Hebrews chapter 2/
In this Tuesday’s Southland times there was a dramatic picture of a digger jammed under a bridge in Rockdale Road in Invercargill.
The digger had been on the back of a truck that had not considered the 4.4 metre clearance warning that was on a sign before the bridge.
The result was the digger fell on the road and got jammed between the bridge and the road.
A Truck that had been following the vehicle carrying the digger then crashed into the digger.
The result was the digger had to be cut free -
The truck needed repairs
The road was blocked.
Why did all this happen?
Because the driver ignored the sign.
Every time we drive to the city we pass a number of signs that we have to pay heed to.
Slow Road works.
Stop signs
Give way signs
Traffic lights.
And so on.
We ignore them at our peril.
Every year in New Zealand six hundred or so New Zealanders die on the road.
Many persih because somebody didn’t pay heed to a warning sign of one sort or another.
Chapter two of the book of Hebrews warns Christians:-
HEB 2: 3 how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?
Hebrews chapter 2 begins with one of five serious warnings in the book of Hebrews.
This warning is couched in a question about how shall escape if we ignore such a great salvation?
There are according to one writer six signs that you are drifting in you faith.
They are:-
1. Loss of Focus.
2. Loss of Priorities
3. Loss of Passion
4. Loss of discipline
5. Loss of Commitment
6. Loss of Emotions
HEB 2:1 We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2 For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment,
HEB 2: 3 how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?
There is in Hebrews chapter 4 - powerful reasons for us to consider these symptoms of drifting and adjust our lives accordingly.
But firstly - Why bother???
Aren’t I doing all right - isn’t my life already perfectly acceptable to God??
There was a canoe drifting down a river - the occupant was enjoying his trip and was particularly being refreshed by the scenery as it passed by.
After a while he found he could steer the canoe with his hands - so he threw the paddles overboard. Someone from the bank yelled at him about such a dangerous pursuit - but he just laughed.
Presently he put his book down and decided to have a sleep.
Someone had said there was a massive waterfall - downstream but he was perfectly sure that it was miles away.
His hand dangled in the water.
The sun smiled on his brow - a gentle breeze ruffled his hair and kept him cool.
In his dream he could hear a roar was it an airplane?
Was he dreaming about a truck?
No it was real - he looked up spray and mist marked the edge of the waterfall - just metres away.
Panicking he looked around for his paddles but they had been thrown overboard.
He started to paddle with his hands but in seconds the current had swept him downstream and over the edge - gone - lost for ever.
Drifting in a river with a huge waterfall will do that!
The book of Hebrews says:-
HEB 2:1 We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.
Today many people are drifting in the Christian life.
We can be sure that if we were in the river with the waterfall we would be paddling our canoe upstream.
HEB 2: 3 how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?
If we throw the paddles overboard - we cannot paddle our canoe.
If we jetison our relationship with Jesus then we can read the words of Jesus that say -
MT 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, `Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, `I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Now these days it is not fashionable to discus what is on the other side of the waterfall even in Christian circles.
Someone said to me a few years ago when I preached about our need for salvation and their words have rung in my ears down through the years-
You’re too tough John!!
Although we do not want to be tough we need to be clear - Jesus very clearly says -
MT 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, `Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, `I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!
If you read the scriptures carefully and make a careful styudy of God’s word on the subject of our destination without Christ - then it makes the waterfall look like a Sunday School picnic!
Sin is the problem
A tiny seed in the crack of a footpath can grow into a tree that will break it in two. Tiny drops of water can dissolve a rock if it drips long enough!
C. Illust. If we fail to be radical against sin we will drift because sin is deceitful. Paul Harvey tells how an Eskimo kills a wolf. Coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Adds another layer, then another, and another ... until blade is completely concealed by frozen blood. Fixes knife in ground, blade up. Wolf’s keen sense attracts him and he sniffs and takes a lick...then another. Licks faster & faster. Feverishly. Doesn’t notice when blade is exposed. Doesn’t realize he’s being satisfied by his own warm blood. Bleeds to death!
But this morning I want to take that first sign of drifting and to turn it around and ask - what are things that we can do to head upstream!!!!
In other words I want the thought of the spiritual waterfall to help us get positive.
Three things that can help you move forward in your Christian faith.
Think about Gideon for a moment.
We’ve done it before but let’s just do it again.
Gideon was drifting - he had been sucked into the current of the particular society he had lived in.
He had a vague kind of notion about God< I suppose, He knew who God was but his village - the rural township in which he lived had a lot of stuff going on.
Sure the people knew who God was but there was cultic behaviour - people had erected some false God’s in the town -
The real God had become secondary -
Because of the peoples weekness of faith
the Israelites were not living life as God intended it to be lived. Instead of being faithful and obedient to the Lord, they forsook the Lord, they went after other gods, and they intermarried with the Canaanite women. God wanted them to live a life that would so reflect his glory that all the nations would ask, "what is it about the Israelites? God seems to bless everything they do." But because of compromise and disobedience, Israel ended up in bondage and captivity over and over again.(taken from sermon central.)
By the time we get to the story of Gideon in Judges chapter 6, Israel has already experienced 43 years of suffering under the harsh rule of the neighboring nations. Yet they still have not learned their lesson. This chapter begins the fourth cycle of sin, judgement, supplication and deliverance in the book of Judges (See Judges 2:10-19).
JDG 6:11 The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior."
JDG 6:13 "But sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, `Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian."
JDG 6:14 The LORD turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?"
JDG 6:15 "But Lord, " Gideon asked, "how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family."
JDG 6:16 The LORD answered, "I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together."
LORDT T
There are three great things in this passage that will help you from drifting in your Christian faith if you can only but understand them.
The first vital matter is the question of vision.or understanding what you have in God.
It is not who you are in the flesh that matters it is understanding who it is on your side.
That is why it says in Hebrews chapter 2 - How can you be saved if you neglect so great a salvation.
We need a sense of vision of just who we are in Christ.
When the angel came to Gideon he was hiding in a winepress.
But the angel says to him
When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior."
What the angel is talking is of his potential if he trusts in God as his salvation.
The same thing happens to Elijah’s servant
2KI 6:15 When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked.
2KI 6:16 "Don’t be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them."
2KI 6:17 And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes so he may see." Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
As Christians Hebrews chapter 2
Does two things it warns us against neglecting such a great salvation and then it opens our eyes by giving us a very clear picture of who Jesus is.
2KI 6:18 As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the LORD, "Strike these people with blindness." So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked.
As Christians Hebrews chapter 2
Does two things it warns us against neglecting such a great salvation and then it opens our eyes by giving us a very clear picture of who Jesus is.
The second thing is the angel says:-
JDG 6:14 The LORD turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?"
Go in the strength you have.
It seems to me that God consitantly calls us to go with what we have and He grants the increase.
If God has a call on your life and he does - then all he asks is for you to go with what you have and it is He who grants the increase.
That is why David only required a slingshot to put the whole Philistine army on the run and why Jesus only required a few loaves of bread and a few fishes to feed the multitude of 5,000
Go with what you have.
Am I not sending you?"
The third point is Am I not sending you - In Matthew we are told to go into all the world -
And the promise at the end of that passage is I am with you always even to the end of the age.
If people understood just who it was who is with them and Hebrews goes to great length to get you up to date with who God is. Then we would see amazing things done by ordinary Christians.
If trembling Gideon in the winepress can put the Middianite army to flight then imagine what you can do with Jesus by your side.
Three things then that you can do.
Seek a vision of who you are in God.
Go in the strength you have. Begin to act in Faith.
Understand just who is sending you!
