect your salvation by pursuing ungodliness and worldliness, the Bible very clearly says, "For if we go one sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries." (Heb. 10:26-27)
But the warning is sure - you shall not escape if you neglect such a great salvation. In other words, there is no way to flee and there is no where to flee for anyone who neglects such a great salvation. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him in contempt (Heb. 6:4-6).
And if you neglect your salvation by pursuing ungodliness and worldliness, the Bible very clearly says, "For if we go one sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries." (Heb. 10:26-27)
Conclusion
Back to where we began. You came to
this church, usually very enthusiastic. I know that some of you have been born
and raised here, others have become members by the virtue of their parents,
others have joined along the way, etc. Yes, a vast majority of us, found a
church where we were not constantly subjected to heretical teachings, and a
church where various burdens were not being laid on our shoulders, and we
gladly signed in. Some of you escaped the tyranny of the pastors, and yet
others the heresy of their religious systems, and deceitfulness of their
schemes.
But while you began with excitement in
Spirit, this has waned over the years. Slow fade, it has been. You well know
that deep within your heart the dust of neglect is collecting, choking your
spiritual vitality. Perhaps it is cobwebs of worldliness that are rapidly
building up constraining your spiritual life. It may as well be that your
spiritual machine has not been oiled for long and so rust and rot are killing
your soul. Or perhaps it is weeds – thorns and thistles that is making the
garden of your spiritual life unfruitful. I have one word for you renounce them
today and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your
soul.
It is possible that you have tried to
justify yourself with such statements like, ‘the pastor does not understand,
I’m unwell, I have young children, my husband is too demanding, my job, etc.
yet these excuses will not be accepted by God in eternity. As Aaron’s rod
swallowed all the magicians’ snakes – your excuses are swallowed by the Word of
God. Your excuses are inexcusable!
The way forward is to face the reality
of your destiny. Soon you will come face to face with the shocking reality,
when you shall stand before God and his glory will shine upon all the rust and
cobwebs and weeds and it will be a great shame. I am here to inform you that
the time to appear before the throne of God will be too late for your soul. Tomorrow,
yeah tomorrow, you say, I will shape up and I will win the crown. But the time
to turn to the great physician of the soul, the Lord Jesus Christ is now and he
will permanently, eternally shape your destiny. It is now, my friend, not
tomorrow – what do you know about tomorrow? If you are not ready to face the
holy God now, then you won’t be tomorrow. Turn to Christ and live!
