JESUS IS GREATER. GOD HAS SPOKEN 2018 Holland Davis

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1 INTRODUCTION: TURN TO HEBREWS 1 As I was preparing for this morning s message, I felt like the Lord showed me something and I want to share it with you as we begin looking at the Book of Hebrews Paul mentions the third heaven in 2 Corinthians 12:2 There s the 1 st heaven the atmosphere The 2 nd heaven the cosmos or outer space Then there s the 3 rd heaven where God dwells I believe this can also be used to describe 3 levels of reality There s the 3 rd level or the heavenly realm where God lives It s where Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father and it s where our loved ones who have died in Christ are right now But most of us don t think about heaven unless we re going to die There s the 2 nd level or the spiritual realm It s where we find the activities of the Holy Spirit, Angels, Demons, Satan and most of us don t think about the spiritual realm unless we re experiencing spiritual warfare Then you have the 1 st level of reality or the physical realm that we experience with our 5 senses For most of us, the physical world is the real world What we experience in the physical world is reality The motto for the physical realm is I ll believe when I see it But Hebrews pulls the curtains back on the physical world and allows us to see a GREATER REALITY We see how the world really works and the writer of Hebrews challenges us to expand our view of reality To not limit ourselves to what we can see, touch, taste, feel, hear or experience But to expand our senses into this GREATER REALITY of God Really, when we understand there is a GREATER REALITY, we begin to discover that what we see, hear, experience in this world isn t the REALITY we are to build our lives on As believers we are to build our lives on the REALITY OF GOD, what God says is REAL Thus the writer of Hebrews begins with the most fundamental statement of REALITY that we all must come to terms with Because if it is true, then it changes how we see the world Here it is GOD HAS SPOKEN

2 Hebrews 1:1 4 (NKJV) 1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 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; 3 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, 4 having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. The Eternal Living God, the Creator of the Universe and of every living thing has spoken to man This shouldn t surprise us When God created man, God said let us make man in our image, after our likeness and let them have dominion over all the earth (Genesis 1:26-28) God put man into the garden of Eden and as God would walk through the garden the Lord would speak to man Thus man was created to have fellowship, friendship with God God speaking to man I find it interesting that the first thing that Satan attacked was God s Word to man Satan came to Eve and questioned God s Word did God really say? Of course, we know the rest of the story Eve believed Satan, ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and gave it to Adam who also ate and man s fellowship with God was broken It all began by doubting that GOD HAS SPOKEN The writer of Hebrews tells us that God has spoken at various times and through various ways GOD HAS SPOKEN to man AT VARIOUS TIMES throughout history God spoke to Noah and warned him of the judgment to come God spoke to Abraham God spoke to Jacob and Jacob called the place where God spoke to him Bethel which means house of God GOD HAS SPOKEN to man THROUGH VARIOUS WAYS

3 Numbers 12:6 8 (NKJV) 6 Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. 7 Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house. 8 I speak with him face to face, Even plainly, and not in dark sayings; And he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid To speak against My servant Moses? IN TIME PAST HE SPOKE TO THE FATHERS BY THE PROPHETS Elijah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel, David, Moses and all the minor prophets like Amos and Joel A prophet is a spokesman for God 2 Peter 1:21 tells us holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit The Hebrew word for prophet is Nabi and it refers to those who under divine inspiration announce or proclaim what they ve received from God There are two schools of thought concerning how they spoke One school of thought is the prophetic word would bubble up from within them and thus the prophet would utter revelations from God s Spirit in a state of ecstasy or with ecstatic speech Ephesus was known for it s famous oracle (prophetess) and people would pay money to have an audience with the oracle This pagan oracle would whip themselves up in a state of ecstasy and then this prophecy would bubble up and tell them the future The other school of thought is the prophet would receive the prophetic word and proclaim it under the direction of God s Spirit This is more in line with Paul s instruction to the church in 1 Corinthians 14 where he says the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets You don t need to whip yourself up into a state of ecstasy for God to speak through you like the pagans God is always speaking we just need to learn to listen God says He speaks to prophets through dreams and visions A vision is a picture or a movie you get in your mind when you re awake and a dream is what you get when you re sleeping Hosea tells us that GOD HAS SPOKEN through visions and symbols Hosea 12:10 (NKJV) 10 I have also spoken by the prophets, And have multiplied visions; I have given symbols through the witness of the prophets.

4 Here we see that God multiplies visions which is another way to say that God gives a lot of visions I find this especially true when I pray, often God will give me a vision But God also gives symbols that the prophets live out The word symbols is better translated symbolic actions as in the case of Ezekiel who laid on his left side for 390 days representing the number of years of the iniquity of the house of Israel Then he laid on his right side for 40 days representing the number of years of the iniquity of the house of Judah It can also mean acts of power like Elijah and the prophets of Baal Before the prophets there was Moses (Numbers 12:7) God spoke to Moses differently than He did the prophets God spoke to Moses face to face like a friend Not through dreams and visions, not in coded language but in a way that Moses could understand Moses also saw the form of the Lord Now this is interesting to me because the Bible says no one has seen the Lord and lived so who did Moses see? Colossians 1:15 tells us the Son is the image (form) of the invisible God So Moses saw Jesus Thus when God said HE HAS SPOKEN face to face with Moses literally GOD SPOKE BY JESUS Then Moses would speak to the people what Jesus said to Him Now this is important God then says why were you not afraid to speak against My servant Moses? He wasn t speaking on his own behalf, He was God s spokesman In other words when God speaks we should listen and do what He says Which brings us to our passage today The writer of Hebrews says in these last days GOD HAS SPOKEN to us by His Son Jesus Since GOD HAS SPOKEN to us by His Son Jesus During the time when God spoke through the prophets, the teachers of the law distorted the message of God They sought to interpret what the prophets meant to say Thus you had the Torah, the written law and the Mishna, the oral interpretations of the law passed down through the generations

5 The Mishna carried equal weight to the written Word of God Then you had the Talmud around 60 books that were written to interpret the Mishna so it was the interpretation of the interpretation Thus, in the Mishna God said not to bear a burden on the Sabbath The Talmud would ask the question what constitutes a burden? Can you put in your false teeth on the Sabbath and burden your mouth? Can you put on your wooden leg on the Sabbath and burden your leg? How heavy is something before it becomes a burden? How far can you walk before it becomes a burden? As a result, the law of the Lord which was perfect became a yoke of bondage that no man could bear Man s understanding of God became so confused and distorted that man no longer knew what GOD HAS SPOKEN So God sent Jesus into the world to reveal what GOD HAS SPOKEN What HAS GOD SPOKEN to us BY HIS SON? He told us that God is love and God didn t come to condemn John 3:16 17 (NKJV) 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He told us that we cannot be saved by our own self-righteousness Matthew 5:20 (NKJV) 20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. He told us to forgive one another Matthew 6:14 15 (NKJV) 14 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. He told us to worship God John 4:24 (NKJV)

6 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. He told us to love the Lord and love one another Mark 12:29 31 (NKJV) 29 Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is: Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. 30 And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. He told us to seek first the Kingdom of God Matthew 6:33 (NKJV) 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. WHY IS JESUS THE PERFECT VOICE OF GOD? We belong to Him Jesus is the Heir of all things He made us Jesus is the Creator of all things But the most important reason why He is the perfect voice of God is He God Jesus is the express image of God the brightness of His glory Jesus said if you ve seen Me, you ve seen the Father That means we should listen and do what GOD HAS SPOKEN by Jesus When the devil or a preacher tells you something different, what voice are you going to listen to? Listen to what GOD HAS SPOKEN Now we ve only lightly touched what GOD HAS SPOKEN by Jesus But I want to conclude with one more thing Jesus said Jesus said we must be born again John 3:3 (NKJV) 3 Jesus answered and said to him, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. It doesn t matter what your religious upbringing is It doesn t matter if you re a good person or a moral person Jesus said that which is born of the Spirit is spirit and that which is born of the flesh is flesh you must be born again.