God Spoke

So we're starting a new series tonight in Hebrews and obviously chapter one, verse one. I checked and it's 16 years ago that we did Hebrews the last time. And I'm not sure, I can't remember now. I looked this afternoon, it didn't take many sessions to get through it. I think about 25 or 30 guaranteed we're not gonna get through it that fast this time. It's an amazing book. All of the books are wonderful and precious and exciting and Hebrews is right up there with the best of them. I really love the book of Hebrews. It's a very, very precious book, very, very deep. Has some controversial issues which we'll obviously deal with as we go along. And it is different to the other epistles of Paul and of Peter and of John. And it is different in the sense that it is not a, it seems to not be a letter. It seems to actually be a sermon. And you will know that when you speak, when you preach, you preach differently to the way you write. I've seen people try to transcribe my sermons and it's a mess. When you try and write it down, it just doesn't work because it's designed to work in terms of the way I speak. But Hebrews is, and so it is like a sermon. It doesn't have a beginning. It does have an end, like any sermon has an end. It doesn't have a beginning in the sense of who's writing to whom. And even what the subject really is, there is a bit of an introduction which we're gonna look at this evening. So it lacks those things. It is different in that it is just like a, it's in fact very much the same way as I preach or teach. Now, you know that there are different styles of teaching and preaching. But what I do is what we call expository preaching. I take a text and I will look at a part of the text or of the verse and explain what it means, explain its context, explain its background and then make an application. What does that mean to us today? Then I go to the next part of the text and I will look at that, at the background, the history, the meaning, the words that I used and so on and then apply that again. And so we go through the text. And so that's very different to the way many preachers preach in that some will never make an application and some will preach the whole sermon and then they'll tag on an application at the end. Now, Hebrews is exactly the way I preach. And that is that he, it's expository. In other words, he's taking the scriptures, he's taking the Old Testament scriptures and he's expounding on those scriptures. What do they mean? What is the context? And then he applies that. Then he takes another aspect of the Old Testament scriptures and he gives the meaning of that and the application of that. And so he goes right through. So remember that Paul in his letters, generally the first half is doctrine. And it's not expository in the sense that Paul is not taking Old Testament scripture and analyzing it. Paul is simply saying what God told him to say. Whereas Hebrews is taking Old Testament scripture. There are dozens of references to the Old Testament. Some of them direct, some of them paraphrased, but it's all based on the Old Testament. Paul does not do that. And then Paul takes the first part of his letter generally and that contains doctrine. And then the last part of the letter, and it's not 50-50. Sometimes it's 70-30. Sometimes it's a little bit mixed up. But in the latter part, he will bring the application. And so it's different to the way that Paul writes. The other challenge with the book is that we don't know who it was written to. We don't know where it was written from and we don't know who wrote it. And that creates problems in some ways. It creates problems because we don't understand the context in which it is being written. When Paul writes to the Corinthians, we know exactly the cultural context of the city of Corinth. And you may remember when we did Corinthians, we said that we can just as well call it first and second Californians because the environment, the cultural, the moral, the intellectual context of the city of Corinth is exactly the same as LA. And so you have a context, you understand the background. When Paul speaks about marriage, when he talks about adultery, when he talks about drunkenness, these are issues that we understand and we're able to relate to that. So we don't know who it is written to. You say, well, it says the book, the epistle to the Hebrews in my translation, at the very top, the epistle to the Hebrews. Well, that's not inspired. That's not in the scriptures. If you look at Paul's letters, he will say to the churches in Galatia or to those in Rome or wherever else, this is not in the scripture. This is a heading which they attached to it way back in the first few hundred years after Christ. It's not a bad heading because all we've got is the book itself. And so we have to analyze the book itself to come to a conclusion who wrote it and to whom it was written and when it was written. When is important because it sets a cultural, sorry, a political context, but not just a political context, also a cultural context. If you had a letter written to people in America 50 years ago, and you had a letter written to Americans today, they would be very different letters because the culture, the politics, the environment has changed in the last 50 years. And so understanding the date helps to understand why certain things being said. Now, we don't have any of that. So all we have is the book itself. So we have to go through the book and examine what they call the internal evidence. Now, I'll get past all the lecturing in a moment, but in understanding any of the Bible books, there are two sets of facts that we look at. We look at external information, information in history, information from other books in the Bible that helps us understand the book. And then we look at internal evidence. So when we look at Paul's letters, we particularly look at the book of Acts to try and figure out in Paul's journeys when did he actually write this in the context of the journeys, his three major journeys which are given to us in the book of Acts. We don't have that. So we have to look at only, we only have the internal evidence, only have what's in the book itself. All right, so looking at the book itself, it clearly seems to be written to Jewish believers. But even then we can't say whether these are ethnic Jews or whether these are proselytes, whether these are Gentiles who have adopted the Jewish faith but these are people who had the Jewish faith before they came to Christ. And they are being tempted to return to their Jewish roots and to neglect Christ. And so that is one of the main themes of the book is the greatness of Jesus Christ. And that's what makes it a wonderful book. And in fact, I was just speaking with someone this afternoon and explaining that I feel very inadequate to teach on this book because it is about Jesus and I feel inadequate to speak about Jesus because he is so great and glorious and wonderful and what the book reveals of him is so glorious. And so what the writer is doing is he's trying to remind them how much better Jesus is than Judaism. How much better Jesus's sacrifice is than the sacrifice of the temple? How much better the priesthood of Jesus is than the priests in Israel? How much better the word is that we have from Jesus as opposed to the Old Testament? Not saying the Old Testament is worthless but what we have is better. And so you can call it the book of better things because he's reminding them that what they have is better things. He's also reminding them about the dangers of falling away. And these are very controversial chapters particularly chapter six and chapter 10. We'll get to those chapters in a while. And so the dangers then of... So it's not just a matter of saying, well, we're just gonna go back to Judaism. He is saying, no, this is a very, very serious thing. It speaks about... So that's who he's writing to. He's writing to what seems to be Jewish believers. Obviously it is written to all of us because it is part of scripture. And so it is written to us also. We have the same temptation. While we may not have Jewish roots, we may have Catholic roots, we may have religious roots of some kind and there may be a temptation to say, I want to go back to those things. And the point is to remind us, no, what we have in Christ is far superior to anything that you can have anywhere else. And I'm not saying in this church, I'm saying in Christ. So that's the purpose of the letter. Who wrote the letter? Well, nobody knows. That's just the bottom line. There's many, many theories. One of the most popular theories is that Paul wrote it. While there are aspects of it that I think that I would like to think that Paul wrote it. And in fact, this is one of the oldest traditions is that Paul wrote it. But there was a political reason for that, which I'm not gonna get into, but it had to do with the accepting of the book as part of the canon of scripture. And so there were those who said, well, Paul wrote it because Paul's writings had already received the stamp of approval. What we do know from looking again at the internal evidence is that the writer is Greek speaking. He speaks and writes Greek at the very highest academic level. This is Alexandrian Greek. This is not what Alexander speaks, but what they spoke in Egypt. In Alexandria, the African head office, as it were, of learning. Great university in Alexandria those days. The biggest library in the world, I think it was, or if not the biggest, one of the biggest libraries in the world was in Alexandria. And a number of the church fathers came from Alexandria. Now, in Alexandria, they spoke pure Greek. They spoke a very high level of Greek. They were also very highly educated. And so this letter is not Paul's Greek. Paul writes good Greek, but not like this letter. This is prose. This is Greek at a much higher level. Because remember, Greek would not necessarily be Paul's first language. His first language would have been Hebrew. And so it is a Greek writer. And for that reason, some people say, well, it was Apollos because Apollos was Greek and Apollos came from Alexandria. And Apollos, the scripture says, was mighty in word. He was a powerful orator. He was a powerful speaker. So that's possible. But we don't know. Others say it was Priscilla and Aquila who wrote it together. And there's all sorts of other, Barnabas is one of the options. Many, many options. We don't know. What I'm pretty sure of is that it is not Paul. So he is Greek speaking by nature. His first language is Greek, but he also has a thorough grounding in the Old Testament. As I've said already, he quotes the Old Testament over and over. Not only does he know what the Old Testament says, but he understands the meaning of the Old Testament. Because in this book, more than any other book, we get the interpretation of the code, if you will, of the Old Testament. We get in the Old Testament, everything is hidden. It's all in pictures and in shadows and in types. Here we have the explanation for that, the interpretation. So he not only understands the surface stuff of the Old Testament, he understands the deep meaning of the Old Testament. And so that's all we know about the author. What do we know about when it was written? Well, it's very difficult. It seems to be written between two periods of persecution to the church, two periods of persecution. Those periods of persecution are, there are three main periods in this time. The first is the attack against Jerusalem and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Then later on came the persecution of the Jews and Jewish Christians in Rome by Claudius. And then later came Nero. So those were the three periods. So the first period of, because it makes reference to a previous period of suffering, it makes reference to a coming, a soon coming period of suffering. So it can be between the first two or the second two, between Claudius and Nero or between Titus or the invasion of the attack, the destruction of Jerusalem and Claudius. So that makes it either in the 70s or the 80s after Christ. It cannot be beyond that and it cannot be before that. So we have a 20 year window. That's all we have. Obviously, some of that is based on looking at the handwriting also of the manuscripts because handwriting changes and that gives us an indication of time and so on. So who was it written to? Jewish believers possibly in Rome, possibly in Rome because at the end there is a greeting from those from Italy. We'll deal with that when we get there. And so it's a possibility that these people are in Rome. All right, now before we get into it, wow. The other problem, the other challenge of the book is that the book is a continuum from the beginning to the end. Paul's letters, John's letters, Peter's letters contain various subjects. So you can have headings. And so he's gonna deal with this, then he's gonna deal with that, then he's gonna deal with that. And sometimes there's a smooth transition from one subject to the other, sometimes there's not, just the way we write letters. And normally in a letter, we will have a number of subjects and we'll have paragraphs, except that in Paul and Peter and John's letters, these paragraphs sometimes are very, very long, broken up into sub-paragraphs. The book of Hebrews is one thought from the beginning to the end. Every verse is based on the previous verse. So you can never jump into, and obviously it's very dangerous, very difficult and dangerous to jump into a verse and just try and speak about that verse. Because remember we've spoken about the importance of context. One of the aspects of context is finding the beginning of the thought. So when you study Paul, it's relatively easy because you look up a few verses and then you find the beginning of his thought. And then you can find the end of that thought and it may be five verses, it may be 20 verses, and you can read that whole idea and get the context. In Hebrews, you can't find that. And you can jump in anywhere. And in fact, let's just do that. And I'm just going to open in chapter nine, verse 16. And I've just done, I literally have just opened it there. And I just remember that we haven't even begun to read. All right, so verse 16 begins with the word for. Is that the beginning of the thought? No. For means because something he said before. So we have to go to verse 15. And for this reason, is that the beginning of the thought? No. And tells you this is connected to something before and for this reason, in other words, based on what I've just said, he's going to come to the next point. Go back next verse before, 14. That's not the beginning of a sentence. How much more? So that can't be it. Verse 13, for, if the blood. So again, that's not the beginning because you have the word for or because. Then in verse 12, not with the blood of bulls and goats, or goats and calves. Again, that's not the beginning, not. In other words, this is, he's continuing a thought. Go back to verse 11, but Christ. But again, tells you, go back one verse, verse 10. Not the beginning of a sentence. Begins, verse 10 is concerning only, middle of the sentence. Verse nine, it was symbolic. What was symbolic? Got to go back to the verse before that. Now, literally you can start anywhere in the book of Hebrews and if you follow that chain to try and find a beginning, you'll end up in chapter one and verse one. Which means that you really need to get your mind around the whole of the book to understand properly what is being said in any part or any aspect of the book. Now, of course, that's gonna be the challenge for us because it's gonna take us many months to go through the book. And I trust that we can, in that process, continue to read through the book. I remind you again, I encourage you to read through the book in entirety, at least read a chapter, the same chapter that we're dealing with every week to get the context. So let's read chapter one, verse one. God, who at various times in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did he ever say, you are my son today, I have begotten you. And again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. But when he again brings the first born into the world, he says, let the angels of God worship him. And of the angels, he said, who made his angel spirits and his ministers a flame of fire. But to the son, he says, your throne of God is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. And we'll just read that far. All right. So the book begins with the most important word, God, God. Remember Genesis begins with, in the beginning, God. John begins his gospel, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. So this is where everything begins. Modern preaching is not about God, it's about us. And I'm just constantly shocked by preachers who begin their sermon with a story or with a joke or with a personal anecdote. It doesn't begin with God, it begins somewhere else. But it doesn't begin with a joke, the word begins with God. God, that's where it starts, that's where it ends, that's what it's all about. And so God, what did God do? He spoke. God at various times in various ways spoke. One of the things you're gonna have to get used to as we go through the book of Hebrews is that we sometimes have to jump many verses forward to try and understand because in between there's a whole lot of not just nonsense but a whole lot of other information that amplifies something in the beginning but then the conclusion is many verses further, sometimes more than a chapter further. So you have to be able to keep these things in mind. And here we have the same idea. The first thing is that God spoke but he's got other words in between. Just one example and we'll come back to this when we start in chapter two. But read verse one of chapter one. God who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by his son. Now the rest of the chapter is going to explain the son. In other words, it's in parentheses in the sense God has spoken through his son. Now we go to chapter two. Therefore, we must give the more earnest heed to the things that we have heard. Can you see the thought? God has spoken through his son, therefore we must listen. Can you see that you have to jump through 25 verses or whatever it is, I can't remember, 14, 12 verses. So you have to read, put 12 verses in abeyance, come back to get the flow. And so we're doing the same thing here in verse one. God spoke, God spoke. And so this is at the very essence of God's relationship with us and God's nature. John begins in the same way. In the beginning was the word. Now it's a different word, the Greek word logos in John to the word spoke here, two different words but same idea. So John says, in the beginning was the word. In other words, God spoke. Who was the word that John is speaking about? Jesus. So when he says in the beginning, God's word, Jesus, how did God speak in John? Through Jesus. How does God speak in Hebrews? Through Jesus. So you can see the, and I'm not, there's no connection between John and this author. They're two totally, clearly two different authors, but the same idea. So God spoke. The book of Corinthians speaks about the fact that we are not carried about by dumb idols, referring to those who worship idols. And he calls them dumb idols. Now not dumb in the sense of stupid, but dumb in the sense of not being able to speak. That's the difference between God and idols. Idols cannot speak. Idols are mute. Idols are made of stone or of gold or of dollar bills or whatever you want to worship, but it cannot speak. Maybe you say, well, my cell phone speaks. But it doesn't really speak. But God speaks. You remember the prophet says, to the prophets of Baal, where's your God? He can't even hear, let alone speak. He says, my God hears and he speaks. And God spoke in fire. We're gonna come back to that idea in a moment. So God speaks. We have a speaking God. From the very beginning, how did he create? He spoke. He spoke the worlds into being. He spoke the separation between night and day. He spoke everything into being by his word. So we have a speaking God, not just a speaking God, but a communicating God. There's a difference between speaking and communicating. Some people speak, but they don't really communicate. That's the difference between a good preacher and a bad preacher. You hear many preachers, they can speak, but they're not really communicating, they're just speaking. I think kids think that that's what parents do too, they just speak. No, we need to communicate. God communicates with us. He has a message and he wants to get that message into our hearts, into our minds. He's not just saying stuff for the sake of making up the time. And so God spoke. What a privilege to have God speak, to have God speak. And you remember that some of the darkest times in the history of Israel is the times when God no longer spoke. The 400 years between the Old and the New Testament, a terrible time, God was not speaking. God had turned his back. There was a time in Jesus's experience when the Father stopped speaking to him, when he was on the cross and the Father turns his back and communication is broken. For the first time in all of eternity, the Father and the Son are no longer speaking because he who knew no sin had become sin for us and God could not relate to him at that particular time. And so God's relationship with Jesus is a speaking relationship. And so God, who at various times and in various ways, spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets. So these first two verses are comparing the Old Testament and the New Testament, two different audiences, two different ways of speaking. So he at various times and in various ways spoke. The various times refers to a intermittent communication. Remember there were times, not just in the intertestamental period, but when Samuel was born, it says that the word of God was scarce or rare in those days. God was not speaking and there was no open revelation. So there was no prophets that were hearing from God. There were no prophets speaking for God until Samuel comes on the scene and grows up and becomes the man of God and the prophet through whom God spoke. So God speaks intermittently and we could do a whole study on periods in the Old Testament when God is silent. And in fact, if you just think about the first few chapters of the Bible, you go from Genesis one through to Genesis, what is it, seven, eight, where you get to the flood. That's a period of 1,000 years, let's call it. In fact, yeah, it's just about on 1,000 years. But God only spoke six or seven chapters. Just think about that. And yet you have the period between, but the prophets in Israel in the same time and God is speaking volumes and volumes. So there are times when God is speaking little, there are times when God is speaking much. Remember that when God doesn't speak, it's not because he doesn't want to speak, but it's because people are not listening. God will speak, God will reveal himself to the extent that we are willing to receive his revelation. Remember the principle, to whom little, who has little, little will be given. To him who has much, much will be given. And the context is that if we receive what he gives us, he gives us more. If we don't, he doesn't keep giving us. And so God speaks only to the extent that we are willing to listen. God doesn't, God's not a gramophone. Well, you don't know what a gramophone is. The old people here know what that is. God is not a MP3 player or a radio. That just goes on and on and on and on and on and on. God only speaks when he knows people are listening to him. Again, I suppose, excuse me for drawing comparisons to parents, but sometimes parents speak even though they know nobody's listening, but they'll go on. No, God only speaks when we listen. And so there are long periods that he doesn't speak. So there are various times in which he speaks. There are times he doesn't speak. And he speaks in various ways. God spoke to Adam and Eve face-to-face in the garden as in the cool of the evening. God would speak through thunder and lightning at Mount Sinai. God speaks to Moses through the still, small voice. God speaks through the prophets. God speaks through kings. Sometimes he speaks in illustrations or in skits, if you will. You remember some of the prophets would act out certain things. And that would be the way that God is communicating when you were there. Sometimes God would speak through experiences. When he took Israel, when he took Judah into captivity, when he took Israel into captivity, I remember two different captivities, but he takes them into captivity. He's speaking to them. When he takes Judah into captivity for 70 years, he is speaking a message. And the message is, you have neglected my Sabbaths for 70 times, you have not let the land lie fallow on the seventh year. And for every year that you did not let the land lie fallow, I will keep you in captivity. So for 70 years, they would be in captivity. But God was also speaking to them about their idolatry. And for the first time in the history of Israel, they hear God concerning idolatry. And Israel never returned to serving idols again after. So God spoke through the captivity. God spoke through visions. God spoke through dreams. Remember, Daniel sees all these visions, and that's God speaking. So God spoke in different ways and at different times. The message that God gives is what we call progressive. At no stage in the history in the Old Testament, does God give Israel the whole picture, the whole story. But he gives a little bit. Here a little, there a little. Line upon line, precept upon precept. So he reveals one aspect of himself here. He reveals another aspect of himself there. He reveals another aspect of himself in a different place. And as time goes on, the picture becomes more complete. So this is what we call progressive revelation. Now progressive revelation does not continue. And hopefully we'll get to that point this evening. Let me move on. So he's spoken various times in various ways in time past. In other words, the Old Testament. And he spoke to the fathers. Who are the fathers? The fathers of Israel, the Jewish patriarchs and the prophets and the kings, the ancestors of the Jews primarily. Now remember that this is not just an ethnic thing. This is also a faith thing. Because remember Abraham is the father of the faithful, including us Gentiles. So their fathers are our fathers in the spirit. Maybe not in the flesh, but in the spirit. And he spoke by the prophets. He spoke by the prophets. So that was God's primary mouthpiece, the prophets. And remember, we go right back to the beginning. The first prophet, it seems, was Enoch. And we saw Enoch in the book of Peter. Enoch says the Lord comes with 10,000 of his saints. Enoch lived before the flood. So God speaks through Enoch. Enoch is a prophet. Noah is a prophet. Moses is a prophet. While Moses is the lawgiver and he's the deliverer who brings them out of Egypt, he is the greatest. And if you ask the Jews today who is the greatest prophet, they will say Moses is the greatest prophet. So Moses is a prophet. And then of course you have the major prophets and you have the minor prophets and you have people like Samuel, who's a prophet. And so God speaks mainly through prophets. All right, now verse two. Has in these last days spoken to us? So let's go back. When did he speak in time past? When is he speaking now? In the last days. Now I want you to again remember, because we have this mental block in evangelicalism that the last days is just before the coming of Jesus. But he is writing in AD, let's say 75, just for a number. 30 years after, 40 years after Jesus ascended. And he is saying he will speak in the last days. No, he has in these last days. So 2000 years ago, he said these last days. So when did the last days begin? At the cross. Do we have another scripture for that? You should know because we've spoken about this before. On the day of Pentecost, people say these guys are drunk because they're speaking in tongues. Peter says they are not drunk. This is what Amos has, what Joel has prophesied that in the last days, and what is Peter saying? He's saying these are the last days because the prophet said in the last days and he's saying this is what's happening. So he also says these are the last days. All right, so in these last days, he has spoken to us. Who did he speak to in the Old Testament? The fathers. You need to put these two, you can put these two columns next to each other. So the times past, these last days. The fathers to us. He has spoken by his son. I'm gonna come back to that because that's the center of this all. Whom he has appointed heir of all things through whom also he made the worlds. Now, let's go to the beginning again of this verse. He has spoken. Remember, I spoke about progressive revelation. God reveals more and more of himself in the Old Testament. But now he says God spoke in different times, different ways, he has spoken. The Old King James, he has spoken. What does that mean? Is he still speaking? No. When it says he's spoken, I think I reminded you of my mother. When she said I have spoken, what does that mean? She's still gonna yell and scream at me? No, she's done. The next time I'm gonna feel, she's done speaking. I have spoken. God has spoken. Now remember, we understand that God continues to speak to us through his word, through his spirit, but there is no ongoing revelation. Everything that he had to say to us was said in Jesus. This idea that God is still revealing new stuff, these apostles and prophets going around and saying, God showed me, God told me, this is happening, that's happening, that's nonsense because God says I'm done speaking. I remember, and it's just burnt in my memory because it was such a blasphemous statement, but in the city of Durban, which is an hour away from where we come from and a much bigger city and I would go down there on business several times a week, and as you came off the freeway onto the surface, the freeway literally comes down into the city, ends in the city, and as you come off the freeway, there was a big building, probably, I don't know, 10, 15 stories, and on the side of this building was the statement, the Quran, God's final testament, God's final testament. No, Jesus is God's final testament. There is no further revelation, not through Muhammad, not through Joseph Smith, not through golden plates, not through the apostles and prophets of Kansas City, not through anyone else, Jesus is God's final revelation to us. And if you have any doctrine or idea that goes beyond the word of God, it is not God speaking, God has spoken. And he has spoken to us not through prophets, but in fact, in, the correct word here, but it doesn't make sense in English, but he has spoken in his son. Some translations say through his son. But it's more than through his son. You see, he spoke through the prophets. So the prophet was a conduit or a mouthpiece through which God spoke. Jesus was not a conduit through which God spoke. Jesus was God speaking. If you can get the difference, it's a subtle but important difference. When Jesus spoke, it was God speaking. When the prophet spoke, it was God speaking through the prophet. So he speaks in his son. And remember, he doesn't just speak in Jesus in the words that Jesus preaches, but in the life that Jesus lives. So all that Jesus does, and that's gonna be the part of the message in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews is not gonna focus on what Jesus said. It's gonna focus on what Jesus did and how that what he did fulfills the Old Testament. And so you have a progression in the Old Testament, and that progression is brought to fulfillment in Jesus. Jesus is God's final word to us. Everything that we need to know is to be found in Jesus. We are not that important that God is gonna tell us stuff that he didn't say through Jesus. That's just the bottom line. Everything we need to know is in Jesus. You say, well, you know, that's not so difficult. That's all, that's pretty easy. As the little Sunday school girl said to me many years ago, I don't wanna go to church. I know everything about Jesus. We know that there is so much more, there is so much more about him. And as we go through the book of Hebrews, we'll see how much there is about him that we don't even begin to know. And from the last time I taught this book to now, my mind has just been blessed these last few days as I've been studying and preparing, and as I've been looking at the book again, and just seeing things that I hadn't seen before. It's not new revelation, it's there all the time. But remember the principle, God only speaks to the extent that we listen. And if we're only open 10%, or we're only spiritually mature 10%, he can only speak to us as he speaks to a child. But as we grow, he's able to speak to us more intelligent things from the same word. But they're hidden, we read it and we don't see it. But as we grow in faith, we read it again, and we say, oh, I never saw that before. I never understood that before. And it's not because God has now suddenly woken up and decided to speak to us, it's simply because we were not ready to hear, and we were not in a position to understand what he was saying to us. So he has in these last days spoken to us by or in his son. What a privilege that God has spoken to us, and that he has spoken through his son or in his son. Remember the parables that Jesus tells of the man who owned a vineyard and he rents it out, and he sends his servants to go and to fetch the rent, and they come there and they beat the servants up and chase them away. And then eventually he says, no, let me send my son, maybe they will hear him. And they take the son and they kill him. But that's the point that God spoke in the Old Testament, he sent his prophets, he sent his servants, but men killed them. In fact, we'll read about that in Hebrews chapter 11, the terrible treatment that these prophets had at the hands of Israel. And so God now finally says, I've sent my servants, now I'm gonna send my son, and maybe they will hear my son. And obviously, Israel did not hear him, they crucified him, just as Jesus predicted, but there are those who did hear. And so we have this wonderful privilege that God has spoken to us. He has not spoken to the universe, he has spoken to us. He is not speaking to the wise and the intelligent, he's speaking to us. And that's a wonderful privilege. And that's what the book of Hebrews is, is God speaking to us. May we hear his voice. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you above all that you are a speaking God. Lord, that you're not silent as the dead gods of this world are and don't speak. But Lord, that you speak and you reveal yourself and you reveal your purpose for us and your will for us. You reveal your love and your grace and your goodness and your kindness. You reveal the future, Lord. You reveal so many things to us. Help us, Lord, to not be like Israel, who never heard and never understood. But Lord, that we may be those who hear and not just hear, but understand. And Lord, that we may be doers of your word. And so we thank you for your grace, Lord, in sending your own precious son, that he might speak to us. That he might speak to us, not just the words of the Beatitudes, but that he might speak to us about your great love when he died for us on that cross of Calvary. That he might speak to us about his relationship with you and how we ought to relate to you. That he spoke to us about his great power when he arose again on the third day. And so, Lord, we pray that we may hear him. Lord, that we may treasure the privilege that is ours of being able to have a God who speaks to his children and speaks to his people. Help us to understand, Lord. Help us to take this in. Lord, help us not to be so fascinated with the technicalities that we miss the point. But, Lord, the point is Jesus, and the point is God who spoke. And so, Lord, I pray that you would help us to understand. We pray that you'd go with us now, keep us, protect us, bring us together again safely on Sunday, we pray in Jesus' name.