Hebrews

Chapter One

Message Two

God has Spoke Through Men

Heb 1:1

1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, KJV

We talked last week about the fact that God has spoken and what an amazing thing that this is. We mentioned the prophets, through whom He spoke time and again to 'the fathers' in their various rebellions against Him. We talked about how merciful and longsuffering He showed Himself to be in continuing to speak to them in all that.

Today I would like to take you on a little historical journey and visit with some of these men and consider what it was that God was saying through them.

I. The first person in history who is identified to us as one who spoke for God is the man Noah.

Noah was a descendent of Adam through his third son, Seth. Noah was born 1056 years after the world was created. It was to him that God came when he was 500 years old (1556 years after creation) and told him to build an ark because God was going to destroy the earth because of the wickedness.

Gen 6:5-8

5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. KJV

We know that Noah labored for 100 years building the ark according to the instructions that God gave him. No doubt his sons labored with him. But we are also told that he did something else during this time.

Peter tells us in 2 Peter 2:5 that he was also a 'preacher of righteousness.'

Let us consider for a few moments what God must have said through Noah. We do not have any writings preserved from those days. Moses and the book of Genesis came much later. But we can conjecture from what we do know. We know that men were continually thinking, plotting, and planning concerning 'evil' things. We know that God was angry concerning that and that He had determined a flood to remedy the problem by destroying man.

Therefore Noah must have preached that men were behaving wickedly before God. He must have told them, plainly and clearly, that their deeds were violations of the Law of God and that God was going to utterly destroy them for those deeds. He must have told them that rather than thinking continually on evil things, they should continually think on good things, how they might serve, honor, and please God. Obviously they paid him no mind.

Now here is where we fall into the same trap as the Pharisees of Jesus' day unless we are very careful. They honored the prophets but castigated Jesus Who came with the same message and in the same spirit as the prophets.

It is easy for us to listen to the story of Noah and hear that he was a preacher of righteousness and consider him a hero and a valiant man of our spiritual history. But suppose that Noah came to our house and started talking about issues of sin in our lives and warning us that God was going to discipline us unless we repented of those things? How would we respond to him? Suppose he was very pointed and direct. Suppose that he pointed out issues that we did not want to deal with?

Listen to the charge that Jesus laid at the feet of the Pharisees.

Matt 23:28-31

28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,

30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. KJV

What Jesus is saying is that if our 'devotion' to the prophets is a thing of show only, if we refuse to heed their words of warning from the heart, if our hearts are filled with hypocrisy and iniquity, then we are of the very same stripe as those who killed them, the same type of religious people as the Pharisees.

It is not enough to look at Noah as a hero of the faith, we must listen to his warnings concerning righteousness and wickedness. Then we must actually heed those warnings. We must both think and act as if God has really spoken to us by him. Listen to how James describes this dualistic way of viewing the words of the prophets like the Pharisees had done. But remember that James is speaking to professing Christians.

James 1:21-22

21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. KJV

He says that a person can deceive himself concerning this thing. The Pharisees did that, we know, but professing Christians can do it as well.

Now self-deception is an insidious and dangerous thing. We might ask ourselves, "How could a person build monuments to the prophets, decorate their tombs, read and discuss their words and still be of the same spirit as those who murdered them?" "How can a person be that deceived?"

It is the same process by which a person becomes a hearer of the word and not a doer. Look again at the text in James: "lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls."

James 1:21

21 Therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. NAS

The person who becomes self-deceived says to himself: "It is not really necessary for me to get that serious about serving God." "I can be saved without all that trouble."

But the prophets all warn us otherwise. They preached righteousness and warned of severe consequences for failure to be diligent both in repentance and in obedience. To honor them with our mouths but refuse to heed their message is to make ourselves of the same spirit and attitude as the Pharisees, and they were of the same spirit as those who murdered the prophets.

This type of attitude does not really consider that God has spoken to us through them. God speaks to us through Noah. "If you live wickedly, if you do not take charge of your thoughts by the grace of God in repentance and true obedience, you will surely and certainly perish."

II. Consider that God has spoken to us through Moses.

The ten commandments are the very words of God. Many people think that the words written on the tables of stone were somehow the concoction of Moses, but those words were spoken to Israel before Moses ever wrote them down.

Ex 19:18-20:1

18 And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.

19 And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.

20 And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the LORD called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.

21 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the LORD to gaze, and many of them perish.

22 And let the priests also, which come near to the LORD, sanctify themselves, lest the LORD break forth upon them.

23 And Moses said unto the LORD, The people cannot come up to mount Sinai: for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it.

24 And the LORD said unto him, Away, get thee down, and thou shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the LORD, lest he break forth upon them.

25 So Moses went down unto the people, and spake unto them.

Exodus 20

1 And God spake all these words, saying, KJV

Then He spoke to them the words that were later written down on the tablets of stone. We know that this was God speaking directly because of the reaction of the people.

Ex 20:18-20

18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.

19 And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.

20 And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. KJV

What is the purpose of the ten commandments? "That ye sin not."

So God spoke through Noah concerning the issues of righteousness, speaking against the sins of men. And He spoke through Moses that we not sin. It is not difficult to see a pattern developing.

III. Let us consider what He said through Isaiah.

Isa 1:16-20

16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. KJV

It is true that God spoke many other things by the mouth of Isaiah, just as He did through Moses. But the theme of what He said was the same.

Now here another issue of self-deception comes into play. It is just this, "I haven't done anything that is really bad."

Now most people who have any familiarity with Christianity have sense enough not to say the words, "I have not sinned." We all freely confess that we are sinners. We know that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."

But this is one of those places where words and actions do not match.

Let me ask you this. What does a person do when he comes to the profound conclusion that he has deliberately, consciously, and continually sinned against God? What does he do when the Holy Spirit really gets hold of him concerning his sins?

In the answer to that question, we have the disconnect about which Jesus and James were speaking. One cannot say, "I am a sinner" and then decline to pursue repentance while at the same time claiming that he honors the prophets. The prophet and his message are one thing. If you refuse his message, you are refusing him. The same goes for Jesus Christ, but we will reserve that issue for the next message.

IV. It is obvious that God has spoken to us by the prophets.

The reality is that if this is all that we had, we could still be saved.

You will recall that in the conversation between Abraham and the rich man after his death and the death of Lazarus. In it, the rich man tries to persuade Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to his brothers so that they would avoid the place of torment.

Luke 16:27-31

27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:

28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. KJV

The word of Abraham was that these men had sufficient information in Moses and the prophets to be saved, to avoid hell.

Now, true, we have a much fuller revelation in the New Testament than the Old Testament saints had. But those who truly listened, who gave themselves to understand the prophets, came away with enough information to know that one must repent of his sins, believe in God, live that belief in obedience, and trust in the provision of God for sins through the Messiah.

Most people in the church today have no idea what the prophets said nor how what they said applies to our lives or our faith. What a tragedy that a document so soaked in the blood of the martyred prophets is esteemed to have such small value! God has spoken through these men. One would think that we would at least study what He said through them.

The message of the prophets is the same message as that of Jesus and the apostles, "repent of your sins, if you desire to have any place in the kingdom of God." "Believe on Him and show that faith by good works." "Trust in the sacrifice that God Himself will provide from heaven for the salvation of sinners."

To say that we believe them and yet to show no interest in what they said is to hold faith in the same way that the Pharisees held it. I pray that this is not the case with you.

God has spoken to the fathers by the prophets.