Hebrews must Believe the Best Theology Pt 5

I invite you to take your Bibles this morning. It's always glorious for me to see you with your Bibles and to hear you turn in your Bibles. Because we are people of God's Word. And so wonderful that you all have hearts to study and know God's word. With that in mind, we turned to the book of Hebrews chapter one. We began our study of this book, we found beauty here, extraordinary majesty. And we find it as we read these words chapter one verse one:

1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 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; 3 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 at the right hand of the Majesty on high, (Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.)

Would you pray with me this morning? Father, God, as we look at these words that you have written, Lord, let them be living as you say they are. Jesus is the living word, but your word is powerful. It is sharp, it penetrates to the deepest portion of what we are as beings. Penetrate today, we pray and do your work with your word, as only you can. That you would move people who hear Your word, to conform to it, to believe in it, to rise up with you, glorify Your name, in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, and live in such a way that pleases you. Help us Lord this day in this endeavor. Bless Yourself, Lord through us, we ask, in Jesus name, amen.

We've been looking at theology, I've purposely been using theological terms, a couple of reasons. One, I find this book to be absolutely centered on theology. Not that no other book of the Bible is but this one is, as I have said, the advanced course in theology.  Who is God? What is he like? What is he doing? Who is Jesus are Christology, soteriology doctrine of salvation, we're even going to get next weekend to Angelology that will be part of our study of the angels that is given to us here. No other way, the rest of the Bible is given to us here. And we've been studying a God who speaks but not only a God who speaks and in his speaking reveals himself and his son, and particularly is speaking through His Son to us today.

And we are seeing that he has laid out his son in this introductory portion, giving his positions that he holds the titles that he has, if you will, what he is in his person. And then with each one of those declarations, also the occupation or those things which the Son does, or is doing or has done, that is pointed out to us that is directly connected with who he is in his person and his position.

For instance, we looked at verse two, where we saw his position being the heir of all things. And in that position, and from that position, he also is the one who created all things including the ages that are the time periods of the entirety of that self same creation.

We then transitioned into verse three, where the writer is bringing us to the being of Jesus Christ, the person, his position here is exclaimed to us, who being the brightness of his glory, that is the being of Jesus Christ. He is the bright expression of the glory of God. But He has also the express image in his physical, but also in his spiritual he is a manifestation of all that is glorious in God and it comes through us through the glorious Son.

Yet we started last week then to look into his manifest occupations that go together with those grand declarations of His person of his position as bright glory and the image of God. Last week we looked at Jesus is the upholder, as it says in His word in verse three that, and he is upholding all things by the Word of His power, upholding by the Rhema, the word of his dunamis of his power, he is controlling all things hence even the hymns we sang this morning of God, Jesus Christ, His Son, in the positions of authoritative power and glory, want to move us to the second occupation that we find in verse three.

And that is this, for this morning, Jesus is the purifier.

So not only does he uphold all things by the Word of His power, it then goes on to say in this run on sentence that starts in verse one, and goes through verse four, when he, Jesus had by himself, purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of majesty, on high.

So we'll deal with when he had purged our sins, He is then and therefore, the purifier, the purifier, purging sins. We begin with this interesting phraseology in the New King James Version, and some of you who have some of the other versions may find this portion of the phrase missing, you may find himself missing, but I will get to that in just a moment.

But let me go to this when he had by himself. There is a way in which we could be literal in the wooden sense of English, Greek to English, where we would remove the himself or by himself from our translation, and some of you who have by himself in your translation, as I do myself may have a little note in the lead up to a sub note that says that the Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Society, Greek version, omits by himself, but others might have it in italics.

It says this isn't really in the Greek. But I would appeal that those who translated the King James Version, and then they set the New King James, were right, in leaving 'by himself' in there. And why do I say that? I say for a couple of reasons. Let me bring you to this. First, let's begin with this participle.

And these participles in Greek and also in Hebrew, tend to have a little bit more attached to them than we would attach to one of our participles just because of the way they structure their language, with suffixes, particularly in the Greek, but in Hebrew, both preset prefixes, and suffixes that can add a lot of meaning. But in this case, what we have here and I know this is very edifying, so I'll put it out and some of you really want to write this down.

This participle in its form, is an Aorist middle, participle, tense. Aorist voice, middle, it is a participle. But it is different than what we had before. We had a present active participle when we had the word upholding. Upholding means that he is constantly and continually and always doing his work through the power of His Word in upholding all things that happen and that are going on in creation.

So it is significant for us when we have a change of tense here in this portion of the text, that is an Aorist. And an Aorist is tends to be if we're going to define it rather narrowly. When we look at time, present is time, right? Past is time. But Aorist is unique in Greek and it doesn't really have a parallel really well stated in the English. And in some cases, we say in linguistics that it is a punctiliar type of verb, meaning that it tends to focus in on a very narrow frame of time. And here it is narrowing in on a very specific point of time, that when Jesus had, he purged as a one time act.

There's a historical past event that has ongoing consequences, but it took place once in time and space history. It indicates to us that unlike upholding that he continues to do today with all of creation, His act of purging sin was a singular act in time and only necessary at that time, and it is now to be considered a finished work. A completed job, if you will, his occupation has been completed.

Now, as I said before, many English translations omit the by himself portion of this phrase. They call it extra biblical in some cases, and what they mean when they say things like that is that there is no direct word for word "by himself" appearing in in some sort of pronominal way, in the text with another word, however, I appeal to the middle voice of this participle. And the middle voice and the Greek text, I think, necessitates the use of the "by himself", at least allows for it.

And it implies that this act that he did this purging of sin was in some way, reflected upon Jesus Christ Himself, we would call that a reflexive verb if we were in the Hebrew, and by the way, we're writing to Hebrews. That's what the author's intent is.

And they do understand some of their language. And they would understand that in Hebrew, there is a type of verb that is always to be translated as reflexive, what is reflexive here we are in grammar, again, bring out the yawn, yawn pills and pillows, right.

But let's not go to that, let's learn from it in this way. It has significance because if we were to say in English, a very simple sentence, Jack threw the ball. So we have Jack, the subject we have is action, throwing of the object of his action the ball.

Now if it's reflexive, or if it's reflected back on him, we would then put it in English. In this way, Jack threw the ball to himself.

And every little boy who's practiced his baseball and didn't have anybody to throw the ball back to him, has been on the front porch steps driving his mother crazy, throwing the ball into the steps. And if you hit it just right, then the ball bounces back to you, and you can catch it. It's reflexive. You're throwing the ball by yourself, to yourself.

And the significance of the Middle Voice of the Greek that we have here indicates that Jesus did not do this with any help. That Jesus was a purger of sins by himself, without needing anything from the sinner.

It then becomes very significant, Theologically speaking. He is the purifier of these things, by and of himself. It is for his namesake. It is for His glory, it is the purpose of Jesus to come and to die for sin, to remove the impurities. This then brings us in the Hebrew way of thinking back to a priestly function.

So as we read this, and the Greek as we read this in our day, we cannot forget that as soon as he talks about purging sin, a Hebrew would have in their mind, an Old Testament ideal of how that took place, under the Law of Moses. And it would be specific to a number of times, if we go on a daily basis, there was a daily offering made for sin every single day. There was a necessity for any person who had fallen into sin or gotten into sin, to bring certain types of sin offerings before the Lord before their cleansing. And they were obligated to do that.

But it also brings to mind the role of the great high priest, and the great high priest Leviticus tells us, had a number of tasks particular to Leviticus 16. I may not read it all this morning, but I'm going to reference some of it.

The high priest once a year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, he would bring a sacrifice for the sin of all the people. And every Hebrew thinks about sins being purged, particularly when it has now been defined as a singular one time event would notice the drastic contrast between the constant sacrifice for sins in the temple, and a singular event done by Jesus Christ, the image of the brightness of God. That he somehow is doing this differently.

In their knowledge and history, the high priest had to first make sacrifice for himself, and then for everyone else. And if we read in our Bibles, Leviticus chapter 16, we understand this from verse 33. where Moses writes the Word of God, "then He shall" this is the high priest "make atonement before the holy sanctuary", even the sanctuary needed to be covered. "And he shall make atonement for the tabernacle of meeting, and for the altar, and he shall make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly. This shall be an everlasting statute for you to make atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year, as he did, that he did as the Lord commanded Moses".

So that is what the high priests was supposed to do. So this should bring the Hebrew mind back to that constancy of life, that now this purging singularily is taking place. Let's look at the word for purged here.

Catharismon undefined. Also Catharismos if you want the more noun nominal form. So, Catharismon, and then there's an article tone Hammar do remember when we study sin, and that's what we're going to do right now. Now we're in the theological area of Harmartiology. What was our word here? Catharismon ton Hammartion, hamartia, the root. So see, these theological terms are indeed biblical in many points. We just don't speak Greek. But it's good for us to realize that when we're studying sin in the Bible and categorizing it, we use the term the study of sin, we would call it, so we call it harmartiology, Ta-dah! That's not for free, I'm charging for that one. I paid good money to get it. And there it is for you as well.

So putting those things all together, they don't just come from a void, they aren't just from men. But this also is, there's another word I would get to hamartia. But we also have Catharismon. This might, this might ring a bell to you, if you are in the medical world, or have been in the medical world or associated with this. We have it translated as purging. And that's a very, very good term.

Catharsis is what we would have in the root term of the Greek. It means to purge Hippocrates, when he was writing his medical advice in his medical manuals, regrettably, was a little caught up with this term. And he believed that the body when it was ill, and the blood, particularly in other parts, it would be infected with unclean things. And so there would need to be a purging, a catharsis, to get those impurities out, hence, the practice of bleeding to get the bad humors out of the body, Greek term catharsis that is used here for us to understand the purpose of anything associated with the medical world in removing impurities.

Some of us are related to and don't even want to mention it. But here I go in church anyway with a catheter that draws its meaning from the Greek, which means to purge to remove those things which are impure, in some cases in the bladder, out of the body to leave them in the body, it becomes a poison that will kill you.

So what the kidneys have filtered out, sometimes need aid and a catheter is used to remove that from the body. We also know that if your filtering system in your body, your kidneys are no longer doing the function of cleaning up your blood. It is necessary for you to have a catharsis necessary for you to go and find that wonderful and magical, almost machine called a dialysis machine.

Where in your blood is run through it and it is filtered, and the bad stuff is taken out, the impurities are removed. And now your blood is clean, and is helpful to you, rather than having impurities in it, which will kill you. Well, thank you, Pastor for that medical note, wish you hadn't said it, but you did. And you can't take it back. So there you are.

But I say it in the graphic terms of impurity because guess what, the most impure infection is sin. As dangerous as it is to have our own bodies impurities not taken away from us by catharsis.

It's even more dangerous to have the impurity of sin left in us, for just like the death that will come physically, if your body cannot cleanse itself. Death is sure to come spiritually. If sin, hamartia is not catheterized, is not purged from the body, we need a spiritual doctor because when sin entered the world, then death through sin entered with us.

We need an instrument to catheterize to purify to remove the impurities of sin. And that is the significance and the short phrase packed together with a person of Jesus Christ in his blazing glory isn't great to study the glory and the express image of God. But we got to get down to why he then took on human form. And he took on human form to act like a real catheter removing sin from people's bodies, lest they die.

The Hebrew who was under the law was forever and even daily and even hourly, constantly confronted by the problem of sin. Of becoming unclean. In our Bibles, the term unclean, it comes up 175 times. So the Bible repeats 175 times uncleanness, pollution in association with people in 136 verses in the Old Testament. If you were to come and contact with something that would cause in you leprosy in these ancient times, and then were diagnosed and confirmed by the priests that you had this horrible, terrible disease, this wasting away of your body, you would then be required to do a number of things.

Number one, remove yourself from the city that you live in. You'd be ostracized because you're unclean. You're contagious. You have a contagion that can touch others. And when you move about, if you see anyone else as you walk around, they were required to call out in a loud voice of a condition in which they found themselves and they would chant Unclean, unclean! So that everyone around them would be warned that they were a carrier of leprosy, and that real danger could spread to the people who were near them. And they were then treated as lepers, which is now a term for being on the outside being rejected. That is a symbol of sin. Every one of us understands this and the way in which we have this so succinctly presented to us demands that we say why?

For just like the Hebrews, all of us have a conscience. Romans chapter two reminds us that we have a conscience within us, given us by God so you will never come up to a person who doesn't understand that they do evil and that they are a sinner and that they are infected with sin and then it goes to the core of their being every man or woman who is born with a conscience and that is every man and woman, knows what it feels like when their conscience speaks to them about their sin. Where it says you shouldn't have done that. That was wrong. You're unclean. I feeldirty. I feel soiled.

Every one of you right now knows what I'm talking about. Guilt, shame, overwhelming sense of unworthiness. It is almost as if in the side of you which you would never put to your lips so anyone could ever hear you. You want to cry out in some of those times of your life unclean. I'm tainted.

Paul even said at one point in crying about the sin that even found in himself, "who will save me from this body of death!" I walk around as a sinner sinning. It creates in us a desire to to atone to have it covered, to cover it up.

And that's why most sin is covered up. Johnny, did you do that? Did you break the lamp? No, it was like that when I got here, Liar, liar, pants on fire! His heart is burdened. It's overwhelmed with his sin. He's trying to cover it up because inside his conscience is saying to him, Thou has sinned against God Almighty, and you stand guilty before him and judgment awaits you. And you feel it, and you know it, and there's nothing you can do about it. So we better hide, better run.

And in that necessary place, when you have no one to turn to with your sin, there's a desire that you do something yourself. You don't even have to be associated with Leviticus. You don't even need to know about high priests and atonement. To not try and do so yourself. To even say in your heart. Never again. I'm not going to do that. Not ever not ever, ever, ever. I'm done with that sin or trying to do penance. I know I owe. So I'm really going to be tough on myself this week.

I'm gonna read the Bible more. I'm gonna pray more. I'm gonna do something. And if you don't even know about the Bible and pray God, I've got to do something at the soup kitchen. I got to go do something and serve the community. I've got to pay back pay back pay back. Why is there so much of that going on? It's a mainstay of many people who are unregenerate life is because of guilt.

A sense of uncleanness unworthiness, a putrid stench in their own nostrils in their own mind. So they set off on this good deeds venture to try and through kindness or doing things better, to atone for what they know is the terrible, awful stench of their own uncleanness of their own defilement.

Sometimes even bargaining goes on with God. "God, if you'll do this for me, then I'll do this for you". Some of you may even have said and so maybe you're even saying so now when you hear that there's one who purges sin. You might be saying well, my sins are too many. I've just done too many of them they're too they're too big. They're too great. They're they're too much. But I remind you, our text said, when he had by himself purged sins, some of you might even be saying, well, I have no way to pay back I've tried I wanted to do and I couldn't do. I remind you... he, by himself, purged sins.

You might be saying even as a Christian I've fallen back too often. I've called out for forgiveness. I've done this so many times to be purged. How can he Purge me?

When he had, by himself, purged sins? How was sin purged?

How was sin in that place and time at that event? How was it cleaned?

Once! Once in space and time!

By himself, notice how this is placed further on we are going to get into the study of hamartiology how sin was covered by Jesus in specificity. But right here right now, in this text, just the fact is presented, how was sin purged? When he had by himself purged sins. That's how sin was purged. You are not in there?

Nobody's name is there, on purpose.

There's a high point, but the Son catheterized sin, the Son removed sin and all its uncleanness the putrid has been purged. It is gone. It is dealt with.

Are you listening? What brings about cleansing of sin? Rather, who brings about cleansing of sin? Jesus reflexively by himself, purged sins. Why? May I suggest just now, for his namesake.

Let me just give you a quick look at verse four. Jesus having become so much better than the angels, let's say better the Son having become so much better than the angels listen as he has, by inheritance, obtained a more excellent name than they. In all that we have read so far, all that we have studied so far, we need to attach all of that to the name of Jesus. For his name is an evidence of his being. His name is the unfolding of his position and purpose. His name is also the expression of his occupations, what he does. Jesus is the purger of sin.

It was even understood in the end by the Old Testament saying that it was not because someone could pay their way, was not because someone could plead their way in, it was not because someone did their own way to purge their own sin. But it was rather the purposeful nature of God in and of himself because of who he was, and is that he does something about sin.

Psalm 79, verse nine, I read, "help us, oh, God", isn't that where a conscience starts to cry out in the new birth, who God has changed your heart, you see yourself a sinner, you know, you're under the condemnation of God, you're helpless, you're hopeless, you're lost. And even some of you as Christians keep going back there thinking that you still remain in that same condition, and you're living in a paralysis of life. Because you failed to be theologically accurate in your thinking about salvation, because you always have you in the middle of it, and not Jesus. And not his name.

The Psalm was again and I cry out, help us, oh God of our salvation, who is God, the God of our salvation, for the glory of your name, why should God do it? Because he is the God of salvation. Why does God do it for the glory of their name and the Psalm goes on? In verse nine, and deliver us and purge away our sins, why, for thy Name's sake, why do you burden yourself so? With these internal discussions, when what you need to be doing is proclaiming the glory of God the purger of sin and in that walking away from sin.

What can wash me white as snow? Nothing but the blood of Jesus, when he had by himself purged sins, finished.

Jesus is the upholder. Jesus is the purifier. Jesus is the Culminater. Jesus is the culminater. I'm not even sure if this is a word. I tried to find it in dictionaries couldn't find it in this form, we could find culminate. And I couldn't find it this way. But I made it this word because I think it's the one that fits could be in my dictionary. See first I had finisher, I had finisher it's finished.

But the more I studied, the more I realized that's not the purpose of this phrase in its context, nor is it the context of the book. First I had finisher in this position, I even had it in my outline. But it's too narrow. Let's read this final phrase for today.

When he had as a precursor, by himself, purged our sins sat down at the right hand of majesty on high. And the more you study that the more you will find that's not a finished thing. That's a culminating thing.

What is culminate this you can find in your dictionary. The definition means to reach a climax or a point of highest development. The climax the pinnacle the peak, the point of highest development. The origin of the word culminate is from the mid 17th century was used in astronomy and astrology. From the late Latin culminat, which means very simply exalted. When you look at the skies, what can you do, but exalt there, grandure.It is from the verb in Latin, Culmin which means the summit, the highest point

Jesus sat down at the right hand of majesty on high. See what I mean? Up exalted, the highest point he sat down, it is significant that God would say this. We are going to find this repeated again. And again. In the Old Testament references in Hebrews, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool, even in this chapter, sat down on the right hand of the Father on high.

Took his seat.

Now when we think about God, and we think about Jesus sitting down at the right hand of the Father, we may not think in terms of location. Why don't we think of location because I dare you to find the right hand of God, seeing that God is Spirit. So this has other meaning than the location. Rather, it has a qualitative meaning of position. To sit at the right hand of the king is to be in a favorite place to be in a place of honor. But first I want to deal with the sitting down after he it is expressly purged sin. We then have him sitting down, sat down. And I love the way just so succinctly skips from one to the next; by himself purged sins...sat down!

What comes to our mind is rest. And it comes to our mind if you've been reading Hebrews. And if you've been reading Hebrews, you're going to get to chapter three. And then you're going to get to chapter four. And you're going to start reminding yourself of Old Testament truths about God's creative work.

When God ceased from his work, in a sense, sat down. That's where I was kind of stuck with this finisher idea. But there's even more in this book that's going to drive us to the idea of resting from the work. And not only that, entering a rest, verse 11, of chapter three, so I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest, verse 18, to chapter three, and to whom did he swear that they would enter, and that would not enter his rest. But those who did not obey, the idea of sitting down the Sabbath rest. God sat, and he then made the seventh day holy, because he had rested from His creative work.

In chapter four, verse three: for, we who have believed do enter that rest, as he has said, so I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Verse 4 and he has spoken in a certain place on the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his work. And verse five, and again in this place, and they shall not enter my rest, rest, rest, rest sat down, there must be some connection here. And I believe there is.

The sitting down from his work of purging sins. In the honor position, there is a great contrast being made here between the idea that would be lingering in the minds of the Hebrews, of that high priest going in and year by year and of constancy, always making sacrifice for sins, because you know what one article never appears in any of the temple furnishings, you know what that would be?

Any place to sit.

There's no chairs in the temple! The priests minister, constantly, day by day, when they show up in the temple, they go to work, and they continue to work, and they never sit down. It's never over. It's never finished, though work that they must do and bringing people to God. And making atonement for sin is constant, and the flowing of blood and an the necessary for it is to be imprinted upon the mind of the Hebrew and it is even ours if we will allow it.

For we know, that we know that we know that there is a requirement for sin, and it is my life, unless another life is in my place. Hebrews will say later in Hebrews 10, verse 12, "but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever, sat down at the right hand of God.

From that time waiting till his enemies are made his footstool" even that, I can't end with finisher, it's not all finished. It's partial finish, but it's not all finished, because he's not just sitting there doing nothing. He continues to uphold all things. But even more than that, even beyond all that, he is waiting for the culmination for what's going to take place.

He sits Sabbath idea, resting from his work idea. But yet, there's another portion that we must bring to our minds that the right hand of majesty on high, the place of highest honor.

Only they can sit by the king. Only they are given that honored position. And whenever we say the honoring of Christ, He who came as man and he who sits at the right hand of majesty on high, we have to say how did he get there? How did he get there? One of the most neglected areas of our study of Christology is the area of the ascension.

The ascension of Jesus Christ what took place then what was that all about? Why was it necessary? Why did they see it? disciples who looked up in the air had to have an angel appear to them saying Why do you look in the skies? And I'm sure they answered with something very intelligent like ...uuugghh?

He said, in the same manner which he goes up, he's gonna come down again. He ascended on high to sit at the right hand of the Majesty on high he ascended from the earth, from his work on the earth, from his position of loneliness, walking in humanity, dying on the cross in desparation. And paying the price for sins, God brings him to the honored position of his right hand the ascension of Christ, back to his former glory, is the Christological implication of this declaration! Yes, I wrote that myself, I love it.

More than that, this sitting at the right hand of God entails God, the Father's full acceptance of the work of the Son while He was on earth. Again, there's another aspect of this sitting at the right hand, of majesty on high, and that's the worthiness of the Son, to receive such an honor. And then also the stability of the promise to men, that God through his Son has dealt with sin. For all who will believe on the Son, it's sure.

He sits at the right hand of majesty on high. The purging of sins was a one time event. The upholding of creation goes on forever. So he's not idle, he continues to uphold. But even more so we have the role of him sitting in the position of power. And by the way, if you take a look at Isaiah. Take a look at chapter six, Isaiah sees God, high and lifted up. Read further and see if there isn't a human image there. And there is, for that is a Christophany.

The God that he sees is God the Son, pre-incarnation, the God that we see here is God the Son, restored to glory, post-crucifixion. And it signals to us the infinite, omnipotent glory of God and proclaims the ongoing exercise of the Majesty of God, by His Son Jesus Christ.

This is not a place rather it is a state of being. This is who Jesus is and what He is doing his authoritative position, a full function reign of Christ in power over all upholding all the commentator Lenski said this; "angels and men stand or bow before the throne. The Son sits not in idleness, but in active power, and rule."

Jesus is the pinnacle of all things. It's all culminated in the point of his highest development, the Exalted Summit, majesty on high. Did you notice it didn't say he's sitting right next to God, but to majesty.

In Mark 1619, we read so then after the Lord had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.

Chronicles records the majesty, an understanding of God and theology when it says yours, oh Lord is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty. For all that is in heaven and in earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom Oh Lord, and you are exalted over all.

Unless we think that is only an Old Testament idea and not a New Testament idea. Peter, in his second epistle, writes in verse 16, chapter one, "for, we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we're eyewitnesses of His Majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to him from the excellent glory."This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.", acceptance of the work of Christ. And we heard this voice which came from heaven, when we were with him, on that holy mountain.

Now I'd like every one of you to turn in your Bibles to an obscure small book that is loaded with truth. I asked you to turn in your Bibles to Jude, find the epistles of John near the end of your Bibles. Go a little bit farther, right before Revelation. And you'll have the book of Jude.

In the book of Jude, I turn your attention to the 24th verse. This is the ending this is the doxology of this short but profound book, and I want you to follow along as I read it to you. I want you to rejoice.

"When he had by himself, purged sins, sat down at the right hand of majesty, on high" and now Jude 24. "Now to Him, who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen."

That was a prayer.

That was a praise.

That's all I want in your head. So I shall say no more

Transcribed by https://otter.ai