HEBREWS 2:1-13 The Preeminence of Christ Pay Attention September 14, 2014 First Baptist Church Jackson, Mississippi USA MEMORY VERSE Luke 10:27 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” FALL OUTREACH — MONDAYS — 6:00 P.M. — 6:30 P.M. A Light dinner will be available for $5.00 per person. RSVP to join the meal, Missions/Evangelism Office, 601-949-1939. Teams of three will visit those who have visited FBJ recently. Friday, September 26, 2014 - Sunday, September 28, 2014 Cathy Jeffcoats - [email protected]
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09 September 14, 2014, Hebrews 2;1-13 The Preeminence Of Christ
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HEBREWS 2:1-13
The Preeminence of Christ
Pay Attention
September 14, 2014
First Baptist Church
Jackson, Mississippi
USA
MEMORY VERSE
Luke 10:27
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all
your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
FALL OUTREACH — MONDAYS — 6:00 P.M. — 6:30 P.M.
A Light dinner will be available for $5.00 per person.
RSVP to join the meal, Missions/Evangelism Office, 601-949-1939.
Teams of three will visit those who have visited FBJ recently.
Friday, September 26, 2014 - Sunday, September 28, 2014
Woe to the Impenitent Cities 20 Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had
been done, because they did not repent: 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you,
Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in
Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of
judgment than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will
be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had
been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I say to you
that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than
for you.”
Matthew 11:20-24 NKJV
The principle is this: the more folks know, the greater the judgment for not
abiding by what they know.
There are degrees of punishment in hell.
The hottest places belong to those who have rejected the most light.
Genesis 1:27-28 NKJV 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to
them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over
the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that
moves on the earth.”
Genesis 1:27-28 NKJV
Man is lower than angels only in that he is physical and they are spiritual.
What does this mean?
Just this: angels are heavenly creatures, while man is earthbound.
Obviously this is a limiting and major difference, and man is therefore now of a
lower rank.
But there is a time limit for this inferiority.
The present chain of command is temporary.
God has a destiny for man that will elevate him to king, when he will be on
at least an equal basis with angels.
Luke 20:34-36 NKJV 34 Jesus answered and said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in
marriage. 35 But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the
resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; 36 nor can
they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being
sons of the resurrection.
Luke 20:34-36 NKJV
Man is confined to the earth and to relatively nearby space.
Angels, on the other hand, are not confined by the physical.
They are able to come to earth at will, and have supernatural power and
strength that even sinless man did not have.
Not only that, but man's only direct communion with God has been that which
he had with Jesus while He was on earth.
Angels have continual access to the throne of God.
Angels are spirit beings; man is made out of the dust of the earth.
After Satan rebelled, the faithful angels were secured in holiness forever; after
Adam rebelled, all men were cursed with him.
In Adam, all died (1 Corinthians 15:22).
At the time of the creation, angels were perfect; man was only innocent.
Even in his innocence, man had the choice to sin.
Still more importantly, angels were never subject to death as man was.
God's first words to Adam in the garden of Eden were, "From any tree of the
garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die" (Genesis
2:16-17).
In the coming new earth, things will be much different.
Then we see in Daniel 7 "the saints of the Highest One will receive the kingdom
and possess the kingdom forever, for all ages to come .... Then the sovereignty,
the dominion, and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven
will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest One; His kingdom will be an
everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey Him" (Daniel
7:18,27).
Redeemed men not only will inherit a perfect kingdom but an eternal kingdom,
in which they, not angels, will rule.
Revelation 3:21 says believers will sit with Christ on His throne and rule with Him.
Ephesians 1:20 says He will reign over principalities and powers, that is, angels.
Therefore if Christ reigns over angels in the kingdom and we sit on His throne with
Him, we, too, will reign over angels.
Only for a little while longer are men lower than the angels.
The whole earth will be redeemed and man will be crowned in Christ.
That is the promise for the future.
Hebrews 2:8a NKJV 8a You have put all things in subjection under his feet.”
For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under
him.
Hebrews 2:8a NKJV
The king's throne was always elevated, and everyone who came into his
presence bowed down before him and sometimes even kissed his feet.
His subjects, therefore, were often spoken of as being under his feet.
When man is one day given the right to rule the earth, all God's creation will be
put under man's feet.
That is the revelation of man's destiny.
Hebrews 2:8b NKJV 2b But now we do not yet see all things put under him.
Something drastic happened.
Man's revealed destiny was restricted by Adam's and Eve's sin.
When Adam sinned, the earth was corrupted and he immediately lost his
kingdom and his crown.
Because all mankind fell in Adam, because he lost his kingdom and his crown,
we do not now see the earth subject to man.
The earth originally was subject to man, and it supplied all his needs without his
having to do anything.
He had only to accept and enjoy the earth as it provided for him.
Then, tempted by Satan, man sinned, and his tempter usurped the crown.
There you see the change in the chain of command.
Man fell to the bottom, and the earth, under the evil one, now rules man.
If you pay much attention to ecology, you know that we do not rule this world; it
rules us.
With all our modern technology, we must constantly fight against the earth for
our survival.
What else happened to Adam after he had sinned?
First, there was murder within his own family.
Then there was polygamy.
In the next few chapters of Genesis we read of death.
By the time we come to chapter 6, God is sending a flood to destroy all mankind
but one family.
Man indeed had lost his crown.
The prince of the earth, of the system of the world, now is Satan.
"The whole world lies in the power of the evil one" (1 John 5:19).
He rules the cursed earth, which in turn rules sinful man.
When man lost his crown, he also lost mastery of himself as well as of the earth.
He was totally sinful and became a slave to sin.
Not only that, but the animal kingdom was now subservient to man only out of
fear, no longer out of affection.
Much of the animal kingdom was no longer able to be tamed at all.
The ground originally produced good things naturally and abundantly for man to
have for the taking.
Now it produces thorns, weeds, and other harmful things naturally and
abundantly.
Whatever good things man now gets from the earth come only by tiresome
effort.
Extremes of heat and cold, poisonous plants and reptiles, earthquakes,
tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, disease, war — all these were released upon man
after the Fall.
Virtually everything God had given for man's good and blessing became his
enemy, and man has been fighting a losing battle ever since.
For millennia, he himself has been dying.
Now he is finding out that the earth is dying with him.
Amazingly, the earth itself knows its condition (Romans 8).
Romans 8:18-21 NKJV
From Suffering to Glory 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be
compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. 19 For the earnest
expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him Who
subjected it in hope;
Romans 8:18-21 NKJV
God subjected the earth to this curse in order that man might continually have
trouble.
Man had to know that God was aware of his sin, and he had to suffer the
consequences, in part, by fighting against the very earth that was
designed to be his servant.
But when the new kingdom begins,
Romans 8:21-22 NKJV 21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of
corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the
whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.
Romans 8:21-22 NKJV
The earth, aware of its curse that came with Adam's fall, is groaning for the day
that the sons of God are manifest in the kingdom, for the earth knows that it, too,
will be redeemed - liberated from corruption.
In the meantime, man is subject to the earth.
He plants but he is not sure who will reap.
He builds cities and houses and dams and monuments but they are all subject
to destruction by lightning or earthquake or flood or fire or erosion or aging.
Man lives in jeopardy every hour.
Just at the height of professional achievement, his brain may develop a
tumor, and he becomes an imbecile.
Just at the brink of athletic fame, he may be injured and become a helpless
paralytic.
He fights himself, he fights his fellowman, and he fights his earth.
Every day we read and hear of the distress of nations, of the impossibility of
agreement between statesmen in a world that languishes in political and social
conflict — not to mention economic hardship, health hazards, and military
threats.
We hear the whine of pain from dumb animals and even see the struggle of
trees and crops against disease and insects.
Our many hospitals, doctors, medicines, pesticides, insurance companies, fire
and police departments, funeral homes - all are testimony to the cursed earth.
No wonder the creation groans.
But God did not intend it to be this way; and it will continue this way only
for a little while, in God's timetable.
Someday, in the world to come, when the kingdom comes, hospitals will be
closed, doctors will be out of business, and the ravenous nature of wild animals
(and of human beings) will be changed.
The crops and the trees will no longer be infested.
The game of politics will be over and wars will cease.
Man — redeemed man — will reign, co-reign with Christ!
Isaiah 2:4 NKJV 4 He shall judge between the nations,
And rebuke many people;
They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Neither shall they learn war anymore.
Isaiah 2:4 NKJV
A day is coming when, in the wonderful plan of God, the dominion that man lost
will be given to him again.
God's redeemed ones, His children, will never again be subject to death, they
will be like the angels (Luke 20:36).
In the kingdom they will, reign over the angels.
Hebrews 2:9 NKJV 9 But we see Jesus, Who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering
of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might
taste death for everyone. Hebrews 2:9 NKJV
That brings us to the third point.
Man's revealed destiny, restricted by sin, has been recovered by Christ.
The ultimate curse of man's lost destiny is death.
Warning Adam about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God said,
"For in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die" (Genesis 2:17).
The cross conquered the curse.
The kingdom will be restored and man will be given the crown again.
But how can it happen?
If we are all sinners, how can we become sinless?
The only payment for sin is death - "For the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).
The only way man can ever be a king again is to have the curse removed.
The only way the curse can be removed is for the penalty to be paid.
If man is to be restored to reign as a king, he must die — and be resurrected a
new man with sovereign qualities.
But we still ask, "How?"
We know, even without God's revelation, that we could not do this ourselves.
Paul explains.
Speaking of Christ, he writes:
Romans 6:5-11 NKJV
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we
also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man
was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we
should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing
that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer
has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all;
but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves
to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:5-11 NKJV
I died years ago.
I am perfectly healthy now, but I died a long time ago.
I died the death that Paul describes in Galatians: "I have been crucified with
Christ" (2:20).
The moment that I put my faith in Jesus Christ, at that moment I was identified
with Christ.
I died with Him on the cross.
For every believer, the curse has been removed.
Every believer is now a king.
We have not inherited our dominion yet, but the crown has been restored.
For every one of us who knows and loves Jesus Christ, the moment we received
Him, we were identified with Him.
We were crucified with Him and were buried with Him, and He has raised us up
to a new life.
It is life with the curse removed.
In Christ we are kings.
We do not have our kingdom yet, but it is certain to be ours.
To the saints of the Most High belongs the kingdom.
Our old bodies are going to fall off someday, but we are not going to die.
Our bodies will die, but even they will one day be resurrected in a new
and eternal form.
We will be immediately liberated to go into the presence of Jesus.
Or, if He comes again before that happens to us, He will take us with Him
into the kingdom.
To accomplish this great work on our behalf, Jesus had to become a man.
He Himself had to be made for a little while lower than the angels.
To regain man's dominion He had to taste death for man.
If a man dies for his own sin, he is doomed forever to hell.
But Christ came to die for us, because in His dying He could conquer death.
Revelation 5:9-10 NKJV 9 And they sang a new song, saying:
“You are worthy to take the scroll,
And to open its seals;
For You were slain,
And have redeemed us to God by Your blood
Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, 10 And have made us kings and priests to our God;
And we shall reign on the earth.”
Revelation 5:9-10 NKJV
As you and I identify ourselves with Jesus Christ in His death, as we receive Him
as Savior, the curse is removed, and we become joint heirs with Him in the
eternal kingdom.
Obviously, if we are going to reign on earth as kings, there will have to be a
kingdom.
The Saints Reign with Christ 1,000 Years
Revelation 20:4 NKJV 4 And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to
them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to
Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image,
and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they
lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
Revelation 20:4 NKJV
Who will be on those thrones?
We who are the kings.
We will be kings with our great King, the King of kings.
The Redeemer King will rule with His redeemed saints over the redeemed earth.
Man will be changed:
ISAIAH 2:2-4 NKJV 2 Now it shall come to pass in the latter days
That the mountain of the Lord’s house
Shall be established on the top of the mountains,
And shall be exalted above the hills;
And all nations shall flow to it. 3 Many people shall come and say,
“Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
He will teach us His ways,
And we shall walk in His paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4 He shall judge between the nations,
And rebuke many people;
They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Neither shall they learn war anymore.
ISAIAH 2:2-4 NKJV
The animals will be changed:
Isaiah 11:6-9 NKJV 6 “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,
The leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
The calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze;
Their young ones shall lie down together;
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole,
And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den. 9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,
For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah 11:6-9 NKJV
Even the plants will be changed:
Isaiah 35:1-2 NKJV 1 The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them,
And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; 2 It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice,
Even with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
The excellence of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the Lord,
The excellency of our God.
Isaiah 35:1-2 NKJV
Christ tasted death for you and for me.
He did it to recover our lost destiny.
If you have been groping around, trying to figure out why you exist, I hope you
know the reason now.
There is no reason for us to be slaves.
There is no reason for us to be paupers.
There is only reason for us to be kings.
Men today still ask, "What is man?"
The idolator and the animist says, “Man is inferior to birds and animals, even to
creeping things, stones, and sticks."
And he bows down and worships the snake.
The materialist says, "Man is obviously higher than any of the other animals, but
he is still only the product of chance, the result of evolutionary natural selection."
Most people believe such ideas or ones equally as foolish.
But God says, "Man was created to be king of the earth.
Only for a little time he has been made lower than the angels."
Someday he will sit on the throne of Jesus Christ and reign with Him in His
kingdom.
I trust that you will be there reigning with Christ.
Jews could not comprehend the idea that God would become man.
Even less could they understand how, having become man, He could die.
How could the anointed of God, the Messiah, be the victim of death?
Consequently, wherever the Gospel was preached to Jews, as in Acts 17,
it was necessary to explain why Christ had to suffer and die (vv. 2-3).
The cross was a serious stumbling block to them, Jewish converts even had
difficulty with this issue.
How could Jesus be greater than angels if angels never die?
How could He be a Savior if He Himself were killed?
These were lingering questions.
Christ was made for a little while lower than the angels so that He could become
a man.
He became a man so that He could die.
He came to die because His death, and only His death, could accomplish man's
salvation.
Those tiny hands fashioned by the Holy Spirit in Mary's womb were made to take
two great nails.
Those little feet were made to climb a hill and be nailed to a cross.
That sacred head was made to wear a crown of thorns, and that tender body
wrapped in swaddling clothes was made to be pierced by a spear.
For this Christ came to earth.
His death was the furthest thing from an accident.
And, despite the malignant evil that crucified Him, His death was the furthest
thing from a tragedy.
It was God's ultimate plan for His Son and His ultimate gift for mankind (It
pleased God to crush Him – Isaiah 53:10).
God created man in innocence and gave him dominion over the earth.
Man sinned and immediately lost his dominion.
Jesus Christ came to die to remove the curse so that man could regain
dominion; thus His death was the most purposeful in all history.
He came to restore the crown to man.
But the crown could not be restored until the curse was removed.
If He was to remove the curse on man He had to take the place of man by
becoming a man Himself.
And though, for this purpose, He became lower than angels, He accomplished
what no angel ever could have accomplished.
There were actually five accomplishments in this one.
Through His death, Jesus Christ became our Substitute, our salvation Author, our
Sanctifier, our Satan-Conquerer, and our Sympathizer — the perfect Savior.
The Plan of Hope & Salvation
Romans 3:23 NKJV 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 6:23a NKJV 23a For the wages of sin is death,
Death in this life (the first death) is 100%. Even Jesus, the only one who
doesn’t deserve death, died in this life to pay the penalty for our sins. The
death referred to in Romans 6:23a is the second death explained in