Jesus, worthy of all honor

Hebrews chapter 1, and we'll read the chapter. 14 verses in Hebrews chapter 1. We got up to verse 6 last week. So Hebrews chapter 1, verse 1. God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world. Who being the brightness of his glory, and express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did he ever say, you are my son, today I've begotten you, and again I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. But when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels, he says, who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. But to the Son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. And you, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain, and they will all grow old like a garment. Like a cloak, you will fold them up, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will not fail. But to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation. And so he is saying that Jesus is greater, that he is better. He is better than the prophets we saw in the first few verses. Now the rest of the chapter he is saying that he is greater than the angels. And he's going to use seven, or use the seven Old Testament scriptures, mainly from the book of Psalms. I think five of them come from the book of Psalms, to show that Jesus is greater than the angels, in seven different areas. This is very, very important because the Hebrew believers that he was writing to were considering falling away, or moving away from the faith, going back to Judaism, and getting into all sorts of other stuff. And in order to do that, you have to do something with Jesus. So if Jesus is not the Messiah, then what is he? And remember that you can't go back to Judaism without denying that Jesus is the Savior, that he is the Messiah. So you've got to do something with him. And one of the things that they, it seems that they did with him, is they said, well he's just an angel. He's a great angel. And of course that's what some people do today. Some of the cults say that Jesus is an angel. And so the point is that he is not an angel, and that he is far greater than an angel. And so the first two things that we saw in verse 5, is that he has a better name. The angels don't have the name son. They are not the sons of God. They are the sons of God in a generic sense, but they are not, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased. And so Jesus has a greater name than they. And then the angels are told to worship him. In verse 6, let all the angels of God worship him. So Jesus is greater than the angels, because he has a greater name. He is greater than the angels, because the angels are to worship him. And now in verse 7, and of the angels he says, who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. Now there's details there that we don't quite fully understand. There's also problems in the in the original text. But he speaks of the angels, and he makes his angels spirits. So his angels are not necessarily flesh and blood, the way we are. We say, well you know there's the people who saw the angels. But remember that they took on different forms. At times they appeared to men like men. They just appeared like ordinary men. At other times they appeared to have six wings, in Isaiah chapter 6. And so they take on different forms. And so they are spirits, and they are a flame of fire. And so one of the forms that the angels would take on would be a flame of fire. Particularly in God's judgment on Israel in the Old Testament. So they are powerful. And we spoke about the fact that these angels, that we have two records of them killing many, many people in one night. One angel. Very, very powerful beings. And so they are great. They are powerful. But the key in that verse is the word ministers. And he ministers a flame of fire. Now remember when we have this word minister, we have the wrong idea mostly. Because in modern English we say, well a minister is a pastor, or somebody, a man of the class. He is a minister. And of course that means that he runs a church. And of course that is not what the word means. That is not what it originally was intended to be, the way it was used in the New Testament. The word minister means servant. And so those who claim to be pastors or ministers are servants. And so the point that he's making here is that he makes his angels, spirits, and his servants a flame of fire. So they are powerful, but they are servants. Now in verse 8, but to the Son he says, your throne of God is forever and ever. So the angels are servants, but he is sovereign. He is the sovereign. He is on the throne, and he is God. So the angels are servants, he is God. Now this verse 8 and 9 come out of Psalm 45, 67. And you'll see that he begins the statement, to the Son he says, your throne O God. Can there be any doubt that the Bible says that Jesus is God? Oh, there it is. I mean, you know, you don't need to be a theologian. You don't need to understand Greek or Hebrew. You're of the Son, he says, who says, God says, your throne O God. So Jesus is God, by God's own declaration. We're going to see this again in the next few verses. Your throne O God is forever and ever. So the the angels are not infinite. The angels do not... God allows them to live forever. It seems that they have some form of eternal life, but it's only by God's permission. But Jesus is life. Jesus has no beginning, and he has no end. The angels, remember that some of them disobeyed God, and they were cast out of heaven. And at the end of time they will be taken and thrown into the lake of fire. And so the rest of the angels continue by the permission of God. But they do not have eternal life in and of themselves, and they do not have the ability to impart life. But Jesus, not only does he have eternal life within himself, because he is eternal, but he also has the ability to give eternal life to those who come to him. So your throne O God is forever and ever. So they are servants. He's on the throne, and his throne is eternal. And of course this is a statement, sort of, by the way, I the only eternal throne. Now he's dealing with angels, but who sits on thrones? Well kings sit on thrones. Today, of course, we have presidents and not so many kings. But no king has an eternal throne. Every king will come to a time when he dies. Every president will come to a time when his term has expired, when his term is limited. Even those presidents in third world countries who are president for life, at some stage or the other, somebody will kill them, or they will die, or somebody will chase them out and take over. But there is no king in this world whose throne is forever. The greatest empire, in the sense of the longest lasting one, was the Roman Empire. It lasted for hundreds of years. But where is it now? There is absolutely nothing. Go to Italy, and yeah, they have beautiful artwork and beautiful architecture, but it is a ramshackle, almost third world country today. The great Roman Empire, the great Greek Empire, is bankrupt financially today. And the list goes on and on. And so his throne is forever. The angels are servants, but he has an eternal throne. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. Now, what is the scepter? Well, I had a picture. There it is. Wrong place. So these are the crown jewels of the king or queen of England, held in the Tower of London. And you'll see the crown, and the Queen still wears that crown at the opening of Parliament and other great occasions. And there is the orb, which doesn't have any reference to Scripture, doesn't appear anywhere in Scripture, but it speaks about the kingdom being across the world and so on. But then, lying across the bottom is the scepter. It's made out of gold and encrusted with jewels, and right at the top, you'll see in the head, there is a massive diamond. Now, when she opens Parliament, she doesn't often carry the orb, but she will carry, she'll wear the crown, and she used to carry the scepter. The scepter is too heavy for her now, because she's old, and so the scepter will be put on a stand next to her, simply because she can't deal with the weight anymore. So what is the scepter? It is a symbol of her power and of her authority, the same way as the crown. It's really no, not big difference between the crown and the scepter. They are symbols of power and of authority, and the same with the throne. It's a symbol of her power and of her sovereignty, and it's a concept which goes right back to the Old Testament. You remember that Esther goes into the king's throne room, and no one was allowed to go in there unless they were invited, but she goes in because she has a request to make on behalf of her people, Israel. And so she goes in, and if the king did nothing, the guards would drag her out and kill her, but the king extends his scepter. So even way back in the Old Testament, the king has a scepter, and he extends his scepter to her, and it's a sign that she is to be spared, and he allows her to speak. So it's a symbol which, and you'll find this even in third world countries, in Africa, tribal chiefs all have a scepter of some kind or the other. Sometimes it's nothing more than a walking cane, but it's used in the same way. Some of them have a fly swatter made out of cow tail with which they chase the flies away, but it is the same thing. It's a symbol of his power and of his authority. And so we've got the slide in the wrong place, back to verse 8. So a scepter of righteousness, the thing by which he rules is righteousness. And remember that that's what we're looking forward to. We're looking for a kingdom or heaven in which righteousness dwells, and at no stage has there, I believe, well certainly not in my heart, been a greater cry for the kingdom of God to come, and for righteousness to to exist, for righteousness to come. Because it looks like by the day the world is becoming more and more unrighteous, that governments are becoming more and more unrighteous, that people are becoming more and more unrighteous. But he rules by righteousness. This is not the righteousness that he imparts to us when we get saved. This is the basis of his authority, his righteousness. The basis of modern rulers authority is democracy in some cases, and autocracy in other cases. They have power because power has either been given to them, or they have taken power. His power is based on righteousness. He does the right thing every time. There is no, there has never been, sorry, bad news for you, but there has never been a president in the United States whose every decision was righteous, and there never will be, because we are human. There is no man whose decisions are all a hundred percent righteous, but God is righteous. God is just, and every decision he makes is the right decision. And so that's the basis of his kingdom. Now verse 9, you have loved righteousness, so this is part of the same argument, you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness, the King James says, iniquity, and therefore God has anointed you. Folks, this is, this is such an important concept for us, because by nature we don't love righteousness. We only love righteousness when it works in our favor. In terms of politics, whatever your party does is righteous. Whatever the other party does is unrighteous. That's just the way it is, and of course that's stupid, because, because all political parties are right sometimes and wrong sometimes. As I've said, all presidents are right sometimes and wrong sometimes. All kings are the same, and each one of us are like that. But he loved righteousness, and he hated lawlessness. Now again, here's where we have a problem, because I think that the world and fleshly carnal Christians can deal with the fact that he loves righteousness, and we say, yeah, that's great, he loves righteousness. But there's a flip side to the coin, and that is that he hates iniquity or lawlessness. You cannot love righteousness and not hate lawlessness. The two things go together, and so when you see right being done, there should be rejoicing. When you see the wrong thing being done, there should be sadness. And that's what makes him, one of the many things that makes him as great as he is, is that he loves righteousness and hates lawlessness, iniquity. And so we need to be like him. We need to love what he loves, and hate what he hates, and not be partial in our judgment, and say, well, because this is a person I like, I'm going to cut them a pass, or because this person is of my ethnicity, they've done the wrong thing, but that's fine. Or everything that people of a certain color does is wrong, and everything that people of another color does is right. And the list goes on and on. Our judgment is not righteous. It is tainted by our own prejudices, and God needs to do a work in our lives that we might think the way he thinks, and that we may esteem righteousness when righteousness happens, and that we would hate lawlessness when lawlessness happens. Now remember, the word lawlessness here is not civic lawlessness. It's not dealing with people breaking the speed limit, while that is part of the whole deal. What he's dealing with here is people who don't live by any rules. And remember, the greatest rules are God's rules, and so you can keep the country's rules, you don't keep God's rules, you're still lawless. And remember that the Antichrist is the man of lawlessness. That's what defines him. He may impose laws upon those that he rules, but for himself there are no rules. Now we all have problems with rules. We all have problems with laws. You're not the boss of me. Nobody's going to tell me what to do. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, and this is not the spirit of the Lord Jesus, because in fact you'll see later on that the book of Hebrews says that he learned obedience by the things that he suffered. And I'll explain that when we get there. He didn't learn to be obedient, but he learned obedience by the things that he suffered. Though it says in the book of Hebrews, quoting the book of Psalms, I think it is, I've come to do thy will, O God. Jesus has fully submitted himself to God's will, to God's law, to what God wants. And it's not his will, but the Father's will. Remember Gethsemane. Not what I want, but what you want. This is loving righteousness and hating lawlessness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you, the Father. And remember that Jesus refers to the Father as God, but the Father refers to Jesus as God. And we see that exactly here. Therefore, let's just say, the Father has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. Now again, there's some challenges here. The moment we see oil, we tend to say, well this means anointing for service. Remember kings were anointed to become kings, prophets, and so on. Priests were anointed. This is not what he is talking about here. He's speaking about the oil of gladness. When you went to a party, or to a fiesta, or some celebration, you would anoint yourself. You would put oil all over you. Today the ladies do the opposite. They put powder and stuff on to make it not shiny. They like to have it shiny. And in fact, in Africa too, many times they use Vaseline to make themselves shiny, because it looks healthy. And so it's this that he's talking about. Remember that those, when they fasted, they would not anoint themselves, so that they looked sad, and they looked drab, and not so well. But this speaks about celebration. This speaks about rejoicing. And it's the oil of gladness. The oil of gladness. Jesus is anointed with the oil of gladness. So what is it that makes him glad? Well remember, well if you remember back 16 years when we did Hebrews the first time, the last time you read Hebrews, when we get to the end of Hebrews, for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despised the shame. And so for the joy that was set, the oil of gladness. So once the work of redemption and of atonement had been done, once he had died on the cross and been glorified, he began to receive the reward of his labor. And what was the reward of his labor? The church. That's what he had come for, a bride. And that's what makes him happy. Remember that all the angels rejoice when one sinner repents. If the angels rejoice, how much more does Jesus not rejoice, who paid the price for that sinner? And so he rejoices in those who get saved. He rejoices in his children when they do the right thing. And so that is the oil of gladness. So God has given to him this joy of his bride, and of course the anticipation of being united with her in the marriage feast of the Lamb. So with the oil of gladness, more than your companions. So who are his companions? Clearly not the angels in this context. The angels are the other believers, or the believers, his brethren. And we'll see this later. Remember this verse. We're going to come back to this idea later on in the chapter. So you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore God your God has anointed you with oil of gladness more than your companions. Now verse 10. And you, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth. Now again this is from Psalms, and this is an important Psalm. Psalm 102 verses 25 through 27. Psalm 102. Now Psalm 102 begins, O Lord, Jehovah, Yahweh. So Psalm 102 speaks to God. And you'll see the same thing here at the beginning. This is from verse 25 of that Psalm. You Lord, you God, Yahweh, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth. David says that God laid the foundation of the earth. Yahweh, Jehovah, laid the foundation of the earth. But Hebrews is saying Jesus laid the foundation of the earth. So what is he saying? Jesus is God. It's as simple as that. So again another another verse speaking about his deity, the fact that he is God. So you Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth. The beginning of what? Well the beginning of this creation. You laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. So how great is he? He's made all these things. He made the earth. He made the heavens. And of course we we have spoken and in the last couple of weeks touched on Romans chapter 1, that men look at creation and they worship the creation or the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen. So so we we easily look at at the earth and we marvel. We look at the mountains here. We look at the sea. We look at the the magnificence of God's creation in Yosemite and Yellowstone and all of these places. And we say well this is this is absolutely magnificent. When we flew back from Wisconsin a month or two ago, we had to take a long detour from Phoenix because of a thunderstorm. And we flew out over Utah and looking down from 30,000 feet, I just marveled at the at beauty of the of the desert, of the rock formations, and the colors, and a place called St. George, which you pass through when you go north. Just absolutely magnificent. And we look at these things, but these are things that he has created. And the the creature can never be greater than the Creator. You never, you know, you can look at a painting, you say well this is a wonderful painting, or you look at at a work of engineering, a great bridge or something, and you say well well well this is great. But it can never be as great as the mind that designed it. You know we we tend to so easily look at the painting we say oh this is great. But in fact the man who painted that must be greater than the work of his hands. And so he made these things, but they will perish, but you remain, and they will grow old like a garment. Again, we get so fixated about this earth, and we we we tend to feel that this is this is always been as always gonna be here. This is this is this the world is is rock-solid. No, it's going to perish. And if you're worshipping angels, and I trust no one here is, but there are people who do, you're worshipping the wrong thing, because there's something someone greater than angels. And if you're worshipping nature and creation as many people do today, you're worshipping the wrong thing, because there's something greater than creation. And creation is temporary, but he is eternal. And you know I was I was blessed by this verse this week as I meditated on it, because we we I think that we're all being inundated with this concept of global warming. And I'm not going to get into the pros and cons of whether it is or isn't. I think we all understand that things are changing. And what they what reason they're changing, and the mechanics behind it, I don't think anyone really fully understands. But what we do know is that things are changing, and that we are in trouble, and that we had the storms down in Louisiana and in the south, and that we have the fires up the side, and that things are falling apart. And we said well you know it's gonna get worse and worse. They tell us the sea levels are gonna rise, the ice caps are melting, the temperatures are going up, places are you know that used to be habitable are no longer habitable. I was reading early this morning about certain parts of North Carolina, where entire cities are being wiped out, and have been over a period of years, because they've become uninhabitable, because the water levels are too high, and all sorts of things are going wrong. But you remain. You remain. And folks, that's where our confidence is. Our confidence is not in this world. Our confidence is not in Al Gore to fix the global warming problem. Our confidence is in the Lord Jesus, because He remains. And He remains unchanged. Everything in this world is decaying. By definition, it decays. Every day we're losing several thousand. My mind can't even cope with this. Several thousand species are wiped out every day. The number of species that we had a hundred years ago, and what we have now, is a small fraction of what we had then. We just know about the big things like the dodo, and things like that. But there's many other, thousands of other species, smaller animals, smaller plants, and things that don't exist anymore. But He remains unchanged. He doesn't get weaker. He doesn't become hotter. He doesn't become unstable. But He is eternal. And our confidence and our hope is in Him, not in the angels, and not in creation. They will all grow old like a garment. They will all grow old like a garment. I don't know how many people wait for their garments to grow old before they throw them out. Sometimes Inna has to force me to to retire my pants to the workshop, and then from the workshop eventually to the to the trash can. It comes to an end, and the creation is going to come to an end, and it's going to, it grows old, and in the process it becomes less good. Just put it that way. Gets holes in it. Things start going wrong with it. The zipper doesn't want to work anymore. And like a cloak, you will fold them up, and they will be changed. Remember, we saw this in 2nd Peter just a few months ago, that all these things will be burnt up with most with fervent heat. Like a cloak, you'll fold them up, and they will be changed. But you are the same. And yes, there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth, and this earth is going to be gone. But you are the same, and your years will not fail. And while this has been written 2,000 years ago, I believe that more than ever before, this is a great comfort to us today. As we watch things fall apart around us, as we watch the world coming apart at its seams, as it were, but you are the same. We don't know from one day to the next what's going to happen in politics. We see how quickly things developed in Afghanistan. If somebody told you today what we, where we're at today, if they told you a month ago that we would be where we're at today, they'd say, well no, it would never, it would never happen. And yet overnight things change. The world is changing, but you're the same. And so, literally, in the mornings when I get up, I read the news. And I read the news to find out what changed since I went to bed last night. I'm serious. What's changed? But I don't have to get up in the morning and say, well, you know, I wonder what God's going to be like today. No, he's the same as he was yesterday, as he was from eternity, and he will be to all eternity. There's no bad news with him. There's no news that, oh, suddenly he died, or he got COVID and he's sick, or he got voted out, he got recalled, whatever. No, he's eternal, and he is stable, and that really should be the stabling influence in our lives. If we're going to be attached to this world in any way, we will not be stable. And you remember, we're going to see this later on in Hebrews chapter 10, I think it is, that this hope we have as an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast, because it enters into the veil, beyond the veil. And so our security does not lie in this world, but it lies beyond. And so they will be changed, but you are the same, and your years will never fail. I'm going to try and finish this chapter this evening. But to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool? So again, he is greater than the angels, because clearly the answer to the question, it's one of those questions of which the answer is obvious, sit at my right hand, sorry, to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool? The answer is none, only of Jesus. And so what does this mean, that I make your enemies your footstool? Well, in the old days when kings went to war, they would take the defeated king and bring him before the winning king, and he would sit on his throne, or if it was out in the battlefield in some kind of makeshift throne, and they would bring the other king, and they would make him prostrate, lie down before the king, and he would put his feet on the necks, on the neck of the conquered king, making that king his footstool. It was a symbolic act to show that he has been made nothing, and that this king is the boss. And so what does he mean that he's going to make his enemies his footstool? Well, we know that he conquered his enemies. Who's his enemies? Well, the devil and his angels, and obviously those who align with him, even those who are part of the world. Unbelievers who align themselves with the devil are his enemies, and the time is going to come. You see, here's the problem, is that we look at the church today, we look at Christianity, and we say, well, Christianity is fading away. There is no statistic that you can read anywhere that tells you that Christianity in the West, certainly in America and in Europe and the West, is doing well. It's dying out. It is seriously dying out. And we say, well, this is terrible. What's going to happen in the end? No, in the end, remember the book of Revelation, Jesus wins. In the end, he will conquer, and in the end, his enemies will be made his footstool. So, these Christians that he is writing to, as I said to you at the beginning, may have been in Rome. There are many things that point to the fact that they may have been in the city of Rome, and that persecution was hotting up against them, the same way as persecution is going to hot up against Christians here in America. And they were saying, well, you know, we're just losing here. Let's rather just deny the faith and go back to Judaism, or just go back to worshiping idols. No, he says, remember, Jesus is going to win in the end, and you need to be on the winning side. We all want to be on the winning side. We all want to back the team that will win the championship. Well, there's one team that we know is going to win, and that's the Lord Jesus. And he's not going to win slightly. He's going to win spectacularly, and I want to be on his side on that day. And so, yes, while the battle is hard, and while it looks like we're being beaten up, and the devil seems to be having a field day with Christianity, as I said to you earlier, just losing another friend to heresy, while these things are happening, Jesus is winning. And yes, he may be losing some of the battles, but he's winning the war. And one day he will be seated on that throne, King of kings and Lord of lords, and his enemies will be made his footstool. Verse 14, last verse, Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation? A wonderful verse. And so, again, he's saying, what do you want to worship angels for? Remember, many people worship angels. There is an endless supply of books on angels. And you go to Christian bookstores, not that many of them exist anymore. I don't even know one anywhere in the city. But you go to Christian bookstores, and you'll invariably find not just books on angels, but angels. All sorts of angels. Glass ones, and crystal ones, and wire ones, and whatever. But, folk, here's that word again, ministering, serving spirits. Serving spirits. And who do they serve? Those who will inherit salvation. Who will inherit salvation? Us, the church. This is amazing. So, what do the angels do? Well, obviously, they are God's servants, as we saw a little earlier. They are his. He makes his ministers, his servants, a flame of fire. But they are all ministering spirits, serving spirits, sent forth. Sent by who? By the Father, to minister, to serve those who will inherit salvation. We say, well, how does that work? Well, the thing is that we don't always see how they work. But clearly, this verse tells us that they are working. They are serving us in many ways. And one of the ways in which they do is they protect us. The number of stories, and remember my family come out of the mission field. And the stories they told me, my grandfather, and my great grandfather, and my mother when she was a young girl, of supernatural things happening out in the mission field, where the tribesmen sought to kill the missionaries. And there are dozens of accounts like this from the mission field. And the tribesmen were not able to get near the missionaries' house. And sometimes years later, they found out the reason they couldn't was because there was angels. The missionaries couldn't see them, but the tribesmen saw them. Great, powerful, glowing beings with swords, protecting God's people. You see, God hears our prayers. And he answers, not as we want and when we want, but he does. But I don't want to say he's too busy, because he's not. But God doesn't have to come down and fix my little problems. So what does he do? He sends angels to sort out our problems. Now obviously, he doesn't fix all our problems. There are a lot of problems we have to just deal with, because that's part of our growing process, and part of us learning, and part of us becoming stronger in our faith, and so on. But he does intervene, and he uses angels to do those things. Now, why is he making this point? Well, the point is simply, what do you want to worship angels for when they are your servants, when they are your servants? And obviously, they're not our servants in the sense that we can tell them what to do. God tells them what to do, but they are there to serve us. And yet Christians want to worship them. No, we worship the Lord Jesus. He is greater than the angels. And so, if we just go through all of that in summary, very quickly. So, he is greater than the angels in verse 5, because he has a greater name. He is the Son. He is greater than the angels in verse 6, because the angels are told to worship him. He is greater than the angels in verse 8, because he is the sovereign. He rules, and the angels are servants, in verse 7. He is greater than the angels in verse 10, because he created. I didn't touch on that, but the angels didn't create. He created. He is the creator. And of course, he is greater than creation. And in verse 13, he is greater than the angels, because God has exalted him. God has put him at his own right hand, and told him that his enemies will be made his footstool. And so, we praise God for the Lord Jesus. And I pray that we may, again, just allow the Spirit to open our eyes, just to be filled with the glory of him, and of how glorious he is. You know, people can be so fascinated with angels. And I know people who, I've heard pastors spend a year preaching and teaching on angels. God help us. I don't want to teach on angels. I want to teach on Jesus. I don't want to be fascinated with the angels. I want to be fascinated with the Lord Jesus. And as I said last week, it's one thing to see a little piece of glass and say, well, that's a nice piece. You pick it up on the seashore. It's been polished by the waves and the sand. And you say, well, that's a pretty piece of glass. But a diamond is a totally different thing. And we don't have pieces of glass in the form of angels that we are fascinated with. We have the diamond himself, the Lord Jesus. That's the one that we worship. That's the one that we bow before. That is the one that we follow. And so he may be saying to them, don't go back and try and make Jesus an angel. No, Jesus is far greater than an angel. Don't be fascinated with the angels. Yeah, we take an interest in them, as we do an interest in many things in the Word of God. But our fascination is always with Jesus. We always come back to him. He is the center and the focus of everything. And this is the essence of true doctrine. A friend of mine just posted this last week this idea that if anything else becomes a priority, it is heresy. You can take the church, you can take the Bible, you can take doctrine, you can take whatever you like. If you elevate that to be more important than Jesus, that is heresy, because there is nothing more important than him. There's nothing greater than him. And that's the whole point of this first chapter of Hebrews, that Jesus is the greatest, and we need to hear him. Father, thank you for your word. But we thank you above all for the greatness of the Lord Jesus. We thank you, Lord, that we have a privilege of you having spoken through Jesus to us. While the Old Testament had angels and had prophets, we have your son. And so, Lord, I pray that you would create within us a deep sense of great gratitude and of worship and adoration of your goodness that we live in a time such as this, in the New Testament, that we have seen him, not physically, but we've seen him through the eyes of the apostles. And we have heard his words as they are recorded for us in Scripture. And so, Lord, we thank you for the privilege that is ours. We pray, Lord, that you'd help us to have our eyes fixed on him, not on angels, not on this creation, not on governments and men in this world, but, Lord, that our eyes may be fixed on Jesus and may be filled with the glory and awe and magnificence of his glorious presence. And so, Lord, we pray that you'd help us go with us now, keep us and protect us, bring us together again safely on Sunday, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.