We will be today covering Hebrews 1-5-2-8. So, starting in Hebrews 1-5. For to which of the angels did he ever say, thou art my son, today I begotten thee? And again, I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. And when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he said, let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels, he said, who makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire? But of the Son, he says, thy throne of God is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy companions. And thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They will perish, but thou remainest, and they all will become old as a garment. And as a mantle thou wilt roll them up, and the garment they will also be changed. And thou art the same, and thy years will not come to an end. But to which of the angels has he ever said, Sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies a footstool for thy feet? Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to render service for the sake of those who inherit salvation? For this reason, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it." I'll stop there. Lord, thank you so much for your word. Thank you so much for your consideration for us that you would even tell us what you think. I just pray, Lord, that you would bless our gathering here together. Bless each of us individually and as a group. Lord, that you would open our ears to hear, open our hearts to receive your truth, and open my mouth to speak. In Jesus' name, amen. As we have been saying, the book of Hebrews is written to a bunch of Jewish Christians who are receiving a ton of pressure to go back to the old ways and the old Judaism. But so much of that is, you know, timely even today, right? The pressures upon your typical Christian is pretty heavy. Every time you go out into public, someone is telling you why your Jesus isn't as cool as their whatever, or that you Christians are, insert some sort of pejorative here, And you may be tempted to take them, you know, well, not take them seriously, but you may be tempted to just say, well, you know, maybe I don't need to be. as open about it. Or you might even think, well, maybe this whole Christianity thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. And you might, I don't know. But we have here is an argument against that sort of a thing. But it's a specific sort of argument. Now, as you can see, I am all over the map on the Old Testament. And I know there has been some criticisms of me in the past that I tend to jump everywhere in the Bible, and everyone has to chase them down. And I do, it may surprise you that I do actually try to avoid that, but today I can't. And in fairness, the part that I'm reading is almost all Old Testament quotations too. So you can technically blame the guy who wrote Hebrews. But the argument here that he is making is a step-by-step argument, right? This isn't a man who is trying to appeal to your emotions. He isn't trying to appeal to your sense of faith and goodwill. He is trying to lay out an actual reasoned argument as to why Christianity is superior and why you shouldn't go back to those old ways. In order to do that, we are going to have to see what it is exactly that he's saying. And as a lot of this old context has been lost, some of the subtleties of the argument gets lost as well. Now, a brief note. All of the Bible quotations in the New Testament are not actually from the Hebrew Bible. They're actually from a book called the Septuagint, which was a Greek translation of the Old Testament that was completed about a hundred years before Christ. Right? That was the Bible of the Greek speaking world and even the Latin speaking world. And a lot of people, even within Judea itself, where they could read Hebrew, use the Septuagint as well. So if there are discrepancies between what it says here and in the Old Testament, it's because this is coming from the Greek and the Old Testament is coming from the Hebrew. They're the same, it's just you use different words when you're going both ways. Anyway, you guys know how Spanish, other languages work, so you understand how that works. Anyway, moving on. So as I say, a lot of the subtleties of the argument that he is presenting are lost on us today. And a lot of that is simply because typically, as Christians, we are ignorant of the Old Testament. It's not necessarily our fault. People haven't really taught it well. I know I've spent my entire time in the New Testament, so I'm part of the problem. But we don't know the Psalms the way that they did. So when he quotes the Psalms, he quotes a lot of them, Everyone there would have known what that meant and they would have had a context on it from the moment that they were growing up and their parents were teaching them how to sing. We also think when we, if we even know who David is, we might think, well, he was the King of Israel. Or if we don't even get that far, we might go, well, he was that dude who fought Goliath. And so our entire perception of David might be that he threw a stone at a big dude and dropped it. So some of the arguments you'll see here require a little bit more knowledge than that. And also, and this is the big one, today, angels are pretty, usually female, ladies on Christmas cards that have these pretty wings and sometimes you even take them and shove them on top of your Christmas tree. But at the very least, you kind of think of angels. I mean, I didn't make up the tradition. It's just, whoop. Anyway, the, um, uh, what's that? Gabriel. No, no, no, I mean like today when we see, uh, Gabriel, well in the Bible, they address him as he, so, um, although the concept of male and female on those kinds of beings is probably a little weird, but they do address him as he. Yeah, usually female because well and let's be honest girls are prettier than guys So if you're gonna put something pretty on our card, you're gonna use a girl. So, um, I He did, yeah, and he did not look pretty. Alright, so, anyway, we tend to think of that, and it's even worse when you consider the word cherubic. Cherubic. Or those pictures of cherubs that you put on there. They're always little fat babies with little tiny wings, and they're adorable. However, the cherub is an actual old Hebrew word and it means one of the lower orders of angels. And that's where you get the cherubim from. Cherubim, right? When you see the Hebrews who were there at the Old Testament time painting cherubs on the walls, what you'll see is they have these pictures of these very fierce looking lions. Think Scottish flag, you know, the symbol of St. George, where, you know, you have the lion with the big claw thing, right? That's what they do. And then they put the wings on that. And they're the wings of eagles on a lion, right? That was the original idea of what a cherub was. So this concept that we have of angels now, is not the concept that the book of Hebrews is working off of. And so when we go, when we hear Jesus is higher than the angels, we go, oh, well, I mean, that makes sense because, you know, you see the Christmas cards and he's there and then the angels are under him and they're all pretty and stuff. And he looks pretty impressive. So obviously he's better than them, but that's not what the angels are. So unfortunately, I'm gonna have to spend all of that explaining who these angels are so that you can get what the author is saying to you in this. Let's take a real quick overview of the argument here. So it starts off, which of the angels did he say, you are my son? Then he goes on to say, which of you says that I will be a father to? Which of you, to the angels, which of you did he say, all of you worship me? He says that the son is on the throne. What angel did he say to that? He goes on from there. In fact, he even goes into him being God, which we'll get there. But here's the thing. The verses that he quotes, if you go back to the Old Testament to look at, are kind of interesting. Like, for instance, it says, verse 5, For to which of the angels did he ever say, Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee? Right? That is spoken to David. It's in a psalm. Right? So he said this about a human. Which of the angels did I say you are my son? Okay. So we need a little bit of context on that. Here's the thing. If you look through the Old Testament, you will constantly see angels being referred to as sons of God. Psalm 82. The specific quote that we're looking at here is Psalm 82 6. which is, I said, you are gods and all of you are sons of the most high, right? So which of you did he, you know, which of you did he say that I am the sons of God? So he looks down and he says, you are the sons of God. You are the sons of the most high. And he calls them gods. Now that's important. And there's no question, and we'll get into this a little bit when we start looking into the verses, there is no question that these sons of gods and what the Septuagint would call angels are the same thing. So in the Old Testament, when you see the sons of God or the council of God, the Septuagint would translate that into angelos, which is the Greek word for angel. Right? So these sons of God are there in the Old Testament. So when he says, which of the angels did I say you are my son? Understand that when they're hearing angel, they're thinking, okay, the sons of God, which ones of you did I say you are my son? That's kind of an interesting concept if you think of it. So he's talking of David, and he's saying, you are my son. So this human that he is talking to, he says, you are of an elevated place above the sons of God. And he says this He says this to David. Now, if you'll remember from Matthew and a bunch of other places in the gospel, you'll see Jesus referred to as the son of David. There was a prophecy that the kingdom of David would never end, that David himself would come back, well, not himself, but that the son of David would come and he would rule the kingdom of God forever. Jesus said, I am that dude. And so when the Psalm says of David, I have elevated you to sonship, he was saying, and since this is clearly about Jesus, he was saying, no, this elevation that David had, Jesus has that, right? So we also see, but here's the thing, that David himself actually referred to these creatures as sons. You'll see Psalm 86 8, there is no one like thee among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like thine. Your translation makes this among the sons of God, because that's kind of, There is no one like thee among the gods in the Hebrew, that is, the sons of God. It doesn't quite come into English that way, but that's still... When you're talking about David himself, he looked up to these angelic creatures and said, you are the sons of God, and you are high, but God is higher. And here we find that the author of Hebrew is saying, no, there's this sun concept, and David was above that, and Jesus is him. But then we get into the next one, which says that, you know, Oh goodness, let me get to the actual thing. We get into this and he says next, it says, and again, speaking of the angels, I will be a father to him and he shall be a son to me. Now this is actually a quotation from 2 Samuel, I believe, and this was speaking specifically of when he was dedicating the temple the first temple, and he was begging God, saying, I want to build a temple. God said, no, you can't. However, your son will. And your kingdom will go on. And he says to them, for I will call them my sons, and I will be their father. So we have here in picture is that Solomon and his line. kings of Israel, God would be their father and they would be his sons. So we have the elevation of David and of Solomon and of the kingship of Israel. And the author here says, to which of the angels did he ever say that? So let's Look at these because these quotations are Psalm 82. God takes a stand in his own congregation. He judges in the midst of the rulers. How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Vindicate the weak and fatherless. Do justice to the afflicted. Vindicate the weak and fatherless. Do justice to the afflicted and destitute. Rescue the weak and needy. Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked. They do not know, nor do they understand. They walk in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, you are gods. and all of you are sons of the Most High. Nevertheless, you will die like men, fall like any one of those princes, arise, O God, judge the earth, for thou who dost possess all the nations." Now, something I have to point out, and this was pointed out to me by a Hebrew scholar, and it changed Everything for how I view heaven and how I view The other gods I used to be the other gods didn't exist. I also then thought well, they're all demons I'll get to that but this phrase right here kind of changed click something in my head over So, if you look at verse 1, God takes a stand in his own congregation. Now, I don't know if you have like a little thing off to the side that, you know, wipes up that whole his own congregation to let you know that this is a translation of a literal phrase, but mine does. And this means literally the congregation of God. So... Specifically, this says, Elohim takes his stand in the congregation of Elohim. It's the same word. Now, the Hebrew construction has the Elohim at the beginning as a singular, which Elohim, you may know, is the name of God in the Old Testament. If you read the word God in the Old Testament, you're reading the word Elohim. The second one, in the congregation of Elohim, that article before it indicates that Elohim is plural. So the God stands in the congregation of the gods. And he says to them that they are the sons, and he says to them, as you were saying, that they are How long will you judge unjustly? Judge here in the Hebrew connotation means rule over. Like if you think of what a judge actually does, you present your case before the judge and he rules on the decision. They say, how long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Now, he's saying this to the other gods. How long will you judge unjustly? In other words, they were supposed to be doing the will of God and yet they're ruling and giving credit to the wicked, to the unjust. In other words, they're not doing what God told them to do. And he said to those gods, you will die like men. Now, how do we know that men die? We say, well, you know, they die and then they get buried. Well, the Bible says that's just the first death. The actual death is at the end of the book of Revelation where death and Hades are opened up and they're thrown into the lake of fire and Satan will follow after. So the gods die like mortals in the same way. They will be judged found wicked, and thrown into the lake of fire with all the humans. These gods are angelic gods that God created? God created everything. He created the lesser gods and gave them to mortality. At that time, and this is what we have forgotten, at that time, the divine beings were considered angels. When they said angels, what they meant was a qualification of all divine beings. This would include, at the time, Shemosh, El, Zeus, Athena. These were the gods. Now, a lot of them rebelled, and if you don't believe me, that's fine. Why should you believe me? But let's listen to Paul. First Corinthians 10. 20, 10, 20. No, but I say the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to become sharers in demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Or do we promote the Lord to jealousy? We are not stronger than he, are we? Who did the Gentiles sacrifice to in Corinth? I'll give you a hint. Corinth was on the peninsula of Greece. So who were they sacrificing to? Zeus, Athena, Hephaestus. Hermes. They're probably the same thing. Anyway, all of the Greek gods whose name you know. Which means, well, but who else at the time were sacrificing to gods? Well, there was the god Vishnu. There was a little bit further west, or east, admittedly. Then you had all the Assyrian gods, Then you had all the gods of the pagans everywhere, which would include all of the gods here. According to Paul, they're demons. What are demons? Angels who rebelled. Who are the angels who rebelled? Well, all the gods spoken of in Psalm 82. So, When the author of Hebrews is saying Jesus is above the angels, he is not saying that there are some Christmas card looking creatures whom Jesus is above. He is saying Jesus is above Zeus. Jesus is above Quetzalcoatl. I think that's how you pronounce that. Jesus is above Vishnu, Shiva. Jesus is above the gods. Now, specifically when they said angels, they were referring to the ones who didn't rebel. And we do know that there were some that didn't, right? So if you'll go to the book of Isaiah, verse six, well, chapter six, like the whole chapter. I'm not gonna read the whole chapter, don't worry. This is the, I saw the Lord and his train fill the temple. Anyway, in the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on the throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of his robe filling the temple. Seraphim, which is a Hebrew name for the, you would think of a seraphim as an archangel, essentially. So you had the high angels and the lower angels, which were the cherubim. The high angels were the seraphim, right? So I saw seraphim stood above him, each having six wings. With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. Then the foundations of the threshold trembled at the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke. And upon looking at this, Isaiah went, oh dear, I am in trouble. He said, Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King of the Lord of Hosts. So, upon seeing these creatures, the prophet Isaiah went, Oh dear, the stuff that has been coming out of my mouth lately has not been very good, and not only that, all of my friends, too. But it's all right, the seraphim fixed that. He took coal from the brazier of the temple and brought it to him and put it on his lips and burned it. And so we get, okay, okay, there we go. Not a problem. Yeah, a little bit. And he touched my mouth with it and said, behold, this has touched your lips and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven. Oh, cool, so we're good on that one. After that, he had a bit of a change of heart and became a prophet of the Lord as one might. So, we see that these angels, these angelic beings, these gods, had not rebelled against the Most High. They were still on Team Yahweh. Which was nice for them. Also, these creatures, the reason why Isaiah was so afraid is because these creatures were not pansies, right? These were not just flit around and say, oh, holy, holy, holy is the God, and you know, they play their harps on clouds and things like that. That isn't who these things are. And we know this because it says in the Old Testament, every time a great destruction goes forth, it's always an angel of the Lord that does it. However, let me give you a specific time. We have 2 Kings chapter 19. Oddly enough, Isaiah's here too. 35, 1935. The last year that Germany was any good. Anyway, then it happened that night that the angel of the Lord went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. Now, I'll give you a little backstory on this one. So, the Assyrians had sieged a city. They were completely done. They had run out of food. Isaiah was there, and he prayed to the Lord for deliverance. And then God said, okay, sure, and he sent an angel. And in one single night, he's killed 185,000 trained soldiers. Let me put that into, that's a big number. Let me put that into context. In the current war of Russia versus Ukraine, Russia has managed to kill round about 40,000 Ukrainians in a year and a half. And they did this with tanks. Ukraine has managed to kill probably about 50,000, not much more, but a little bit more. And they did that with artillery, long range rockets, drones. So we're talking between the two of them, maybe 100,000, both sides, year and a half, modern weapons. When the bomb Hiroshima, or when the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, That killed roughly 70,000. So, according to scripture, these angels are more powerful than a nuclear bomb. So when Isaiah saw them flying around the temple, he was a little nervous. The first, the joke in this house is what is the first thing that any angel says to any human? Exactly. He says, don't be afraid. So whenever they show up, people fall on their face and go, Oh dear. And they say, no, no, it's all good. Stand up. It's cool. It's cool. Everything's fine. So, these are the divine beings that we are talking about. Now, they are called messengers. These good guys are called, these good gods are called the messengers. In Hebrew, that is malak, malak, right? So, which just means messenger, as in someone who sends a message or who carries a message. In Greek, that word is angel, angel, which means messenger, as in someone who carries a message. So every time you go through and you see the word angel, you can go the messenger of God, right? The one who goes forth and brings the messages of God. Now, occasionally the message that they bring is 185,000 dead, and the king looks at that and goes, maybe I should surrender. Now, that's a pretty strongly worded note. but they do bring messages from God. And these are, but in the Hebrew mind, and I believe that if you actually do a study on this, I can recommend a book to you, in the Old Testament, these angels are the same creatures as the Zeus people, because we know the Zeus and all of these other gods are demons, and demons are angels who have fallen. So we're talking about gods here. And he says to him, but who among these gods have I ever called my son? And who among these gods have I said, and let all the angels of God worship him. For he says to the angels, I make the angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire. His servants. Ministers, by the way, is a fun word. It just means servants, right? So when you hear the ministry of defense, the fancy word for that is the servants who handle the defense stuff, right? Or you hear the minister of God who sees the servant of God, right? So we have the angels, messengers, who he makes winds and his servants a flame of fire. Now, As a complete aside, that means not every wind that blows is the air. Because he makes them winds. That word in the King James is translated as zephyr, occasionally. Zephyr is just an old word, it just means breeze. So he makes his angels winds. breezes, as in Las Brisas. So sometimes if you're walking along and a weird wind blows up, maybe it's the wind, maybe it's not. So he says to them, I have made the gods, my messengers, and my servants. However, of my son, he says, thy throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness, therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy companions. So we see here the contrast, right? To which of the gods did he make him his son? Like he made David his son. Which of the gods did he do that to? He made, he promised to be the father of Israel, like Solomon in his line, and he said, and You know, to which of the gods did I ever make that promise to? Now, to my gods, I'd say, yes, I'll make them my messengers and my servants, but to my son, I said, you would rule on the throne. So, if you're following along carefully here, you'll realize that at this point, we could actually still be talking about just a human. Right? I mean, that's possible. We could still just be talking about David and his sons. And so therefore, Jesus is just one of David's descendants, and that makes him higher than the angels. And that's true. And it is also true, that we learn in the Old Testament and in other places, that while angels are huge and powerful and gods and able to control lightning and stuff, that humans are made in the image of God himself, and thus we are higher than the angels. So you might be thinking at this point, if you've been following along as someone with a Hebrew mindset, that all you've really gotten to at this point is the obvious. Yes, humans are higher than angels, And all right, Jesus is the son of David, and therefore the ruler of the kingdom of God, and the humans are the rulers of the kingdom of God, and therefore he's higher than the angels. Sure, we get it. But, verse 10. And thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hand. They will And they all will become old as a garment, and as a mantle thou wilt roll them up, and as a garment they will also be changed. But thou art the same, thy years will not come to an end." This is a quotation from Psalm 102. And again, everyone to whom he was repeating all of these things would have Instantly known the context on this fortunately, I have to spell it out a little bit because we don't have that kind of education, but it is what it is. So that would be Psalm 102, 25 and 26. Now, you'll notice in this it does not say, thou, O Lord. Which is because, actually, a little bit above it, it does. So, verse 12. Thou, O Lord, dost abide forever, and thy name to all generations. Now, why does he skip it? Well, because you don't have to. When you're talking about hymns, I can skip all over the hymns, and you know what I'm talking about if you know the hymn. Like, for instance, if I said, Amazing Grace, By his, yeah, if I said, by his amazing grace, you will be there 10,000 years and still have 10,000 years more. Now, if I said that to you and you knew amazing grace and you knew the last verse, you would know I'd skipped to the last verse and you'd have no problem with it. Well, they knew the Psalms that well. So when he said, which of you did he say, O thou, O Lord, and then he skips to the part where he created everything. So, I don't know if your Bible has this convention, but usually if you look at that word in verse 12, Oh Lord, you may see some indication Or that it's a little different than the other words around in my copy. They have all uppercase characters, right? That when it says Lord in all uppercase characters in your Bible area in my Bible However, it indicates it in yours. What that is saying is that this word right there is in fact the holy name of God That would be the four letters. That is his name. Yod-Heh-Wod-Heh probably was pronounced Yahweh. We don't know. The last person who knew how to pronounce the holy name of God died sometime in the fourth century BC. But regardless, this is the holy name of God. So in verse 10, he says this, which of the angels has he ever said, Yahweh, you created the foundations. Now, this doesn't seem as weird as you might, this doesn't seem as weird maybe to your head, but I'll tell you what, there is a building right over there near the circus. That isn't fair. The circus is put right next to the building. It's called the, JW, what do they call it? The- The clinic? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The Salina de Riena, the Kingdom Hall, right? The Choho's Witnesses. When the Jehovah's Witness prophet guy translated this particular section of scripture, he kind of knew that this destroys this whole thing. So he actually translated, if you look in, and I've heard this, I haven't confirmed it, but anyway, if you look in their translation, it will say, you, oh Jesus, you created the heavens, right? But that's not what it says. In the quotation from the Old Testament, it says, you owe Jehovah. This quotation right here is setting Jesus equal to Jehovah. Not just equal, but actually Jehovah. Yahweh, the high God. So we have this argumentation being brought before us. Sure, you have all these angels and they're talking. But honestly, if you think about it, so David was above the angels. The kingdom of Israel was put above the angels. Jesus is the son of God. He said so. That son would be put on the throne to rule over the angels and also he is Yahweh who created everything. There was angels in his tomb when he arose. Yeah, right. So, but he created everything including those other gods. Right? So this Jesus guy that we're trying to tell you has this salvation thing that's working out that your parents are telling you, don't, you know, go back to the old Judaism thing because they would say, yeah, but the angel spoke to Moses. The angel spoke to Isaiah. This is okay. Sure. But... Jesus made the angels and he's above them, so I'm just saying he might have something you need to listen to. And just to kind of twist the nail in a little bit, to which of the angel gods did he ever say, sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies a footstool for thy feet? So which of the other gods did he ever say, you might have some people who are against you. That's all right. You will rest your feet on their dead bodies. The answer is none. He is Yahweh, He is Son of David. He is also seated at the right hand of the Father and He will defeat everything. Okay, but so what? Sure, I can preach a whole bunch about how Jesus is greater than the other gods and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, but why do we care? Why does the author of Hebrew present it in that way? Well, chapter two, verse one. For this reason, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For if the words spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard. God also bared witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will. That would be everything we covered in the book of Matthew, by the way. So the miracles, the Holy Spirit, the whole thing. Everything that happened in the Gospels The author of Hebrews is saying, I mean, yeah, we heard from this Jesus guy and okay, nobody could see that, but he also confirmed it by like healing everybody, people coming back from the dead. He came back from the dead and now we have the Holy Spirit. You remember all of that? He would say to his, the people who are reading this, it's like, yeah, that guy, he said this, that he is above the angels. So, for he did not subject the angels, or subject to angels, the world to come concerning which we are speaking, but one has testified somewhere, saying, what is man that thou rememberest him, or the son of man that thou art concerned about him? For thou hast made him for a little while lower than the angels, and thou hast crowned him with glory and honor, and hast appointed him over the works of thy hand. Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in subjecting all things to him, he left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him." So now, Yeah, so he did speak through angels in the past, but now he speaks through the Son. And the Son is in control of all things. The world to come is Jesus. The angels have nothing to offer. I mean, they just don't. The gods have nothing to offer. They don't have salvation. The good ones are just the messengers and the servants of God. The bad ones are gonna die just the same way you are. They have nothing to offer. This, and then we continued on in verse, or Psalm 102, it says, they will perish, but thou remainest, and they will become old as a garment. What will perish? The heavens, the earth, this material world that's around you. And by the way, when I say material, I don't mean it in the sense of material gains, as in cars and money and, you know, Coke and hookers. I'm talking about material as in the things which you can touch. The earth and the heavens are going to pass away. Anything within that, that you might put your hope in, like Coke and hookers, will pass away. Those actually pass pretty quickly. The Coke is always gone. I don't know what's up. Anyway, the Those cannot offer you anything. They have nothing to offer. And also, these spiritual things in this world also have nothing to offer. See, here's the thing. Man was created in the image of God, according to the Bible. Therefore, he is higher than any. So as a human, he is higher than any of these spiritual creatures around you. And just pick one, go on any ayahuasca tour, write down the names of the people who are there or who they say you're commuting with. Just write that down, bring it on with you and go, this one, this one, this one, this one. I'm actually a higher creature than that. So all of these spiritual things, they can't really offer you anything. They certainly can't offer you salvation, because if they're not following the will of Yahweh, they're going to hell too. So what are they gonna give you? So all of these, you know, ridiculous sayings, in addition to all these ridiculous sayings on Facebook, you know, eat, pray, love, Right? I mean, that's cute. But who are you praying to? What is love gonna do? Other than make you a slightly better person in the eyes of the person next to you. But, eats? I mean, please do. But, you're just gonna poop that out tomorrow. What hope? can this give you? What benefit can these things offer you? The writer of Hebrews is trying to lay out a case. Look, I get it. You're under a lot of pressure. You want to go back to these other things. You don't want to be like those bigoted Christians. You don't want to be like those anti-Jew Jesus people you don't want to be like them. I get it. This is the pressure that you're under I understand but nobody back there has Anything to give you there is no going back because there was nothing there to begin with Your goodness Two, you're good works. I mean, think about this. Chapter two, verse two. For if the word spoken through the angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received its just recompense. I mean, think about that. Every transgression? Every transgression? Every time you've ever yelled at somebody, you're going to get it back in return. Every time you stole something for somebody and something small that you didn't give it back. That's going to receive. It's just confidence. Every time you've done anything wrong. Remember transgression just means to go against. So every time you've, gone against God, all of that is coming back to you? What do you think? You're going to like try to square that somehow? If everything you've done or you've done wrong is going to be judged and recompensed or punished, then you can do all the good you want. Those bad things are still on your list. There is no hope in other gods. There is no hope in material things. There is no hope in even spiritual things. There is no hope in doing good. There's no hope. There's nothing to go back to. There was nothing there to begin with. There is nothing to go back to that can't offer you book of Hebrews who's trying desperately to convince the people who are going back to Judaism, guys, we got a different thing now. That Yahweh that they're sacrificing to, he's Jesus. And Jesus said, we're not doing that anymore. What, are you going to go back and just ignore him? And so today, the same thing is happening to us. We are constantly being pressured today to stop being so fundamental. Why do you believe this book? It's just a book. Why do you follow this Christ? He's just a man. Or he's just one of the many gods. There are many, many paths that lead to heaven and Jesus is just one of them. And besides, he doesn't like... Insert the thing you think he doesn't like. It's June. There's a good one for you. were presented with evidence that Christ wasn't real, or that the Bible is fake, and you're presented this just randomly eating lunch. At least, I do. Maybe you have better friends than I do. Anyway, the... Just a note on that, every time you look into the supposed evidence that they have, it seems to just magically evaporate but whatever, they think they have the evidence. They want to present it to you and they say, science, science, science, history, history, history, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're stupid. Don't be a Christian. Or you might say, like all of these, you know, they'll use some sort of emotional arguments. Since you Christians are so judgmental, stop doing that. Or, yeah, it's old fashions. We don't do that anymore. That isn't an actual argument, that's a bumper sticker. This is what they're presenting to you, and so you can listen to it. And these are your friends. Or at the very least, they're the people on Facebook who... Let's call them friends. Anyway, or perhaps they'll even tell you, well, that's your belief. I have a different. And that seems like a compromised position. Hey, we can both have our own beliefs. That's cool. Like you believe your thing, I'll believe my thing. Problem is this. This book says that doesn't work. This book, not this book, this is my book. This book says that doesn't work. If this book is true, then Yahweh is the one who created the other gods. He is the one who created the earth. That is what this book says. And this book is either right about that or it is wrong about that. There is no in between. So if you're having someone, a conversation with somebody and they say, well, you can believe that, that's fine. I believe something else. You can say to them, if you're a jerk like me, okay, but here's the problem. If I'm right, then you're wrong. And if you're right, then I'm wrong. There is no compromise between these two positions. Because if the Bible is right, then the God who created all the other gods is Jesus. And if the Bible isn't right, then nothing this book says is correct either, because it's all based on that principle. So, allow me to say this to you. If you are counting on the protections of a God, let me say to you, be careful of who that God is. Because if it's not Yahweh, then they have nothing to offer you. Or, if they do have something to offer you, then there is no Yahweh. So, point number two, if you're counting on the protections of this book in your life, and you don't believe it's true, then you're dumb. I quote scripture on that one, that we are above all things most to be pitied. That's in 1 Corinthians, maybe 2 Corinthians, one of the Corinthians. Paul said that. If Jesus did not die for you, then we above all people are most to be pitied because our entire hope is based on this dude who said he was Yahweh and that Yahweh being the high God above other gods and therefore he knows what he's talking about. If that's not true, then Christianity is the dumbest religion on planet Earth. Period. because our entire hope is based on that guy being who he said he was. So if he's not that, then for goodness sake, stop being a Christian. Those coke and hookers are fun, I hear. Anyway, do that. Eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die. However, if that guy is who he said he is, then whatever you think you should be doing doesn't mean anything, because you're just a human. The God who created everything wrote everything down in here. Right, like this stuff here. Words of the Holy Spirit in black. And those are your options. You have two ways in front of you. You have the way of life and the way of death. This is what the Bible says, and this is what the book of Hebrews is trying to lay out. There is nothing to go back to. Those old gods cannot provide you with anything. This world and all of its science and all of its philosophy has nothing to offer you It is Jesus and Jesus alone. Or it is not, and everything else I just said is also wrong. It cannot be both. So Lord, I pray that you would help us to remember that either you are true or you are not. And if you are true, then you will lead us to what you said about you. And if we haven't come to that yet, Lord, I pray that you would help us to just take a step over the line and trust you. It seems scary, it seems ridiculous, all right, it kinda does. But you are true and you are who you say you are and you are faithful even when we are not. And Lord, if we are along the path a little ways, help us to remember there is no going back. The old way had nothing to offer us. It still has nothing to offer us. For how could we neglect so great a salvation? So Lord, I know that there is pressures on all of us. I know that it is difficult to live in this world and believe what you said is true. Lord, I pray that you would keep us strong and help us to move forward as your servants until the day you come for us and we get to meet you face to face. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.