Simply the Best No.2 Jesus - God The Son

So let's read together from Hebrews in chapter 2, sorry, in chapter 1. Then we're going to have sung to us, and we're going to enjoy also joining in the singing our motto text for this year, which speaks about the sovereignty of God and His arms round and about us. Now we'll pick up our reading from the fourth verse, which is just linking in to what was shared last week, and we go on to the 14th verse. Hebrews chapter 1, verses 4 through to 14, and remember our summary of the addresses that we're trying to bring on a Sunday morning, as I mentioned in my prayer, is our Lord Jesus simply the best.

Verse 4, So He became as much superior to the angels as the name He has inherited is superior to theirs. For to which of the angels did God ever say, You are my son, today I have become your father, or again, I will be his father, and he will be my son. And again, when God brings His firstborn into the world, He says, Let all God's angels worship Him.

In speaking of the angels, He says, He makes His angels winds, His servants flames of fire. But about the Son, He says, Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

Therefore, God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy. He also says, In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain.

They will all wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe. Like a garment, they will be changed, but you remain the same, and your years will never end.

To which of the angels did God ever say, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet? Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? One of the ways in which God in His sovereignty sometimes ministers to us today is, as I shall seek to show you from Scripture later on, through the unseen, generally speaking, the unseen ministry and help of angels more involved in our lives than perhaps we are prepared at first to admit. Well, let's hear more about the sovereign protection of our God in our motto verse as we are led in singing it through together. And underneath of the everlasting heart You need not fear the raging of the storm For the Eternal God, Your Refuge is Your Savior, secure from every harm For the Eternal God, Your Refuge is Your Savior, the everlasting light The Eternal God, The Eternal God Is Your Refuge Please stand and join us.

The Eternal God is Your Refuge The Eternal God is Your Refuge And underneath of the everlasting heart You need not fear the raging of the storm For the Eternal God, Your Refuge is Your Savior, secure from every harm For the Eternal God, Your Refuge is Your Savior, the everlasting light The Eternal God, The Eternal God Is Your Refuge The Eternal God is Your Refuge The Eternal God is Your Refuge And underneath of the everlasting heart You need not fear the raging of the storm For the Eternal God, Your Refuge is Your Savior, secure from every harm For the Eternal God, Your Refuge is Your Savior, the everlasting light The Eternal God, The Eternal God Is Your Refuge Just a name, O Son Angels and men before You Close near and far And evermore Just a name to sing of You sing in us, dearly It scatters all their guilty fear It turns their health to hell It turns their health to free It gives us strength and grace It gives us strength as souls we speak Let the world see The song of His praise Faithfully righteousness I still believe, Lord Behold the Lamb I may not reach Him To all that cry in death Behold, behold the Lamb Behold, behold the Lamb And our Sovereign God and Father, again we bring to You our heaped up gratitude for all that You have made available to us such a wondrous plan of redemption that even the angels are mystified You recover from the sons of Adam those who are to be saved a vast innumerable number of people and You send the best in order to achieve the goal for none other had the ability to seek and to save that which was lost and to breathe His Spirit of new life and new creation into a humanity that shall be eternally redeemed To You we express our thankfulness Amen Do sit down and have your Bibles open at Hebrews in chapter 1 In a moment or two I'll have an overhead slide coming up which will help us as we try to fairly briefly go through some majestic verses of Scripture We're talking about angels and immediately some cynics will shake their heads and say, there those evangelicals go once more they kiss goodbye to their brains, they don't think things through and your modern secularists can get away with that sort of jibe despite the fact that at the turn of this year, as I mentioned some of our national newspapers were producing their horoscopes to 30 or 40 pages in length and they were all engaged in the guesswork of trying to predict what's going to happen A nation that is committed 9 out of 10 people to contributing towards the lottery has no right whatsoever to shake its heads at people like ourselves who dare to suggest that behind this world is the omnipotent power of God and that within this world He has His own agents He has His own agencies When a number in evangelical circles were writing books on the devil and the demons Billy Graham stole a march and gave a right spiritual biblical perspective by authoring a book on angels and he called it God's Secret Agents and it's to those illustrious creatures that we turn our attention as we look again into Hebrews in chapter 1 for it is the purpose of the anonymous writer to the Hebrews unless Tim last week was able to reveal to you something that has been hidden for 2,000 years i.e. who did write it that writer, it is her purpose to underline the superiority of Jesus Christ He's greater He's greater than the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob He's greater than the prophets Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah What is more He is even greater than the angels Let's have a look at the first part of this transparency The angels, first of all, one or two remarks about them The angels and Jesus When you think of the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ you are immediately confronted with the fact that at the beginning and in the middle and at the end angels did play a very large part Angels from the realms of glory thus spake the seraph and forthwith appeared a shining throng of angels praising God who thus addressed their joyful song We're close enough to Christmas for you to remember that the advent of our beloved Lord was heralded by an anthem of choruses that came from the angelic hosts And you're not long into the ministry the public ministry of our Lord Jesus before realizing that he is going to be dependent to some degree on these principalities as he commences his public ministry John the Baptist, he immerses somewhat reluctantly our Lord Jesus in water and we discover that after this has been done in Mark's Gospel which records the incident angels ministered to the Lord Jesus during the period of his 40 days in the wilderness And then as you tread carefully the pilgrimage of our Lord and you find him towards the end of his ministry that is before Golgotha he's there in that leafy garden he's there in Gethsemane his disciples, well, they slumber we're not blaming for that they're mortal men, they made their mistakes as you and I make our mistakes but blessed be God when Jesus is stretched to breaking point it's an angel who comes down and ministers to him And after the death of our Lord as you will remember in the resurrection garden seated on the stone is none other than an angel presumably with a smile of joy on the face as it proclaims the fact he is not risen, he is not here he is risen he has done as he said he would and you recall that our beloved Lord when mention is made of him at the beginning of John's Gospel and he refers to the disciples and the extraordinary experiences that they will have in his company he says one day you'll see angels ascending and descending and when our Lord was taken into glory the suggestion is that it was the angels who in an astonished ecstatic fashion were present as he is raised above the earth above the heavens and as he enters into the place that he left before he came on earth into the very presence of God even their angels are in great joy as they realize that what they could not do for us, God through his Son did angels and the Lord Jesus but what about angels and you and me or what about angels and themselves the Bible will tell you a number of things about angels a very interesting comment is this that the angels do want to look into this whole phenomenon of salvation for what reason? well as I shall seek to show you in just a moment or two's time in the realm angels fell they disobeyed God like you and I have disobeyed God but no rescue work was ever mounted to retrieve the fallen angels and yet they part of them are unredeemable yet you and I are redeemable angels do not know the day when our Lord Jesus shall return Luke chapter 12 and verse 8 but when our Savior shall return he will come with his holy angels at the end time when the trumpet sounds and when Jesus no longer incognito but in his royal majesty returns to this world to set up his eternal reign and government angels shall be present but you know I like the ministry of angels it's referred to in Luke 16 and 22 where we read of angels see they're around just encouraging me at the moment where we read of angels being present at the time of our departure the angels came and they took the righteous men into the presence of God I recall again pardon a reference which I've made before I recall in the testimony of those who watched the death of Martin Lloyd-Jones how he was so conscious in his weak emaciated state at the end of the presence of God and when asked if he wanted further medication he just pointed his hand up to heaven the only medication he wanted was to know as he preached in 1948 from the pulpit in Westminster Chapel the point of death he would have such a realisation of the presence of God he would fear no evil and he would say well that's the ministry of angels them they're not redeemable but thank God there's a large number that never fell them completely baffled in regard to this this whole business of salvation they who a number of them are designated to look after little children for the Bible unblushingly says that each child has his her angel well let's not say about angels let's move into Hebrews in chapter 1 because here are a number of things which were informed that the Lord never said in regard to angels he didn't say that they could have his name look at verse 4 he became our Lord Jesus much superior to the angels as the name he is inherited is superior to theirs this is a distinction when our Lord returned to heaven the highest name that heaven affords was given to him not to the angels but to him he is declared to be Lord of Lords he is the king of kings and God does not say that about angels he didn't say they can have his name what's more he didn't say they could have his nature look the argument is put in a negative fashion to which of the angels verse 5 did God ever say you're my son today I have become your father and there's a repetition these incidentally are quotations from the Old Testament seven quotations largely from the book of Psalms I will be his father and he will be my son now there is a sense of course in which angels are the sons of God if you were to have a look time is not exactly on my side this morning but let me give you one verse if you were to look at Genesis in chapter 6 you would find there some reference to that effect there's another verse way down in the revelation of scripture in the book of Job but here in Genesis 6-2 we're told mention is made to the sons of God there is a sense in which you can think of angels as being the sons of God as you can think of yourself if you confess Jesus as your Savior as being the sons of God but never an angel said of God the Father my Father my God there is this distinction that Jesus has over against angels over against you and me angels cannot have his name angels cannot have his nature our Lord Jesus is simply the best he's the one alone who qualifies to inherit the name of God and who has the nature of God and what's more angels nor you or me have the nobility of Jesus look at verse 6 and again when God brings his firstborn into the world he says let all God's angels worship him do you remember on one occasion how our Lord Jesus interrogated by those savage critics that dug his footsteps like a pound of like a pack of hounds how on one occasion they criticized him because well he received obeisance what was done to him is actually only reserved in scripture for divinity I mean you get it not only in the ministry of our Lord Jesus as it unfurls you find it at the very beginning magi come from the east and they treat him as though he's a divine being and indeed he is and it was appropriate that they brought gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh it's appropriate that a man that a woman falls at the feet of Jesus and honors him for who he is no one can forgive sins apart from the one who is sinned against Jesus not only assumes the right to receive worship but also has the authority claims the authority to remit a person's sin now I say that's noble that's nobility in its most unique fashion these things angels don't have Gabriel cannot do this Michael cannot do this no mortal man can ever do it the only way in which absolution can ever be pronounced by a man is that he quotes the words of God and gives the qualification if you confess your sins he is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness with that sort of confession it revolves around the shed blood and the broken body of our beloved Lord angels differ from Jesus and indeed our Lord differs from us in as much as they don't have his name they don't have his nature he did not say that they could share his they could have his nobility well let's move on what God did not say about angels let's go to what angels do not share with Jesus well what don't they share well they don't share his sovereignty look at verses 7 and 8 in speaking of the angels he says he makes his angels winds his servants flames of fire but about the sun he says your throne O God will last forever and ever you see there never was a time in Bethlehem when Jesus was not now don't misunderstand me there was a time when he was not the baby in Bethlehem but he still was your beginning is at your birth or as some of us would argue at the point of your conception but our beloved Lord before Bethlehem was in the beginning Jesus was thou Bethlehem a frotter out of thee shall come forth to me one whose goings forth have been from of old from everlasting but in this in this sovereignty angels do not share you see angels are created I would suggest to you from several strands of information in scripture that angels were created on the first day of the majestic creative work of God as outlined in Genesis in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth go to the first verse of the second chapter thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array Job speaks in the book that bears his name about the angels rejoicing singing with songs the stars dancing in ecstasy obviously there's poetry there at what at the epochs of creation as God speaks and one dimension of his creative abilities comes into being and then the next and then the next and at the end of each epoch he says it was good and the angels rejoice as they share something in the blessings of the creative work of God which they themselves have enjoyed but those angels incidentally and I throw this out as an additional comment just occurs to me as I'm speaking it out now they were never given the image of God you see that's what makes you different from angels it's also what makes you different from animals you bear the impressive God however fragmented however fractured and that's what makes you special and that's why he engages the great God on a work of recovery to bring you back to himself but the angels they don't share this sovereignty he makes his angels winds his servants flames of fire there was a time when they were not but your throne says the writer of the Hebrews plundering the poetry of the Old Testament speaking of Solomon but prophetically of our Lord Jesus your throne oh God will last forever and ever and righteousness will be the sept of your kingdom you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness therefore God your God has set you above your companions oh yes on earth he became a little lower than the angels or seemingly so he emptied himself of the use of some of his divine faculties they were there but he deliberately places them on one side but he is never inferior never inferior to a demon never inferior to an angel never inferior to a man he is God's own son the unsullied Christ the pure savior who is majestic in his sovereignty with which he will not share with anyone else moreover the angels do not share his eternity look at verses nine and twelve again we've touched on that so no need to make much further comment in the beginning verse ten in the beginning oh lord you laid the foundations of the earth the heavens are the work of your hands they will perish but you remain they will all wear out like a garment you see the contrast there it's actually the contrast between the created universe and the eternal Christ the world had a beginning there was a time when it was not you can think it away think the continents away think the seas away think the planet away think the universe away think the universe of universes away you are not there you are there in the mind of god but that's all but there is the lord Jesus Christ the seraphim are not there the cherubim are not there none of the angels are there he stands alone father son and holy spirit each complementing the other no perfections can ever be added god complete and entire in himself that eternity cannot be entered into by angels nor mortal men what's more as a result these angels they don't share the intimacy which the son has here is projected verse 13 the return of our beloved lord to the father to which of the angels did god ever say sit at my right hand until i make your enemies a footstool for your feet oh yes yes you read of angels coming from the presence of god i am gabriel you remember the words in the old testament and the new testament i am gabriel i come from standing in the presence of god but not even gabriel the chief of the angels dare sit in the presence of the lord god almighty such would be impudence but our lord jesus when he returns in his glorified humanity he sits down sits down at the right hand of majesty assuming the power and the authority that is rightfully his though this now be acknowledged by all the angelic host as they appreciate something of the wonder the eupnemic ministry of our beloved lord jesus he sits down at the right hand of the father this salvation says the writer to the hebrews in the third verse to the second chapter which was first announced by the lord was confirmed to us by those who heard it this salvation is the thing that causes the angels to marvel this achievement is what our lord takes back into the throne room and he sits down in the intimacy of being at the right hand of god and he waits he waits for what? well he waits for the consummation of all things you see this world it still has a part to play in the purposes of god he hasn't turned his back on it you may read of the european economic community and the politics of brussels you may think of the squabbles that there are within the tory party and the labour party and all the other parties you can think about the political mandates and so on and so forth and god bless men and women of good repute who are trying to do their best in this jumbled society in which we live but i tell you that there is a mandate that god has written up before the ages ever came into being that one day having projected the fall of man his son would return in great power and glory and return this earth to its pristine perfection as it was when it fell from the hands of god so the lord father says sit at my right hand to the lord son until i make your enemies a footstool for your feet and until that happens what do the angels do well there are two things they do for god they who cannot share his sovereignty his eternity or his intimacy there are two things they do they stand in his presence and they await his direction i gave you the example of gabriel coming into mary's company what about the example of the angel in acts chapter 10 who comes having realized that this roman centurion cornelius is a righteous man is praying to the best of his ability the angel comes and says cornelius your prayers they've been received by the lord here is the angel you see engaged in this ministry he stood by the right hand of god he stood in the presence of god he's away to the directions of god and then he ministers they minister on this earth they minister to redeemed people i suggest to you though i can't work it all out because these are things that i don't fully comprehend i suggest to you that sometimes the great escapes the great preservations that you have known in your life when it seemed as though life would have been taken from you but for some fortuitous change in the dangerous circumstances that you are passing through that this actually is as a result of angels being working at your side for your benefit he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways they will lift you up in their hand so that you will not strike your foot against a stone yes that applies to our lord jesus but it also applies to you probably when we're in heaven we will in the eternal realm we will marvel at the faithfulness and the vigilance of god's silent secret agents who were working on our behalf ah says the writer to the hebrews sometimes you have entertained angels unawares and gives therefore the possibility though perhaps a rare thing that angels can materialize and make themselves known there are occasions i think in recent history particularly from the republic of china and the way god has dealt with the church there that certain things that have happened are only explicable in terms of the manifest ministry of angels if the apostle paul is right as surely he is that there are principalities and powers which condition and control the evil in our world so we are right in assuming that in juxtaposition with those powers those evil malcontent beings that god has an an army of agents that works for him jesus in the garden of gethsemane spins around to his disciples in the forlorn attempt to rescue him and says do you not know that my father has legions of angels i've only to snap my fingers and they will come and do my due to my bidding perhaps angels grieve over the church when we get things wrong maybe they weep over you and me the company of angels looking down upon the church i think you have a right to conclude that from the epistle to the hebrews but i bring this little study to a conclusion angels and our lord jesus angels are wonderful people christians are wonderful people sometimes angels are wonderful beings i meant to say but they're not the best you're not the best the best is the lord he has the name of god he has the nature of god he has the nobility of god he's sovereign he's eternal he's intimate but he has agencies who await to do his bidding and bring about perhaps some of the more pleasing experiences in thank god for the angels but thank god more for the beloved lord jesus is he your savior do you say with wesley happy if with my latest breath i might but gasp his name ladies and gentlemen it's always the toast at the tabernacle jesus christ lord and savior to whom shall be given all praise all honor and all praise because he is simply the best a moment of prayer quiet prayer on your behalf father we thank you for your son for his exaltation now help us as we close our meeting down this gathering together of your saints as we extol his name once more amen those of you who are parents might like to slip out to get your children but those of us whose children are mature enough to look after themselves and don't have children with us or don't even have children let's enjoy singing 174 and he shall reign forever his throne and crown shall ever endure this is militant but it's also one that bolsters up our own determination to be proud of jesus and to serve him as best we can stand and he is we proclaim that your name is exalted. For you reign, my dear friend, harmonious mighty. Lift up your name, for you are holy.

Sing it again, for honor and glory in our creation we have your throne. We declare your majesty. We proclaim that your name is exalted.

For you reign, my dear sister, and they rule victoriously and your power is shown throughout the earth. Let me hear you say, harmonious mighty. Lift up your name, for you are holy.

Sing it again, for honor and glory in our creation we have your throne.