God Speaks

We're beginning a new series here at Cross Connection called "Jesus is Better" as we step into the New Testament book of Hebrews. Before we do that, we have to backtrack a little bit and consider some things from the Old Testament.

So, open with us to Hebrews chapter 1 and follow along. Good morning again! If you would, take out your Bibles and open them with me to the book of Hebrews, which is near the end of your Bible. If you don't have a Bible, you can raise your hand, and one of our ushers will bring you one. Hebrews is right after the very small book of Philemon, but just before Titus. So, it's Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, then James.

Now, let's turn to Hebrews chapter 1. If you wouldn't mind, would you stand with me as we read God's Word this morning? The letter to the Hebrews, chapter 1, at verse 1, says, "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds."

Father, I thank You for Your Word. We thank You, as we just sang, that You have no rival and You have no equal. You are King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We pray, God, that Your rule and reign would be supreme in our lives, that You would have the chief seat in each of our hearts, a place of supremacy as King of Kings, Lord.

God, speak to us today. Give us continued wisdom, insight, and understanding into the things of the Scriptures by Your Spirit, that we would not only know these things intellectually, but we would be able to make them a part of our lives and that it would transform us. Transform us by the renewing of our minds for Your glory. We ask this in Jesus' name, and all those that agreed said, "Amen." You can be seated.

I was blessed to attend a conference this last week in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I don't know who the crazy person was that decided to have a conference at the end of January in Minneapolis, but it really drove home the reason that I live in Southern California. Even if it is a little cloudy and even if we are going to get rain, I’ll tell you this beats like 10-degree weather every single day.

I was very blessed that my pastor, Pastor Pat Kinney, was able to come and share here this last weekend. For probably more than a few of you, that was the first introduction to Pastor Pat. He pastored the church here for 27 years, and I was able to serve with and under him for quite a few years before he handed the church off to me back in 2008. It was a real blessing to have him come back and share with us and listen to the message online this last week.

The last year that Pastor Pat pastored here, right before he handed off the church, he and I kind of team-taught together through the Gospel of Luke. When I became the pastor, we just continued with the book. We were almost finished, and after that, I figured we would go right into the book of Acts, which is the next book that was written by Luke. We went through the book of Acts beginning in November of 2008, and it took us a little while. If you have been here with us for a while, you know that we went through Acts from the end of 2008 until about the middle of 2014.

The reason that it took so long is that the book of Acts is the history book of the early church. It gives us the timeline of the early church, and during that timeline, there were a number of other letters or books that we find in the New Testament that were written. So, during the time that we were going through the book of Acts, we also studied through the books of James, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Romans.

When we finished the book of Acts, we continued on that chronology through the New Testament. We went through the books of Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Philemon, 1 and 2 Peter, and Jude last year. Now, as we come to the next book in our chronology, we will be studying this year through the book of Hebrews.

If you have ever studied through or read the book of Hebrews, you know that it is one of the longer books of the New Testament, and it is a really deep book—a theologically deep book. There are a lot of concepts and ideas in this book that are really powerful and important for us. Before we jump into the text of Hebrews, I thought it would be helpful for this week.

Next, I want to give a little background on the content we will find in the book of Hebrews, as it has a lot to do with the Old Testament. This brings up a question: What exactly is the Old Testament? I don't want to assume that everyone here this morning knows what the Old Testament is.

The Bible is a book of books, consisting of 66 different books written by 40 different authors over 1,500 years on three different continents and in three different languages. It is divided into two sections: the Old Testament, which is the first two-thirds of the Bible and contains the first 39 books, and the New Testament, which is the last third and contains 27 books. Since we, like many other churches, spend the bulk of our time in the New Testament, it can be easy to forget that it is only a third of the Bible. Over the last eight or nine years, we have been going through New Testament books and have hardly looked at the Old Testament, other than making references to it. Eventually, we will finish the New Testament, though Jesus will probably return before we do. When we finish it, we hope to delve into some of the Old Testament books.

To understand the book of Hebrews, you need at least some understanding of the entire passage of Scripture, those 39 books we call the Old Testament. The book of Hebrews was written primarily to people who were Hebrew, meaning they were of Jewish heritage. They were Christians who had come out of the Jewish faith and tradition. As you read through this book, you will notice that much of what is discussed in these 13 chapters references those 39 books of the Old Testament.

There are at least 99 references to the Old Testament in these 13 chapters, and 21 of the 39 Old Testament books are mentioned in the book of Hebrews. About every third verse in Hebrews refers back to the Old Testament. Therefore, if you have never read through the Old Testament or looked at it, there will be concepts in this book that may go over your head and not make much sense.

I encourage you, as I do at the beginning of every year, to read through the Bible. Start with Genesis and read all the way to Revelation. Many Bible publishers are currently producing reader editions of the Bible that are very helpful. These editions remove all the verse references and chapter divisions, making it easier to read through the text.

References are available, and you can read through them like a book. I have found, both for myself and for others I have talked to, that it makes it a little bit easier to read from Genesis to Revelation. It can be a difficult thing for people to do. Some of you took the challenge and have been doing it since January 1st, trying to read through the Old Testament and on through the New Testament. I commend you for that and want to champion you in this endeavor.

I realize that right around this time, as you get into February and move into March, you may find yourselves in books like Exodus and Leviticus. That is where the speed bump often comes along. If you finally make it, around May, to First Chronicles, and if you can get through First Chronicles, you'll be fine; you'll be on the downhill run of the Bible. I just want to encourage you to continue reading through the Scriptures.

When you zero in on the Old Testament, you realize that there is a lot of content and depth that is very important to our faith as Christians. The building blocks of our faith as believers in Jesus Christ are found in those first 39 books. But why do we have an Old Testament and a New Testament? The word "Testament" could also be translated as "covenant" because there is an Old Covenant and a New Covenant.

When Jesus came, he actually spoke about this New Covenant the night he would be betrayed, the night before he would die on the cross. As he was having the Passover feast, the Jewish Passover meal with his disciples, he took bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "This is my body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of me." Immediately after that, he took a cup of wine and said, as recorded in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 26, verse 28, "For this is my blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."

He speaks there of a New Covenant, which brings up the question: What exactly is a covenant? What is that all about? A covenant, biblically, is the way in which God is able to have a relationship with you and with me. During the time of the Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi, that was the time of the First Covenant, the Old Covenant, in which God was able to interact with the people, the children of Israel, through this covenant that had to do primarily, as the book of Leviticus discusses extensively, with animal sacrifice.

You see, the problem, the reason that you and I cannot interact with or connect with God, is because of our sinful failures. Humanity has transgressed the commandment of God, and there is a divide, a separation between God and man. That separation, caused by sin, needs to be dealt with.

Under the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament, the way to deal with that divide and be able to come to God was through the shedding of blood, specifically through animal sacrifice. It sounds kind of gruesome and crazy. Yet, for many hundreds of years, centuries, and even thousands of years, the children of Israel would come before God with these sacrifices to worship Him and to have some sort of relationship with Him. However, there was still always the problem of sin. The Old Covenant of sacrificial systems could not overcome the power of sin.

We needed someone to come who could overcome the power of sin, and that's what Jesus did when He came. He established a new covenant. He said, "This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission or the removal of sins." It is not just the covering of sin under the Old Covenant; it is the complete removal of sin in the new covenant.

Now, this concept of a new covenant was not new with Jesus. He was not the first one to ever speak about it. It was actually spoken about 500 years before Jesus came by one of the Jewish prophets, a man by the name of Jeremiah. God, speaking through Jeremiah, wrote these words. You can note them down if you'd like. They are recorded in Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 31.

God is speaking through the prophet Jeremiah about 500 years before Jesus came, and He says, "Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord. There is a day we are looking forward to, as Jeremiah was and all the people in his day. "The days are coming when I, God, will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them up from the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them," says the Lord. "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days," says the Lord.

Lord, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. The first covenant, the old covenant that God established with the children of Israel, was established under Moses. You remember Moses? Moses, who was sent down to Egypt to say to Pharaoh, "Let my people go," ultimately brought the children of Israel out of Egypt. They went up to a place called Mount Sinai, where Moses went up on the mountain, and God spoke with him. He came down and brought the law to the people of Israel, and they established a covenant, the first covenant.

This is what Jeremiah is speaking of, or rather, what God is speaking of through Jeremiah. He says, "I'm going to start a new covenant, not like the one that started with Moses at Mount Sinai after you came out of Egypt, which I established with your fathers. I am going to establish a new covenant with you. I will put my law in your mind and write it on your heart, and you will be my people."

Fast forward to the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—where Jesus sits with his disciples. He takes a cup of wine and says, "This is symbolic of my blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. I am establishing that new covenant that Jeremiah spoke about."

Point number one on your outline, your sermon guide, is in your bulletin: Jesus came to fulfill the old covenant and to establish a new covenant. He came to fulfill the old covenant and to establish a new covenant. He didn't simply come to abolish the old covenant as if something was wrong or out of order in it. God was the one who established the old covenant. Unfortunately, as Jeremiah says, the people of Israel broke God's covenant. They did not follow through on the rules of the covenant.

However, Jesus came to fulfill it because He lived a perfect life. He lived what the law required; He lived what the covenant required. Because He lived that way, He fulfilled it and now brings in a new and better way—a better covenant, a new covenant. The first 39 books of the Bible deal with the old covenant, while the last 27 books deal with the new covenant. Jesus came to establish this new relationship whereby humanity, you and I, can come before God.

A holy God. Though we are sinful and have failed, Jesus in the new covenant deals completely with the problem of sin and makes it possible for us to come before God. The 39 books of the Old Testament speak of all that God did in times past. However, in the book of Hebrews, the author goes back to that and discusses it extensively.

The interesting thing is that the Christians in the day this book was written were being tempted or drawn away from the simplicity of Jesus. They were being led to believe that they needed more than just Jesus, that He alone was not enough. The author of Hebrews asserts that Jesus is indeed enough and that what He did on the cross is sufficient.

As we study through this book, we will see that the main theme is encapsulated in the phrase "Jesus is better." This is a central point throughout much of Hebrews: Jesus is better than the old covenant, better than angels, better than prophets, better than priests, better than kings, and better than presidents. Praise God! He is better than any religious sacrifice or ritual we could observe, any pilgrimage we could undertake—whatever it may be, Jesus is better than all of these things.

This message was directed to a group of Christians coming out of a Hebrew tradition of faith. They were being tempted to return to the cultural practices they were so involved in, such as the sacrificial system and the temple, which still tugged at their hearts. The author of Hebrews emphasizes that Jesus has come and is better than all those things.

I believe this is an important message for us living in the 21st century as well. Even though we live 2,000 years after this message was penned, we still need to be reminded that Jesus is better. There are many things vying for our attention and devotion, pulling us in different directions. Even I, as a pastor, need to be reminded consistently and regularly that Jesus is better than all the ideas and philosophies of man. He is the only one we ultimately need for our life and our faith.

And so Jesus is better. The author of the book of Hebrews opens with these words, which we read just a few minutes ago: "God, who at various times in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets." I think it's important to acknowledge that the very first word of this book is the word "God." Hebrews begins with God, serving as a simple reminder that everything begins with Him.

But who is God? What is He all about? What is He like when we speak about this God that is mentioned so much in the 66 books of Scripture? Not only does the book of Hebrews begin with God, but the Bible in general begins with God. The very first book of the Bible starts in the same way: "In the beginning, God." Genesis 1:1 states, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

The Old Testament, that old covenant passage, the first 39 books, begins with this declaration. It establishes that God is. This is the worldview and the mindset of the person who believes the words of the books of the Bible: God is. This is an important principle for all of us. If we believe the words of the Bible, we need to understand that this is the basis of everything. God is.

Not only that God is, but that God was before everything that exists. Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Everything that we see, even the things that are created that we don't see because they are too small or too far away, God created all of that. This means that He pre-existed everything. There was a beginning of the world and life as we know it, but He came before that.

Of course, the question always arises: where did He come from? The scriptural view, or the biblical worldview, is that He was, He is, and He always will be. But who created God? No one. He always was. I understand that this concept may seem a little far out; He is a little bit bigger than us.

It's hard for me to comprehend God. If I could comprehend God, He wouldn't be God; I would be. And that's scary for you and for me. Oftentimes, that's where our fallen nature wants to go: I am God. Do we not see that in our culture? Let me tell you, that's not new. It's been around for a long time. Read Genesis chapter three. It goes all the way back to the very beginning.

In the beginning, God created. There was a beginning, and God pre-existed that beginning. He created everything.

Point number two on your outline: God is, and was, and created all things. Now, I get it. Some of you right now are saying, "Come on, couldn't you get a little bit more deep than that? That's like Bible Christianity 101." Yes, this is the first basic proposition of Scripture, and it is an essential truth for you and me to comprehend if we're going to understand anything else that comes after that in this book.

If you don't get that God is, and God was, and He created everything that is, if you don't grasp and comprehend that and take that at least as the first principle, it's going to be really hard to understand Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First and Second Samuel, and everything that comes after that. It would be very hard to grasp if you don't at least hold on to this truth and say, "Okay, this is the first proposition, the default on this whole thing: God is, God was, and He created everything."

But notice Hebrews chapter one, verse one continues: God, who at various times and in various ways spoke. This is a hard one for people. It might be something that someone could at least give a passing thought to, that okay, there's a creator. This has been a big debate in our society for a long time about how things came to be.

A question that has caused a lot of argument and debate, especially since the 19th century, is the idea and philosophy and teaching of Charles Darwin and those who came after. It just continues to go on and on. But there are many in our culture; in fact, over 80% of Americans acknowledge that there is a creator.

Is God probably or is He a God? For a lot of people, He seems very far away, uninterested, and disengaged with what goes on here. However, the author of the book of Hebrews says, "No, not so." God, who at various times and in various ways, spoke. He not only creates but also communicates.

This concept is not new to the New Covenant or the New Testament, nor is it exclusive to the book of Hebrews. It is clear in the very first book of the Bible, Genesis 1:1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw the light, that it was good, and He divided the light from the darkness. Thus begins what we call the six days of creation in Genesis chapter one, where God speaks repeatedly.

When God speaks, we call that revelation. Revelation is simply when God communicates into the environment that we live in. Why do we call it that? Because God is independent of this creation. He does not need this creation; He exists apart from the box, if you will, of the heavens and the earth. Everything in our universe is contained within that box of creation that God spoke into existence, and He is independent of it. He exists without it, while we need it and are in awe of how vast it is.

Today, we have some amazing instrumentation that can look far out into the cosmos and see much further than before. Every single day, we can observe further and further into the universe, and it boggles the mind how immense it is. Over the last two decades or so, we have been able to see pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope. Many of you have likely seen these images, even if you may not realize it. They showcase incredible views of things on the edge of galaxies and beyond. Scientists tell us that the universe is continuing to expand, but all of that is still within the box. To us, it may seem like a really big box, but to God, it is not so much.

Because He is outside of it, He is independent of it. However, if He wants to speak into the box that is creation, He has to do so through revelation. He has to do so in a special way, a way that, when He does it, we say, "Well, that sounds far out. That sounds magical. That sounds miraculous." We live in a very naturalistic-minded world today that doesn't believe in magical or miraculous things. So when they hear the word "revelation," they just say, "That's insane. Can you believe that?"

In 1974, a group of engineers in Albuquerque, New Mexico, created something absolutely amazing. It was a little box about two feet by two feet, ten inches tall, gray and blue with red lights on the front and little switches. It was absolutely phenomenal. It was the first microcomputer, called the Altair 8800. However, the problem with this box was that it was completely useless. The engineers spent a lot of time and money putting this thing together, but there it was, with the lights and switches, unable to do anything because this microcomputer had no language with which someone could speak to it to tell it what to do.

That little picture of the box was featured in Popular Electronics in the early part of 1975. In January of 1975, two young guys in Boston looked at that magazine and were amazed by it. They wrote a letter to the people in New Mexico and asked, "Hey, are you interested in buying a BASIC language for your microcomputer?" The letter was signed by Paul Allen and Bill Gates. Of course, the people in New Mexico said yes. So Paul Allen and Bill Gates went out to New Mexico and started a little company to write language software for the microcomputer, which they called Microsoft.

They created the first BASIC language to tell the box that had been created by engineers their will, what they wanted it to do. To be able to do that, they had to speak into the box in a language that the box could understand. They did not require the box to figure out their language and say, "You have to try and learn how we work so that you can work for us." No, it didn't work that way. They had to learn how to speak in the language of the box, the computer, to tell it what to do. And you know what? That seems pretty magical. That seems pretty miraculous.

Why? Because, hey Siri, now she talks to me. That's kind of freaky. Actually, that's straight magical. Or is it? Maybe it's just amazing engineering. Perhaps there's an amazing engineer behind this and all of this. It's a pretty amazing thing.

If I told you that I heard a really big bang the other day, I came in here, and this table just appeared, you would say that's stupid. Even something as simple as this table has an engineer behind it. Someone made that. Even if it's just simple, someone created it. Some mind came up with it that had the intelligence and the resources to make it happen. If you tell me that just happened, I'm going to think you're stupid.

Your eyeball is just a tiny bit more complex than that table, and yet there are a lot of people who say that just happened. Let me tell you, that is a big leap of faith. There may be people in our area saying, "No, there's science that backs it, and there's understanding. We've done a lot of scientific experimentation and all these sorts of things. We can prove it." No, you can't prove it. It's a step of faith. It takes faith to not believe that God is, and I would say it takes more faith to believe that God is not than to believe that He is. Why? Because of all of this.

But He speaks by revelation. The engineer who created everything has to speak in a way that we can understand. Just like those engineers in Albuquerque in 1975, they had to speak in the language of the computer to tell the computer their will, what they wanted it to do. If we are to know what God wants us to do, He has to speak. The author of Hebrews says, "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke, He spoke in times past."

Point number three on your outline: The Creator God speaks to His creation by revelation.

How does He do this? The author of Hebrews says He does it at various times and in various ways. It's kind of ambiguous. How does He speak to us? I would suggest that there are three forms of revelation by which God speaks to us. We've talked about this before at Cross Connection, but I think it's really important. There are three basic ways in which God brings divine revelation to us who are living in the box that He made.

The first we call general revelation. What is general revelation? The psalmist King David, in Psalm 19, said it like this: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth shows forth His handiwork. Day unto day they speak, and night unto night they reveal knowledge. There is no human speech nor language where their voice is not heard." What is David saying? He says, "Listen, wherever you live, whatever you speak, you all have access to general revelation."

What is general revelation? The heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth shows forth His handiwork. Not just David, but 2,000 years ago, the apostle Paul wrote this in Romans chapter one: "The wrath of God will be revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." That's bad news. God, one day, is going to pour out His wrath on unrighteousness and injustice.

You might say, "Well, wait a minute. That seems kind of heavy and harsh. Why would He do that?" Because, in verse 19, it says, "What may be known of God was manifest to humanity, for God has shown it to them." Paul explains that God will pour out His wrath upon those who are unjust and unrighteous in this world because He has revealed Himself to you, and you haven't taken notice.

You may wonder, "Where did He reveal Himself to us?" Verse 20 states, "For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse."

What is general revelation? It's simply this: God shouts to us through the creation. Everything that we see declares to us that God is present, even down to the most simple life forms. They are far more simple than we want to admit. There is a lot more complexity in what science 150 years ago thought was simple, and now they realize it's not so simple.

It's phenomenal. It's amazing. When you look at the depths of it, especially down to the level of DNA, and you examine the coding that goes into these things, it becomes clear how significant it is. Today, DNA is a normal part of our vernacular because it's being used in every possible way, from genetically modified foods to genetically modified medications, to everything you can imagine at the DNA level. It's all an incredibly scripted coded language.

In fact, Francis Collins, who was the head of the Human Genome Project, wrote a book called "The Language of God." He is a scientist who helped deconstruct the human genetic genome, and he believes in God. Why? Because the heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth shows forth His handiwork. Day unto day, they utter speech. He looked at it and said, "That's phenomenal. That's language."

There are a few things that we learn from general revelation. First, we learn that God is. Second, we learn that God is smart. Third, we learn that God is powerful. He has resources. God is intelligent, and He is powerful. The two primary modes of this general revelation are creation and our conscience. Every human being has been hardwired with a firmware, an operating system called a conscience, which has been instilled by the moral lawgiver. We have a moral law written upon our hearts so that we are without excuse.

Point number four on your outline: creation and conscience give us a general revelation of God. But not only is there general revelation; secondly, there is special revelation. What is special revelation? I think it's best revealed in a passage of Scripture in the second book of the Bible. You can turn there if you'd like—Exodus chapter three.

In Exodus chapter three, there's a man named Moses. At that point in time, he is a shepherd, tending a herd of sheep as he walks around the desert, a place that looks a lot like East County, San Diego. As he walks around, he sees something kind of strange: a bush that is on fire. Now, that's not unusual; he has seen bushes on fire before. However, there is something strange about this bush: it doesn't get consumed. It just keeps burning. So he thinks, "That's trippy. I'm going to go take a look at that."

As he gets close to the bush that is on fire but not being consumed, I admit that this is far out. It's pretty magical. Something even more miraculous happens. As he approaches this bush, we read in Exodus 3:4, "So when the Lord saw that he, Moses, turned aside and looked, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, 'Moses, Moses.' He said, 'Yes,' or 'Here I am,' that's what my version says. Then he said, 'Do not draw near to this place. Take the sandals off your feet, for the place that you are standing is holy.' Moreover, he said, 'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.' And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.

The Lord said, 'I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from the land to a good and large land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to a place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, and all the Ites.' It's an old joke, I know.

Now, therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come up to me. I have also seen the oppression by which the Egyptians oppressed them. 'Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.' What is that? That's called special revelation.

What happens in special revelation? Well, God, in special revelation, reveals who He is, His nature. 'I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of your fathers.' He also reveals His will, what He wants to do. 'I want to deliver my people, so I'm going to send you.' This is like the engineers writing the language to speak in the language of the computer to tell it what I want you to do.

Through special revelation, God speaks in a language that can be understood. We call them prophets.

So, point number five on your outline: The Old Testament is the account of God's special revelation. Those first 39 books, the Old Testament, are the account of God's special revelation, where He speaks to and through a people—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—all the way down to Moses, and then through David, Isaiah, Elijah, Obadiah, Habakkuk, and others.

God speaks to reveal who He is and to reveal what He wants to do because God has a plan. He has a purpose. We would not know that plan or purpose if we did not hear His voice. God, who at various times and in various ways speaks, spoke in times past to our fathers by the prophets, as the author of the book of Hebrews says.

Then we come to the third form of revelation. We have general revelation and special revelation. The third one is personal revelation. What is that? Looking back at Genesis or Hebrews chapter one, it says, "God, who in various times and in various ways spoke in times past to our fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed the heir of all things, and through whom He also made the worlds."

The author of the Gospel of John writes in John chapter one, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men." The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Personal revelation is greater than general revelation and more powerful than special revelation because it is that by which God comes in bodily form and reveals Himself to us. What is the mode of this revelation? It is Jesus. Jesus is the Word. Jesus is the Son, and He has come to reveal the glory of who God is and what God is like in personal and magnificent form.

What do we learn through this personal revelation? We learn what God is actually like. We get to behold the glory and majesty of God in Jesus Christ. The author of the book of Hebrews says in verse three, "Jesus, who being the brightness of God's glory and the express image of His person," is manifesting and showing the actual glory of God in time and space here. You might say that's far out. Yes, it's awesome because it's the power of God, who is called by the Scriptures, Almighty God.

Point number six on your outline: The New Testament is the account of God's personal revelation. If I happened upon this pen, I know by simply looking at it that it didn't just happen on its own. Someone engineered it. Someone made it. Someone came up with the idea about how to make it.

There are some amazing things happening here because this isn't just any pen. I know I'm weird, but I like fountain pens. This pen uses an incredible principle of capillary action to bring the ink down from inside to the tip. There is amazing thought and engineering that went into this, even the refill mechanism, which is pretty simple. It's phenomenal. Just by looking at this pen, I know it didn't just happen; someone engineered it, and someone had the resources to make it.

I learned this through general observation, general revelation about the creator of this pen. Maybe I can deduce a little bit more about this person. It says "Lammy" on the side of the pen, so maybe that's the person's name. But I don't really know much other than that. I can't tell what the person who made it is like. I might think, "Gosh, this is rather sharp and pointy; you could really hurt someone with this." So maybe the person who made this is not a very nice guy and wants to stab someone with this pen.

On the other hand, I could think, "No, I could write a love note to my wife. Valentine's Day is coming up, so maybe he's a very loving and nice person." I can write down my thoughts and feelings for my wife. I'm not a very good poet, but I try. However, I can't know much about the creator unless someone tells me about who made this pen. Even if someone tells me about the creator, I still can't know what the person is like. Do they like ice cream? Are they nice to their wife? Are they a good person?

I can't really tell all that much through just special revelation until I'm introduced and get to know that person. And that's what Jesus came to do. He came to introduce us to God. When people look around this world and see suffering, hunger, death, and pain, they observe all these things and say, "If there is a God, he's mean. He's angry." You see, you can come to wrong conclusions about God by just looking at what is around us. Therefore, general revelation is not enough.

Even special revelation has its complexities. Prophets said a lot of strange things. Have you ever read through Ezekiel? He expressed some pretty unusual ideas, and you might wonder what in the world he was doing. It’s as if some law about marijuana must have passed in his day because his visions were quite bizarre. When you read that, it can be difficult to understand what he was trying to convey. Why is that? Special revelation is limited.

However, Jesus is better, and we need that personal revelation. I have to tell you, this world needs the personal revelation of Jesus more than at any other time. There are many wrong-headed ideas about God and a lot of misunderstandings about why we are here. But God has something to say about that in the person of Jesus Christ. If you want to know about God, the best place to start is with Jesus. Get to know Him. Jesus said, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." It’s a powerful statement.

Will you stand with me as we close in prayer? Lord, I am absolutely convinced that the world we live in today needs to know about You, how good You are, and how You are better than prophets, priests, kings, angels, and all other things. But first, we who trust and believe in the teachings of the Bible need to be convinced that You are better.

So remind us again, as we prepare to study through this book, that You are better—better than anything that could distract us, better than anything we could put our trust or hope in. Help us, Lord, to find our hope and trust only in You. Let us trust this in Jesus.