Good morning.
Turn with me to the letter to the Hebrews. Again, we will look at this letter of Hebrews. I would like to read several verses as we begin.
God, having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets, at the end of these days has spoken to us in the person of the Son,
Whom He has established heir of all things, by Whom also He made the world;
Who, being the effulgence of His glory and the expression of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power, having made by Himself the purification of sins, set Himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high,
Taking a place by so much better than the angels, as He inherits a name more excellent than they.
Turn with me to Hebrews 3, beginning in verse 12. This is one of those warnings we spoke about two weeks ago.
See, brethren, lest there be in any one of you a wicked heart of unbelief, in turning away from the living God.
But encourage yourselves each day, as long as it is called today, that none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
For we are become companions of the Christ, if indeed we hold the beginning of the assurance firm to the end.
Hebrews 6, verses 9 through 12:
But we are persuaded concerning you, beloved, better things, and connected with salvation, even if we speak thus.
For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and the love which you have shown to His name, having ministered to the saints and still ministering.
Hebrews 7—look at verse 17. This is speaking of the Lord Jesus:
Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
For there is a setting aside of the commandment going before for its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law perfected nothing;
And the introduction of a better hope, by which we draw nigh to God.
And by how much it was not without the swearing of an oath—for they are become priests without the swearing of an oath, but He with the swearing of an oath by Him that said as to Him,
The Lord is sworn and will not repent, Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek—
By so much more Jesus became surety of a better covenant.
And in verse 25:
Whence He is able to save completely those who approach to God by Him, always living to intercede for them.
Hebrews 8, verse 1:
Now a summary of the things of which we are speaking is this: We have such a One, a high priest, Who has sat down at the right hand of the throne of the greatness in the heavens,
A minister of the holy places, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord has pitched, and not man.
And Hebrews 8, verse 6—again speaking of the Lord Jesus:
But now He has got a more excellent ministry, by so much as He is mediator of a better covenant.
Now, let us stop there and pray.
Lord, we come to You in utter dependence as we read Your Word. We know that You declare that Your words are spirit and life. This morning, as we are assembled in Your name, our desire is that Your Holy Spirit would help us, would remove the blinders, would open our ears, and would cause us to lay hold of what is behind these written pages and to behold more clearly the Lord Jesus.
Help us, Lord. We bow in Your presence and acknowledge our total dependence on You, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
We began just two weeks ago looking at this letter of Hebrews. I hope some of you remember a little bit of what was said. I would like today to look a little deeper into the first issues of that book. Then, if we have time, I would like us to look again at two things: the better hope and the better covenant.
Now, you know from last time—or at least I hope you know, at least I hope you remember—that you cannot understand this book of Hebrews unless you understand this one single word: better.
It is a word that is throughout the book, thirteen times in the book. It is a word that gives whole meaning to the letter. One writer who knows far more than I know, Graham Scroggie, said it is the key word to the whole book.
Now, I hope you understand that God has something to say to us in the book of Hebrews, and that is that He has something far better than anything we can imagine. If the Spirit of God can open our eyes, maybe we will be helped.
I told you a story last time. I hope maybe you remember a little bit of that, about my computer woes. Well, just as you might expect with me, they became worse, not better.
This great computer that I thought was the best—it had everything. I had this salesman talk me into everything on it simply because he said it was the best. So we kept adding things to it. Mort told me afterwards, he said, “All I could see was cha-ching, cha-ching when you told that story.”
Oh, I had this best computer, and I thought, “It’s the best thing there is.” And I want you to know, it died one day late. It is completely dead.
The best is this: I could not believe it. So I am using my old computer. I had to put two hundred dollars in this old computer, and now that is the best thing I have got.
Well, what happens? Brothers and sisters, there is a message here: the best that the world has will fail.
The best this world has to offer cannot begin to compare with a better that God has.
Now, our problem—and I mentioned this, and I will just mention it again for reference, since some of you were not here—is that with this consumer mentality we have, we think of things in relation to good, better, and best. That was the hook this marketing-driven world caught me on. It was the best. You need it because it is the best.
But in the book of Hebrews, there is no better than better. Do you get that? I know that is confusing to some people. I know they think that is just a play on words, but in the book of Hebrews, the word better is actually best.
Now, to reinforce that thought, the writer of Hebrews adds the word throughout the book: excellent. We do not have time—I say already, we are in the hole—but the word he adds is excellent, more excellent. Read the letter, and you will begin to discover how He has a name more excellent than they, and has a more excellent sacrifice.
Throughout the book, this is the emphasis. There is even another emphasis in the book. If you read it, there is this phrase: so much more.
Read it. You go through it, and you will discover it everywhere. It says, “So much more” here, “so much more” there. “How much more” there. Let me give you a few examples.
We just read one in Hebrews 8:6. It says:
By so much also He is mediator of a better covenant.
That is one reference. You can write these down and look at them later. Hebrews 9:14:
How much more shall the blood of Christ, Who by the eternal Spirit offered Himself spotless to God, purify your conscience from dead works, to worship the living God?
How much more? That is a thought that runs through the book of Hebrews.
We started with the text in Hebrews 1:4, that the Lord Jesus is so much better than the angels. Now, that is not in any degree a comparison that suggests there is some similarity. This is the point we need to get: He is without comparison.
My wife helps me with my words when I stumble over them. I kept saying “incomparable,” and I am saying this English major helps me to understand it is “incomparable.” So you will forgive me. Engineers—English is a foreign language. I want you to know that.
But: incomparable Christ. There is nothing that can compare with Him. The Word of God does not set degrees as though something, even of God, is in any way related to Him in comparison. He is better than the angels. That is the sense. He is more excellent than they. He has a name that is more excellent than they.
“So much more” is the emphasis of the book of Hebrews. Now, that is what we need to see. To me, that is the whole point.
Then we can take up the things, but unless we see that, we will not be able to understand the emphasis. Brothers and sisters, I believe it is God’s heart to show us the better, to show us the more excellent, to show us the much more.
In that way, I believe He wants to speak to us. So I hope maybe that little bit of going back and looking at the overall burden is helpful. I hope it is not too much.
Another thing I said, which I would like to elaborate on because I think this is an essential element to understanding the book of Hebrews, is this: I made a statement, and I did not explain it very well, but the letter of Hebrews is first and foremost a letter of encouragement.
Now, if we do not get that, then we will not understand the purpose of all these betters, and all these “so much more” statements, and all these excellencies. The book of Hebrews is first and foremost a letter of encouragement. It is a calling to God’s own to see so much of what He has done for us and what He has prepared for those He loves.
Turn to Hebrews 13, at the end of the book. Actually, the writer of Hebrews gives us some understanding of his intent.
In Hebrews 13:22, it says:
But I beseech you, brethren, bear with the word of exhortation, for it is but in few words that I have written unto you.
Here this writer tells us the purpose of his writing. He unveils to us the reason he wrote the book. The reason he wrote the book was a word of exhortation.
Now, let me try to explain. It is in the same thought, but this word exhortation means in Greek—and I will not bore you with the Greek—it means calling unto us. It means a call from God. It means exhorting. It means comforting. It means encouraging.
All these things are wrapped up in what he meant by, “I write you this word of exhortation.” God is calling to us, and all He is after is a response from us. That is the purpose for the writing.
A few years ago, I took a music appreciation class. I needed that, since I cannot sing. I cannot play. People wish I would not sing.
I actually took a music appreciation class on jazz. Now, I want you to know, that may scare you. Jazz is the least appreciated music there is. It is an acquired taste. Not many people—essentially, I do not even like the hard stuff. I mean, it gets an edge to it that I think, “Boy, that is strange.”
But in jazz—now, I hope you stay with me. I do not want to lose you in this, and there is a point—in jazz, there is a vital element that marks early jazz and goes right through jazz, and it is called call and response.
Now, some of you folks who understand music know that, have heard that phrase. It is where one group, maybe some musicians or some singers, calls out to the others, and then those others respond to that call.
It is heart music, where one group sings from the heart or plays from the heart. I do not know if you know this, but jazz is not written; it is mostly improvised. It is all from the heart. It is not written music.
You wonder what they are doing. They just go out; somebody plays a little bit. I do not know what I am talking about with music—you understand that, first of all. I hope you just get the point. Forget the music.
There is call and response, and it is a vital element in jazz. As a matter of fact, this was all brought from African music. Very often they would sing, and there would be those who would sing out a few lines, and then over here another tribe would respond with the same lines. Over here another would sing, and then another would respond: call and response.
The book of Hebrews is call and response. Now, do you understand? God is calling us. He is showing us the better, and what He is after is a response from us. That seems to me to be the subject of Hebrews.
Now also, in this letter of encouragement—and I do want to go back because I did not give you too much explanation with this—if you return to Hebrews 3, we will see further the writer’s intent.
Hebrews 3:13 says:
But encourage yourselves each day, as long as it is called today, that none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
Now, I hope—to me, this was a strange verse. The way I look at encouragement, I do not know how you look at encouragement, but the way I look at encouragement is that it is what is done to me. Do you understand? It is what you do to me. It is what I hope is happening to you this morning. It is something from the outside that comes in and is done to me.
And this is an odd verse, because what this verse says is that we are to encourage ourselves each day. That is a strange thought.
But do you know—and this is the thought—you are either your greatest enemy or your greatest encourager. Do you know that?
Brothers and sisters, we have the greatest capacity. Now, please understand: you may say, “No, it is all God, it is all God,” and you know I believe that. But you need to understand the import of this verse. The writer did not slip here. The writer did not shade the words here. The writer made a very specific point here, and that is for you yourselves, as long as it is called today, to encourage yourself each day.
Every day, you are to encourage yourself. Now, how do we do that? Can we just say in the morning, “Self, be encouraged. Cheer up. Get on with it”?
Brothers and sisters, this is somehow what believers think, but it is not the power of positive thinking. It is not somehow that we can charge ourselves up—do push-ups in the morning, get the blood and adrenaline flowing, and then say, “You are good. Look into the mirror. You are excellent. You are the best. You are the better.”
I somehow have a feeling that is not what he meant.
I think what we do—and it is of great consequence, saints—we are to encourage ourselves every day with the things of the Lord.
Now, do we do that? Do we wake up and say, “Lord, You have said this. Everything around me is counter to it, but this You have declared, and I believe it. Help Thou my unbelief”?
Do we do that? Saints, I think this is an important principle. You are your greatest enemy or your best friend. Do you understand that? That is an important principle when it comes to Hebrews.
And not only that: we are to do this each day, not once in a while. I think of the old thing—I thought I said it long ago—but I think of the old thing. It was a great naval battle where the famous admiral said, “We have found the enemy and he is ours.”
I do not know—most students of history may know—but that got changed. The popular thing is what we remember: the Pogo cartoon, where, “We have found the enemy, and it is us.”
That is what we know. We are our own worst enemy. We have discovered him. He is not outside.
Now, this does not take away from the message our brother Jerry is bringing us. As a matter of fact, I have a burden, number one, that we will have a balance to hear this thing. First of all, that we will see the Lord Jesus in such a way, and all that He means, that our eyes will stay fixed on Him and we will be encouraged, knowing the Lord.
But Jerry’s burden—I think they are complementary—was that we would be aware that we have an enemy, and that enemy intends to do you bodily and spiritual harm. Unless we are aware of that enemy and his devices, and take all the provision we have in the Lord Jesus, we can never stand.
I do not think these things are contradictory. I think they are complementary. We have found the enemy, and it is us.
Encourage yourself today, while it is called today, lest you be deceived by the deceitfulness of sin. That is the point.
But it goes further than that. If you will look with me at Hebrews 10, there is another encourage in this book where the writer shows his intent. I think most of us know this verse by heart.
Hebrews 10:25:
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the custom is with some, but encouraging one another, and by so much more as ye see the day drawing nigh.
Now, here is the second thought. Not only are you to encourage yourself in the Lord with the things of the Lord—speak to yourself, just like it says in Ephesians, speaking to yourselves, singing to yourselves in spiritual songs and hymns, chanting in your heart to the Lord, being filled with the Spirit, remembering the Lord—but we are to encourage one another.
Brothers and sisters, you need to understand these two things go together. Apparently—and I do not understand all the theology behind it, and I am not even sure the theologians understand all that is behind it—something happened with the Hebrew believers.
Something happened with these who were being encouraged, and they began to draw away from corporate gatherings. It even uses a strong word. It says, “Not forsaking the assembling together, as the custom of some is.”
It was more than just, “Oh, I just cannot show up this weekend. The Giants are playing.” It was not that at all. They developed a bad habit. They developed a custom, and for some reason—and it is not known whether it was neglect or indifference or whatever—these believers began to minimize and think the corporate gathering was of no consequence.
They began to stop meeting.
Here is the word: encourage one another. Do not forsake the assembly, as the custom of some is. Encourage one another. Do not just encourage yourself.
Do you think it is just you and God? Do you think that is the sum of the Christian life? Do you think that is all of the Christian life? Not hardly.
Let me tell you, gathering, even with all of its woes—and we know something of its woes—gathering with all of its problems is a place of safety.
Psalm 133—the writer of Psalm 133 said how blessed it is when brethren dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment that was poured out on the head and ran down to the hem of the garment, speaking of the Lord Jesus. Then it ends with this thought:
There the Lord commanded the blessing.
There is blessing in gathering. Let me tell you, I heard this one time; it has never left me. It is a great discovery—the greatest discovery—to discover that you cannot live without God.
That is the most precious lesson in the whole of this life. But there is a precious blessing, a lesson also, and that is: you cannot live without me.
That may scare you, and that may make you mad, but that is the law of Hebrews. How important it is to gather. It is the place of refuge. It is the place of blessing. It is the place of protection from delusion and deception.
You are able to encourage me. Believe it or not, sometimes I am able to encourage you. We are able to provoke one another to love and good works. To me, that is the thought of Hebrews.
Finally, the thought of Hebrews and the way of encouragement comes from the fact that God alone encourages us. Let me just read a verse. Turn to Hebrews 6:18. Look at verse 17.
Wherein God, willing to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, intervened by an oath,
That by two unchangeable things, in which it was impossible that God should lie, we should have strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us,
Which we have as an anchor of the soul, both secure and firm.
God Himself, the One Who cannot lie. The word has a stronger emphasis than that. It says, “It is impossible for God to lie.” He alone is the source of our encouragement.
It is not just—if it were only just you to encourage yourself, if it were only that we were to encourage one another—that would not be enough. The whole point of the book of Hebrews, in this revelation of better, is that God Himself has come to us with a strong encouragement, that we should lay hold of the hope that is set before us.
So, I hope that gives you a window into the writer’s intent. Tell me how wrong I am; you can help me. But at least to me, it seems to be very clear that all he was after was to unveil that better thing of God. The hope of the writer is that there would be a response from us. That is the letter of Hebrews.
Okay. I am not allowed to say, “Did you get it?” but I will slip it in just once and promise that is the last time.
Oh, the God of all comforts meets us with strong encouragement. How good that is. How much hope that gives us. God is your encourager. That is good news.
Okay, so now you are wondering if we are ever going to get to the point.
There are two things we want to take up today, but let me share one verse first before we do. We shared the first two, and I am not going to go over the first two because we do not have time.
The first better concerns the person of the Lord Jesus. It says He has a better name than the angels. He is better than the angels.
Now, you may not think that is very significant, but it is supremely significant, because what it sets forth is that the most vital thing in all of God’s economy is the Son.
This book begins with a singular, dominating thought: that God has spoken and moved in former ways through the prophets to the fathers, but in these last days has spoken to us in the person of the Son. That is the supreme message in this book.
If you read the book, even through the first eight or nine chapters, that is the dominating thing. It is the person of the Lord Jesus. Saint, there is a very profoundly simple message there: we are to keep our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus.
The Word uses the phrase that we are to consider our High Priest. In Hebrews 12, it tells us the way to overcome: to fix our eyes upon the Lord Jesus. That is the whole message.
Now, the writer does something I did not share last week. Turn to Hebrews 8. We read this as our text verse, and this is to seal the point.
He says in Hebrews 8:1:
Now a summary of the things of which we are speaking is this: We have such a One.
That is the summary. Now, this word summary to us may not have great meaning, but in the Greek here—excuse me, in Hebrews, in the Greek here—this word summary means, “This is the chief point.”
This is the whole reason for his writing: that we have such a One, a great High Priest, and we are to keep our eyes fixed on Him. This is the executive summary.
I do not know how many of you know what that means, but I spend a good part of my day writing reports. We have learned that many busy people we write these things to refuse to read them. That is a shame. All of those words in these thirteen-page reports do not get read, and they rifle through these things.
So we learned the secret, and many of you who write reports know this: you have an executive summary. That is for the guy or the lady who refuses to read the report. You know, you have been in those meetings: “Get to the point. What is your chief point? What are you wasting all these words to say? What is the main thing that is on your heart?”
That is called an executive summary. Here the writer says, “This is my executive summary: it is the Lord Jesus.” He is the whole summing up. He is the whole thing. If you want to walk in the better, you need to see that He is the better.
The second better we took up had to do with us. It says in Hebrews 6 that God has some better thing for us.
Now, that is precious. God’s heart is not just the Lord Jesus, even though I believe that. It is also us.
How blessed it is that this book, after it spends this exhaustive lecture on the better that is the Lord Jesus, the second better is us. Think of it. Think of the love God has for us.
He has called us to be partakers of the heavenly calling, it says in Hebrews 3. He has called us to be companions of the Christ. It says in Hebrews 2 that He that sanctifies and those that are sanctified are one, and He is not ashamed to call them brethren.
Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling. Saints, this is a precious thing.
To me, this is the whole of eternal purpose: summing up everything in Christ, and somehow, in the mystery of love itself, joining us in inseparable union with the Lord Jesus, that we might be the eternal companions of Christ.
Notice: it says He did not choose the fallen angels, but He chose you. I hope that is a word of encouragement.
So those are the first two betters. I want to spend, if we can, a little time on the next two betters.
The one we heard—and I think the Lord sort of prepared us in our meeting—our brother started with this word on hope. It seemed to me, maybe it was just the way I was headed, but this word hope ran through our meeting this morning as we prayed and worshiped.
Do you know that we have a better hope? If you read Hebrews 7:18:
For there is a setting aside of the commandment going before for its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law perfected nothing;
And the introduction of a better hope, by which we draw nigh to God.
Now, here is the first point. Remember this: in the Christian life, there is the essential nature of hope. You need to understand that. It is a theme that runs throughout the Bible. It begins in the Old Testament, runs into the New Testament, and is clarified in the New Testament.
You will never apprehend the Christian life unless you apprehend the better hope that we have as Christians. The writer to the Hebrews says, after he gets over this issue of the eternal purpose and what that consists of, that we have a better hope.
It is an essential element of the Christian life.
I remember last year. It was probably the hardest year of our lives, when we were going through what we were going through and Linda got the transplant. I remember one time I was at the hospital, and there was one of the transplant magazines. I am not sure if it was a day when I was so up or not; maybe I could not miss it.
But I turned in that book, and it said this simple quote. This was a secular writer, but it captured my spirit. He said, “In the marathon of life, hope is essential.”
Oh, how we need hope. If we lose our hope—I remember Dan said to me not that long ago, and it had a profound impact on me—he said, “I cannot give up my hope.” That was better than any sermon I had heard.
Oh, brothers and sisters, how we need to see that there is a better hope. It is an essential key ingredient to the Christian life.
Do you understand key ingredients? Without hope, there is no Christian life.
We look forward with expectation. We hold fast to the hope. We boast, it says in Hebrews, in the confidence of our hope. The Bible says hope makes not ashamed. Hope is a key ingredient.
I asked Linda yesterday—because I do not understand these things; they refuse to let me cook, I want you to know this. That is probably for the good of the family. It goes along with singing.
I asked her about bread, because we have this neat thing, a bread machine. This thing is magic. It whips out loaves of bread. You do not have to whip—well, you like that? You tell the eyes. It just magically whips out these loaves of bread. It is the best. We love bread.
I asked her what the key ingredients were for this stuff called bread. She said, “Well, first of all, there is flour. That is the substance. When it all is said and done, that is sort of what remains.”
Now, I think that is a little bit like 1 Corinthians 13:13, where it says:
But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Flour is the substance. Flour is love. It is what remains.
Then she told me there is this stuff called a leavening agent. Now, you may have noticed on the bread that we took this morning, we had no leavening agent, and therefore it would not rise.
But to me, that leavening agent is hope, because it is the thing that makes it rise. In the end, it is our hope, it is our expectation that the Lord has settled in our hearts, that we rise to God and believe everything that He said is true.
It is the thing that makes us—let me put it the other way—it is the thing that keeps you from being flat. You know, a flat tire. Hey, you get to some things men will understand. I am losing the male audience. It is flat.
But with hope, we rise to God.
Then she said there is the liquid that activates the leavening agent—you know, like yeast, or is it baking powder?
There is something that activates it. It is a key ingredient. It is faith. Because of the faith of the Lord Jesus that is in us, our hope is activated, and we rise to God.
That, to me, seems to be the key ingredient.
Now, hope has such power that it is able to take you in the darkest and most difficult circumstances and lift your spirit.
Hope by itself is the strongest component that is able to take you in the most difficult and dark circumstances and lift you up into the heavenlies, above your circumstances, to the Most High.
Hope. The better hope. That is the power it has.
I also considered, as I looked into this book of Hebrews, that it made very clear what the source of our hope was. Sometimes we think the source of our hope is what we understand or what we believe.
But brothers and sisters, although that is a component of hope, it is not the source. You need to be very careful. This is a very important element in Hebrews and a very important element in the Scripture. Unless we understand it, our hope will be founded in what we see and what we believe.
Turn with me to Hebrews 10:23.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope unwavering, for He is faithful that promised.
Do you see the difference? To me, that is a very important little insert by the Holy Spirit.
Let us hold fast our hope unwavering. How can we do that? How can we do that? For He is faithful Who has promised.
You see the difference? Oh, dear saints, it seems to me that the source of our hope is God alone.
If you turn to Psalm 42—and you do not have to turn, but if you will later, consider Psalm 42—the psalmist understood this principle. He said:
Why art thou disquieted in me, O my soul? Hope thou in God.
Dear saints, it seems to me that the message in the book of Hebrews is that He is our hope.
Hebrews 6:17 says:
Wherein God, willing to show more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, intervened by an oath,
That by two things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope that is set before us.
Who have we fled to? Have you fled to a strong doctrine? Have you fled to a belief system? Have you fled to a religion?
No, dear saint. It seems to me the message is that we have fled to the source of hope. This is the better hope.
Without this hope, we are the most hopeless people. Do you believe that? If we did not have this hope, we would be the most hopeless people.
No hope of rescue.
You may have heard recently of that submarine that went down in the North Atlantic—the Kursk. There is another story of a submarine, the S-4, that went down off Massachusetts. It collided with a ship; they are not sure.
That submarine went down, and those men were in that watery grave. They were down there all alone. You can imagine the thoughts that passed through their minds.
They sent a diver down. That diver got his helmet right up against the shell of the submarine, and one tapped out in Morse code:
Is there any hope?
Do you know that Jesus is your only hope? Do you know that He can rescue you? Do you know that He will never let you go? Do you know that He ever lives to intercede for you?
Do you know that it does not matter your circumstances—how deep, how dark, how impossible—there is hope of rescue?
We are going to stop with hope today, it looks like, because the clock is unkind to me.
But there is another point about hope that is essential. Hope is based on a whole new relationship.
It is based on a whole new relationship.
Let me turn to a verse. Turn back to Hebrews 7:18:
For there is a setting aside of the commandment going before for its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law perfected nothing;
And the introduction of a better hope.
Now, here is the point. In the Old Testament, there was a former relationship, and that former relationship was based on the law.
This new relationship of hope is not based on law, because the New Testament says—you are in, I think it is Galatians 6:14, if I am remembering correctly—“For you are not under law, but under grace.”
You have been saved through grace. So this new relationship that we have, this new basis of hope, is no longer law, but it is love.
Now, brothers and sisters, I do not know if that is profound to us anymore. I do not know if that has gripped our hearts anymore. But what God has done in His mercy is the passing away, the doing away, of the old basis of relationship that was the law, that could not perfect anyone, for setting up and introducing a new relationship, which is the better hope.
That new relationship is love.
Now, I wish we had more time than we do. But if you look into the Scriptures carefully, you will begin to understand that the law demanded absolute obedience.
It goes on to say, when the Lord Jesus even quoted the first commandment in Mark—I think it is chapter 12, verse 10—when He says, “The first commandment says, ‘You will love the Lord your God’ with what? All of your strength, and with all of your soul, and with all of your understanding.”
Now, that is absolute. This old relationship demanded what it could not produce.
I hope you understand that. That is a profound principle in the whole of Scripture. This old relationship demanded absolute love in a threefold dimension, which it had no power to produce.
Now, you may think, “Why then did God do such a thing? Why was this former relationship set up with His people, Israel?”
Because when we read the New Testament, we understand that law came in to amplify sin, to show us, it says in Romans, the exceeding sinfulness of sin.
It is all, I think—for I am not too deep, so understand this—it is all for a very simple reason: to show us our utter hopelessness without Christ.
Can you love the Lord with all your heart? Can you love the Lord with all of your mind? Can you love the Lord with all of your soul? Can you love the Lord with all of your understanding? Do you?
Then good. You have fulfilled the law. You are the most righteous person I know.
But, oh, dear saints, this is the hope: Jesus comes, fulfills the law, takes the law, and nails it to the tree. Now what He has to say to us is, “This new relationship I have with you is no longer based on law, but on love.”
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.
Oh, how good that is. Now love produces in our hearts the law.
I hope that is not very confused for you. But you remember when the Lord Jesus said—this is the emphasis, and the emphasis is very important—He said:
If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments.
The commandment did not come first. Something had to be done to produce a response—that call and response.
Then He can write in our hearts, Jeremiah 31:31, a new covenant:
I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it.
It is all about love. Dear saint, it seems to me that this is a key to understanding: this new and better hope is based on love.
You think that is maybe what the Lord Jesus had to say to Peter? You remember the story. We will end with this.
You think it is maybe what the Lord Jesus had to say to Peter when He appeared to him after that great denial in John 21? He said, “Peter, do you love Me?”
Oh, you know that story. Peter must have been devastated. All he could remember was the denial.
Peter said, “Lord, Lord, You know I am attached. There is an attachment.”
The Lord Jesus, making His point, said, “Peter, do you love Me?”
Peter, I think, was put into deep agony at that point. He said, “Lord, no. I am attached to You.”
Then the Lord said, “Peter, are you attached? Okay.”
It always takes a little response, and He will do the rest. We are hopeless in ourselves, but He is calling. If we respond, He will write love in our hearts.
That is the better hope.
Lord, we come sensing that we see things through a glass darkly, knowing that we have not seen clearly, but knowing that You are the way, and You are to us the better hope.
Lord, I pray in the days ahead, You will take what could not be said and, by the finger of the Holy Spirit, write it deeply in our hearts.
Oh, I am so encouraged, Lord, that You did not call me to do what I can never do, but through Your mercy, You call. And in Your mercy there is a response, and by Your grace You do the work.
How good that is. What a better hope that is. And how we worship You. Amen.