[0:00] Well, it's such a privilege and a pleasure to be with you again, beloved brothers and sisters in Christ. You're not allowed to have favourite churches, but I do enjoy coming to Doncaster a great deal.
[0:16] And a reputable source tells me this is the 25th Summer Series. You began in 1996, for those of you who were alive then, and some of you are still going, which I think is remarkable.
[0:33] I was converted when I was 16, and the first Bible book I studied in great detail, word for word, was Hebrews. It was a wonderful book.
[0:44] I can't remember why I chose it, but it was a wonderful book, because it helped me understand how the Old Testament and the New Testament fitted together, which I'd never understood before.
[0:56] And it showed me the Lord Jesus in all his glory. So I'm so pleased we're studying the book of Hebrews over these four series. Now, it's a long book, and we can't go through every verse.
[1:10] So I'm taking four themes, Jesus, the Son of God, Jesus, our brother, Jesus, our great high priest, and Jesus, the single sacrifice for sins.
[1:22] And I think those themes will help you to see the significance of the book and its importance. But I would encourage you to read through Hebrews once a week during this series.
[1:35] Okay? That will help you understand the context for what we're talking about each night. And that will help you make it your own as well.
[1:46] So I do encourage you to do that, to read through Hebrews once a week during January. In the past, God spoke to our ancestors.
[2:05] In these last days, he's spoken to us by a son. I imagine that when God thinks, God thinks in God language.
[2:22] But when God wants to communicate with human beings, he's able to speak our language. He's able to come down to our level and use frail human words.
[2:37] And speak in the mother language of all the people who live in the world. The Muslims think the Koran is not a translatable book.
[2:54] It loses its power when translated. And strict Jews read the Old Testament in Hebrew and Aramaic. But we believe that God's words are so powerful that they can even work in translation.
[3:11] And still contain, retain the power of the Spirit of God. That God can address every human being in words that they can understand.
[3:22] The first claim about God is that God is a speaking God. Do you remember these words from Isaiah? My thoughts are not your thoughts.
[3:34] Neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways. And my thoughts than your thoughts. God is a speaking God.
[4:08] God is a speaking God. God is a speaking God. God is a speaking God. Then our first duty is to listen. To hear. To pay attention to what God is saying.
[4:21] In the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets in many and various ways. Well, if you've read through the Old Testament, you'll know that there are many and various ways in which God spoke through the prophets.
[4:40] I think when the writer of Hebrews says that God spoke through the prophets, he's talking about every writer of every Bible, Old Testament Bible book, by the way. Not just the kind of formal prophets.
[4:53] Let's think how God spoke through the prophets. Well, he addressed a serpent once. Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals.
[5:04] You'll crawl on your belly and you'll eat dust all the days of your life. I'll put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.
[5:19] And those words of God are one of the ways in which God spoke through the prophets. His words to a serpent about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[5:32] Or these words to Abram. I'll make you a great nation. I'll bless you. I'll make your name great. You'll be a blessing. I'll bless those who bless you. Whoever curses you, I will curse.
[5:43] And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. Or again to Abram in Genesis 22. I'll surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky and as the sand on the seashore.
[5:56] Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies. And through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me. These, you see, are words which are provisions for that time, a promise to Abraham about his descendants.
[6:14] But they are also promises about the future. They relate to the present in the Old Testament. They also relate to the future. They're words which are gifts for that time.
[6:27] And also glimpses of grace. Glimpses of that grace which is to come in the Lord Jesus Christ. Think of the Passover. Remember the Passover from Egypt?
[6:38] The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.
[6:52] Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs.
[7:06] On the same night I'll pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals. I'll bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. But the blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are.
[7:20] And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. There was a wonderful provision of safety and protection for God's people in the midst of God's judgment on Israel.
[7:35] It was a provision for that time, but also a promise for the future. A glimpse of the grace that was to come in the Lord Jesus Christ. For the Passover of the Old Testament was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[7:48] Paul says, Christ our Passover. Our Passover is sacrificed for us. So in that curious action of the Passover, which was not done only once but repeated every year in the life of God's people, there was a sign of the Christ to come.
[8:08] Or think of Moses inaugurating the first covenant. Moses got up early the next morning, built an altar at the foot of the mountain, set up twelve stone pillars. Then he sent young Israelite men.
[8:20] They offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings. Moses took half of the blood, put it in bowls. The other half he splashed on the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant and read it to the people.
[8:33] They responded, we'll do everything the Lord has said. We will obey. Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, this is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with these words.
[8:45] So the covenant or agreement between God and God's people there on Mount Sinai was sealed in blood. Then Jesus says, this is my blood of the new covenant.
[9:00] God was speaking through a sign, the sign of blood. God was speaking through a sign of blood. Or think of the temple, the building of the temple. What did the temple mean?
[9:10] It meant that God, whom the heaven and highest heavens cannot contain, deigned to make himself present on earth. You might think that we have to make the journey to find God, but there we find in the Old Testament the wonderful picture of God coming down to our level, coming down to live among his people, in his glory, making his name to dwell there in the tabernacle and the temple.
[9:39] It was, as Calvin said, the temple was, as Calvin said, a visible sign of the Christ to come. Because what God promised and achieved in part in coming down to live in the temple, in his glory, was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[10:00] John says, we've seen his glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father. So the temple was a promise of the Christ to come.
[10:10] So too were Old Testament priests. For we read in Hebrews, when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through a greater and more perfect tabernacle.
[10:23] Did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves. He entered the most holy place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. Every Old Testament priest was not only a provision for that time, but also a promise of the priest to come, the Lord Jesus Christ.
[10:43] If the priest was a good priest, you thought he was a good priest, but we're hoping for a better one when the Lord Jesus comes. And if it was a bad priest, presumably you thought, well, thank goodness, the Lord Jesus will be better than this one.
[10:59] And if the temple and the priest were promises of the Christ to come, so too were sacrifices. Again, from Hebrews, every day, day after day, every priest stands and performs his religious duties, still doing it when Hebrews was written.
[11:15] Again and again, he offers the same sacrifice, which can never take away sin. But when this priest, Christ had offered for all time, one sacrifice for sin, he sat down at the right hand of God.
[11:28] For by one sacrifice, he's made perfect forever. Those who are being made holy. So every sacrifice offered was not only a gracious provision of God for the forgiveness of the people, but also contained in itself the promise, a glimpse of future grace when the Lord Jesus Christ would come in all his power and majesty.
[11:49] And if the temple priest and sacrifice were visible signs of the Christ to come, so were Old Testament kings. God says to David, your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me.
[12:07] Your throne will be established forever. And as we've recently celebrated, today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you, the Messiah, the Lord.
[12:19] So, Jesus is great David's greater son. And every Old Testament king was not only a provision of God, some helpful and some unhelpful, I might say, but also a promise that the Messiah would come, the son of David, and his throne would be forever.
[12:43] They were, these things, these many things, these many and various ways were provisions for that time, but also promises for the future. They were God's gracious gifts for that time, but also glimpses of the glorious grace to come in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[13:02] In many and various ways, these pointed forward to the last days when God would speak through his son. But in these last days, verse 2, he has spoken through to us by his son.
[13:25] If you ask God, what do you want to say? His reply would be Jesus. He is the word of God who speaks the words of God.
[13:43] He is the word of God, the message of God. And he also speaks the words of God. He is the prophet promised in Deuteronomy chapter 18.
[13:57] So the transfiguration, you hear the voice from heaven, this is my son whom I love, listen to him, listen to Jesus' words. Jesus is the prophet.
[14:10] He is also the heir of all things through whom he made the universe. He is the creator. As we read also in John's gospel, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God.
[14:23] Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. So Jesus is the prophet. He is the creator.
[14:36] And next, he is the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of his being. As the son of the word, or son or word of God, Jesus perfectly expresses God.
[14:48] He's the radiance of God. As the sunlight comes from the sun, the sunlight is God's radiance. What we see is sunlight. It illumines our life. It gives life to our world.
[15:00] So Jesus is the radiance of God and the exact representation. When we know the mind of Jesus, we know the mind of God. When we know the heart of Jesus, we know the heart of God.
[15:15] When we hear the words of Jesus, we hear the words of God. When we see the deeds of Jesus, we see the deeds of God. John's gospel again. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only son, who is himself God, has made him known.
[15:31] Or as Jesus said, he who has seen me, has seen the father. And not only creator, and exact representation of God, but also the one who sustains all things by his powerful word.
[15:46] He carries all things to their ultimate goal. He is the sustainer of all things. As we read in Colossians 1, in him all things hold together. If Jesus lost concentration for a moment, our universe would evaporate.
[16:05] Jesus holds the universe together. And until then, the writer of Hebrews has been talking about what Jesus does all the time.
[16:21] And then he talks about his incarnation. He provided purification for sins. Sins make us dirty. They defile us.
[16:34] The only way to get clean is by the blood of Christ. He provided purification for sins. Then he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. So there we have the death, the resurrection, the ascension, and then Jesus seated at God's right hand as the glorified ruler.
[17:01] Well, we've looked at the first three verses. Let's look at verse four. And you might think this is a bit of an anticlimax. We've heard about the glory of Jesus the prophet, the creator, the sustainer, the Lord, the one who makes purification, and the glorified king.
[17:23] And then we hear he's better than angels. Well, you might have thought I could have worked that out myself as a matter of fact. But presumably, there were some people at the time who needed to be told that.
[17:35] Why is this included here, that he is superior to angels? Well, I think that one of the difficulties the Jews faced was that God seemed so glorious and so powerful, so otherworldly and so remote, and they felt so far away from God, particularly when they were in exile, but even after they'd returned, they felt that we need someone to mediate between God and ourselves.
[18:07] If God is so great and we are so feeble, if God is so holy and we are so sinful, if God is so powerful and we are so weak, then we need a mediator. And their instinct was right.
[18:18] They did need a mediator. And where will you find mediators in the Old Testament? Well, you might think that you'll find mediators in angels because they're kind of like God because they don't have bodies and they can move around swiftly.
[18:34] They're invisible. And yet we kind of feel they're a bit more accessible to us. And as a matter of fact, through the Old Testament, you find again and again God's people trying to organize some connection between themselves and the great God.
[18:50] So the first one was a golden calf, wasn't it? And I think one reason why Israel so often fell for idolatry was that here were visible signs of gods, of powerful life forces and things like that.
[19:05] And they thought, well, perhaps this represents in some mysterious way the power of God. And this makes God more accessible to us. This makes God seem more near to us. And that's why they were tempted to draw pictures of God and make images of God.
[19:19] Which is why God told them not to do it. But perhaps some in the first century thought that angels were a good halfway between God and ourselves.
[19:30] Good mediators like God without bodies yet created like us. Well, my stepmother died a few years ago.
[19:42] We had the funeral in Melbourne and then the interment of her ashes was to take place in Echuca where she was born and brought up. She was a Roman Catholic and so we had to find a local Roman Catholic priest to inter the ashes.
[19:58] He was a very nice man, very jolly, very chatty, but here is the substance of the message he gave us at the interment of my stepmother.
[20:11] Winifred was a wonderful person and she's now a saint. So anytime we're in trouble, we can ask her for help. I imagine Winifred trying to get a bit of rest after a busy life of 95 years and we're all saying, excuse me, Winifred, I've lost my car keys, you know.
[20:34] Or have you got the recipe for a blancmange? I seem to have lost it or something like that. But of course, these angels, these mediators could also be bad powers.
[20:49] For what is Satan but a fallen angel? So the danger with having these human devised mediators is that they might turn against you, which is why we read in chapter 2 of Hebrews, since the children have flesh and blood, Jesus too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
[21:19] Now, I have good friends and you'll probably know who they are, who work in a country in Asia which has a Roman Catholic and animist culture.
[21:31] So, ordinary people there kind of have a smattering of Catholicism, but they're also frightened of demons and evil spirits and things like that, you see.
[21:42] and so, what Chris did was to explain to them the difference between the creator and creatures. He was saying the creator is powerful and creatures are not powerful.
[21:58] So, he went through a list and people had to call out and say whether what he was talking about was creator or creature. So, we're going to do that now.
[22:09] Okay. Okay. God. Good. Angels. Demons.
[22:25] Yes. Mary. The saints, including Winifred. Creatures.
[22:40] So, Jesus, prophet, creator, and sustainer is more powerful.
[22:53] Jesus is God and the perfect expression of God. No angel is that. Jesus is encountered. The creator became part of his creation.
[23:03] Isn't that extraordinary? The one person in whom the creator and the creature are linked. The creator became part of his creation.
[23:17] He made purification for sins. And he's seated at the right hand of God. The sacrifice and purification accepted.
[23:28] As Paul says, there's one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus. And then the writer of Hebrews proves all this by the Old Testament.
[23:46] You might have thought from the first few verses he was dismissing the Old Testament. Not at all. He regards it as the powerful and living word of God, doesn't he? and he proves the power of Jesus from the Old Testament.
[24:01] He's comparing the son and the angels or, as I now think better described, the son and the servants. For to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son, this day I've become your father.
[24:15] Or again, I will be his father and he will be my son. Or verse 6, again when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, let all God's angels worship him.
[24:28] So, angels can't be competitors because they're meant to be worshipping Jesus as well. Recognizing that he is the son and they are just spirits, servants.
[24:41] He is the son, they're servants. Verse 8, but about the son he says, your throne, oh God, how amazing that God addresses his son as God.
[24:51] Your throne, oh God, will last forever and ever. A scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. You've loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.
[25:06] So, there is the David, the Lord Jesus as inheriting the throne of David with an eternal throne. and verse 10, he returns to the theme of the creation.
[25:20] In the beginning, Lord, that is, the Lord Jesus, you laid the foundation of the earth. The heavens are the work of your hands. They'll perish, you remain. They'll wear out like a garment.
[25:31] You'll roll them up like a robe, like a garment that'll be changed, but you remain the same and your years will never end. For to which of the angels did God ever say, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet?
[25:48] And verse 14, are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? I love the contrast. Jesus is the Son who is over all, who sustains all things, who's all powerful, who's seated at God's right hand.
[26:07] And what are angels? They're servants of the Son and they're our servants as well under the hand of God.
[26:22] One of the great losses in our society is that people have lost the knowledge, the awareness of the greatness and glory and majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[26:34] Christ. No wonder they are confused. No wonder they are lost.
[26:49] And so, what's the application of chapter 1? It's the first four verses of chapter 2.
[26:59] We must pay the most careful attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away.
[27:10] God has spoken. Pay attention. Concentrate. Listen. Read. Think. Receive.
[27:23] God has spoken in many and various ways. In the last days God's spoken and by his Son. We must therefore pay the most careful attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away.
[27:35] Have you ever drifted by the way when you've been swimming or in a boat? I have. I was lying. I remember when I was a teenager I'd swum out a little way and was lying on my back enjoying looking at the sky and the sun and so forth during the sort of swish of the sea and then after about ten minutes I looked towards the shore and it had gone further away from me.
[27:58] I don't understand how the shore moves but it had it had moved a long way away. I didn't hear it going but it was terrifying. You see you drift when other things pressure you and if you read through Hebrews carefully you'll notice that you might begin by drifting in chapter two but you end up by denying in chapter ten.
[28:22] There's a kind of awful progress regress a downward spiral that you go you start drifting you end up denying. So please don't ever think you don't need to pay attention to the scriptures.
[28:38] Please don't ever think I know that I've learnt that already I don't need to hear that again. Please when you read the Bible don't think well I know what that parable means.
[28:48] Read it carefully pay careful attention to it. Or when the Bible reading is something you know off by heart. Please don't think oh I know that already. That's not that's not the point.
[28:59] You should be still listening to what God is saying to you. Still saying to you. You should be paying careful attention to what you hear. As the Hebrews says later on see to it that you do not refuse him who speaks.
[29:15] How do we avoid drifting? Well I think Hebrews has two answers. The first answer here is pay close attention.
[29:27] I remember the first time I read in Ephesians let the thief no longer steal but rather labour with his hands to give to those in need.
[29:38] I thought that is brilliant replacing a bad action by a good action a positive action you see. The thief is not wandering around thinking I mustn't steal today.
[29:49] No the thief is to be so busy working with his hands that he's able to give to those in need. That's brilliant isn't it? Replacement of sin by godliness. So how do we avoid drifting?
[30:03] We pay closer attention to what we hear. So never miss any opportunity to pay careful attention, close attention to the Bible.
[30:14] the Bible is deceptively simple and if you learnt it when you were a child you might think well I understand that. But you need to receive it again and again and again and one of the joys of being an old Christian is that you find more and more things in the Bible every time you read it.
[30:32] It's just wonderful. In fact I occasionally find verses I haven't seen before. I thought God just snuck that verse in while I wasn't looking. How do we avoid drifting?
[30:45] We pay close attention. The other answer in Hebrews comes later on that we draw near. We do not drift away rather than drifting away from God we draw near to God.
[30:59] Therefore brothers and sisters since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way open for us through the curtain that is through his body and since we have a great priest over the house of God let us here it is draw near to God with a sincere heart and the full assurance that faith brings.
[31:26] We should be drawing near to God all the time. Not just when we pray but as we live our daily lives conscious of God's presence conscious of God's presence by the blood of Christ conscious that we can have full assurance of faith through the blood of Christ and the fact that Christ is a high priest that we can draw near to God.
[31:57] He has drawn near to us so we can draw near to him. don't drift draw near don't drift draw near don't drift draw near gracious God by your spirit write your words in our hearts and lives for Jesus sake amen.
[32:39] hi Peter thank you so much for your thoughts on Hebrews 1 and what you shared with us and I've heard you speaking many times and one of the things that I've observed is you have such a delightful curiosity when it comes to approaching the word of God and I'd love I'd be keen to know how you maintain such a delightful curiosity about God's word well I love it and there's a Hebrews verse chapter 3 verse 7 is a very important verse for me because the writer is about to quote Psalm 97 and he says as the Holy
[33:41] Spirit says in other words when God originally inspired Psalm 97 and it's preserved for us but God is still speaking the same word so I think when I read this book God speaks so I mean that's just so amazing just so an amazing thought as Augustine said I think of the Bible as a letter from God so that motivates me I expect God to do what he's going to do which is to speak but in terms of the practical way of paying close attention I often think now if I were writing this book what do I write next what do I expect is going to happen next that's one question I ask myself and then what does come next and isn't that a surprise then I'm constantly thinking of I try to think of the Bible in terms of each book is a unit of
[34:49] God's revelation so how does this verse fit into the this whole book not just the Bible but the two chronicles or Joshua or whatever it is so I'm always trying to keep the big picture of this particular book in my mind and see how this particular verse contributes to it in some way it's a building block for the whole book I'm also realising that God's message is about his son so I'm expecting that God will show me something about the Lord Jesus when I read the Bible I also know in terms of Hebrews that God's word pierces our hearts and lays bare the reality so I'm expecting to learn something more about myself but also something more about other people because one reason I read the Bible is to try and help other people understand it and so I'm often reading it thinking now what does this say to our church at the present time or to the friends
[35:54] I'm talking to whom I pray for every day how would this be a useful verse for them so I'm inquiring about the verse in itself I'm inquiring about it in the context of the book in which it occurs in the context of the whole Bible in the context of my own life and in the context of people to whom I minister so I think those questions children are the best question answers askers because they ask the question why why did God make moths I haven't found the answer to that question but anyway if you ask not only what is here but why is it here what's the purpose and I find that's true about lots of things not only what is happening in the world but why is it happening a country is in a mess why is it in a mess this has gone wrong why has it gone wrong this church is not doing well why isn't it doing well
[37:02] God is blessing this ministry why is he blessing it the question why is a great device to find out more so approach the Bible with the question why in your mind yeah sorry I've rabbited on a bit there but just some first thoughts about what I do now Mike is still roving I think he's still roving other questions Peter maybe I'll just ask one while others are thinking I think you've touched on it a bit today but we do hear often don't we that not that I agree with it but people do say oh you know the son has now come God's ultimate word has come so that supersedes the written word or words to that effect so how does
[38:02] Hebrews respond to that and how would you respond to that yes so the question is God's word the son has come so isn't he more important than the Bible and do we need the Bible well he is more important than the Bible because he is God and the Bible isn't that's why we worship him we don't worship the Bible the Bible is the product of God but the son is God and rightly to be called Lord and God but if you ask the question does Jesus think the Bible is still important I think the answer is yes he does there's this wonderful moment when he's being tempted by Satan in the desert do you remember that and Satan suggests he turns stone into bread which seems a very good idea because there are often lots of stones around in a desert Jesus reply is you shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of
[39:07] God now the extraordinary thing about that reply is that it comes from Deuteronomy chapter 8 so he's quoting the Old Testament and that's the word of God he's applying to himself but he isn't just saying this is how other people have to live Jesus is saying this is how I'm kept alive isn't well you don't live by bread alone but by everywhere that comes from the mouth of God so Jesus himself is sustained by the scriptures and I think to myself well if Jesus was sustained by the scriptures perhaps I need them as well I do need them as well and we all need them as well there's a great quotation from James Smart who wrote a book in the 1970s the strange silence of the Bible and the church he said without the Bible the worshipped Christ or the followed Christ becomes an imagined
[40:07] Christ shaped by the needs and desires of his followers that is once you don't have the Bible you start making Christ in your own image and that's true with Christian ministry and evangelism isn't it if you if you're not using the Bible then you're making people in your image not Christ's image so what the Bible does is to keep clear in our minds the glory of God and the glory of Christ and without the Bible we indulge in a form of idolatry which is making God and making Christ in our image according to our needs and that happens with people who Bible dip that is pick out the bits of the Bible they like and leave the rest we need the whole scriptures to give us the whole picture of God and of Christ yeah thanks that that was really good
[41:14] I really like the line don't drift but draw near in fact my friend next to me put mic drop next to it because it was really good but I guess my question is when you say draw near do we need more than just scripture I find particularly in popular Christian culture that things like experience and other aspects are more required to draw near so what's your view on drawing near to God in regards to scripture and I guess other ways of drawing near to God we need scripture to tell us to draw near to God that's why we need scripture but we draw near according to Hebrews with a sincere heart and the full assurance that faith brings and we should not use experience as a way of drawing near to God because experience is wonderful but sometimes our experiences are not good and we're close we can draw close to
[42:24] God though we feel a million miles away from him and you can feel close to God when actually you're not yourself deceived and I think one modern practice which I think is just awful is to think that by the process of worshipping we draw near to God in fact I remember reading a book years ago by Graham Kendrick I think which said church service is a bit like going into the temple where it's worship which brings you into the presence of God it's not worship which brings you into the presence of God nor is it theology nor is it emotion it's the blood of Jesus and having Jesus as your high priest and the power of his blood which enables you to draw near to
[43:26] God that's really important and I'm so glad you asked the question because it's an area of great confusion the other mistake people make is you need to be a good person to draw near to God and if I've done something wrong then I have to draw back from God God will always answer immediately is please forgive me so when I sinned and I do very often every day the worst thing for me to do is to draw back from God that's exactly the moment I need to draw near to God for forgiveness and not thinking that it's my goodness which enables me to get into God's presence no my only plea is Jesus and his shed blood for me so it's a spot on question I'm really glad you asked it and I think I've given you an answer from Hebrews chapter 10 I didn't develop the idea that you need perfect theology to get access to
[44:33] God but that's another silly idea which floats around not in this building I'm sure I have a question what are some practical ways to humble ourselves when we have an attitude of thinking well we've heard this passage again before yes that's right yes I go to Sri Lanka I tried to go for a year but of course I couldn't go last year to help preachers to train preachers and one of them asked me have you got one good piece of advice I said whenever you read a Bible passage I know what that means stop and read it again so I think we need the discipline of paying careful attention as Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 1 paying careful attention and any way you can help yourself to do that would be a good idea one way to do it is to write the passage out yourself if you can still write or type it out if that's what you can do or read it out aloud try reading it in different ways and see what different meanings you can get according to the way you read it and then think which is the right way to read it imagine you're reading it to somebody else these are all little devices to help us see the scriptures afresh you might read a different version indeed I do that all the time because all the churches
[46:11] I go to all use different versions of the Bible so I have to keep on adapting so I've got lots of different Bibles so perhaps read a different version or something like that but I think ultimately you have to say to God here's a problem please help me work through it what the Bible itself tells us to do is not to read it but to meditate on it so Deuteronomy chapter 6 I better find it I have no memory for scripture unfortunately so I'll lead you into trouble I was once leading the Lord's Prayer in England in a service and I got lost and had us God giving us our daily bread as we give daily bread to those who stand against us the congregation smiled politely and thought these colonials they don't understand the Lord's Prayer okay
[47:13] Deuteronomy chapter 6 love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your strength wow there's a bit of a challenge well Moses how are you meant to do it these commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts impress them on your children I love that expression talk about them when you sit at home when you walk along the road when you lie down when you get up tie them as symbols on your hands bind them on your foreheads write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates so never do the read and run where you read and then forget what you've read so put the verse for the day on your screen save or whatever it is write it on the fridge door or something like that so talk about it with other people so don't internalize the process but actually talk about the verse look I read the process of discovering the meaning of the word of
[48:13] God so all these are just little ways in which we can help ourselves do what we are meant to do which is to meditate on the word of God chew it over chat about it great questions thank you I love the questions how are we going for time Peter well it's still Tuesday it's Wednesday no it's Wednesday sorry maybe one more last one I think there's one down there let's ask and then Rene will pray after that Wednesday it's Wednesday it's Wednesday in verse 14 it says that angels are sent to minister to those who inherit salvation I was wondering what does that mean what ways do angels participate in our salvation should we be praying for angels to help us more or what are the practical applications of that yes
[49:14] I'm not very sure how to answer that question but because it's there in the Bible I guess it's true so if you ask how is God working in the world then one answer is he's using angels to do things rather the way in which if God wants to convert a friend of yours he will use your witness and your prayers or if God wants to revive a church then he'll use the prayers of the people so God can use agents for his purpose but the glory of course is his not the glory of the agent so I take that as saying that God is using supernatural means to care for us not to save us but to care for those who are being saved I seem to remember my grandmother who was an Irish Roman Catholic had a saying what saints and ministers of grace defend us I think was it well I think I'd prefer to say serve us than defend us yeah thanks