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Hebrews 3:1-6 By Stephen Bignall

our attention as we turn to Hebrews and the third chapter together. Hebrews chapter three and the first six verses or so are our portion this morning.
It was a call to worship and now it's a call for our consideration and that is what the writer says there in the first verse of the chapter. Therefore holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession Christ Jesus who was faithful to him who appointed him. Two weeks ago when we looked in this book together we saw that there is a people who are in the grip of God.
There is the preeminent man and saviour, the champion and deliverer, who has taken upon himself the nature of sinners yet himself without sin. He's taken upon himself human nature.
He's so closely grasped hold of those whom he has come to save that he has taken upon himself a sinless human nature to bear their sinful burden. And so we see that he says I will declare your name in verse 12 of the previous chapter to my brethren. They are children of the same womb, the womb of woman. Christ came into the world born of a woman, born under the law.
That word brother means of the same womb. Brethren those who were born of the same womb, I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly. I will sing praise to you and again I will put my trust in him and again here am I and the children whom God has given me.
He came for the suffering of death, we're told in verse 9, crowned with glory and honour that he by the grace of God might taste death for everyone. That is for every one of the children whom God has given him. He grasps hold we're told of the seed, the children of Abraham, the children of promise, the household of faith there in verse 16. That give aid means to grasp hold, a people in the grip of God, a people on the edge of the abyss, a people plunging into an eternity of loss and grief and just punishment and he grabs hold of them and he lifts them to redemption, to deliverance, to rescue, to safety and that was in the life and the death that he suffered in their place.
The chapter finishes with this, for in that he himself has suffered, being tested, being tempted,
he's able to aid those who are tempted. Therefore, the writer says, therefore holy brethren
consider him, weigh him up, appraise him, examine him, evaluate him, dwell upon him, this one who is
sent, he is the apostle, the one sent, he is the high priest, the highest, the greatest intercessor,
the mediator, the one who stands between God and man and brings God to man and man to God
acceptably. He is the one who is the high priest of our confession. Christians are those who confess
Jesus Christ. They're not those who merely are raised in a country where Jesus Christ's name is
appended to certain institutions. They're not those who merely undergo some sorts of rituals
where Jesus Christ's name is appended to those rituals. They are those who confess from the heart
consciously, personally, a saviour, Christ, an anointed deliverer, Jesus, the one who will save
his people from their sins, a saviour who was faithful to him who appointed him. God has appointed
him, you see, to come down and to be a deliverer. God has appointed him and he's been faithful in
that appointment and here we begin a comparison. That faithfulness is compared to another who was
faithful and that was Moses, another servant, another one sent, another one who was of a
priestly order. And yet that faithfulness is contrasted, not only compared, for it says that he
was as Moses was, faithful in all his house, but also that this one, in verse three, has been
counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who built the house has more honour than the
house. So he's a more glorious one sent, a greater priest, a greater servant, in that he is not merely
a servant, but he is a son. He is not merely one who serves in the house, but he built the house,
because the writer goes on to say, for every house is built by someone, but he who built all things
is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those
things which will be spoken afterward, but Christ as a son over his own house, was faithful,
that's implied there, whose house we are, if we hold fast the confidence, the assurance,
the liberty, that's what that word means, and the rejoicing, the happiness, the satisfaction
of the hope, the confidence that we have in the future things, firm to the end, something to be
held fast. You see, if last week we looked at a people in the grip of God, this week we're called
to get to grips with the Lord, to grip, to grasp what it is that redemption consists in,
to lay hold of Jesus Christ, to understand that he has laid hold of us, and to feel the strength
of that, to test it, to consider it, to rest upon it, to lay all your care, and all your hope,
and every expectation on the one who died and lives for those sinners whom he came to redeem,
and who has made them no longer those under the curse of God, but those under God's blessing.
They are therefore, in verse one, holy brethren. They are therefore those who share, who partake
of the heavenly calling. They are those who are God's house. So we're considering Christ
Jesus this morning, and we're considering it as those who are called to a heavenly calling,
to a house whose builder and maker is God, to a salvation that is incorruptible and powerful
and real, and saves us from a very real and powerful threat, an eternal damnation,
saves us from death and hell and the grave. That's the little three-fold description of our
expectant future. I've had a reminder of it just in the grief of the announcements that were made
this morning about the bereavements, that whether young, there's a 28-year-old person,
or old, there was a 96-year-old person who passed away this week. What an appointment there is
without that Saviour. What a judgment there is without that Redeemer. What a calling there is
to be delivered from such an end and such an engagement. Holy brethren, you have a heavenly
calling. Consider Christ Jesus in three ways I think the writer is saying here. Consider
His fidelity. He was faithful in all His house. Consider His superiority. He's accounted worthy
of more glory than even Moses. Consider His industry, whose house we are. His fidelity,
He was faithful. His superiority, He's of greater glory than the most glorious of servants
and His industry. What did He build? Well, first of all, you see that He was faithful to Him
who appointed Him, and we're given a comparison. We're given something to help us to understand
what that means. His faithfulness was of the same quality, though not of the same order,
as Moses. It had this quality about it, this characteristic. Moses was appointed by God
to lead out a people, to bring them from bondage to liberty, to bring them from sentence of death
and certain extinction to life and a glorious inheritance. And He was faithful. The quality
of His ministry was this, that He kept faith with God. He kept faith with God.
Now, it was of a different order to Christ, for Moses himself was a flawed man.
He was a sinful man. He was a fallen man. He was a frail man. And there were times when He
personally failed. Yet the overall tenure of His ministry was this, He was faithful.
After 40 years in the wilderness, the people arrived at the borders of the promised land and
entered in. And Moses accomplished what God had set him to do. He led them from Egypt to Canaan,
and He led them all the way. But Christ's faithfulness is of a greater order,
and really of a greater quality, I guess. I don't guess, I know. He failed in nothing.
Because, you see, the task that God set Him was far greater than leading a nation in embryo to
the land where they would flourish and become a state. The task appointed to Christ was not merely
to lead people across the face of the earth, through the passage of years, but to lead people
to heaven, to eternity, to lead them from a state of being sinners and under God's shadow
and judgment, to being sons and under God's favor and acceptance, to lead them from time
to eternity. And that was the great task that Christ was given. And He was faithful. He didn't
swerve to the left or the right. Everything He did was consequent to that task. Every thought,
every breath, every step, every conversation, every moment of His life was given to that task.
His life was the test of whether that task would be effectually and effectively
accomplished. The beating of His heart, where He lay His head, the thoughts in His mind,
as well as the actions of His life. He must not err. He must not sin. He must not fail.
He must declare the glory of God as a perfect man, as a righteous man, as a faithful man.
And He must lay His pure and infinitely priceless life down as the purchase of a people,
as the foundation of a house. And He was faithful. You see,
the inference here is that people, these people, have begun to wonder just what it was
that the Lord Jesus Christ was called to do. They begin to wonder whether perhaps there's
something a little excessive here. That whether their Jewish friends and their religious friends
are quite right in calling them to not be so quick to leave behind all the ordinances and rituals
and external observances of Old Testament religion. Whether they shouldn't be so quick,
perhaps, in apparently forsaking Moses for Christ. They're questioning their Jewishness.
They're questioning their fidelity. And these people, these Hebrew people,
are beginning to entertain doubts. We saw in chapter 2,
we must give the more earnest heed, it says in verse 1, to the things we have heard, lest we
drift away. After this exhortation to consider Christ here, in verse 7 of chapter 3, he says
today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. There's a danger here.
And the only thing that this writer brings as a remedy to the danger is the fidelity of Christ,
the superiority of Christ, the industry of Christ, the place of Christ in God's house
is the only cure to a drifting away. It's the only cure to a hardness of heart.
And hardness of heart, oh, what a condition that is. See, hardness of heart is unbelief.
Unbelief. You know where Pharaoh's heart was hardened, wasn't it,
in Egypt? And people often argue about that because it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart.
And it was hardened in this, that God didn't grant Pharaoh faith.
And so Pharaoh was subject to unbelief, and unbelief hardens. Doubt hardens. Disbelief hardens.
An inability to accept, to rest, to trust, hardens. And at the end of this chapter,
which we will look in weeks to come, it says, so we see in verse 19 that they could not enter in
because of unbelief. They couldn't enter into the Promised Land. They couldn't enter into
the Promised Covenant. They couldn't enter into communion with God. This ancient people,
this Old Testament tribes, because of the hardness of their heart. Why? They were unbelievers.
The Bible doesn't call them non-believers, not believers, unbelievers. It was emphatic.
It was explicit. It was acted out. Are you an unbeliever? Oh, I trust God that is not your case
because you will not enter in, enter into a greater rest, a greater house, a greater gift,
a greater salvation than a deliverance from Egypt ever was, than the centuries of Jewish glory ever
were, of Israelites' heights of privilege ever were. Because you see, the writer tells us
that all the heights and glory of that Mosaic economy were simply a testimony, a testimony to
something greater there in verse five. And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant
for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward.
Faith, belief, trust. It's the need. It's the great need. You see, faith grasps
hold of the God who saves. Faith lays hold of the God who has a people in His grip.
Faith is the apprehension that there is a Savior and that He is my Savior, that there is one who
has built a house and it's my house, that there is the head of a family and it's my family,
that there is one who brings us from being lost to being found.
Faith is God's gift, but God calls each one of us to believe, to cry out for that gift,
to rest upon Him, to appropriate that gift. Consider, He says, the faithfulness of Christ.
You see, what I said about them judging whether the ministry of Christ was exactly
appropriate for their day, listening to those who doubted, who questioned whether the ministry
of Christ was all that it should be in its apparent separateness, in its apparent break
with the law of Moses. Well, it was a break of fulfillment. It wasn't a forgetting of the law,
it was a fulfillment of it and, you know, that was the very same type of unbelief that Miriam
and Aaron suffered from in Numbers 12 and that elicited God's statement. It's of the same
nature. Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses in verse 1 of Numbers 12 because of the Ethiopian
woman whom he had married, for he had married an Ethiopian woman. What were they saying?
This is unfaithfulness. Moses isn't Jewish enough because they equated being Jewish,
being Israelite, being Hebrew with being faithful. It was their gene pool that decided their
faithfulness, not their heart condition, not God's gracious provision. And so here you have,
Moses marries an African woman, a black woman. It's interesting, isn't it?
A Kushite, a descendant of Ham.
And that's considered unfaithfulness. But it's not, you see. It has nothing to do with
race. It has nothing to do with color. It has to do with the grace of God. And what is God
saying here? Well, they're saying, look, Moses has tripped up. Moses has committed the faux pas.
Moses is genetically impure. Moses' house will be genetically impure. And they equated that with
spiritual purity. It wouldn't be genetically impure. It wouldn't be spiritually impure
because it hadn't to do with anyone's race or color. It had to do with the grace,
the provision, the appointment of God. But Miriam and Aaron think, well, he's done this.
Well, God's spoken through us as well. What they're saying is we haven't done this.
Look who we've married. We're genetically pure. We're spiritually sound. God's spoken through us,
you see. Just as much as he's spoken through Moses, Moses is unfaithful, man. Look what he's
done. Look what he brought with him back from the wilderness. Someone who's not of our tribe,
someone who's not of our seed. God comes down. See, that's the thing. How does God answer the
church? Moses, who is faithful in all my house. This wasn't an act of unfaithfulness on Moses'
part. It was an act of faith. It was an act of faith to bring Zipporah down. It was an act of
faith. You know, you remember what she did as they came towards Egypt. And the Lord came down
and stood between her and Moses. And, you know, there was this child that they had
born together who wasn't covered by the blood of that covenant under which they were, you know,
found. And she circumcised her son and cast what she had circumcised at the feet of the Lord
and said, you are a husband of blood to me. She was a faithful woman. She was a godly woman.
And they didn't understand. God had to come and vindicate his servant. He is faithful
in all his house. This wasn't an act of faith. Well, you know, the Jewish people of Christ,
though, they weren't very happy with Jesus' bride. That's what I'm trying to say. It was
an unfaithful thing to join himself to the Gentiles. It was an unfaithful thing to join
himself, as we saw in Mark 3, on the Sabbath day, doing good, healing sinners. It was an unfaithful
thing to associate himself with the notorious and the sinful and the outcast of his generation.
And yet he says of them as he sits among them, healing their diseases, opening their eyes,
cleansing their hearts. These are my brothers, my mother, my sisters. These are my family.
These are my house. They're the ones to whom he joined himself. And it was too much for the Jews
of his day. You know, the one time that Paul got a real hearing in the temple, he began to preach
to them. And he preached to them in Hebrew, when he returned to Jerusalem, just before his arrest.
And he was preaching to them in Hebrew, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee of the Pharisees.
And he began to preach to them Christ. And they listened gladly. And then he said that the Gentiles
were fellow heirs. He preached to Christ who saved the Gentiles, the dogs, the genetically
impure, the religiously impure, and they ran upon him with one accord. They couldn't stand it.
They couldn't stand it. But yet that was faithful, because that is whom Christ had come to save, Jew
and Gentile. Those under the law and those without the law, out of every tribe, black or white,
whatever shade lies in between, every tongue, every kindred, every nation, he came to save a
people. They were his bride and he was faithful. You see, their unbelief was of the same order
as the unbelief of the Israelites. And it's troubling these Christian people in the first
century, these Hebrews, stirring up their old prejudices, stirring up their ungodly prejudices.
Putting culture and tradition and race and the history of their people above the faithfulness
and the superior glory of Christ and doing it in Moses' name.
Could you guess that I'm going to say that's exactly what's happening in Britain today?
I used to regret that I was born in Australia and saved in Australia.
I used to think of all the glories of the reformed history, the gospel coming, hundreds of years of
testimony, martyrdoms, until I began to minister in England. Because I tell you what it's become,
it's become a yoke around the neck of the people here. I don't mean here in the church, I mean here
in England. You know, God has brought a great influx of people like me to this country,
immigrants. What a mission field we are. Look at our church, look at this congregation, look at
the glorious differences. Yet one faithful Christ who has brought us. And look what we are, we're
a microcosm of a community that is dying, of a community that is condemned, of a community that's
without light and the savour of Christ. How faithful God has been. He's visited every
immigrant and native community in Britain and drawn out of people like us.
How what a terrible crime it is to overlay tradition and one interpretation of a secondary
matter, whether it be psalms, singing or Bible versions, or dress. To overlay that, to make that
somehow of greater importance than the faithfulness of Christ in doing what he promised, into calling
out a people out of every tribe and tongue and kindred and nature. Culture is not the king of the
church. God's dealing in time past is not our present boast. It is Jesus Christ, as the writer
will go on to say, who is the same yesterday, today and forever. It's his faithfulness.
What a king, what a saviour. Moses was faithful. You know, don't get the idea that Moses was some
sort of brow beating harsh stoical legalist. He was a picture of Christ. He was a type of Christ.
He was a testimony to Christ. And even his marriage was a testimony, wasn't it? It was
a testimony. His grace, his truth that pointed to Jesus Christ, the grace and truth of God. You see,
Moses was just a servant. Here's the greater glory of Christ. Not just that he was faithful,
but he's glorious in this. Moses was just a servant.
Moses could do no more than his master enabled or sent him to do.
Moses could take no more one step without his God and saviour than he could take in breath.
He just couldn't do it. He didn't have any right to it in and of himself. He had nothing by which
he could build this people. He says to God, doesn't you say to me, bring up this people
from here. He says, it's impossible. I can't do it. How will I do it? He says, except your presence
goes with us. It's impossible for me. He's a servant. And yet we often ascribe too much glory to
servants. Now, if the result of this is that you never benefit from the testimony of those
who are dead and yet speak, I'll be absolutely devastated. I'm not saying we should despise
the servants of God. There's many books on the shelves there that would have you look at what
God has done in the lives of people in the past and glorify him. But you see, we don't ascribe
superior honour to the servant, but to the master. And again, this is a great problem for us as
sinners. It was a great problem for them in the first century. We've been shown in chapter two
and chapter one that Christ is superior to angels. They had to be shown that he was superior to Moses
because they put Moses on a pedestal, the same pedestal they put Abraham on, the same pedestal
they put Solomon on, the same pedestal they put David on. And the Lord Jesus Christ in his own
lifetime upon the earth had to say to them, a greater than Solomon is here. A greater than
Moses is here. Abraham saw my day before Abraham was. I have. Because of this tendency, and I think
this is our tendency, what would Charles Spurgeon do if he walked in here like Samuel's shade walked
into the presence of Saul? What would any of these great men do? What would any of the men whom we
have known in our lifetime who serve Christ and now dwell in his light and presence do?
They would point us to him. They would point us to him. And they would be horrified that anyone
should be pointing to them. Only in this, as much as they are followers of Christ, as much as they
lead anybody to Christ, as much as they point anybody to Christ, they're our servants for Jesus'
sake. You see, Christ is superior. Go to Hatfield House. Walk in the grounds. Oh, what a place.
The nursery of Edward VI and Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I. The place where the death warrant
for Mary, Queen of Scots was signed. What a history. What glory. The seat of the count,
you know, the aristocracy. Is it the Marquess of Salisbury? Does he live there?
Now you go in and it's a glorious place full of history, full of riches. You know, I've been for
a tour. It's grounds are immense. There's a very well-dressed man waiting for you at the door.
You say, this is a marvellous place. He says, yes, yes, it is. History stretches back to the
17th century when, you know, the king exchanged it for a palace over here, you know, and he gives you
the history of the house, and this is the main staircase, and this is the library. You know,
you look in the library, I mean, I was lost. Books dating back to the 13th and the 14th century in
Old English. You know, books that I was in danger of turning into idols. I don't know if they're that
great. And you think, this house you have here, boy, what a privilege, what a wonderful
house you possess. And he says, oh, I'm just the tour guide. It's not my house. It belongs to
someone else. You know, you were called the one, you know, suddenly that man shrinks in your
estimation. He's just a servant. He knows so much about the house. He can lead you through the house.
He can show you the worth and the glory of the house, but he's just a servant.
He's not the man who built the house. He's not the man who owns the house.
And that's what Christ is compared to Moses. Moses was a guide. That's what he was. He was
a testimony, a servant for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterwards.
And he pointed to the owner, builder, the master, the king. You know, that earthly tabernacle that
Moses laid, that earthly people, that was just a testimony. Among them there was a remnant,
a remnant that would be brought into a different house, a remnant who wouldn't stay merely with the
with the inheritance of Israel as a people, an inheritance that would be lost, an inheritance
that would end because of their infidelity. There was a greater house. Moses pointed forward. He
pointed forward everyone who had trust, who considered the Messiah, who saw God's grace
and rested upon it. He pointed them forward to the one who built the house. To God, that's what
it says there, for every house is built by someone, but he who built all things is God,
to God and to his Christ. That's what Moses's job was. And when Moses does that, his task is
finished. When the servant ushers you into the presence of the master, he withdraws. Remember
what John the Baptist said? He must increase, I must decrease. Step back, step back.
And every godly servant of Christ in the glorious history of Europe, Britain, Africa,
China or even Australasia, there's just a few scattered down there, in times past
would do the same thing. Step back, he must increase. He, let us turn our eyes upon him
who's been counted worthy of more glory than Moses. You see, he's the son of God.
Moses was only the servant of God. He's the son. We saw his glory in chapter one,
the brightness of the glory of God, the absolute image of his person, upholding all things by the
word of his power. The final voice, God who's spoken times past, has spoken to us in these
days that remain. You see, it's the final voice, the greatest prophet. These are the days that
remain. These are the last days. And if we will not hear his son, then we shall not see him,
know him, dwell with him, be forgiven by him, have peace with him, live with him,
pass into eternity with him.
He, by himself, purged our sins. What a house he built. He stained it with his blood,
washed it clean. He laid it on the foundation of his life and his death.
He builds upon it. You see, it's not like Hatfield House, mortise stone. It's men and women.
It's living souls. It's people who will never die.
It's people whose souls live before God and must give a dreadful account without him.
That's the house that he's building. You see, that's really what this is talking about. And
we see it in Moses, don't we? They weren't objecting to the tabernacle that Moses built
under God, which could be seen. They were objecting to the people that were in Moses' house.
And God was saying this, that Moses is faithful in all my house. If he takes a partner in fidelity,
he's taken a partner into my house. How much more? How much more do all distinctions fall?
How much more are all differences rendered void
in the household of Christ, where there's neither bond nor free, where there's neither male nor
female? Skyling and barbarian. But they're all one in Christ Jesus, the superior house.
What industry there is here. Christ as a son. What a diligent son. What a son to bring joy.
You know, it doesn't happen so much now. It happens very rarely. We're a different type of
society. But the firstborn, the firstborn was the one upon whom the future of the father's
house rested. He could build or he could destroy. You know, it says in Ecclesiastes,
I think the writer says, there's an evil upon the earth. A wise man, a wise man is diligent.
He amasses riches and he builds a house. But who knows what's going to happen when he dies?
Whether he'll leave that house to a wise man or a fool. Well, Christ is a son over his house.
What he has built endures forever. God has entrusted it to him. He is so faithful. He is so
much more glorious being the image of the invisible God. That house that he builds
stands. And that's what he said, didn't he? I will build my church. He didn't mean the cathedral
down in Truro or up, you know, in York. He didn't mean the Abbey at Westminster.
And he certainly didn't mean this lovely, if somewhat interesting little factory we've converted
into a chapel. He meant the house that are the hearts, the minds, the souls, the persons
who God delights to save. I will build my church and the gates of hell.
You know, you know where the gate of hell is? Right here.
The gate, the entry to hell is to be born a human being. To be born under the sin that
blights us, to commit the sin that condemns us and to die in the sin that separates us from
God eternally. That's the gates of hell. That's the entrance into hell. Human existence.
And Christ gloriously and wonderfully plunges himself into human existence
and says, the gates of hell shall not prevail against the house that I built.
I will build my church. What industry? Not a moment wasted, not a thought
that is excess to what is required. What a glory. What a life.
What a saviour is preached to you this morning. Don't consider me. Don't consider your friends.
Don't consider your family. Consider Christ, Christ Jesus, the one who has been sent to you,
the one who stands between you and God. And he's a faithful and a glorious Redeemer
and everything that God entrusted to him will come to pass.
The industry of Christ. What are its fruits for those who dwell in his household,
who know him as the son of a father who is eternal, of a God who is omnipotent and sovereign
and gracious and loving? Well, they themselves find that they are not merely servants,
for they are children of God by adoption. They have a wonderful security. That's our final point.
I'll finish with it. They have a wonderful security. Here's Christ's industry in laying
hold of us and us laying hold of him by that faith that is his to give. We find a confidence,
a rejoicing, a hope firm to the end. What is our confidence?
Confidence sets you free, doesn't it? A true confidence sets you free.
You've got to speak to a group of people.
And you know your legs are going to go to jelly. You know you're going to stutter.
You know you can't do it. Then something comes that instils a confidence.
And you do it. Suddenly it doesn't matter about your knees. They're still there.
Suddenly it doesn't matter about your mouth. It's still working. But what matters is that your heart
is down here and your mind have a confidence, a settled peace. You're free from the fear.
You're free from the anxiety. For this moment you are confident. And so you do it.
You watch the way a mother handles a newborn child. If you've ever, you know, I suppose most
of us haven't had the first moment. But there's a sort of wonder. You can see the anxiety, the fear
flits across the features as the child is proffered. But when that child makes contact,
there's a confidence. Something glorious happens. There's a calm assurance. This
is my child. And there's a glorious freedom to take that child, you see.
And, you know, this is the fruit of faith. There's such anxious care when you come under
the knowledge of the judgment of God, when you realize that your life is infinitely unworthy,
when you realize that your life is terribly short and uncertain, when you realize that God is
absolutely holy and inviolate and can't sweep it all under the carpet and won't.
What a trembling there is, what fear, what dread when death begins to strike in your circle
and all the relationships you trusted in begin to crumble.
But what confidence there is when there is one there, one there who stands beside you,
one who covers you as Moses was covered in the cleft of the rock, one who speaks for you,
one who has all that will mean that you are cleansed in the sight of this God,
that you are accepted, invited in the sight of this God to come in to what? Into his presence,
into the joy of his rest, into the eternity of his love.
What confidence there suddenly is. Do you ever wonder what Wesley meant?
Bold I approach the eternal throne and claim the crown of Christ, my own. Is he boasting?
It's excluded, isn't it? He's but repeating what the apostle before him repeated. Henceforth,
he says, is laid up for me a crown of glory which God, the righteous judge, how can he say that?
Will give me and not me only, but also those who are his and his appearing and his coming.
You know, this is the glory of the industry of Christ and God would have you consider him and
be assured. Be assured. You cannot look upon him and not be assured. You look at him, pry into
every part of his life and his person and his thought and his words. Examine him and all you
will find is fidelity and glory and industry. He has finished the work the father has given him to
do. That should give you confidence. That will give you joy. That is the hope. It's not a hope
in yourself to keep yourself. It's a hope in him, firm to the end. Oh, may God grant it to be your
hope, your future assurance, your absolute confidence. It's the grasp of faith, isn't it?
Faith is the substance. He'll tell us this writer to the Hebrews, the substance of things hoped for,
confidently assured of in the future. This Jesus who is given for us, this Jesus who alone
can bring us to God, he is our consideration as we part. May you go with him upon your heart,
upon your mind, and him as your plea before God, now and always.