1. "That's a bit like the saving gospel of God's Son should seem to those who've known both the conviction of sin and the real salvation the Son brings to sinners who repent and believe in Him, a real danger of which we've really been warned and from which we've really been delivered."

2. "The engine car of logic will not turn over because there's no doubt that Christianity exists and there's no historical doubt that Jesus of Nazareth existed. But how do you get from Jesus of Nazareth to what those first disciples said at Pentecost about him being raised from the dead?"

3. "God's truth coming through His Son and about His Son has been so clearly established that men are both justly commanded to believe it and justly blamed for not believing it."

4. "You are not clever or slippery enough to escape the right fingers of God's justice. God knows what you have done, and God cares about what you have done with a purer heart than yours or mine."

5. "The killing of the body is as nothing compared to the everlasting punishment of body and soul forever in hell. And yet this is the punishment which we have most surely all deserved and which we will all most surely face apart from the Son's gospel of salvation."

6. "We're a collection of people who are misshapen morally. We cannot think that our intuitions are equivalent with God's revelation of truth, unerring. We are people, all of us, who are made in the image of God, yes, and God don't in fact make no junk. But we junk ourselves."

7. "It is what you have already heard about Christ that is the most important thing you will ever hear. There is no sermon I will ever preach here that will be as significant as the gospel you have already believed about Jesus Christ."

8. "There's a difference between how you listen to me explaining how a parachute works in some high school science class and how you listen to me explaining it when you're about to do your first jump from an airplane. That latter way is how you need to be listening to all the sermons here."

9. "Your own sufferings now will certainly be here. And you will certainly misunderstand them if you don't stare on the glory to come."

10. "Warnings come to us as God's children, not because the future is bad and foreboding, but to help to remind us to train our eyes on the future so we can live in the present as we should."

Observation Questions

1. According to Hebrews 2:1, what does the author say "we must" do, and what danger does he warn against if we fail to do this?

2. In Hebrews 2:2, how does the author describe the message declared by angels, and what happened to every transgression or disobedience of that message?

3. What rhetorical question does the author ask in Hebrews 2:3, and what word does he use to describe the salvation being discussed?

4. According to Hebrews 2:3, who first declared the message of salvation, and by whom was it then attested?

5. In Hebrews 2:4, what four ways does the text say God bore witness to this message of salvation?

6. According to Hebrews 2:4, how were the gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed—by what standard or principle?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does the author use a "how much more" argument, comparing the message declared by angels with the salvation declared by the Lord? What does this comparison teach us about the seriousness of neglecting the gospel?

2. What does it mean to "drift away" from the gospel (v. 1), and why might this image of drifting be particularly significant for understanding how Christians can gradually move away from faith?

3. How does the author's appeal to signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit (v. 4) function as evidence for the trustworthiness of the gospel message? What role did these attestations play in the early church?

4. The sermon emphasized that "not all church members are or must be elect." How does this theological reality help explain why the author writes this warning to people who are already part of the Christian community?

5. What is the implied answer to the question "How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?" (v. 3), and what does this reveal about the exclusivity of salvation through Christ?

Application Questions

1. The sermon described how small neglects can lead to larger spiritual collapse. What specific "small neglects" in your spiritual life—such as inconsistent Bible reading, prayerlessness, or avoiding Christian fellowship—might be setting you up for dangerous drifting? What concrete step could you take this week to address one of these?

2. The preacher urged building friendships in the church so others can warn you if you start to drift. Who in your church community knows you well enough to notice if your faith is weakening? If no one comes to mind, what practical steps could you take to develop that kind of accountable relationship?

3. Consider your current attitude toward studying Scripture. Can you recall a time when you had more spiritual hunger for God's Word? What changed, and what might help you return to that kind of attentiveness to what you have heard?

4. The sermon challenged listeners to examine what might be causing them to neglect the gospel—whether doubt, weariness in repenting, pursuit of money, or competing loves. Which of these temptations resonates most with your current situation, and how might you bring this struggle before God and trusted friends this week?

5. How does fixing your eyes on the future glory promised in Christ help you endure present trials and resist the drift toward neglecting your faith? What specific practice—such as meditating on heaven, singing hope-filled hymns, or discussing eternal realities with others—could help you maintain this forward-looking perspective?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Exodus 19:16–20:21 — This passage describes the giving of the Law at Sinai, which Hebrews 2:2 refers to as "the message declared by angels," providing background for understanding the comparison between the old and new covenants.

2. Acts 2:22-41 — Peter's Pentecost sermon demonstrates how the apostles attested to Christ's message through their eyewitness testimony and appealed to the signs and wonders God performed through Jesus.

3. 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10 — This passage elaborates on the just punishment awaiting those who reject the gospel, reinforcing the warning in Hebrews 2:3 about the impossibility of escape for those who neglect salvation.

4. Hebrews 10:26-31 — This later warning passage in Hebrews intensifies the argument about the severity of rejecting Christ, showing the book's consistent emphasis on not neglecting the Son's superior message.

5. Philippians 1:3-11 — This passage, referenced in the sermon's conclusion, provides assurance that God will complete the good work He has begun in believers, offering encouragement alongside the warning to persevere.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Opening Illustration: A Near-Drowning Experience Reveals the Danger of Ignoring Warnings

II. The Son's Gospel of Salvation Should Be Trusted (Hebrews 2:3-4)

III. The Son's Gospel of Salvation Should Not Be Neglected (Hebrews 2:2-3)

IV. The Son's Gospel of Salvation Should Be Studied and Obeyed (Hebrews 2:1)

V. Closing Exhortation: Confidence in God's Faithfulness to Complete His Work

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Warning. No, I said warning.

I mean, that went in entirely the wrong direction.

But I appreciate that latent liturgical instinct in the evangelicals that, you know, if I say morning, you will Pavlovianly respond to me. Good morning. Well, there that is. Now to begin my sermon. I'll give you a second chance.

Warning, strong current. You could be swept away from shore and could be drowned. If in doubt, don't go out. And then right beneath it, Warning, Dangerous shore breaks. There were other signs too, with threatening symbols in yellow cautionary squares.

Waves break on ledge. Rip currents. Sudden drop off. Slippery rocks. Each sign ending with its motto, if in doubt, don't go out.

The most ominous of all was a large hand-carved sign on this one beach: Beach Warning: Do not go near the water. Unseen currents have killed, and there's a blank space, visitors. And in that blank space it was filled with little marks carved in for everyone who had been killed there. There were 82 marks. I and some friends had come to the beach to swim.

The day was beautiful. The only thing that looked concerning was the signs. We all considered it carefully and decided to go into the water, but simply to stay near the shore. The water of the Pacific Ocean was deep blue. The sun was shining.

The sand of the shore set against the green of the island looked like a poster for paradise. What could go wrong in paradise?

I had spent many vacations at beaches, and as a person both strong and heavy, I had never had a particular challenge with riptides. My feet could settle in nicely to the soft sand, and the water currents would play around my legs. But there was never any trouble, not any threat. This time was different. I'm not sure what it was.

Maybe I went a little further out in water that was very suddenly as deep as I am tall. The footing switched from soft sand that I could burrow in to slippery rocks, and at one point my feet suddenly just went out from underneath me, and I went straight down, almost as if my ankles were caught by a rope. Though the only thing that was pulling on them was this amazingly strong and distinct current. I briefly pulled against it but just kept falling over and went under the surface of the water.

We'll never know what would have happened next if I were alone because a friend who was maybe 10 feet away from me noticed that I had suddenly gone all the way under and plunged over to grab me and pulled me back to shore.

It all happened so quickly. I was surprised and shaken. And I remember when we did leave the beach, looking at those signs again on the way out, the words were all the same.

No one had changed them. But reading them a second time after my brush with whatever, caused those same words to seem more important, more urgent. I could personally attest to their accuracy. I could bear witness to their truth.

That's a bit like the saving gospel of God's Son should seem to those who've known both the conviction of sin and the real salvation the Son brings to sinners who repent and believe in Him, a real danger of which we've really been warned and from which we've really been delivered. When we have been listening to the truth, we should not give ourselves over to doubt or begin to lose interest in the gospel or even begin to drift away from it. That's how the writer to the Hebrews concludes the comparison that we were thinking of about last time between God's messengers, the angels, and God's Son. You'll find our passage for today, Hebrews chapter 2 verses 1 to 4 on page 1001 in the Bibles provided. Page 1001 in the Bibles provided.

And again, if you don't have a Bible that you can read of your very own, feel free and take this one here as a gift from us, our congregation to you. Take it home with you as your very own and keep reading the Bible. Hebrews chapter 2.

Verses 1 to 4. Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.

For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will. Three things to note here about the saving gospel of God's Son. We can trust it. We must not neglect it.

And we must study and obey it. We can trust it, we must not neglect it, and we must study and obey it. We'll look at each one of these in turn and as we do, I pray that God will use His Word in all of our hearts to convince us and to convict us and to encourage us and to draw us more and more to Himself. And to do His will. First, the Son's gospel of salvation should be trusted.

That's what the author is saying in verses 3 and 4. Look down there, that sentence that begins in the middle of verse 3. It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will.

Okay, that it at the beginning of that sentence, what do you think that it is?

It's the salvation that was just mentioned at the end of the sentence right before that. That it is the salvation, particularly the message of salvation. You see, it's being compared to the message delivered by angels, declared by angels up there at the beginning of verse 2. You see the sentence before it begins, For since the message delivered by angels. And now this is really a contrast here where we read it, this is the great salvation, the message of salvation, was declared at first not by angels, but who does he say this message was declared by?

The Lord. And when you see the in front of Lord in the New Testament, not always, but usually, it means Jesus Christ. And the context here makes it clear that's what's meant here. Here in this sentence the author quickly reviews the basis for the authority of this message that these believers had received, that it's rooted in the action of the triune God and of the reception by the firsthand witnesses of the ministry of the incarnate Son of God. So he says here in contrast to the message declared by the angels up in verse 2, this one it was declared at first by the Lord.

And when you think back to the ministry of Christ, you think back to his first sermon recorded in a number of gospels, he goes to a prophecy of Isaiah in which he says that the prophecy about the day of the Lord coming was fulfilled in him. He says, Today, this is fulfilled in your hearing. Jesus came and declared this message of salvation. He said another time, if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for He wrote of Me. This message brought by the greatest of the messengers, the Son Himself, the writer here says in this last phrase of verse 3, it was attested to us by those who heard.

That is, they had it guaranteed from the very ones who heard Jesus teach these things. This is just like the way Luke began his gospel, you remember, by saying that he had talked to such eyewitnesses and that he was recording faithfully what they had said. These would be the apostles and other firsthand witnesses. Remember the Lord Jesus had told his disciples that they would fulfill this exact role in Acts 1:8 where he said, you, will be my witnesses. And so the miracles, the message rather that Jesus declared about salvation and about Himself, and that the apostles echoed in their writings throughout the New Testament, this message is exactly what we mean to preach here.

So when you come to this church, you can know that what we are intending to do we may fail at doing it, but what we are intending to do always is to bring you the actual teaching of Jesus Christ, as explained by Jesus Himself and by those who first heard Him and testify of it to us. So that's what we're trying to do. Only what Christ and His Apostles taught. Our doctrine and preaching is apostolic in that sense. The only important sense of that claim.

Others claim a so-called apostolic succession of oily hands to oily head in unbroken line from the disciples till now, a claim which even on its own terms does not stand up historically. But the apostolic succession that we covet and claim is not that one at all, but it's what the apostles taught even as they taught what they themselves had been taught by Christ. So you see, that's what we intend to do here in this church. And that says this intends to be an apostolic church, apostolic, in that we teach what Christ taught the apostles to teach. And this message also we see in verse 4 has been confirmed by God Himself.

Look at verse 4, While God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles. And don't get confused by those three different words. I don't think those are three different categories. Those are words with overlapping meaning. Signs, obviously, an event which points to something else.

Wonders would be events which cause people to marvel and be amazed. Signs and wonders are often mentioned together in the Bible. And miracles are acts of such power that it implies God's involvement, often specifically to authenticate the message of the gospel that's come from God. You remember what Rabbi Nicodemus said to Jesus in John chapter 3? Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with them.

So most fundamentally, these signs and wonders and miracles confirm the Scriptures. God's works were always given to confirm God's words. God's words are always given to explain God's works. You see this in everything from the Exodus to Christ. There's the word coming before, the event happens, then there's the word that comes afterward that explains what happened.

This is God's pattern of acting with us.

Do you remember how Peter began his sermon at Pentecost? Acts chapter 2, verse 22, Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know. So this is how Peter began his sermon, saying that this was how God had attested to them the identity of Jesus Christ. And two, there is this third person of the Trinity we see in the last phrase there in verse 4, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will. So whenever the Holy Spirit chose, He gave gifts.

And what were those gifts doing? Well, by them God was showing His power, just as He had with signs and wonders and various miracles in order to establish the truth of Christ's message in this way. Brothers and sisters, from the exodus to Christ, this is what miracles are usually doing in the Bible. Jesus had said that the Father would glorify the Son. That is, establish the message about salvation through Him.

That He would do this as showing that it's true through the works that He would do in and among the apostles. And this promise Jesus made in John 1412 has then gone on to be fulfilled throughout the New Testament, as the Holy Spirit does indeed bring to remembrance those who heard Jesus' teaching in His earthly ministry and caused them to write these things down for our edification, for our blessing. So friends, the writer here is saying that God's truth coming through His Son and about His Son has been so clearly established that, as Thomas Goodwin put it, men are both justly commanded to believe it and justly blamed for not believing it. Practically this means for us that we should trust the Scriptures and the message that they bring. The message of the Son, the salvation, the signs and wonders which point to Him are all superior to those of the older message declared by angels and Moses and the prophets.

The preacher here is reminding his hearers or readers of why they should believe the gospel of God the Son, Jesus Christ.

You know, in my own experience as an agnostic teenager, it was thinking just these, it was thinking about just these kind of attestations that shifted me from being an agnostic to becoming a Christian. I became convinced that you, my friend, if you're here as an atheist or an agnostic or as a materialist of some kind, someone who does not believe in Christianity, that you simply, I at the time, cannot understand history well enough. It takes too much faith to hold your position. You have no credible explanation for how Christianity got started. You just can't do it.

The engine car of logic will not turn over because there's no doubt that Christianity exists and there's no historical doubt that Jesus of Nazareth existed. But how do you get from Jesus of Nazareth to what those first disciples said at Pentecost about him being raised from the dead? And how suddenly they say this message when they clearly were not understanding when Jesus was around? And then when they scatter all over the world, most of them giving their lives for this message. Now you can tell me that you are so sure there's no God that that must not have been true and that that never really happened.

And I will just ask your forgiveness of me and hope we can continue as friends, but I'm going to have to believe something else. I'm going to have to believe that in fact there is a God and that this one was God incarnate and that he was raised from the dead and that his claims are true. Because the testimonies seem to attest to that. I can't be so confident, I can't share your faith. That there is no God and that Christianity just sort of accidentally happened.

Friends, pray that God will help us as members of this church, as elders in this church, especially as the preachers here, help us to get this message right and trust the Son's message with our entire life. But we should go on to the second point to see that the Son's gospel of salvation should not be neglected. So this is a true message, it's a significant message, and therefore it's not surprising that the author reasons as he does in verse 2. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? What the author is doing here is comparing the Old Testament with the New.

The Law of God which came through Moses with God's grace and truth coming to us in Jesus Christ. The superior messenger, the Son, has a superior message. And then that question at the beginning of verse 3 shows us that we are in a warning passage. This kind of passage is such an important part of the book of Hebrews. Maybe it's even its point.

I want to take just a moment, a kind of teaching sidebar, to orient you to this book. There are five basic warning passages in this book. This is the first one. It tells these Jewish Christians not to neglect such a great salvation, and this will encompass the studies that we hope to do over this next month. The second one is in chapters 3 and 4, and it tells them, Don't follow the Israelites into unbelief.

And he points out that so far these Israelites from examples of faith, that in the Old Testament and the Scriptures, the Hebrew Scriptures, you actually see evidence of their unbelief. He's saying, Don't follow that example. And we hope to come to that passage in April. The third basically tells them, Don't remain spiritually immature. That's in chapters 5 and 6.

We hope to cover that in May. And then chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10 in the book form the core of its theology. Its message about Jesus as the High Priest of a better covenant who has redeemed us by His blood given once and forever. Therefore, there's no need for the continual sacrifices at the temple. And it's after this then that you have the fourth warning passage.

Don't despise this new covenant at the end of chapter 10. We hope to come to this in August. And then the final warning passage, number five, don't refuse the heavenly warning in chapter 12. And we hope to come to this passage in November. Well, so this is a book that's structured around these warnings.

And when we see warnings in God's Word, we should assume that they're there because we need them. Warnings are not just for those others, they're for us. We should listen to them. Let's look more closely at this one here in verse 2. We see, For since the message declared by angels and that's referring to the Ten Commandments we read earlier this morning together, that is the message delivered by angels, this is the Law of God given at Sinai.

Now you may say, I didn't remember there being angels at the giving of the Law. Ah, well. Acts chapter 7, read Stephen's speech where he summarizes the Old Testament. Notice almost the very last thing he says, he described the Law of God given to Moses as the Law delivered by angels.

Or Paul, when he's writing to the Galatians, in Galatians 3:19 similarly referred to the Law as having been put in place through angels by an intermediary. And when you go back to Exodus chapter 20, like the passage we read, it doesn't mention the angels, but it is interesting that Moses at the end of his life, in Deuteronomy 33, he mentions the Lord and ten thousands of holy ones. You see again the comparison the author is making here between the Son and the angels. So the message the Son brought and the message the angels brought. And he is not saying that the message that the angels accompanied the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Law is untrue.

Please do not misunderstand this. The writer to the Hebrews is not saying that the Old Testament is untrue. In fact, the whole force of his argument depends upon the Old Testament being true. Because he's saying, if we respond as we do to this message, how much more so that how much more has no force if this first message is false? No, he assumes that this is true, that the Old Testament is true, and in fact the Old Testament itself is pointing to the Son, even in those verses that we saw him quote in chapter 1 taught us.

So he says in verse 2, it proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution. There was an evident justice in God's dispensation in the Old Testament from the greatest supernatural acts of God in rewarding or punishing to the provisions of the law itself. The dishonoring and disobeying in Israel's various sins was accounted for in the various penalties which were, we read here, a just retribution. For their sins against even this inferior message brought by inferior messengers, prophets and angels, there was a penalty, a just retribution. The punishments for breaking God's law were appropriate and deserved.

So you can get one example of this in Numbers chapter 15, where you'll see that high-handed sins are met, defiant sins are met with one kind of penalty, and unintentional sins met with another. That kind of evident justice appears throughout the Law of Moses. This fits with the final retribution too that we read of in Revelation chapter 20 where those raised were judged according to what they had done. But now of the Son we read in Hebrews 9, He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance. Since a death has occurred, that redeems them from the transgression committed under the first covenant.

So if the first word declared by angels brought about certain punishment, how much more will disobeying the word of the gospel be met with an even more utterly devastating punishment? And that's why the author says here in verse 3, How shall we escape? And when he says escape, that presumes a coming just punishment by God. Do you remember what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1? Inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might. This is very much like the point that this very writer in Hebrews will make a little bit later in chapter 10.

Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and his message? That's why he asks this question. How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? To neglect such a great salvation.

Consider the magnitude of this salvation. This is the salvation we were thinking of last time up in verse 14 at the end of chapter 1 that we Christians are called to inherit this salvation. And to be clear, the implied answer to this question, How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? is that we won't. We won't.

How shall we? We will not. You are not clever or slippery enough to escape the right fingers of God's justice. God knows what you have done, and God cares about what you have done with a purer heart than yours or mine. We have no salvation apart from this salvation in Christ.

There is no other way to escape God's justice against us for our sins. So if we won't take this salvation through Christ, what hope is there for us?

Certainly not through the lesser message delivered by the lesser messengers of prophets and angels. Even their messages on this point acted like signs pointing to Christ and to His salvation as the point of it all. When I was suddenly pulled under by that current, I don't know what would have happened, but I think I may have well become number 83 on that warning sign.

Of those who had perished at that beach. But my friend saved me. Much more significant and certain is the salvation God has brought for us in Christ, more serious than the physical death brought about by accident or even by deliberate judicial sentence. God's just wrath against us for our sins is almost too solemn to consider for more than a passing moment. Friends, the killing of the body is as nothing compared to the everlasting punishment of body and soul forever in hell.

And yet this is the punishment which we have most surely all deserved and which we will all most surely face apart from the Son's gospel of salvation. His pardon alone can bring us deliverance from that death. Friends, this is the good news of Christianity, not whitewashing our sins and pretending they haven't happened or downgrading or redefining, but making clear that all of us have sinned against God, all in our own ways and all at root very unoriginally. We have all done what we've wanted rather than what God tells us to. And because of that, God is just to condemn us.

But in His amazing love, He sent His only Son to live a life of perfect truth and trust in His heavenly Father and virtue in His behavior toward others, a life of ethical purity and moral perfection. And in that life, He incurred no wrath. From his heavenly Father. And yet he died on the cross, as we've already sung more than once today, bearing God's wrath. What wrath?

For what sins? God's wrath for the sins of all of us who would believe in him. And so place ourselves, as it were, in him. We'd take him as our substitute. Friend, that's why these hundreds of Christians keep meeting on this corner.

We've been doing it for almost 150 years. Right here, every week, whenever we can, first time, first thing in the week, we all come here. And this is the basic reason why. Because this salvation is so great. It is so wonderful.

We want to get together with others who know God like this and we want to rejoice in him. We want to adore him for this salvation he has provided for us in his son. Friend, if you're not a Christian, we're so glad you're here. Thank you for coming. This is the best thing we could give you.

Hear and understand and consider this. Consider what it would mean in your life. Don't merely be moved by some oratory, but consider what I'm saying. Think about it, maybe with a friend or family member who brought you.

Turn over in your mind, what would it mean for you to trust in Christ? Neglect the salvation offered by this one and there is no other way. Jesus is the only way of salvation. We read in Acts 4:12, There is salvation in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. So, friend, if you are not trusting in Christ for your forgiveness and pardon, Consider what it would mean for you to fall under God's judgment in hell.

Hear what one preacher said reasoning with his hearers about this: Is your flesh brass? Your bones iron? What if they were? Hellfire, that fire prepared for the devil and his angels, will heat them through and through.

And friends, all the images that the Bible uses for God's punishment are not going to speak hyperbolically, exaggeratingly. All these images, I'm sure in the reality, will be found to be faint, suggestions, indicators pointing toward the far greater reality to come. Keep that in mind. If we would not die in our sins and face God's righteous punishment for them, we must not live in our sins. We must repent of our sins and put our faith and our hope fully in Jesus Christ.

As we sang earlier, no separation from the world, no work I do, no gift I give can cleanse my conscience, cleanse my hands. I cannot cause my soul to live. But Jesus died and rose again. The power of death is overthrown. My God is merciful to me, and merciful in Christ alone.

So here in verse 2, the writer is comparing the revelation of God at Mount Sinai with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he's saying that the gospel of Jesus Christ is evidently greater, and therefore a rejection of the gospel of Jesus Christ is far more severe than even a wrong rejection of God's moral law. So if the Son is superior, it means that his message must be as well. The truth of the Son's superiority that the author has argued for in chapter 1 has this importance here in the beginning of chapter 2. If it was bad to neglect their message, just imagine how much worse it is to reject the sons. Now perhaps you're not tempted to ignore Christ's message of salvation by the allurements of temple sacrifices in the way these first century believers in and around Jerusalem may have been.

But that doesn't mean that you're in no danger of neglecting this message of salvation. Some people may think that this neglect we're warned about is any time that we are negligent of the Lord or sin against him. But then if that's so, friends, I would think this message would be made not for fallen men and women as we are. On the other hand, others think that this neglect means a complete rejection of Christ to the point of not even being here at church and hearing this warning. But then, friends, this letter was written to people who would read it or who would come to church and hear it to Christians like us who were publicly professing following Christ.

Somehow it is people like us who must be in danger of such neglecting. Well, what could that mean? Well, I think it means what our life attitude is. Not simply one action of vice or one action of virtue, not a word misspoken by a priest in baptizing, but what is our entire life oriented to?

Not perfectly, but really. Not without exception, but largely and sincerely, is our life sincerely oriented to Jesus Christ. He calls for nothing less in our following of Him. Jesus calls us to obey all that He has commanded. He calls us to believe and to trust, to fear and to love Him above all others.

He calls us He wants us to worship Him and rejoice in Him continually. He wants us to follow Him to the very end.

So what about you? What's causing you to neglect? What's tempting you to neglect the gospel of Jesus Christ? Beginning to doubt the truth of the Bible? Or of who Jesus is, or of what He's done, becoming weary of repenting of this sin or that, amassing money for retirement, are your smaller neglects making way for a larger calamitous collapse just ahead?

Take heed, friend. Pray for yourself. Pray for us as a church to be clear on this great salvation message and to help you not neglect it by striving to be clear about it, by working to be fundamentally and fully boring as an assembly, except for your valuing this message. If you value this message, We trust you will find riches here. If you don't, I'm not sure why you're here, any more than once or twice as a visitor.

Third, the Son's gospel of salvation should be studied and obeyed, should be studied and obeyed. If our second point was to notice the negative call there in verse 3, not to neglect, we now turn to the positive call to pay close attention, to heed, and I put this last, because this is first in this warning, and I think this was the emphasis, so this is where I want to leave us, to pay close attention. Verse 1, Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. So this is the author's significant conclusion from that long comparison we thought of last time in chapter 1 between the angels and the sun. Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard.

Really, if you look back up in chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, where we read long ago, many times, in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He spoke to us by His Son. You see that comparison there begins even there about how God has spoken. And this comparison resolves not that what God said through the fathers and through the prophets was false. No, it's all true. What he said through the angels, with the law given by the angels, that's all true.

But if that's true, how much more what he's revealed through his Son. So the Son's message is to be treated with even greater weight than that of the prophets or that which came through the angels. He goes on to argue. So chapter 2 verse 1 is kind of the cash value conclusion of all that's been said in chapter 1. And it's so important because the conclusion will either be this positive paying attention or look what the author warns about, lest we drift away from it.

So this warning passage is about drifting away from the gospel of Jesus Christ and faith in Him. Into trusting Old Testament sacrifices apart from Christ. Perhaps you wonder how it is that believers can drift like this. You think, Whoa, why would this letter address this? I believe in perseverance of the saints.

I believe in once saved, always saved. I can just take Hebrews out of my Bible.

These warnings are warnings maybe some Arminian friend needs, maybe even a Roman Catholic friend, but not me?

Friend, consider your own experience. You know what it means to vary in your own affection, your own love, your own loyalties. It's not novel to any of us to be inconstant up and down, cold and hot. But again, theologically you may wonder, okay, but how can a true Christian's love so cool as to begin to drift?

Well, consider the church that this sermon would have been preached to initially. These people generally confessed Christ, or else they wouldn't be in church. They would never hear this. And yet surely we know that to speak theologically, not all church members are or must be elect. Let me say that again in the most concentrated form: not all church members are or must be elect.

I'm referring to members of the visible church. Members of a church like Capitol Hill Baptist Church. As much as Christians may want the members of each church to be born again, each and every member and intended, we know by sad experience that some who are once among us no longer are. And by that I don't mean that they moved to North Carolina and joined another church that teaches the same thing. No, I mean they're no longer with us because they have moved moved morally.

They have moved usually after they move morally, then they move theologically. Or a moral change is impelling a theological change because what the Bible teaches is entirely convenient for no living human being. You may really resent the Bible's teaching about one particular thing, but love it in all these other areas and think, I am the one who's particularly hard done by. Well, you don't live the life of your brother or sister who might find what you struggle with no problem at all. But there's this other sin that's condemned that just kills them.

Friends, we're a collection of people who are misshapen morally. We cannot think that our intuitions are equivalent with God's revelation of truth, unerring. We are people, all of us, who are made in the image of God, yes, and God don't in fact make no junk. But we junk ourselves. We were junked in Adam, and we continue the junking process.

All of us do it in our own unique and indistinct ways, unoriginally revolting against God. And friends, that's why when we come to this message, We can believe that as much as we may want all of the members of the church to be truly Christians, it evidently is not that way. So the zeal of the new Christian becomes tempered over time by the consuming concentration on career or prosperity or a little bit later in life, maybe the trials of parenting a wayward teen.

And you begin to feel, well, I'm either going to be loyal to this child that I've born or loyal to Christ and begin to weigh them up. And too many parents choose against Christ. Sometimes it's another love that pulls people away. The desire for the love and approval of another human has won the contest for the hearts of some of those who once said that they were supremely loyal to Jesus Christ. The hypocrite just wears the name Christian, nothing more.

Eventually his sin love overwhelms his professed love of Christ, and his hypocrisy is revealed. Friends, we find this kind of drift all over the Bible, from Hymenaeus and Alexander to Esau, from Cain to Balaam to Korah. From Simon the Magician back to greedy Achan, many people who were once numbered among the visible people of God were caught in currents of greed or power and carried away from the truth that they had heard, even which they had once professed. This whole book of Hebrews is written to Christians in this treacherous world, the world I remember which Harry Blamires once called the Devil's Hunting Ground. Drifting by its very nature can be subtle.

Some of you have read C.S. Lewis' book Screwtape Letters in which Screwtape, this imagined undersecretary of temptation in hell, writes to his nephew who is a junior tempter on earth. He writes in this one letter, he will say that these are very small sins and doubtless like all young tempters you are anxious to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the enemy. That enemy is capitalized, that means God.

It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the light and out into the nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one.

The gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels that he is finding his place in it, while really it is finding its place in him. His increasing reputation his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work build up in him a sense of being really at home in earth, which is just what we want.

Friend, do you feel that you are in danger of drifting away from what we have heard about Christ?

Is studying the Bible harder for you than it used to be?

And sinning easier? If so, don't let that turn you from God in shame. Instead, let that cause you to cry out to Him, as Peter once did. Do you remember when he was sinking in the waters but extending his hands toward Christ in the boat?

So how do you fight this? Drift by paying much closer attention to God's Word. How can you pay closer attention to God's Word, to the saving gospel of the Son, to the Word of God? Let me give you five simple practices. Here they are.

The end of the sermon, he finally gives you a list of five. First, notice here we're not called to look for something new and novel, but he says here, To what we have heard. Read and reread your Bible. It is what you have already heard about Christ that is the most important thing you will ever hear. Let me just say that again and please take this in.

It is what you have already heard about Christ that is the most important thing you will ever hear. There is no sermon I will ever preach here that will be as significant as the gospel you have already believed about Jesus Christ. There is no great second revelation to come that will bring you to transcendent levels of spirituality. Friends, the great changing message is the truth about Jesus Christ. If you have heard what's been sung and said today, let alone if you're a member of this church, you've already heard and believed the most important message you will ever hear.

So continue to give attention to that message. Read and reread that message in your Bible. I wonder if you've ever had a time in life when you were very interested in studying the Bible. And finding out what it taught. Maybe you can remember that as a time of almost ravenous spiritual hunger.

Can you think back to a time like that?

I wonder what the difference is between that time and now.

What accounts for that difference? Does that give you any hint, any clue about how you personally could pay closer attention?

That would be worth reflecting on with some others over lunch day or praying about and considering some more. Second, get rid of any idea that you are somehow supposed to be passive as a Christian. Get rid of any idea that you're somehow supposed to be passive as a Christian. That is, that the perseverance of the saints, once saved, always saved, means that somehow you are called to do nothing. That's not true.

God uses means, like this sermon, like the people you see sitting around you, like this church, like this passage in Scripture. He uses means to accomplish His purposes. Can I just say, one of the things that always frustrated me most as an historian is the way secular historians who knew lots of facts and got big degrees and had nice teaching jobs at prestigious universities clearly did not understand the Bible's teaching on this at all. They would think that Calvinists worked hard to prove that they were elect, to be worthy of God's love.

No, that's not it at all. If you think you're saved by grace, you work out of gratitude. These historians have confused the Reformation when they have noted that the Protestant countries tended to become prosperous because the people tended to become hardworking. But of course what do we expect of secular historians? They're not going to understand conversion.

They're not going to understand being filled with the Holy Spirit of God and being made a new creation. There's a reason why a whole population of people who hear and believe the gospel begin to work differently. They begin to do things in a different manner than they had before because God has made them new creations. But get rid of any idea that because God is sovereign you can be passive. Perseverance of the saints does not teach that we're to be passive.

Third thing, study Christ specifically. Just as this author of the Hebrews is leading us to do, examine Christ, consider Him, consider how Christ is your only hope and how He is enough and more than enough. Four, build friendships here. We have covenanted with each other in this church to be warned and to warn if we start to drift or if we see one of our numbers who's drifting. But, friend, you can't warn people you don't know.

And no one can help you much if you just dart in late and leave early and don't come back and pray with us tonight. You don't get to know anyone. Friends, that's like swimming at a beach with dangerous riptides advertised by the signs alone, with no lifeguards on duty, no friend there 10 feet away to grab you if you go under. If people can't see you and don't know you, they can't very well help you. Who are the people that you are trusting in?

To pull you back if you're drifting. Can you name them? Who here are you actively trying to love in that way?

Finally, consider how you can put into practice what you hear in these sermons. Put into practice what you hear. Part of the way you'll pay closer attention to something is when you know you're about to do it. Jesus in his final command in Matthew 28 says, Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. Not just teach them everything I've commanded you so they can pass an exam.

Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. You know what I mean about how we listen different ways? There's a difference between how you listen to me explaining how a parachute works in some high school science class and how you listen to me explaining it when you're about to do your first jump from an airplane. That latter way is how you need to be listening to all the sermons here.

You need to be actively involved, paying closer attention. But Mark, it's hard to listen to sermons. Listen, friends, it's hard to write sermons. Okay? So I'm gonna do my work and I'll try to do it seriously and it won't be perfect, but I'll work hard at it.

But if you expect, I think you just to sit back and enjoy it like some hour-long show, you've not understood at all what he means here by pay closer attention. You know what you are like individually. You know things about you that nobody else here, even if your parents are here, they don't know. Or your spouse that he or she doesn't know. You know some of the inner things in your hearts that you and God only know.

So when the word of God comes and it confronts you, you need to understand that and take that in. And you need to be honest about that. You need to share that with others. You need to let people know you so that you are able to be loved. How can you engage more fully with what you're hearing here?

The word of God should be studied and obeyed. So let me just summarize this message for you here at the end. The Son's message is true, point one. And should not be neglected, point two, but should be carefully studied and heeded, point three. So if you are one of those here who believes the saving message of the Son of God and you're not neglecting it, but carefully studying and trying to obey it, should you be worried as you walk out from church today?

That would be a fascinating thing for you to talk about over lunch. But I'll tell you what I think. No. Not even by a warning passage like this. No, not if you believe and are studying and obeying.

Do you remember Philippians 1:6? I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Jesus Christ. The grace that saves also uses means like this sermon to help us persevere. He will make you pure and blameless on the day of Christ. Like we were thinking about last week in Paul.

So you're running and laboring will not be in vain. Friends, God doesn't begin a work without intending to finish it. If God has begun this work in you, you can be confident that he will continue it, not because of your poor and broken obedience, but because of his sure and remember how great Christ is, as we've just seen, in chapter 1. Now friends, warnings come to us as God's children, not because the future is bad and foreboding, but to help to remind us to train our eyes on the future so we can live in the present as we should.

Remember, you will not understand the sufferings of Christ. Unless you also understand His glory that was to come. In the same way it is with you, Christian. Your own sufferings now will certainly be here. And you will certainly misunderstand them if you don't stare on the glory to come.

That's why we sing the kind of songs we do here about the afterlife that most churches haven't sung for a 100 or 150 years. Because we're trying to remind ourselves of this glorious hope that we have so that we can better face our trials and temptations today enduring doubt and fending off neglect and protecting ourselves from the currents that would bear us away. How do we do that? It's by having the bright hope of tomorrow and confidence in God's provision in Christ to bring you there. That's how we will get through the trials of temptation.

Like these early Christians were facing. I think of the missionary whose labors really caused GW University to get started. Do you know what missionary that is?

Anybody? Adoniram Judson. Luther Rice then raised money for Adoniram Judson. But it was Adoniram Judson and his work in Burma that needed to be furnished financially. And so Luther Rice who was with him came back to America to organize.

And one of the things he organized was a college here in the District of Columbia that later became George Washington University. Anyway, that's a little bypath. One time when Judson was in Burma, where he had lived for decades, and was in great difficulties, he wrote to a friend, I do not believe I'm going to die, he meant in his immediate time before he finished his dictionary he was working on. I should like to complete the dictionary in the Burmese language. And then after that all the plans that we have formed, oh, I feel as if I were only just beginning to be prepared for usefulness.

It's not because I shrink from death that I wish to live. Neither is it because the ties that bind me here, though some of them are very sweet, bear any comparison with the drawings I at times feel towards heaven. But a few years would not be missed from my eternity of bliss, and I can well afford to spare them, both for your sake and for the sake of the poor Burmans. I'm not tired of my work. Neither am I tired of the world.

Yet, when Christ calls, when He calls me home, I shall go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from his school. Friends, that's the joy that will tether you to Christ, that will prevent all the drift that God will use to prevent you from neglecting so great a salvation. Let's pray.

Oh Lord, you know the nooks and crannies of our hearts. You know the places where we are in danger of neglecting and drifting. Oh God, by youy Spirit, draw our hearts' love to Christ.

Draw all of our attention to his message. Teach us to trust yout and youn Word. Fill us with youh Spirit. Give us all that we need to continue to follow youw. Every day of life you give us, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.