Our scripture passage this morning is from Hebrews chapter 2. The sermon comes from Hebrews 2. I'll just read. I'll read the chapter 2 and then the sermon from verses 10 through 18. God's word this morning from the book of Hebrews. If you're not familiar, it's sort of on the far right end of your Bible. Hebrews chapter 2, and just for context, I'll read the whole chapter. God's holy, inspired, and errant, infallible, unchangeable word. 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. Now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, what is man that you were mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now, in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not see everything in subjection to him, but we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels. Namely, Jesus crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. It was fitting that he for whom and by whom all things exist in bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will sing your praise. And again, I will put my trust in him. Behold, I and the children God has given me. Therefore, since therefore, the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Thus, by the reading of God's word, may he write this word on our hearts and may he give us true faith to believe it. Let's pray briefly. Lord, as we hear your word in our ears, as we hear it expounded, we pray your spirit would go ahead of us and write it on our hearts that we may, all of us, know all the benefits of the new covenant by your grace and for Jesus' sake. Amen. Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have here before us a letter that is in parts a letter, in parts a sermon. And probably that's because it was a sermon that was turned into a letter. So we're going to think of it like a sermon. If you ever wondered what first century New Testament preaching was like, well, of course, you can get a glimpse of it from the book of Acts. You see basically little snapshots of sermons. But if you read those sermons in the book of Acts, you'll notice that they don't last very long. And so you know that we don't have a full transcript because it's not as if in the first century ministers only preached seven or eight minute sermons. I guarantee you that wasn't the case. In the ancient world, it was considered you were considered a failure as a public speaker if you couldn't preach for at least an hour. It was common for public speakers to go for two hours if you were really good and you could keep people's interests. Well, I promise not to go back to that pattern this morning. I think we might have a revolt. You might see the consistory rush the pulpit as one in one accord. Some of that laughter sounded nervous, I promise. What we have here in the book of Hebrews is something like a transcript of an entire sermon. So if you want to know how long people preached in the ancient world, just start reading Hebrews out loud and don't quit until you stop and then look at the clock. Look at the clock at the beginning and then look at the clock at the end and you'll know. And he wrote this sermon about somewhere between 64 and 70 A.D. Now, if you read commentaries and study Bibles and the like, you may see different accounts of how these things worked. In other words, you may see different accounts of the date and the setting, and that's because there's a lot of disagreement among the scholars as to the date and setting. One reason why I think it must have been before 70 A.D., and a number of scholars have read the book of Hebrews this way, is because he doesn't mention the destruction of the temple. And there's almost no doubt that had the temple been destroyed, and it was in 70 A.D., he would have mentioned that because it would have confirmed almost all of his arguments. Now, some scholars say, well, other writers wrote after the destruction of the temple and they didn't mention it. Well, that was because it didn't suit their argument. But it certainly would have suited the argument of the pastor to these Jewish Christians. And about this same time, there was a tremendous amount of pressure being placed on Jewish Christians. That is, these are Jews who were converted to the Christian faith, who heard the gospel preached, but who belong to the second generation of Christians. This is about 30 years after the resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus. They were facing tremendous pressure. We don't know where they were. They may have been in what we today call Palestine. They may have been in Rome. They may have been in some other place. But they were facing tremendous pressure to go back to the temple, as it were, to go back to Moses, to go back to the rituals, to go back to the types. And shadows, you know, of course, the writer of the Hebrews describes particularly the period from under Moses from 1500 A.D. through David and up to the incarnation, obedience, death and resurrection of our Lord is the time of types and shadows. That is the time of sermon illustrations, in a sense. Think of Moses and that whole period of the theocracy of the kings and the priests and the prophets. Think of that as one giant sermon illustration, a really long sermon illustration, a really detailed sermon illustration, a really bloody and violent sermon illustration, all pointing to one great point. No, not just appoint a person, all pointing to a person. And children, I know you've had a question like this in the catechism and in Sunday school. To whom, to which person did all those sacrifices and all of those ceremonies and all of the fine clothing of the priests and all of the kings, to which person did they all point? And you know the answer, it was Jesus. That's always the answer in Sunday school and catechism. And that's not a bad answer. But it's the answer that this congregation had begun to forget. It's the answer, that very simple answer, but that all-important answer, that congregation had begun to forget. And they had begun to think, as Mrs. Fisher, I can say her name, she's glorified, she knows better now. Mrs. Fisher used to come to me and she'd say, Domini, I wish I'd lived under the days of Moses. Because then you could see the glory of God. You could see the cloud and you could see the tabernacle or the temple and you could see Moses and you could see the sacrifices. And it would be so much easier to believe if I could see all these things. And I used to say to Mrs. Fisher, Mrs. Fisher, we have it so much better. Because they believed things that they couldn't see. We believe things that have been seen, that have been revealed, that have been fulfilled. We have a far greater place and benefit in the history of salvation than all those people looking forward through types and shadows because we have the reality, we have the things that were promised chiefly Jesus Christ. We know that God the Son came and took on human flesh. They knew there would be salvation and they looked forward to a time when God would save them and in some shadowy way they apprehended that Jesus would come, but they couldn't know and didn't know certainly the way we knew. Our Lord himself said that Abraham saw my day and rejoiced. But we see the reality. Paul says that when Moses came out of the tabernacle, He had a veil on his face because the glory was fading. We have a glory in the new covenant that will never fade. But just like Mrs. Fisher, this congregation was tempted to go back because they were tempted by the rituals. They were tempted by the pomp. They were tempted by the circumstance. They were tempted by the beauty. They were tempted by the visual. They were tempted, in the old sense, by the sensual, by things that they could touch and things that they could taste and things that they could feel. I have another question for the children this morning. How long, children, have your toys lasted since last Christmas? Any of them broken yet? Any of them been put in the recycling bin or in the trash? Any of them discarded in a corner somewhere in the garage, in a pile, or in the backyard, or on a patio, rusting, broken? I bet they have, because that's what happens with stuff. And if it hasn't happened yet, it probably will happen, because that's what happens to all our toys. It even happens to your mom and dad's toys. It's just that when theirs get broken, they can't discard them. They have to take them to the dealer and pay thirty five dollars an hour, which is why your daddy and sometimes your mommy have to get up every morning and go to work so that we can all have toys and oatmeal. And that's important. That's good. We have in Jesus Christ something that never rusts, never fades, can't ever be destroyed. It can't ever be stolen. And so the pastor to these Jewish Christians who are being tempted to go back to rituals, to go back to Judaism, to go back to Moses. And he's preaching to them and he's pleading to them this. That Jesus is the only sufficient helper for sinners. That this is a reason why they shouldn't go back. One of many reasons that he gives in this sermon. That they shouldn't go back because Jesus is the only sufficient helper for sinners. That Moses cannot help them. Because Jesus alone has faced temptation. And as my old friend Norman Hofflinger used to say, he alone has conquered it and he alone really knows temptation in a way that you and I shall never know. Because when we face temptation, what do we do? Well, too often we give in. But Jesus didn't give in. He knows what temptation is all the way through the end. Have you ever driven to Colorado, through Colorado, and you go through the Eisenhower Tunnel? Well, if temptation is that tunnel, we always stop about halfway, typically, and in the dark. Jesus knows what it's like to go all the way through that temptation and not give it. He knows it better than we know it. Mrs. Fisher was wrong. Jesus understood her better than Moses ever could. And therefore, he conquered it for us through his suffering and death. And he does that in three ways here in our passage. First of all, in verses 10 through 13, he does it by leading believers to glory. It's interesting that the first thing that he says in this passage is that we have a helper like Jesus is a helper like his brothers. And the first thing that the pastor wants us to know here is that he is in the process of leading believers to glory. You see, Moses was leading believers to Jesus. The glory that Moses had was fading. but Jesus is leading believers to glory. Christian, do you believe that this morning? That you are on your way in a, think of a parade. Think of a military triumphal procession. You know, after a war, soldiers come home and they put on their dress uniforms and they march and we stand on the side as we should and we clap them and we salute them for what they've done. And that's all well and proper. We are part of a parade, a victory parade, being led by, not by ourselves, because we didn't conquer. But we're following one who has already conquered. We'll get to that in a second. The writer to the Hebrews uses a title for him. It's a very interesting title. We'll get there in a second. But we have to pay attention. First of all, to the place where he's leading us. So we used to say, whither is he leading us? To where? He's leading us to glory. Where did Moses lead the people? Well, he led them out of Egypt and into the wilderness where they stayed. And how did it go after that? Well, not very well. And what happened to Moses? Where did he die? Did he die in the promised land? No, he died outside the promised land. And so the writer to the Hebrews says, you know what the difference between Jesus and Moses is? That Jesus built the house and Moses was a servant. Moses was a housekeeper. Jesus is the owner. You know the difference, right, between the owner and the housekeeper. The owner is the one who pays the mortgage. The housekeeper is the one who comes on Tuesdays and Thursdays to clean the house. But the house cleaner doesn't stay. The house cleaner goes away. The house cleaner doesn't make decisions about, oh, well, I think we should plant this kind of tree and we should do this kind of landscaping. No, that's the owner's decision. The housekeeper just works there. The owner owns it. Jesus is the owner. Moses is a housekeeper. And the tragic thing about the history of the church is that we have been, like Mrs. Fisher, tempted many, many times in many ways to reverse Jesus and Moses in various ways and sometimes without admitting it. In our own day, we have people that want to take us back to Moses in various ways. But throughout the history of the church, there have been temptations to go back to Moses. Do you know that in the entire history of the medieval church prior to the Reformation, it was essentially a reconstruction of Moses for a thousand years? This is one of the many reasons why this sermon to the Jewish Christians is so important for us. For a thousand years, and that's not an exaggeration, the church gradually went back to Moses and they brought back not only the Mosaic civil law in certain ways, which Jesus had fulfilled. They didn't admit they were doing it, but they did it. And they brought and perhaps even worse, they brought back the ceremonies, that is the sacrifices. Children, do you know why we have ministers and not priests? Have you ever wondered that? Someday you may be invited to go to a church. It might be a big church. It might be a beautiful church and it might be named after a saint. And all of that's very attractive. After all, who could not admire St. Peter or St. Paul? Or all the saints that are in scripture. And big buildings are wonderful. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a big stone building? That would be nice. But if you go in there, you might see not a table, But a fence and then behind that fence will be something that looks like a table, but it's not a table. It's an altar. And you'll see a man typically with sometimes a black robe, sometimes a white robe, and he will close the gate. There'll be a gate between you and the altar, and then he will turn his back at a point in the service and he will hold something up. And according to them, he's in the process of making a sacrifice. And because he makes sacrifices, it's an unbloody sacrifice, it's a memorial sacrifice, but he thinks, and they say in his church, that it's a real sacrifice. And that by virtue of that sacrifice, that man whom they call a priest is turning away the wrath of God. That's what their church documents actually teach. That it turns away the wrath of God and then it does away with sins and pains in this life and in the life to come. That's their language. But you'll notice, children, that in our congregation, we don't have anyone whom we call a priest. And we have everyone called priests. We're all priests. Did you know that? Because Jesus is our high priest. When Jesus came, he did what all the priests couldn't do. Because all those priests died. And all those sacrifices they made, they were all just illustrations. They didn't actually do anything. There was only one sacrifice and one priest who ever did anything for us relative to God. And that priest, his name was Jesus. And that sacrifice was his own life. And that actually did something. For all who trust in him, it turned away God's anger and it put away sins. That's why we don't have any priests anymore. because the book of Hebrews says that Jesus was the once-for-all sacrifice. Once-for-all. That means there are no more priests like that and no more sacrifices. So they mean well when they close that gate and they turn their back and they hold up bread which they say becomes the body and blood of Jesus and then they attempt to make a sacrifice. But it's all foolishness and it's all going back to Moses and it's all going back to rituals. And you know what our forefathers used to say about that? Do you know what we confess in our in this congregation? What we confess about that business? Heidelberg Catechism question 80 says it's nothing at bottom. It's nothing other than an accursed idolatry. And it's an accursed idolatry because it says that what Jesus did was only the beginning and not the end of sacrifices. It means that Jesus did not finish his work. It means that when Jesus said, it is finished, he was lying. And that's not true because Jesus never lied, children. People in this world will always disappoint you, but Jesus will never disappoint you because he never lied. And he doesn't lie now. And when he died on the cross, as he was dying, he said, it is finished. And he meant it, because it was. And we know that he was telling the truth, because when they went back on Sunday morning, just like this morning, and they looked inside the tomb. Anyone in there? There was no one in there. Because Jesus had been raised from the dead. And therefore we know that he did what he said he did. That resurrection was a vindication of everything that he said and everything that he did. And that's why the writer to the Hebrews, the pastor, the preacher to the Hebrews says it was fitting, fitting that he for whom and by whom all things all things exist. Did you notice that language for whom and by whom he's the creator? God, the son is the creator. in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect. The Father made our Lord Jesus perfect through suffering. He suffered all the way. Sometimes we're tempted to think that when we're suffering for the faith, or maybe in some other way, but particularly here in this context, for the faith, when people are making fun. Children and parents, sometimes people will make fun of you for believing in Jesus. That's a kind of suffering and that's some of what was happening to these people, although it was probably a little more intense. He made Jesus perfect through suffering. He's in the process of also making you perfect through suffering. We are following him through that process. And we can be confident that our Father will not abandon us because he didn't abandon Jesus. For he who sanctifies, look at verse 11, that is makes holy and those who are being sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers. And he quotes from Psalm 22. We sang Psalm 22 and he quotes verse 22 of Psalm 22 and there it's a reference to Jesus' abandonment. The psalmist in Psalm 22 is crying out about his abandonment. Jesus was abandoned. This is the other thing I want you to see under this first point. He's leading us to glory, but he's leading us to glory through suffering. Jesus was abandoned, loved ones, so that you shall never be. You think, well, God has forgotten me. I guarantee you he has not. How do you know that? Because he abandoned Jesus for your sake. You're not Jesus. You're a Christian. You're not the Christ. You're the Christian. He abandoned the Christ so that the Christian would be sure that God will never abandon. You say, but I don't feel like he's near. Well, yes, our feelings do change and our sense of God's presence does change. But the promises don't change. The realities don't change. The truth doesn't change. The cross is what it is, the tomb is what it is, and Jesus is who he is. You can be confident even when your feelings tell you the opposite. And Jesus trusted his father, and the pastor here quotes Isaiah chapter 8, verses 17 and 18. I will wait for the Lord who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob. I will hope in him. Behold, I and the children whom Yahweh has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of hosts who dwells on Mount Zion. We are the people whom the Father, and I don't want you to miss this, whom the Father has given to the Son. And the Son has secured our redemption through his suffering, through his death, through persevering through temptation without sin. And therefore we can be confident that he's leading us to glory. He did it for us and we were given to him. Do you understand that? When you go to bed tonight, you say to yourself, I was given to Jesus by my heavenly Father. And what did Jesus say about that? And no one shall snatch them out of my hand. Second thing that the pastor wants us to see about our Lord in verses 14 and 15 is that he is, like us in every respect, sin accepted. He's flesh of our flesh. He's a helper like his brothers. He's leading believers to glory, and he's flesh of our flesh. Of course, that's the language of Adam and Eve, and sometimes we use that in wedding ceremonies. Look at verse 14. It's since, therefore, the children share in flesh and blood. We are the children. He himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death. That is the devil. One of the things that Mrs. Fisher did not appreciate and that I was trying to help her appreciate, And I don't want you to think I'm picky on Mrs. Fisher. I love her dearly, loved her then, love her now, looking forward to seeing her in glory when she finally has the assurance that she could have and should have had in this life by trusting in the promises of God. One of the things I tried to point out to Mrs. Fisher time and again was that unlike Moses and unlike all the sacrifices, We have a helper in God the Son who took on our flesh. One of the reasons why people are tempted to turn away to other things, to go back, to go to rituals, to go to Rome, to go to Eastern Orthodoxy, or just plain old pagan materialism, is because they think that something else will help us. Something else will help us. And the truth is nothing will help us. We need a helper who is like us, and only Jesus is the God-man who is true God and true man. And what I want you to appreciate this morning, right now, at this moment, is that Jesus is like you. He has your humanity. He's truly human. And do you know that even though he's ascended and at the right hand of the Father, he's still truly human? He hasn't changed? Sometimes Christians think that because he's ascended, he's not human anymore. I've heard people say that. That's not true. The word of God says he's still human. He's glorified, but he's human. He has the same kind of... Look at your hands. Look at your finger dance. That's what Jesus' hand looks like. It's got a hole in it. Yours doesn't. It's got a hole in it where he was crucified for you. The reason he's got a hole in it is because he's true man. He's not a ghost. He's not an angel. He's not a picture. When they beat him, it hurt. When they spat on him, he felt the moisture hit his face and run down. And his face flushed with humiliation. He's true human. You want someone to help you who understands you? I got one name for you this morning. Jesus, the God-man who understands. he partook of the same things. That through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death. That's the paradox and the irony of salvation, is that the only way to conquer death is to experience death. To deliver and deliver all those who through fear of death. You don't think this is a pastor who sat with people who said, Pastor, I'm afraid to die. And the pastor says, and the word of God says, Jesus is there waiting for you. Fear not. He's standing right there. And you can trust him. It's not angels that he helps. It's frail, fallible, sinful human beings. That's what he means when he says the offspring of Abraham. He's flesh of our flesh. He delivers us slaves who are slaves of fear. And finally, there's a third thing that he wants us to see this morning, and that is he's a merciful and faithful high priest. And this is where I want to go back to that title that I mentioned earlier. The writer to the Hebrews calls him the founder, is what it says in our English translation. That word for founder is a difficult word. It only occurs four times in the New Testament, I think twice in Hebrews and twice in Acts. And nobody really knows how to translate it. There are about as many translations as there are translators. Founder, pioneer, champion, leader. The same, the ESV uses a variety of terms, at least two, maybe more to translate this term. The word, I'm going to tell you the word just so you will have heard it. The word is archegos. He's the archegos. There isn't really an exact English equivalent to this word. But the root idea is one who goes ahead of other people. And that's why I said he's at the head of a parade. But he's the one who's already gone through all the fire. And he is our, he's also our high priest. He's our leader. He is the one who's already done for us. And he is the one whom we are following. And the one who we are following is also a merciful and faithful high priest. That's the message of verses 17 and 18. He's a helper like his brother, like his brothers, as this leader, this pioneer, a champion sometimes. It's been translated. And he does so as a merciful and faithful high priest. One of the reasons, children, why we don't have priests in the Reformed churches is because Jesus is our priest and because in Christ we are all priests. Do you know that's why we stand to sing? And in the old days, not very long ago in my lifetime, I remember standing in Reformed churches for what we used to call the great prayer. Now sometimes that was a little awkward because my pastor anyway used to pray for 20 minutes while we were standing with our eyes closed, which is a little complicated sometimes. But we used to stand for a reason. I'm not saying we should do it now. I'm just trying to explain why we used to do what we used to do. We used to stand because that was a declaration that we are priests in Jesus Christ. Because he is the high priest. So that he might become, it says in verse 17, a merciful and faithful high priest. Someone who does not give to people what is due them, that is strict justice. and faithful inasmuch as he completed the job that none of the other priests could do. And what's ironic here is that the priests during the first century were more or less notorious for being unfaithful. They were hired men who didn't love the people and who by and large didn't love God. But Jesus loved his father and he loved you and he was faithful. He did what his job required. And what was it? And I want you to look at the end of verse 17. To make propitiation. That's a big word and it means it's an important word and it's a word you should learn. Propitiation. It means to turn away God's wrath. He was faithful to turn away God's wrath. For all those who believe in him. For all those who are behind him. For all those who are following. Not because they're following him. But because he's been gracious to them. given them faith, given them new life, and enabled them to follow. But it is the case that those who are united to him are following him. And he's turned away the wrath of God for all his people. That's why we don't have priests, and that's why we're not making sacrifices when we have the Lord's Supper. And that's why in some other communions, they have priests who are offering sacrifices every day. But Jesus did it once for all. It's finished. And finally, for because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted. Our Belch Confession is wonderful here. It reminds us, and it was written during a time when they too were being tempted to go back to Moses in a way. Via Roman Catholicism. they too are being tempted to go back to things that could be seen and things that could be touched and things that looked attractive the instinct loved ones to find a priest is a right instinct in other words the Belgian Confession recognizes that it's a right instinct to look for a mediator we know intuitively that we need someone to stand between us and God but that someone between us and God is not a man in front of an altar behind a fence it's the God man who is at the right hand of the heavenly father who's standing with his arms uplifted praying for you whose arms never get tired who doesn't need anyone to hold his arms up and whose arms are up because he loves you who's able to save unlike the man in the robe behind the fence who cannot save you who cannot save himself because when they lay that man in the robe in the ground he will stay in the ground when they laid our priest in the ground he didn't stay children because he had the power over death and he burst out of the tomb and he's alive and he's ascended and he's seated at the right hand in glory the instinct to find a priest is right but we must find the right priest and it wasn't Judaism it wasn't the priest in Jerusalem it's not the priest at St. Peter's it's not the Holy Father in Rome because it doesn't lead to glory because though they may be truly human they aren't the truly human savior who has persevered all the way through death. It's not angels he helps, loved ones. It's us. He helps us. It is we whom he helps. We need a new priest. We need a true priest. And we have a true priest. And his name is Jesus. Let's give thanks that he is standing right now at the right hand of the Father making our prayers known. Let's pray. Almighty God and merciful Father, we are grateful that we have an intercessor before you in Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, we are so grateful that you did not give up, that you persevered through the end. And we rejoice in your holy suffering and perseverance. And in your once for all turning away of wrath. And in your willingness to hear and to help. And in your ability to help. We're so thankful that you do help, that you have given us new life, that you have poured out your Holy Spirit, and that even though we cannot always feel it, nor can we always see it, you are always helping. So we give you thanks. Hear our prayer. Continue, O Lord, to work in us and help us. And forgive us when we've been tempted to turn to any other priest, any other helper, any other Archegos. Hear our prayer. For your name's sake, amen.