"Therefore we
ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that
were heard, lest haply we drift away from them. For if
the word spoken through angels proved stedfast, and every
transgression and disobedience received a just recompense
of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great
salvation? which having at the first been spoken through
the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard; God
also bearing witness with them, both by signs and
wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy
Ghost, according to his own will" (Hebrews
2:1-4).
"See that ye
refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not,
when they refused him that warned them on earth, much
more shall not we escape, who turn away from him that
warneth from heaven: whose voice then shook the earth:
but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I
make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven.
And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of
those things that are shaken, as of things that have been
made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.
Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let
us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing
to God with reverence and awe: for our God is a consuming
fire" (Hebrews 12:25-29).
Those words, of course,
sound very terrible. They are almost like holding a
threat over people, and you might feel that they are not
too encouraging a beginning for a time like this.
However, I have read them with one object, and I think
they constitute a very good starting-point for such a
consideration as is before us at this time.
No one will question
the solemnity of those words. There is something almost
terrible about them. When you hear them you say: 'Well,
you cannot, you dare not, fail to recognize that we are
in the presence of something very serious. There really
is something very serious on hand when such words have to
be spoken.' We are not in the presence of some light,
superficial, pleasant matter and interest. We are
evidently in the presence of something momentous,
something which, if it can be put into such language of fear
- for it says "Let us fear": a solemn and
terrible warning of the possibility of something awful
happening - well, you don't talk like that about anything
unless it is something of tremendous value, something of
very glorious possibility and consequence. To miss that
something is said to be the most terrible thing that
could happen. Therefore it must be something tremendously
important.
Now, I am not
exaggerating, I am not making that up, but there you are.
I have started at the beginning of the Letter: "Let
us fear lest...". I have gone right over to near the
end of the Letter where similar words occur again as
summing up, and in between the beginning and the end you
just have any number of these earnest entreaties, these
solemn warnings and examples taken out of the life of
others who did not give heed and go through, and what
happened in their case?
Therefore I suggest to
you that this Letter must be a very vital Letter. If that
is the nature of it, the realm of it, if that is the
portent, then there is something tremendous in view for
Christians which can be missed. That is what it is all
about.
For the present I will
occupy my time mainly in talking about the Letter.
When you have language
like this, when someone is speaking in this way and it is
put on record, and turns out to be (allow me to put it in
this way) not man writing or speaking, but God, you
surely must be in the presence of a crisis. It must be a
crisis that is on hand; that is, a terminal point on
which, and at which, tremendous issues are at stake, one
way or another. When you hear, something has got to
happen. It is the ultimate that is brought to bear upon
this moment, this situation.
We know, of course,
that this Letter itself took its rise from a crisis, but
it is impressive to realize that not only was it related
to a historic crisis, but the Holy Spirit took hold of
that and introduced the ultimate crisis, and built upon
that the ultimate issue. Perhaps you need that explained.
The
Historic Crisis
The historic crisis was
this. This Letter was written probably about two years
before that full scattering for the whole of this age of
the Jewish people: the destruction of Jerusalem which the
Lord Jesus had foretold. You notice, in our reading,
things which were in the first place spoken by the Lord
Jesus - "Give the more earnest heed to the
things that were heard" - and some of the
things which were spoken by Him related to this crisis.
He said: "The days will come, in which there
shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall
not be thrown down" (Luke 21:6). That terrible
twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, spoken by the
Lord, was bearing upon the thing which was now within a
year or two of actual fulfilment, when the Roman legions
besieged Jerusalem, brought it to starvation, destroyed
its temple so that literally, according to a Jewish
historian, they did not leave one stone upon another. It
is on record that as they went about their work, they
literally left the whole thing on the ground. The temple
was finished, all the temple worship was finished, the
priesthood was finished, the sacrifices were finished,
and the people were scattered to the ends of the earth,
never to be fully recovered again in this dispensation.
It has been according to the Lord's word: "Behold,
your house is left unto you desolate" (Matthew
23:38). It has been like that these nearly two thousand
years.
That is the historic
crisis which is here - the shaking of the things of the
earth that can be shaken.
The
Ultimate Crisis
Now the Holy Spirit
takes hold of the historic and superimposes upon that
something bigger: the shaking of the heavens also, the
heavenly things. Christianity as a whole will be shaken
at the end. This is the end of one phase, but another
phase is coming when everything in Christianity will be
shaken to its foundation. This tremendous, two-fold
crisis is the occasion of this Letter.
Why did the Lord cause
this person, whoever he was - and we won't debate who he
was - to write this Letter at that time? This is where it
comes to us, and it ought to come with just as much force
as it came to the Jews, or was intended to come to the
Jews at that time.
The time will come, and
it is fixed in the counsels of God, when everything in
this creation and in this universe is going to be subject
to a tremendous shaking. It is going to happen. Peter
speaks about it in terms of the atomic age, as you know: "The
elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the
earth and the works that are therein shall be burned
up" (2 Peter 3:10). It is coming. And the issue
is this: When it comes, what have we that will abide the
shaking? What will come through it all and survive
unshaken? What have we got that, let the greatest shaking
in this universe come, can never be moved, will never go,
will come out all right, unshaken - "a kingdom that
cannot be shaken"? What have you got like that?
Getting
On To Ground That Cannot Be Shaken
Now this Letter was
written to these Hebrew Christians to try - and it was a
great effort of the Lord - to get their feet established
upon ground that could never be shaken. They were
wavering, already being shaken and being moved from their
steadfastness. Some of them were thinking of going back
to the old associations and the old Jewish system, and
the Lord inspired this Letter with the one object of
getting them established, so established that when this
terrific storm broke, these winds were let loose and so
many and so much carried away, there would be that which
would stand the storm and abide. As I have said, He used
the historic as the occasion for bringing in the eternal.
He leads on to this for all Christians.
Before
the Storm Breaks
Now, dear friends,
there are two things which are important for us to
notice. One is this: that you cannot settle that matter
when the storm breaks. If you have ever been in a really
good storm you know very well that that is not the time
to get things settled. If you have not got them settled
before then, you are just going to be all at sea indeed.
The forces will be far too much to cope with. You will
just be thrown all over the place. An emergency is not
the time to get quietly down to our foundations, for we
are too much caught up in things. If it is not all
settled beforehand, if you do not know where you are
beforehand, you will not be able to see to it when this
thing breaks. It is important to recognize that.
Therefore this Letter would say: 'In the light of
testings which will come, in view of that which is bound
to break upon us at some time, now is the time to make
sure that our position is an absolutely sound one, an
absolutely true one, and that there is nothing doubtful
about our position at all, no question about it and we
know where we are, that we are not at the mercy of other
people's judgments and ideas. We know the Lord for
ourselves. We know where we are. Let everything go to
pieces! We know where we are with the Lord.' That is the
thing that has to be settled, and it cannot be settled
when everything is going to pieces.
The other thing that is
important is that we should recognize that it may not be
necessary for the great ultimate upheaval and chaos and
cataclysm to take place in order to bring that issue out.
Is not this the heart of every trial that comes into the
Christian life? Any day there can come a temptation, or
an adversity, some suffering, or some thing that is just
calculated to throw you all over the place. In any such
experience the question arises: What have I got of the
Lord that is going to get me through this? What have I
really got now of the Lord that will stand me in stead in
this crisis? It may be something in everyday life, a
family matter, a business matter, a church matter, or a
personal matter, but it is something that is most
testing, unsettling, upsetting. It comes like a shock or
a blow and could knock us to pieces. What have we got of
the Lord which will see us through and will not go with
the wind, will not be carried away in this hour of trial,
but will stand and remain?
That is the issue of
this Letter, whether it is a historic crisis in the life
of Israel, or Jewry, or in the ultimate experience of the
Church. It is coming, and has already come to multitudes
of people on this earth. It is the position today in a
large part of the world, where the test is: What have we
got that will see us through this terrible time? It is a
question for many in the East today, but it is the
ever-present question.
Lest
We Drift Away
That is the message of
this Letter, so it has to be solemn, it has to be
serious, and it has to use words like this: "Let us
give - we ought to give - the more earnest heed to the
things that were heard, lest haply we drift away from
them."
Now that is a poor way
of interpreting the original language. Our English
language just so often fails to give us the real sense of
the words which were originally used. Here it is:
"Lest haply we drift away from them", but the
picture there in the original language is of a ship in
rough water, with strong currents and heavy winds, and
that ship is having a very difficult time and is trying
to make calm water. There are moorings there in the
harbour. If only she can make those moorings, lay hold on
them and get moored up, she will be all right. Here she
comes, but those responsible are a bit careless about it,
and just as she comes up on the moorings they are too
careless to grasp them, to lay hold of them and to fasten
them, and she drifts past on to the rocks. That is
actually the picture behind the words here - "We
ought to give the more earnest heed... lest haply we
drift away." You see, on this strong, adverse
current of these conditions of trial, we can drift past
through not being serious enough, not earnest enough, nor
meaning business sufficiently. The moment comes when all
might be well and we might be made fast and sure, but we
drift past, carried on to lose what was there for us.
Now, you know that this
whole Letter is built up on that idea. Read it again in
that light. After its introduction, that wonderful
presentation of the Lord Jesus, it says: "We
ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that
were heard, lest haply we drift away", and
you see what the consequences of that are in this book.
"The more earnest heed to the things that were
heard." To me that is a key to this book. There are
many arguments in it which might be taken out and used as
the title, or key, to the whole book. A little further on
there is this wonderful fragment: "How shall we
escape, if we neglect so great salvation?"
"So great salvation" might be a key to the
book. You can read and study it in the light of that. And
there are many other fragments like that which in
themselves open up the whole book. "We ought to give
the more earnest heed to the things that were
heard." What things?
God
Hath Spoken in His Son
You see how the book
begins: "God, having of old time spoken unto the
fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers
manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto
us in his Son." Not by His Son. That is
true, but it does not say that here. Yes, He spoke by His
Son, but the real point here is that He has spoken in His
Son. The Son is God's speech. It is not even what the Son
says, but it is what the Son Himself implies, signifies,
what His coming into this world, or being in eternity,
represents of God's thought. God has manifested Himself,
has made Himself known, revealed Himself, spoken for
Himself Son-wise. Not the words of the Son only, but the
Son Himself expresses God. If you or I could see the Lord
Jesus, really read Him as a person, we would have all
that God wants us to know, for it is all there. God has
spoken in a person. He has embodied Himself for
revelation in a person... 'hath spoken at the end of
these days Son-wise'. You notice that the words 'in his
Son' are in italics, which means that in the original
those words do not exist. What is really there is this:
'God hath spoken Son-wise.' That is difficult to grasp
and to understand, but, you see, it opens up everything.
The rest of the book is an opening up of what Christ is,
and all that has come from God in Him personally. We are
not going further with that at the moment, but God hath
spoken. In old times He spoke by angels, by leaders, by
prophets, by priests and by numerous means and methods,
signs and symbols and types, divers manners, a variety of
manners, in different times and fragments. He has
gathered the whole up now at the end. This is the last
speech of God, but it is complete and full,
comprehensive. It is the end - Christ.
"We ought to give
the more earnest heed." If it was so serious when He
spoke by or through angels, then it was tremendously
solemn when He spoke in His Son. The angels were great
beings, wonderful beings, but, as the Letter goes on to
show, nothing in comparison with the Son. If when God
spoke through prophets, or priests, or kings, or leaders,
it was a solemn matter for the people - and it was a very
solemn matter, a crucial thing for those who heard - how
much more so when He spoke Son-wise! We ought therefore
to give the more earnest heed when God speaks like
this, and He has spoken to us like this. You see what it
says: "The word spoken through angels proved
stedfast". This so great salvation takes its
greatness, its dimensions, its supremacy from the fact
that Christ is so much greater than all. God has spoken
to us in Him, but, you see, it is "God bearing
witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by
manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit".
Through
the Apostles
I think there is
something more to note about this for the moment. This
Letter - so-called to the Hebrews - was written (if what
we think is true) just before the year A.D. 70, when the
destruction of Jerusalem finally took place. By the year
70 all the Apostles, with the exception of John, had gone
to the Lord. They had done their work and had written
their Letters. God had spoken concerning His Son through
them all. Only John remained at this time. God had been
speaking. Now it says here: "God... bearing them witness".
To whom did God bear witness? To the Apostles - "by
signs and wonders... and gifts of the Holy Spirit".
God was speaking concerning His Son in and through the
Apostles, so that by the time this Letter was written
there existed the major part of the New Testament
literature. Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians,
Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians existed. You look
into all those and you see that it was God speaking
concerning His Son. The Letter to the Romans opens almost
with that very phrase: "The gospel of God...
concerning his Son", and that is the message of
that big book.
Now these are the
things that were heard: God's speaking concerning His
Son. You and I have that. We have all that God has said
and is going to say in this dispensation concerning His
Son. All that I am saying is only getting into what God
has said. I am not adding anything to this revelation of
Jesus Christ. It would be impossible to do that, and it
would be a very terrible thing to attempt to do it. We
are only, as the Lord enables, getting into what God has
said about His Son in His Word. We have it all: all that
God has said concerning His Son. What a tremendous thing
it is that He has spoken to us by His Son! "We ought
to give the more earnest heed", because tremendous
things are bound up with this. I am not going further
into that just now, for I am only talking around and on
this Letter.
Making
Sure of Our Calling
You see, it is a very
critical thing for the Christian life. Not to the
unsaved, for this Letter is not written to the unsaved,
but to Christians. If you look into the Letter you will
find that these Christians made a wonderful start.
Reference is made to what they suffered for Christ's sake
when they came to faith in Him. They suffered the
spoiling of their goods - they suffered terribly. They
made a tremendous start and there was no doubt about them
being Christians. I repudiate any suggestion that this
Letter was written to professing Christians and not real
Christians. You don't talk to professing Christians in
this way! What have they to lose? They have not got it to
lose. The whole Letter is on what Christians may lose,
and it is not a matter of losing their basic salvation.
Let us say that at once but that will lead us further
into the Letter. There is some tremendous thing that
Christians have got to make sure of. It is not just their
being basically saved, getting into heaven. The
Corinthians were there, but to them the Apostle said:
'Look here, you Corinthians, the foundation is laid in
you and you are on the foundation, but you may be putting
up a tremendous superstructure which will go up in flames
and in smoke and you will just get into heaven so as
by fire.' Do you know what that means? Well, you may
get in, but everything you have got will be lost and go
up in smoke. You will get in naked. What kind of abundant
entrance into the everlasting kingdom is that?
Well, of course, if you
would be of this indifferent kind and say: 'Well, as long
as I get into heaven, that is all that matters' you are
completely out of tune with the New Testament. This
Letter is saying: 'That is not enough. There is something
immensely more than that to which you were called in
Christ, and you have to make very sure about that...
"Give the more earnest heed... lest".' Lest!
How often that little word occurs in this Letter!
Lest so-and-so be the result which God never meant for
His people. He meant something so much more than that.
Well, I think we are
going to leave it there now. We just stand on the
threshold and survey this, and conclude with this word.
The
Lord Wants Better Christians
Dear friends, the Lord
wants much better Christians than many of us are. He does
want a more solid type of Christian than is represented
by the majority. Oh, the poor shape that the majority of
Christians make of this matter! What a poor
representation and expression of Christ we are! Many know
it and are not satisfied. Inside they know that all is
not well. They know a lot of things, have a lot of
teaching and doctrine, and church work, but there is such
a poor measure of Christ. The Lord wants much better
Christians, a better type, a better calibre, and this
Letter is the Letter to make known what it is that the
Lord wants, and therefore what it is that is possible,
and to bring this tremendous emphasis: "Give the
more earnest heed". That attitude is essential to
being a better kind of Christian. It is not how it is put
here, but it is what it amounts to. There are Christians
and Christians, but the Lord would work hard with us to
make a better kind of Christian. I would sooner put it
this way - to have a far bigger expression of Christ in
us than there is. He would work hard for that. That is
probably why He allows us to have difficulties, trials
and adversities. We have to secure a position where,
without any kind of interference, of arguments and
circumstances, or what the consequences would be, we are
with the Lord, at any cost, for all that He ever meant
when He called us into fellowship with His Son. An
attitude like that will make tremendous things possible,
and that is really the upshot of this Letter. Get right
into line with all the purpose of God concerning His Son
and you will be a different kind of Christian, and you
yourself will count for very much more. The Lord will be
with you and will commit Himself.
So we can see why the
Letter opens up with putting the Lord Jesus in all His
greatness right there in front. What a revelation of
Christ is that first chapter! The Holy Spirit puts Him
there, right at the beginning, in the first, supreme
place, and then He says that everything else has to do
with that, relates to that, and all these entreaties,
exhortations and warnings relate to this: God has an
immense purpose concerning His Son, and you are called
into that.
May the Lord at least
impress us with this: that the salvation into which we
are called is a very much bigger thing than perhaps we
have realized. It is a "so great salvation".
First published in "A Witness and A
Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1966, Vol 44-1