Will you please stand with me as we hear the Word of God, as we find it in the letter to the Hebrews, and we'll read from verse 5 of chapter 2. Let me just quickly set the scene for you. The writer calls this letter in the final chapter, chapter 13, a brief word of encouragement or of exhortation. It's a paracletic letter. It's a letter that has a supreme purpose, and that is to so set Jesus Christ Before these persecuted, troubled Christian believers who are considering the possibility of turning back to Judaism, the writer's great concern is to so proclaim Jesus Christ that they will say to themselves, how could we do such a thing and sin against God? It's a letter that's punctuated with a number of warnings directed to Christians, but the warnings are encased in a profound theology that is enunciated actually in the opening words of the opening chapter. And that theology is crystallized in these few words, see how great. our Savior Jesus Christ is. Hebrews chapter 2 at verse 5. For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, what is man that you are mindful of him? Or the son of man that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see Him, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are of one. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, I will tell of your name to my brothers In the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise, and again I will put my trust in him, and again behold I and the children God has given me. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect. so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. We give thanks to God for his word. I would like us this morning, in particular, to consider the closing verses of Hebrews chapter 2, verses 14 to 18, but with a special focus, I hope, on the 18th verse. Allow me to ask you a question as we begin to consider these great words in the letter to the Hebrews. And the question is this. As you have come to church this morning, what do you consider to be your greatest need in life? I'm sure we've all come with a variety of needs, but If I were to ask you individually this morning, what do you consider to be your greatest need at this moment? What answer would you give me? I would like this morning to suggest to you, and in fact more than suggest to you, that each one of us in all our variegatedness, in all our variety of background, temperament, personality, history and heritage, that all of us actually have two identical pressing needs. And those needs are simply this. We need to have an assured, unruffled confidence as we face the inevitable prospect of death. And allied to that, we need an assured, unruffled confidence as we live out our days in preparation for our death. These, I think, are the two greatest needs that each and every one of us has this morning. We need an unruffled confidence as we face, later or sooner, sooner or later, the inevitable prospect of our death, except the Lord Jesus Christ returns. But allied to that, we also need an unruffled, unassured confidence about life ere we face that last great enemy of death. And it's these two realities that the writer to the Hebrews is focusing on in these concluding verses of chapter 2. He is writing most probably to Christians who have left Judaism and come to embrace Jesus Christ as the Messiah given by God to be the Savior of his people and the hope of the world. I'm somewhat reluctant to call them Jewish Christians because in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile. slave nor free. Our default is not that I'm a Jewish Christian, or a Gentile Christian, or a Scottish Christian, or a South Carolinian Christian. Our fundamental default, if we're a believer, is that we are united to Jesus Christ. We are Christians. We're not white Christians or black Christians or Afro-Caribbean Christians or Anglo-Saxon Christians. We are all one in Christ Jesus. But these people to whom this letter has been addressed most certainly had at one time in their life been Jews. They had lived under the Law of Moses. But the gospel of the grace of God in Jesus Christ had come to them, and had come to them in saving power. And God had rescued them from the dominion of darkness, and he had brought them into the kingdom of the Son of his love. God had saved them by uniting them to his Son, Jesus Christ. But it seems, as we read through the letter, that having come to faith in Jesus Christ, these believers were now experiencing unrelenting hostility. It seems the hostility was coming in waves. But it was so sore for them that they were seriously contemplating turning back from Christ. Few of us, I think, know what it has been like to endure persecutions. We endure a little discomfort from the godless world in which we live. But I would reckon few of us, if any of us here this morning, know what it is to face the prospect of our lives being taken from us, our children being taken from us. our livelihoods being taken from us, our homes being taken from us. These men and women, these boys and girls who had been embedded in Jewish society, Jewish culture, Jewish religion, were now experiencing, because of their faith in Jesus Christ, the cost of belonging to the Son of God in a fallen world. And the letter to the Hebrews has a two-fold ministry to these believers. As I said in the introduction, he calls his letter a brief word of encouragement or exhortation. It's hard to actually pinpoint precisely how we should translate the word. It's a paracletic epistle. And he seeks on the one hand to set before them the awful, awful danger of apostasy. He's writing to Christian believers, but he needs to warn them that if they turn away from Jesus Christ, they're turning away from God and setting themselves on the high road to everlasting ruin. He begins chapter two, you may remember, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? And the letter is punctuated with a number, about six or seven warning passages. But actually those warning passages are encased in the writer's preeminent concern which is not simply to warn them of the danger, but to so hold up Jesus Christ, and to show Sodom the multifaceted glory and grace of Jesus Christ, that they will say to themselves, how could we do such a thing? and turned back from such a Savior. You see, the great application of the letter to the Hebrews is doctrine, the doctrine of Jesus Christ. We often forget that this is the heart and core of biblical application. Set before people who God is. Set before them the height, the length, the breadth and the depth of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. John Owen has a quite breathtaking passage. In volume one, I think, pages 460 to 461, in the glory of Christ, when he says, if you have Christian believers who are struggling with duties, whose hearts are growing cold, who are beginning to drift away, this is what you are to do. Proclaim the glory of Jesus Christ to them. Now, Owen wasn't saying that there isn't a place for applying the exhortations of Holy Scripture. Of course he wasn't. But he was saying the principal way that God seeks to draw us back to Himself and to reignite our hearts and aflame our souls again for the Gospel of His Son is not first by exhortation, but by exposition. Behold your God. Those three words, I think, are the very epicentre of the whole Word of God from Genesis to Revelation. God is seeking, page after page, to say to His people, Behold your God. Now, there is more, of course. but there is not less. And so in these verses in Hebrews chapter 2, and especially in these closing verses, the writer to the Hebrews is seeking to say to these hard-pressed believers, whose lives have been marred by the opposition and hostility of their own society and culture, He's saying to them, behold your God. Behold what God has done in His Son, Jesus Christ, to equip you for life and to fit you for death. To equip you for life and to fit you for death. But let me take these two in reverse, because this is actually what the writer to the Hebrews does. First of all, in Jesus Christ, God has fitted his people for death. Look at verse 14 following. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil. and deliver all those who, through fear of death, were subject to lifelong slavery. And that leaves us asking the question, well, how did the Lord Jesus Christ destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil? And how did he, by doing that, deliver all those who, through fear of death, were subject to lifelong slavery? How did he actually do that? Well, he tells us in verses 16 and 17, for surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. What is this help then that has come to us? Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect. so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people." The writer speaks here of the devil having the power of death. He doesn't have the power of death absolutely. He has the power of death in the will purpose and decree of God. The devil is not a counterbalance to God. He is a creature, a fallen creature, who can do nothing but by the will and sinless purpose of God. He is ever chained. He is not autonomous. He doesn't have freedom to do whatsoever he pleases. He cannot go beyond the boundaries that it pleases Almighty God to grant him in His sovereign good pleasure and purpose. but he has the power of death according to the sovereign purpose and good pleasure of God. And in what does that consist? Well, the wages of sin is death. When people die with their sins yet unforgiven, with God still against them, they become a prey to the devil. Death is their natural resting place, and Satan becomes their natural domineering master. They are under his control. He has rights over them. He is the prince of darkness. And sin has brought darkness into their lives, and he has power over them. You are mine. You've not been redeemed from me. You've not been delivered from my clutches. You have not been rescued from my dominion. You are mine, I claim you. But in the Lord Jesus Christ, God sent us a Savior. And in particular, what the writer focuses on here, is that he's sent as a savior, as a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. The imagery, of course, and the language takes us back into the old covenant scriptures. Once a year, the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies with blood, not his own, to make atonement for the sins of the people and for himself. And it was repeated year, after year, after year, after year, after year, after year, after year. There was an interminableness about the Day of Atonement. Every time it came around, it was a reminder to the people that their sin had not been fully, completely, and eternally dealt with. Again and again and again, they would see a high priest enter that holy of holies with blood not his own, because he himself was a sinner who needed the atonement that God alone could give. But in the fullness of time, God sends a merciful and a faithful high priest. He is merciful. because he comes not as just another great high priest. He comes as the Lord from heaven clothed in mercy to minister the grace of God to judgment-deserving sinners. And he comes as a faithful high priest, one who will fulfill to the absolute letter everything that the Father has given him to fulfill. And He will do it not by taking any blood into any high place and holy place. He will take His own life and have it immolated on Calvary's cross. He will take His own blood, the sinless Son of God. He would take His own blood and by His sinless life, and by His oblation on Calvary's cross, He would make propitiation for the sins of the people. You see, if we die unforgiven and unreconciled to God, we die with God's wrath upon us, and we become, if you like, the righteous prey of the evil one. we need someone somehow to remove from us God's righteous wrath against our sin. Or better, we need someone to come and remove from us God's righteous wrath against ourselves. But no one of this race could do that. We were all infected by Adam's sin, in him we had all fallen. We needed someone to come from another realm, untainted, untouched, unblemished by sin, to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. And in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, born of a virgin. born under the law to redeem those who were under the law. You know if it wasn't in the Bible you wouldn't believe it. It's so out of this world. That's why the Apostle John in 1 John 3 says, I think most translations say, Behold, what manner of love is this? Actually, you could translate the grief from what kind of realm does this love come from? Because it's not of this realm. There are no paradigms or predicates in this realm to begin to describe this love. It is the love of God. God cannot die. God cannot suffer. But in Jesus Christ, God the Son died. And in Jesus Christ, God the Son suffered. He became what He was not, so that we might become what we were not. And He Himself became the propitiation for our sin. He bore the wrath that was ours to bear. That's what it means to propitiate, to turn aside anger by a gift or an offering. And the Lord Jesus Christ said, here am I, here am I, I will be the gift and I will be the offering. I will die the death they cannot die. I will bear the wrath they could never bear. I will have you exhaust all God's wrath on me, my Father. That's the inexplicable, unexpoundable reality that utters from the Saviour's words on the cross. Eloi, Eloi lama sabachthani, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You can read book after book about that, but you will never fathom the words of it, the truth of it. For who can understand God forsaking God? He delivers us from the fear of death because he removes from us the righteous. just and holy wrath of God. He enables us to face death with calmness and with unruffled confidence, enabling us to say, O death, we defy thee. As stronger than thou hast entered thy palace, we fear thee not now. For the one who died as a propitiation for our sins was raised on the third day. He entered the very heartland of death and destroyed its power forever. And all who are united to Jesus Christ, unless He comes, will not escape the valley of the shadow of death. But we can say with the psalmist, I will fear no evil, because you are with me. You who are the propitiation for my sins are with me. You on whom Satan has no hold, you are with me. I am united to you. You know, I love that 23rd Psalm because David doesn't say, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because my faith is sure and strong and confident. I think if I read that, my heart would fail me. My faith is so lacking, so evanescent, strong today and almost gone tomorrow, so variable. But our confidence is not that our faith is good enough, but that our Saviour is great enough. He is altogether the perfect Redeemer. And sin has no claim on me because its claims were exhausted on Him. And so, the writer is saying to these Hebrews, you don't want to turn back from such a Savior, do you? You don't want to face death without Him as the propitiation for your sins, do you? And then in verse 18, I'd hoped we'd get there a little sooner, but we have got there. Not only does the Lord Jesus Christ enable us to face death with calm, unruffled confidence, he enables us to face life with calm, unruffled confidence. For, he says, because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted." These are among the greatest words in all the Bible. In the year 1095, An Archbishop of Canterbury in England wrote a little book. Would to God we had Archbishops like him today. He was called Anselm. He wrote a little book with the title Courdeus Homo. Why God-man? Why did God become man? Well, we have seen he became man that he might in our place and for our sake live the life we could never live and die the death we could never die, so that we could say, upon a life I did not live, a death I did not die, another's life, another's death, I stake my whole eternity. But there's a related reason, cur deus homo, why God became man, so that he might be able to help those who are being tempted. Jesus Christ became a true man. His humanity wasn't the appearance of humanity. His humanity wasn't a cloak that he put on and would then take off at the resurrection and the ascension. He became man. He became flesh. He became what he was not. Why? that in our frail flesh He might experience our humanity. And as one with us and one of us, be able thereby the better, dare I say, to help us in our temptations and sufferings. When you read these words and then read what you find at the end of chapter 4, We have a high priest who has been tempted in every respect as we are. You almost want to say, Lord, surely not. Surely not. You've not been tempted. Please don't tell me you've been tempted in every way as I have been. Do you know the vile temptations that assail me? Do you know the vile ways the evil one comes to seduce me, Lord? Surely not. He has been tempted in every way, such as we are. In fact, the writer says here, because he himself has suffered when tempted. Now we know that temptation itself isn't sin, it could not be sin, because our Saviour was tempted. From womb to tomb He was tempted. He said to His disciples, Luke 22, You are those who have been with me throughout the course of my testings or temptations. He was regularly, from the very beginnings, tempted by the devil. As he began his public ministry, he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Look forward. And Satan had the effrontery, this creature that the Son of God had brought in times eternal into being, this creature had the effrontery to confront the Son of God in our flesh and to tempt Him and to seduce Him away from the obedience that He had covenanted to give His Father in the covenant of redemption for the salvation of His people. What must it have been like for the holy humanity of the Son of God to be assailed by darkness? If you and I find temptation at times vile and offensive and ugly, what must it be like for the holy humanity of Jesus Christ, that pristine, uncontaminated humanity, to be assaulted by the devil himself. And all through his life, even as he hung on the cross, if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross, then we'll believe in you. A last throw of the dice, as it were, from the devil. But all through his life, the Lord Jesus Christ in our humanity living out, as Calvin daringly puts it, in the wretchedness of our humanity, living out his holy, pristine, unsullied life of obedience to his Father. He experiences temptation. Now why? Well, for two reasons. One, that he might be the better than Adam who failed and who fell in the garden with all the blessings of God around him. Here was a better than Adam who would stand and not fall, not in a garden surrounded by bliss and pleasantness, but in a fallen, dark, sinful world surrounded by the hyenas of this world baying for his blood. and he would remain unbowed. But there's a related reason he experienced that, that he might be able to help us when we are being tempted. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ helps his people not by mere divine omnipotence, but by human glorified sympathy. There are people who say, well, surely if he really wanted to identify with us, he needed to be a sinner. Well, if he had been a sinner, if he had failed at any time, he would just be like one of us. He could do nothing to help us. But you see, long after we have caved into temptation, the Savior remained faithful and firm. He bore the strain. We cave in before the last strain, don't we? He never. And because He never caved in, He is able to come alongside us. Hebrews 4 talks about His sympathy, His fellow feeling with us. With every pang that rends the heart, the man of sorrows has a part. He sympathizes with our grief. And to the sufferer sends relief. As it were, when we're going through sometimes the agonies of temptations or sometimes even the gentle beginnings of temptation, the Savior says, my child, my brother, I've been there. I know the assaults of the enemy on you. I know. Not by observation, but by experience. That's why those words in verse 11 are so precious. Here am I and the children God has given me. He calls them. He's not ashamed to call them brothers. Mike touched on that this evening. He's not ashamed to call us brothers. Why? Because we are all of one. We are all of one. You sometimes wish English translations would just leave the text and let others expound it, because we're all of one. We're His family. And as the head of that family who leads the people of God, not only in their pilgrimage, but in their worship, He says, I'm able to help you. because I know how to help you. My time's really gone but maybe you're here this morning and you're thinking, well you know Ian, if you knew the vile temptations that regularly assail me, I don't know the vile temptations that assail you, or you don't know the ones that assail me, but the Lord Jesus Christ does. Maybe you go to him and say, Lord Jesus, I'm ashamed to come again. This temptation is just at the point of claiming me for itself. And the Savior says, you can count on me. I'll help you. I'll give you the grace you need. I'll give you the courage you need. I'll give you the strength you need. There is no temptation taking you, but such is as common to man. But in Jesus Christ, God provides a way of escape. The devil wants to tell you there isn't an escape from this temptation. There is always an escape. And the escape is called Jesus Christ. He is always our escape route. It's not strength apart from Christ. It's not, as Ryan was reminding us in Sunday School this morning, some blessing that Christ scoops out of a heavenly treasury and throws down upon you. No, he comes himself and he says, as it were, to Satan, touch him and you touch me. Touch her and you touch me. And you have no claim on me. Temptations can be subtle, they can be sudden, they can be slow-burning, they can be powerful, but we have one in our humanity who is able to help us, who understands us, who knows our psyche, Who knows that we are dust? Why? Because He is dust. There is glorified dust on the throne of heaven. Isn't that astounding? You couldn't dream this up. You couldn't dream this up. There is sanctified dust on the throne of heaven. There is dust that was tempted on the throne of heaven. And that dust is able to help us. that dust is able to help us. And so in chapter four, the writer says, therefore, let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Because we have a savior, not only who has made propitiation for our sins, and who is our eternal shelter from the righteous wrath of God, but who wears our nature, who knows our humanity not by observation but by experience. Isn't it going to be one of the wonders of heaven that the only marred body will be that of Jesus Christ? rich wounds yet visible above we sing in beauty glorified. That's hymnology. But Revelation tells us that there is a lamb in the midst of the throne, as it were, having been slain. God will never allow us for one scintilla of a moment to forget what it cost the Son of God to become man. And that's why throughout the ages of eternity, I have little doubt, I have little doubt, well, putting it a bit too strongly, I would think I would have little doubt in saying that we will all be united in this, looking at one another and then together looking at God and saying, why, oh Lord, such love to me? And we'll never tire of saying it. Why? Because Jesus Christ is a bottomless deep. We'll be exploring the gospel throughout the ages of eternity. Who is like unto you, O God? And so the writer is saying to these hard-pressed believers, what a savior you have. He'll help you through these trials. You can count on Him to provide the help that you need. Go to Him. That's why the great need in the church today is for the church to rediscover the glory of God in Jesus Christ and to set Him on high and for us to become reacquainted with all the privileges that God has lavished upon us in giving us His Son, Jesus Christ. May God bless to us His Word this morning. Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, lift up your heads, open your eyes, and by faith receive the blessing of the Triune God. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace. Amen.