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Sermon Manuscripts
God’s Supreme Revelation
a sermon in the series,
Hebrews: An Epistle of Encouragement
A sermon delivered
Sunday Morning November 19, 2000
at Oak Grove Baptist Church, Paducah, Ky.
by S. Michael Durham
© 2001 Real Truth Matters
Hebrews 1: 1-4
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
It has always been my desire to hear the audible voice of God just as Moses did at the burning bush and continuing throughout the remainder of his life. To be able to hear the sweetest vibrations human ears could ever detect must be so overwhelming. It is no wonder that John the Revelator described God’s voice as the “voice of many waters, as the voice of great thunder.” Oh the joy, the joy that must be in hearing the audible, real, living voice of God. What must it be to have Him speak directly to you?
Forever etched into my brain is the visual image of Cecil B. Demille’s Moses. Do you remember when Moses, played by Charlton Heston, came down from the mountain after God had spoken to him through the burning bush? His hair and beard had turned a frosted white and was exquisitely styled. The picture gave you the idea that after hearing the voice of God Moses was transformed. Perhaps the message behind the imagery is not too farfetched. You are changed and cannot be the same when God speaks to you. How many times I have thought and even prayed "Lord, if you would meet me as you did Moses, I too would not be the same. Lord, if you would just speak to me and tell me exactly what it is you want me to do. Speak Lord, and I will do it. Just speak!” You have prayed such prayers haven’t you?
While meditating on our text, it has occurred to me that God desires to communicate with us, and is not resistant to the idea of speaking to us. We think He resists, but in fact, He has spoken to us and continues to speak to us. The problem is not God’s reluctance to speak, but our reluctance to hear, not just what He says, but how He says it. Could it be that we resist the means by which He speaks? Is it possible that you could hear the Lord much more often than you do, and the reason you don’t is because you don’t like the manner in which He reveals Himself to you?
Today we begin this great book, Hebrews. I have entitled this series, “An Epistle of Encouragement.” Today I am going to speak on the thought, “God’s Supreme Revelation.” I want to show clearly that God does speak to us personally and directly. He speaks in a far better way than even an audible voice. Our difficulty in hearing Him is not because He doesn’t speak; it is because we don’t like the methodology or the package by which He speaks. So let’s look at God’s supreme revelation and find out God does speak to you and me.
The writer of Hebrews says that God is a God of revelation. Verse one, “God who at sundry (many) times and in divers (different) manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets.” But in verse two he says, “Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” Verses one and two teach a beautiful and wonderful benefit to us--- that God is a God of revelation. Now, friends, this is not a need, but an attribute of God, meaning, God does not need to reveal Himself. He does not sit out there in the universe somewhere on a throne having this need to express Himself. But rather it is an attribute of God. God must declare Himself. His very nature and constitution makes it that He must show forth His glory. This attribute of God is a real blessing for us. God does not need to reveal Himself, we need God to reveal Himself to us. We need God to show us who He is, to speak to us, to communicate, to reveal Himself to us. Without it we would have no hope of salvation. And so God, in order, to reveal Himself, creates. God has created everything in order to communicate His wonderful glory. He created angels and men to reveal this glory to. This God of revelation did not contain Himself within Himself. He did not remain self-disclosed but manifested Himself to others that they might enjoy what He enjoyed----Himself. These opening verses tell us that God is not selfish. He is not willing to keep to Himself the joy that He has in Himself. God wants to share Himself with you.
Often many people are plagued with the notion that God does not want to communicate Himself to them. They think somehow they are not worthy to hear God, to be visited by God, to have God stir their heart and to show up in their lives. Well, if that course of thinking is true, then none of us are worthy. But we are not talking about worthiness here; we are talking about the generosity and love of God. God would not contain Himself and withhold Himself from us. He would not shut Himself in some reclusive corner of His eternal self-existence. Rather He manifested and showed Himself to us that we might know what true beauty is. Oh, you would never know beauty, you would never know goodness, you would never know perfection, you would never know joy if God had shut Himself up and chose not to reveal Himself. The truth is God is a God of revelation. He wants to communicate Himself in a way you can experience Him and enjoy Him.
All because He loves His glory. It is also a demonstration of His love for us. The fact that God loves you is a fact that He will reveal Himself to you.
I want you to notice also that in our text God is very personable in this revelation. Notice the personableness of God speaking in verse two, “Hath in these last days spoken unto us.” Underscore the word us. The apostle is putting himself in this select group. God speaks and He speaks to individuals. He speaks to His people. God speaks to us personally. Now, you say “I have never heard the voice of God. I never had some vision where God appeared to me. How therefore has God spoken to me?” Although you may have not dreamed a dream, or had a vision, or had some supernatural experience, God none the less has personally spoken to you. In fact the writer to the Hebrews is stating an important fact here in verse two. Had God spoken to you by any other means than the one he is going to explain, it would have been an inferior revelation. Yes, inferior!
Look at verse one. The apostle begins this very book of encouragement by stating that there were inferior revelations of God. Verse one lists the inferior revelations that came through men. Later he will mention another inferior messenger, angels. He then contrasts these inferior revelations to the superior revelation of God----Jesus Christ His Son. The Son is the revelation of who God is, and He is better than all the messages and communiqués that were given to the fathers by the prophets. I understand why some of you perhaps have a fear or reluctance in my calling the words of the prophets inferior revelation. But I do not mean inferior as meaning substandard or less than perfect. However, in comparison to Jesus Christ, they are inferior because they do not reveal the fullness of God. You can take your Old Testament and trust every word of it. I am not suggesting that the Old Testament is inferior to the New, because it is not. In fact, without the Old Testament, the New Testament would be a mystery. You need the Old Testament, but none of those communications of the Old Testament could show us God as Christ could, because He was and is God. The prophets were mere sinful men. The superior revelation is Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus was God-man. He is a superior revelation, far better than just speaking supernaturally through prophets of clay. Jesus has spoken, and when Jesus spoke, it was God revealing Himself to us.
The writer of Hebrews lists seven reasons why Jesus is a better revelation than all of the prophets put together. It is a perfect Christology. What does Christology mean? Christology means the study of Christ. This text is one of the most thorough explanations of God in the flesh that we have in the entire Bible.
The first reason why Jesus is a better revelation than the prophets is because He is heir of all things. Look at verse two, “whom He hath appointed heir of all things.” This brief statement shows us something about God; it reveals the plan of God. God has a plan that He is working towards in history. Everything He has ever done is moving towards this central goal of God. It is this, the consummation of all things under Jesus. All of life’s work is going to be consummated in Christ. The election that we don’t know the outcome is going to be consummated in Jesus. The history of the human race from the beginning throughout the turbulent struggle of man’s past to the unknown future is going to be consummated in Jesus. All things, including the very smallest detail of your life, even the very minutiae of everyday living, all will be wrapped up in Jesus who is heir of all. God’s ultimate plan is to exalt Himself through the Son and place all things under the dominion of Christ. This is one of significant themes of the Bible. As Paul says, “Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” From Satan to the last minion of Hell, from the saints of old to those yet to be born, everyone will fall before Jesus. He will have dominion of all things. The writer of Hebrews will state this again in chapter two and verse eight and nine, “Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus.” God had created man to have dominion over all the works of His hands, but man forfeited this. However, now the writer says we see Jesus. Christ has fulfilled the plan of God and all things are put under His feet. Later in the first chapter and thirteenth verse the apostle quotes Psalms 110:1, “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” This is the ultimate goal of God to glorify Himself through His Son.
The second reason why Jesus is a better revelation than any of the prophets before is because He is the creator of all things. Again verse two, “by whom also he made the worlds.” This reveals the proprietorship of God. God is the owner of all things. He possesses and owns it all. Jesus created everything that exists. How does this harmonize with verse four? The Authorized Version says that Christ, “being made so much better than the angels.” If Christ is the creator of all things how is it that He could be made and that lower than the angels? This is referring to our Lord’s incarnation. He, the eternal co-existent with the Father, became a man. There was never a time that Christ did not exist. Verse four is not suggesting that there was a time that He did not exist and then he came into existence. It is stating the humanity of one who was deity and still is deity. It tells us that deity became veiled in flesh, and, being made as a man, He was made lower than the angels. God infiltrated humanity as a man. All things were made by Him, and yet, He the Creator became created in the womb of a woman. He may be made lower than the angels but He is still God. Thus, He is the revelation of God, and there is none that exceeds this revelation of God. How could there be a superior revelation to God Himself? But how can sinful man understand God? He is understandable because God came to man in the context of humanity. God became man that man might know God.
Thirdly, Jesus Christ is a better revelation because He is the radiance of God. Verse three states, “who being the brightness of His glory.” What does this tell us about God? It tells us God is perfect. I have had to think much about this one. I spent most of my time studying this one attribute. It is the most difficult one to explain. Is the radiance of God some effulgence, some beautiful flowing light? Is he talking about a bright light and this is what Jesus is?
Jesus is the brightness of the glory of God, a light so strong that it would make the noonday sun appear like a candle in comparison. While I am sure this might be in the mind of the author, I don’t think this is exactly what he is referring to here. When Jesus came to earth in the form of a man, there was no bright light. The Bible says in Isaiah that to look upon Jesus would not have impressed you. “We saw no comeliness in him,” Isaiah says. There was nothing physically attractive about our Lord. He looked like an ordinary man. Only Peter, James and John on the mountain of transfiguration saw the absolute glory of God revealed in visible light and beauty as Jesus was transfigured. But other than that, there was no expression of the glory of God in some bright light. So this cannot be the meaning. Rather, I think it is referring to what John says in his gospel in chapter one verse twelve. He says, “We beheld the glory of God.” When they beheld the Christ---the word of God in flesh---it was full of what? They beheld “glory full of grace and truth.” In other words, just as light is the radiation of the burning sun so Jesus Christ is the radiation of the perfection of God. If you were walking on the earth when Jesus was and you looked at Him, you would have seen divine perfection. You would have seen righteousness without the taint of sin.
In 2 Corinthians chapter four and verse three Paul once again alludes to the glory of God. He speaks of this same radiance of God, this beauty of God, and he equates it to light. “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.” Friends, there are people who may be in this audience today who don’t really care about what I am saying, because it doesn’t make sense to them. It is hid to them. It is a spiritual impossibility for them to understand, and therefore the gospel cannot bring joy and peace to their hearts. Paul continues in verse four, “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” It is Satan with his lies and deception that keeps sinners blind that they would not see the glorious light of the truth that is in Jesus Christ. Now when I was saved I saw no bright light, and I dare say, none of you saw a bright light the day you were saved. Yet, Paul compares salvation with seeing a penetrating light from God that pierces your heart and chases away the darkness. If this is not a physical light he is talking about what is Paul saying? Light is a metaphor of righteousness and holiness. We have already seen where John has said the glory that Christ radiated was “full of grace and truth.” Truth penetrated your heart, and, like a light, it chased away the darkness and brought the nature of God within you. In verse five and six of 2 Corinthians four Paul continues to give us insight about the brightness of God’s glory. “For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” In other words, when Jesus infiltrated your mind, your heart, your life, it was like light chasing away the darkness because in Him there is no sin, no unrighteousness. Righteousness conquers unrighteousness. The truth is that Jesus is the exact replication of God’s perfection.
Why is this important? It becomes extremely important when we get to the fact that Jesus is our redeemer. He by Himself purged our sins. Being infinitely perfect and sinless, Christ could be the perfect substitute for our sin. Jesus is the moral reflection of the divine perfection that is in God. If there was one small blemish of sin or imperfection in Him, then His work on Calvary as a sacrifice for sin would have been rejected by the Father. This is very important!
The fourth reason why He is a better revelation of God is because He is the exact representation of God. In verse three the writer goes on to describe Jesus as the, “express image of His person.” What he is literally saying is Christ is the proverbial “spitting image” of his father. When you saw Jesus, you were not just seeing another man, you were seeing God. Jesus said, “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” Now, dear friends, that makes him a very important revelation. Christ is a communiqué from God to you. If you want to hear from God today, you must find Christ. God is revealed in Jesus. What grieves my heart is knowing that some would leave the sound of this message today not finding Jesus. Without Jesus there is no hope to get to God. You can’t ever dream of getting to God without Christ. You must go through Him. He is God. He is the express image of His father. Not only does He look like His father, He is His Father, and yet a distinct person. They are one in a way that I cannot explain. Therefore, whatever He says has to be right. It has to be better than anything that has ever been proclaimed through any other medium.
Fifthly, Jesus is superior and a better revelation of God than anything the prophets declared because He is the sustainer of all things. Look at verse three. “Upholding all things by the word of his power;” what an interesting phrase. The author of Hebrews is revealing the power of God. Jesus is the power of God! Let’s go back to creation. He is the creator of all things. The writer continues and says of Christ, “by whom also he made the worlds.” God the father issued the decree that the world would be made, and so the Son spoke forth the will of the Father. Jupiter and Mars, Pluto and Saturn, Venus and Earth and all the satellites, stars and moons in their course were spun off like sparks from the anvil when Jesus spoke. Not only by His word did they come into existence, but by His word they are sustained. At this very moment, the envelope of Earth is sustained. The very atmosphere would collapse immediately if not for the word of God sustaining it. We talk about ozone deterioration; I want to tell you that if God by his word, the word of His power, so orders the ozone to remain, no amount of ozone deterioration will collapse it. Man does not hold the balance of ecology or biology. God does by the word of His power! And that word of His power is Christ. Is not Jesus the Word? Yes, the very Logos of God.
Notice that God’s power is demonstrated by His word. This is another interesting concept. If I am to demonstrate my power I have to resort to other things than my word. I have to use my physical strength or mental powers. My word is not sufficient to make many things happen. Why if my preaching would save, I think I would not cease to speak day and night. But my preaching does not carry the creative power of regeneration. I cannot rely upon my spoken word to accomplish anything. But not God. All He has to do is speak. How many of you parents can sympathize with me? How many times have you said to your children, “do this” or “don’t do that”? Sometimes the power of your word was very weak. It was anemic. It didn’t get the desired results. So what did you do? You resorted to strength. You had to resort to the fact you were bigger than they. But---there is coming a day when that will no longer be true. God does not have to resort to His physical strength; He need not lift a finger. All He has to do is speak. It is to be noted that when the forces of Hell and the Anti-Christ will assemble themselves against the Christ of Glory how in that great battle known as Armageddon, Christ will defeat them. The Bible declares in Revelation chapter nineteen, Jesus will come back on a horse with all of his saints, and he will destroy His enemies with the sword of his mouth. This imagery of a sword protruding from our Lord’s mouth is emblematic of His word. With just one word they are annihilated.
Be comforted. God sustains you and me by the word of His mouth. He speaks life to you and you don’t even know it. You move and you breath, you live and you work, you play and you cry, and do all the things you do, and you are often unaware of His sustaining word. At all times He is sustaining us by the word of His power. Therefore, you and I had better listen to Him when He speaks to us. Not a prophet, not even Moses, not Elijah, none of them could speak and all things be sustained by their words. But Christ can and does.
And then sixthly, He is a better revelation because He is the redeemer of His people. I don’t have enough time to do this justice this morning. We could spend a lot of time here on this phase found in verse three, “when He had by Himself purged our sins.” Notice that He needed no help. He needed no mediator Himself. He needed no assistant. He needed no support team. He by Himself conquered sin, death, and the grave. See Him there suspended. His only friend was sorrow. His only companion was our sins. Rivers of red streamed down from His face, His hands and His feet. No one helped Him. No one raised a hand to rescue Him or aid Him in His agony. No man stood with Him, not even His eternal Father. Remember as He hung on the cross for us that He was forsaken by the Father and was all by Himself. He cried, “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” Even at that moment, the moment that all history (as well as your eternal destiny) pivots upon, He was by Himself. And oh, by Himself, He paid the price of our sins. This reveals that He is the propitiation of God. What is propitiation? It means Christ is a sacrifice that appeases the justice of God, so that God will not have to damn my soul for my sins. My Jesus paid it for me. My dear friend, I should want to listen to this revelation of God. The very fact that He with His blood purchased me ought to say that I am obligated to listen to that Word. I should endear myself to that Word of Flesh.
Finally, the seventh reason Christ is a better revelation of God, He is authoritative. Again verse three, “He . . . sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” There is no greater authority than Jesus. He sat down, the work was completed. Those of you who are struggling to make sure you are a Christian, striving to make sure God will one day accept you are missing a very vital fact in the history of your redemption. The fact is Jesus sat down. This is emblematic of the fact that it is finished. The work of your redemption is finished and final. He did it all. He didn’t leave a thing undone. Your redemption is not a partnership where Jesus does His part and you do your part.
He paid it all
All to Him I owe.
No matter what you might be doing to earn God’s favor, it is futile. God the Father sees the work of our redemption already finished with nothing to be added to it. I could never preach enough sermons to get into Heaven. I could never pray enough prayers. I could never do enough good deeds. Jesus did it al,l and when He sat down He was saying it is done. Your salvation is complete, needing nothing.
The text is very specific. It says He “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty of high” which again is symbolic of great authority. To sit at the right hand of a king was a position of power. It was a declaration that there was no one more powerful than he that was seated at the right hand next to the king, except the king himself. Jesus taught that He is the preeminent one above all things. He said the Father was going to entrust to Him the future judgment of all the living. The Bible tells us, as we spoke earlier, that all things are going to be consummated under Him and in Him. He is preeminent. There has been no one who has “one upped” Him. He is the best, the highest; He is the ultimate and final authority. Jesus said, “All authority is mine in heaven and earth.” Dear friend, do you understand what I am saying to you today? If you reject what Jesus has said concerning the forgiveness of sins and relationship with God, you are in deep trouble. If you neglect what He says about what true godly righteousness is, then what other righteousness will you offer Him? Neglect what He has said about His wrath upon those who reject His completed substitutionary work, and you have no other sacrifice for your sin. Do you understand you have gone up against the final authority of the universe and there is no higher court to which to appeal? He is the final judge. Therefore, whatever He says is authoritative and is the best revelation of who God is.
Now having said all this concerning Christ, who is the superior revelation of God, or in other words, the best way in which God has ever spoken, what do you say? What will you say, or should I say, complain of Him about? Do you say that Christ is not good enough, and that God must speak to you in a more personal way? Do you complain that He does not speak personally to you? Could it be that you are not listening to the Son, and therefore you conclude God is not speaking to you? You say “I will not commit my life to God until He speaks to me in a way I can hear.” Yet, all the time God has spoken and He has spoken in the best medium ever conceived----Christ Jesus.
Dear believer in Christ, do you also complain that you don’t hear God? Do you lament, “God has not revealed Himself to me in a more personal way?” Do you say, “I am praying about certain matter and I am asking God to speak to me, but God hasn’t spoken to me?” Is it possible the problem is not that He hasn’t spoken, it is that you are rejecting the messenger or the way in which He speaks? In my humble opinion, beloved, there is no doubt that we refuse to hear the Son. We seek some personal word to us just like He spoke to the prophets. We want some special revelation. The truth is, we have something better than even an audible voice, angels, dreams or burning bushes. We have Jesus Himself, God in the flesh. The question is will we listen to Him? “How shall we listen to Him you ask?” Two ways. Number one, Jesus said in John chapter fourteen and verse twenty-three, “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” The first way you listen to Him is by listening to the written record of Jesus’ words. Unattractive? Perhaps. Old fashioned? Perhaps. But here is our problem; we want something newer, more spectacular, more appealing to the flesh. Friends, it doesn’t get any better than Jesus recorded in the Scripture. Only your spirit can hear this voice called the written Word of God. The flesh will not find anything attractive in this message, but the spirit will.
Secondly, how do you hear Him? Through the voice of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Christ. But here again the Holy Spirit will only reveal to you what is already recorded in God’s Holy Scriptures. Now I want you to listen, and listen carefully, because this is where this message is really going to touch you if are to be touched today. What right do you and I have to plead with the Lord to answer us and speak to us personally when we have ignored His greatest statement of all . . . his dear Son? What right do we have to go to the Father and say, “God will you please answer me and show me what I need to do? Would you please give me some sign; would you speak to me?” The truth is we have ignored the greatest and best spokesman that God has ever presented. Many of us neglect our Bibles and when we need an answer, we expect God to speak and give direction. God directs through the already spoken Word and that Word is Christ. We have recorded in this book we call the Bible our Lord’s word. Let His word get into your heart and mind and you will be amazed how the Holy Spirit will give you understanding and you will know the Scriptures to be a personal word from God to you.
Last June 2000, at Orlando, Florida, the Southern Baptist Convention voted to revise the Baptist Faith and Message. In it they made a statement about the Word of God being the final authority for faith and rule. We are still hearing repercussions from this statement. We have heard that in the state of Texas, Southern Baptists are split over whether or not God’s Word is the final authority. We have heard of a past president of the United States leaving the Southern Baptist Convention over things that were in the Baptist Faith and Message. We have also heard this past week in the state of Georgia there is great debate over the revision. Do you know what the argument really is about? It is not women being pastors, although that is one of the sources of contention. The main issue is what this Book is and what it isn’t. I shall never forget sitting there on that floor of the convention in Orlando as they came to the section in the Baptist Faith and Message about the revelation of who Jesus Christ is. Men began to stand and to lament that what we were doing was wrong and that what we were saying was wrong.
What were we saying? We were saying that the Book, the Holy Bible is the written revelation of Jesus Christ, and we have no other revelation. I heard college and seminary professors from Southern Baptist seminaries, I heard pastors, and I heard officials in positions in this convention stand up and say that this Book is not the final authority for the church. They wanted to amend the statement to say the greatest authority for the church is Jesus Himself. Sounds like an appealing argument doesn’t it? The Bible itself has said in our text as well as elsewhere that Jesus is the authority and there is no higher court to appeal to. He is the final judge. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; therefore, He must be the only authority for the church. But if you are not listening closely to what these dissenters are saying you will miss what they are really saying. They are saying that we cannot say the Bible is the final authority because Jesus is, and Jesus will reveal Himself to each Christian in a very subjective way. What they mean is that Jesus can reveal Himself to you in one way and reveal Himself to me in another way.
I want you to know that God loves you more than that. God loves you more than some subjective interpretation of what you think Jesus said to you or didn’t say to you. He has left it without ambiguity, without any subjectivity, without any misinterpretation. God has revealed Christ to us in black and white, “Thus saith the Lord.” Through the Bible is how we know what Jesus says to us. Without this you are left to some subjective impression that may or may not be Jesus.
Let me illustrate. It is both our responsibilities to obey the way Jesus reveals Himself to us. But what if this Jesus that reveals Himself to you tells you that the virgin birth never happened? Well, you respond and say that Jesus would never tell you that. I ask you “how do you know that He wouldn’t?” Your only right answer is, because if He did He would contradict His own word. In other words any communication that you perceive to be supernatural must have a standard by which to compare it in order to determine its genuineness. The final authority cannot be your subjectivism, or in other words, your feelings and thoughts about what you believed was Christ. If it is, then the final authority is not really Christ but your own wisdom and discernment. This is exactly what these men whom I call liberals are arguing for. Remove all landmarks and boundaries. Remove all authority and let our own hearts be our own guides.
Did not the Lord predict that there was going to come a day when men would say, “Lo, here is Christ, or there?” He said men would say, “Behold, he is in the desert.” His express command was, “go not forth.” Our Lord warned others would say, “Behold, he is in the secret chambers.” The Lord Jesus Christ said, “Believe it not.” Didn’t the Bible say there would come times when people would say the Lord had spoken to them, but it would be contradictory to this Book? Friends, any other Jesus that does not fit the revelation of the Bible is not the Son of God. Without the Bible we would not have the revelation of Christ, who is the Supreme Revelator of God. God did not leave us to some subjective idea of who Jesus is. He recorded it in this Book. When you and I ignore this Book, what right have we to say to the Lord God, would you please speak to me? When we refuse to feast on this book and meditate on it day and night and get it into our minds, how can we waltz into God’s presence and demand another word? How dare we go to the Father and say, “Lord I don’t care so much for how you spoke to me through Jesus?
No doubt you have been to a Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club or some store that offered food samples. They offer those small morsels to entice you to purchase the product they are offering. Sometimes I have been so impressed with the test-taste sample that I have purchased the item. I took it home and prepared the item and sat down at my table and relished every bite. I didn’t sit down and eat just one bite, as I had done in the store, but I ate it to my fill.
Last week ago Saturday at Wal-Mart they had one of those taste-test samples in the candy section. I wanted to purchase some hard candy, in order to fill the candy jar on my desk, and while I was choosing the particular candies that I was desiring I overheard a couple who approached the sample table and talked to the lady supervising the bite-size treats. They talked with her, as they ate the samples, as if they knew her. After they left the table she turned around to me and out of the blue said, “They are in here every day and they go to every one of the free samples in the store. They seldom buy anything, they just come in and eat the free samples.” I noticed they were pushing an empty cart but thought no more about it until yesterday, Karen and I were back in the same store. I noticed the same couple was there again. They were pushing their empty cart, going around to every one of the sample tables, enjoying every morsel that was being offered. They were talking with the store employees as if they were good friends who had not seen each other in a long while. There they were regular customers, but they do not buy any of the products they sampled.
At that moment the thought hit me that we are very much like this couple that taste-test the product, but never buy it. We are content to just tease our palates with a bite here and there of God’s word, and we indulge no further. We sample the Bible as if it were some finger food rather than a full course gourmet meal. And because our souls have not gotten full, we cry to God for some special revelation, some magical voice, and some unique communiqué. God has said, “I want you to eat. Just don’t take a bite, don’t taste-test. I want you to eat it all. Get full on my Word.” How many of you needing to hear from God, have been just sampling God’s best? Quit taste testing Jesus, and start indulging yourself. Start gorging your soul with His great revelation. Fatten yourself up on His Word, so that you become what you eat. Dear friend, you will find more of Jesus as a special personal revelation to your heart than you have ever experienced before. You will not want of not hearing a voice, you will hear the inner voice of the Holy Spirit directing you according to His Word and that, my dear friend, is the Supreme Revelation making its abode in your life. Jesus is the best and He tastes so good! May God help you to see the table He has prepared for you and may you hear Him say to you, “Come and dine.” Amen. |
