Hebrews 1:1-3
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Hebrews 1:1-3 By Louis T. Talbot To be released Tuesday February 19. And good morning my radio friends and friends of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. This is Louis T. Talbot greeting you and welcoming you to the beginning of our study in Hebrews, a verse by verse Bible study in the epistle of Paul to the Hebrew Christians of his day. A great many of the difficulties that arise as one reads this epistle will immediately pass away if we keep in mind that it was not written to gentiles but it was written to Hebrews. The Spirit of God used the Apostle Paul to write to the Hebrew Christians of that day to encourage them to stand fast because great numbers of nominal believers were turning back to the offerings of little lambs and the other shadows of the temple worship. Remember please my friends that when the apostle Paul wrote this epistle that the temple was standing when Paul wrote these epistles the Temple was still there. That is that the Temple in Jerusalem was not destroyed by Titus until A.D. 70. And so all the ceremonies were going on in the temple and there was a great temptation for a lot of these nominal Christians to go back to the ceremonies of the temple and to the offering of little lambs for their sin. Now there is no doubt that the book of Hebrews was written to the Hebrew Christians of that day to encourage the real Christians to stand fast in their confession of Christ. You know that having heard of Christ and heard Christ himself in the streets of Jerusalem and in Capernaum and out in the fields of Palestine that many had become his followers but they were only nominally followers. Undoubtedly their great expectation was that Christ would set up his earthly kingdom and would deliver Israel from the Roman yoke. Then when the Lord Jesus Talbot: Hebrews 1:1-3 Christ was crucified and taken back to heaven and his disciples were persecuted, a great number of them were going back to the temple and to animal sacrifices. Many were in this class and I guess that they were like those two disciples that the Lord Jesus Christ met on the way to Emmaus. You will remember that story that is recorded in Luke Chapter 24 How the Lord Jesus Christ met those two men after the resurrection. And he drew near to them, He found that they were very sad and the Lord Jesus said to them, "Why are you so sad?" And they said concerning Jesus of Nazareth, "And we trusted that it had been him which should have delivered Israel." And my dear friends they were not the only people that were in that company. They were not the only people who had the hopes that the Lord Jesus Christ was going to set up his kingdom in that day. And the day when Christ was crucified you know that that their hopes were blasted done and they felt that they had been misled. Now the apostle Paul in his epistle writes to encourages the real believers. He does what Christ did on the way to Emmaus because you'll remember that after they said, "We hoped that this man would be he who would deliver Israel." We read that the Lord Jesus Christ said, "O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to have entered into his glory?" And then we read that Christ, beginning at Moses and all the prophets he expounded unto them the things concerning himself how that he was going to die and suffer first and then he would return and establish his kingdom. But my dear friends there was another class of Hebrews that the Apostle Paul was addressing in this epistle. He was writing to enlighten those Hebrews who were intellectually convinced that Christ was the Messiah but because of fear of persecution that they had not made any definite confession of Christ. But they too carried on the ceremonies of the Old Testament and especially Page 2 of 10 Talbot: Hebrews 1:1-3 the offering of little lambs. And those lambs that were offered in the temple were of no value now because they pointed to the Lamb of God and the Lamb of God had already come. I said to you yesterday that many of these Hebrews did not confess Christ because they saw what happened to the Hebrew Christians who did confess Christ. You know that the lot of the Hebrew Christian has always been a rough one and pressure was brought to bear upon them and their property was confiscated and so on. They had seen the persecution heaped upon those who openly confessed Christ and some were affected by it and were going back to the shadows and so the apostle Paul begins by flooding their minds with the glory of the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want my dear friends for you to not how majestically hard this epistle opens concerning the person and the work of Christ. Just follow me as I read verses 1-3 will you? God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." I want you to note my dear friends that the fathers that he is referring to of course are Abraham Isaac and Jacob. If [inaudible] Paul had begun any of his epistles to the Gentiles that way that they would not have known what he was talking about. But when these Hebrews read about God having at sundry times spoken in diverse manners unto the fathers by the prophets they knew exactly what he was talking about. And then Paul goes on to say, "Have in these last days spoken unto us by his son." Now I want you to note the picture of the glory of Christ that follows, "Whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by 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 on the right hand of the Majesty on high." My friends what a portrait that the Apostle Paul by the Spirit of God gives of our blessed lord to Page 3 of 10 Talbot: Hebrews 1:1-3 these Hebrews. And my friends, you know some of you folks may not be going through the same difficulties or having the same problems as these early Hebrews. You are not being thrown to the lions but you may have a lot of problems and sorrows and heartaches. And I want to say to you my friends that the cure for all ill and all fear is just to have your eyes, your vision filled with the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a wonderful Lord Jesus we have. How insignificant are our problems and our troubles become in the light of this revelation that he has given in these opening verses. Do you remember that little chorus? "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace." And when the apostle Paul sits down to write an epistle to meet the need of these apostles, these Hebrew Christians rather, the Hebrew Christians who were disturbed because Christ did not establish his kingdom and then meet the need of those Hebrews who were intellectually convinced that Christ was the Messiah but they were afraid to come out into the open because of the persecutions. You know that the Apostle when he sat down to write to them to meet their need, the first thing that he does is to flood their vision with the glory of the person of Christ. I want you to look at this verse one will you? Let us read there, look at this verse 1, very closely. the apostle begins by saying, "God who at sundry times and in diverse manners spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets." That is the apostle Paul here stating that all through the old testament days that God was trying to say something to the people but he could only give it or reveal it in piecemeal and that he did it in diverse manners and in sundry times. That he spoke through dreams and he spoke through visions at different times but he could only say it just a little at a time. He could not say all that he wanted to say to any one prophet. He gave what Page 4 of 10 Talbot: Hebrews 1:1-3 he had to say in fragments. He gave a little to this man and a little to that man. It was given in fragments that is, what God wanted to say in the Old Testament was given piecemeal. No prophets spoke all the truth at the one time. It was given in the form of a piecemeal revelation. That's the very best that God could do. You know to Abraham God gave a little, and to Moses a little, and two Isaiah a little, and to Daniel a little. And on through the Old Testament period that God was adding a little by little to his revealed word.