My text comes from the book of Hebrews chapter 2. And I'm going to read just the first four verses. Hebrews chapter 2. Hear the word of the Lord. He's starting the sentence with a therefore, which always points back to what has been heard or written. So I'll get to that in a minute. I'm just going to read the therefore and go on right now. 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. 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. The Word of the Lord. Just as a beginning place, let me say that the central word in this passage, there's only one time in it, but the central word is the word salvation, so terios. That Greek word shows up seven times in Hebrews. This book is the place where salvation shows up more than any other book in the New Testament, Old Testament, Salvation is seven times in the book of Hebrews. Important throughout the whole of Scripture, but it gets special emphasis in this book. Salvation marks God's action in Jesus Christ, whereby we're accepted just the way we are. Is it okay to say it that way? How do you get better without Jesus? How do you prepare to receive Jesus when you haven't Him in your heart any more than repenting and trusting in Him? So I think it's true to say that when God comes to us, He comes to us just as we are, which doesn't mean He likes us that way, but He does love us. But it is the beginning of a real shake-up in your life, all in the long haul positive, blessed. Because here's what happens. We are accepted just as we are, And we are in the process of being made whole. That is, repaired of all of the savages and ravages of sin that have worked on our life. Because all of us come as sinners to Him. He's going to continue to work in us as we grow and mature in Christ, and He's going to heal up all those things that need to be healed up. You know what's going to happen at the end of this journey, your journey and mine? The splendor of a human completely well and whole in Christ Jesus, the only one who can make us well and whole. But in the final analysis, we're headed toward that original splendor that God had working for Him when He made Adam. Since the fall of Adam, there have been a lot of us born in sin, because sin contaminates the whole of the human race. And every time a child is born from Adam, that child is born in need of a Savior because his blood, his life is contaminated by Adam's choices. His blood came through that lineage. And there's the pollution. There's the pollution. When the Lord found you, encountered you in your journey, made you aware that you were a sinner in need of a Savior and you believed and trusted in Him, What a cleansing job again. God is capable of doing it in full. He doesn't always do it right when I want it done. And I have to grow up in all of this as you do. And we've been growing up a long time, but we're getting closer all the time. to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ or the days when the church will no longer be able to make it here and God will claim His people for Himself. Changes happening all the time, quick ones in this land. That's just a little introductory help. We're going to go to the text. Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard. lest we drift away from it. Therefore, we look back to what we learned in the first chapter, and it's a big bit of revelation, truth. What we hear, first of all, at the very beginning of Hebrews, which we've talked about already, that long ago, at so many times and in so many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. The last days have come, and God has spoken to us through His Son. Spoke first by the prophets, word after word after word, and that was kind of carried, distributed by angels. The Hebrews understood. that the angels were servants and somehow they were there in that old covenant law to bring to pass what God wanted, what God said. It wasn't their word, it wasn't the prophet's word, it was the word of God coming through the prophets carried by the angels. God's word will always be done. So the law is going to work to accomplish what he wanted it to do and the reason it has to be there, Bob read it a while ago from Galatians chapter 3, is because of those sins that every one of us have. And if you have a law that says, live like this, give the Ten Commandments, don't break any of those, there's a lot of other laws that were connected to that early on. There is this holy God who demands a holy people, all of that. And He's busy at it. He's busy at it. And here we are, recognizing that with this Word, God has spoken by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things. The word was to the prophets, carried by angels, spread around, and the law was holy, righteous, good. It's all there. Paul understood it after his time of revelation given to him. What is the law for? Well, if I can live up to the law and go to heaven. Yeah, but that's the issue. You cannot do it. People have tried this for a long time. You know, if we could just have a kind of a community somewhere, we could hide out, have everybody selected, friends. Listen, have you ever heard of people who tried this? A lot of folks have tried it. A lot of folks have. I pastored a man in West Texas who got involved with a group like that, moved to Arkansas to be a part of that, led by this prophet group. Of course, finally they had land, but you know who was going to own it? Right, Prophet Joe, the main man. And there were so many other things going on until there was a warfare almost in that place. It split all to pieces. It will every single time. Every time. Because we human beings can be as perfect as we think we can be. And spend a few weeks with someone else who is perfect as you think they could possibly be, and you're going to find perfection marred. So the law was not given so we could live by law or live by grace. The law was given in order that we might understand we're sinners and that there was not one single place to go except the one Savior that came from God. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. So if you try to go another way, no matter what, you're going to find yourself incapable of going there. You're going to find yourself realizing you're a sinner without any help. When I first was born, I was just a kid, 12 years old or so. When I was born again, I didn't know what was happening to me, but it changed me on the inside. That I could tell. I've told you that a lot of times. I am not making this up. I was changed inside. Different. Had a new desire. Wanted to please him, wanted to read the Bible, wanted to hear the preaching. Wanted to hear the preaching! What a boy! Twelve years old, hear the preaching? Hey, we got some kids here listening to the preaching at times. But I, you know, I went to church. I didn't have a choice. But I didn't want to sit through long sermons talking about 666 and going to be a mark of the beast on you and if you don't have it, you're really in trouble and all that. I heard a lot of that preaching then when I was growing up at 10, 12, 9 years old. You've got to slow down and explain a little bit to a kid like that or you're going to have him standing on the precipice wondering if he's about to die. I did worry about dying and not having the mark and all that was important. Anybody else do that when you were a kid? If you heard some of that preaching, you probably did it. I did some of that preaching. I was never too much into figuring out all the end-time scenarios. Maybe it was just beyond me, I don't know. But I knew Jesus was coming back again, and I'm telling you, most of us kids didn't want Him to come back yet, because we hadn't had a chance to do a lot of things we thought we wanted to do. And He hasn't come back yet, has He? Can I say that He might come today? Then I tell you that this could be the day that He breaks through the eastern sky. And let me tell you also, you won't care. You'll be so thrilled you won't want to go back and do anything else. It's done if you're His, if you're His. So what we learn about this Jesus to whom God is speaking now, His Son, He's appointed the heir of all things to whom also He created the world. He's the Creator. He's the radiance of the glory of God. He's the exact imprint of God's image by nature. He upholds the universe by the word of His power. He made purification for sins and sat down at the right hand of the Father on high. Now that's a pretty nice word. That's a man God become man who can bring you a revelation of things, who can open an understanding that you never will get in your own pursuit or study or work. He speaks and we have accountability to Him. And the proof is that in the old covenant, the angels were able to carry out that covenant so that every transgression and every disobedience got a proper retribution. You know what some of it was? The law, if you go read the law and see what it says and the whole of that law given to Moses, by Moses to the people, through Moses to the people, God's law, you're going to find death everywhere. If you touch the holy mountain where God is revealing His person, animal or man, you die. You can die by treating your parents wrong. It's in there. Death was everywhere. Why? Because when you're going to make a holy people And the law is broken by them, and they're no longer acceptable to God. There has to be some substitute, some way. So what they did... Now, there were many laws that had to do with dying, and you died. There were no reprieves for that. There was no daysman to go to, no intermediary, no sacrificial lamb. But what the law was, in the whole of its application to Israel, is the way to practice worship that will keep you alive till next year when you need another sacrifice for your sin. The high priest and the other priests, they were just men. And this book is gonna talk to us about a greater high priest and we know who it is. And you talk about worship and access and acceptance and all those things. That is built into this high priest leadership being. It's amazing. Therefore, looking back, Christ is all these things that we've seen in chapter 1. And He's greater than the prophets, more glorious than the angels, above them all. And there is a pause. because we're going to talk about other things that make it necessary for us to have this high priest going. But there's a pause in order for people to be reminded. You've got to pay close attention to what you've heard. A closer attention to what you've heard. What have they heard? i've heard the gospel this is this is a church my opinion is it's highly hebrew the name of this is he brews and i think there are a lot of jewish people and this congregation but there are believers and the lord jesus christ or at least interest some degree we're talking to a people who have some knowledge of the gospel now what of course the jews have they have their whole history who they are family journey all of that how they've lived before god until this time we're talking about new testament church now we're talking about a church at least in the sixties ad the first century they're a part of that are even maybe later commentators theologians i might be up to a hundred I like 67 just a good word and a good number But if it's if it's in 19 or not 19 if it's in 67 Then we're we're into this thing Jesus was born at the time of that four three four years before BC hit and then right on up the line you got him for 30 years total and And then you've got the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and you've got the beginning of the church, you've got all this beginning. And so if you go to 67, we're talking about 30-some, 38, 40 years. And the church is in existence 40 years after Christ has finished the redemption. And the church has been built and spreading. They have heard the gospel. They have heard the truth conveyed about who Jesus is, heir of all things, creator of all things, right on down the line. Now, we have to pay attention to what we believe in order to stand when the things we disagree with come along. Because if we're not careful, if we're not paying attention to how we think and what we believe about this, we can easily be duped. into believing something that is wrong. Something we didn't learn when we got to know Jesus. Something that has not been clarified to us. Now, you just hear the Word once, don't you, preacher? You just hear the Word of salvation once, you get saved and that's it. You don't hear it anymore. Come on! I know where you are with me. We're hearing the Word of God every day. We have the Bible in print. We have all kinds of, I got lots of Bibles. I started to bring my 15 pound Bible. It's a big black Bible about that long, about that thick, and it's a study Bible. It's full of goodies. And I check against that to see if it's what I believe. And the good thing about that Bible is it is what I believe. And it is a wonderful place to read because they're big print. Big. which is a gift of God to some of us, you know? The glasses come first and then we get big print. But it's nice. Sometimes you have to have both. Sometimes. But we have to make sure that what we heard is true, then we have to stand with that. Because there are a lot of changes going on in the church, generally, a lot of changes. too many. But we are to pay close attention to what we have heard. Now, what I like about this brief text is that what we begin as hearers of the Word is just that, we are hearers. It doesn't give us any kind of other stipulation except we've heard the gospel. We've been taught. We've got things that we know. Therefore, in the light of the fact that we have an enemy who works with temptation very well, how many people do you know who seem to go away from what they were claiming to believe because they were tempted into something else? Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that they've gone away and are lost, because that's God's business. But I'm telling you, if you leave the truth of the gospel, there's some danger. That's why we go over it. That's why we keep teaching it. It's important that we do that. The Christian's obligation is to hear because the doctrine or the teaching is essential and practical by which I mean it is that which changes us that we might live to the glory of God. It is essential that we hear. We are obligated to hear because what we hear is of eternal significance. We're talking about the Gospel, the Word of God, all that, eternal significance. I think these people had been taught the basics of what they needed, what they were, but they had to make sure they stayed with it. They had to make sure. What do you believe today? Oh, well, what I believed yesterday has variations as we learn in Scripture, but there are basic things that go with salvation and beginning that you cannot change. And so that we're able to know that and then to watch for that along the way. Because if we're not careful, and we don't tie our lives to that revelation that we've been given about Jesus, salvation and we get caught up looking around at other things and we get focused on other things all of a sudden we find ourselves drifting away drifting I want to point out that this scripture doesn't say that the truth you know drifted That truth is established, set. That is the anchor holder. You come into a safe harbor and you put your boat in a certain place and you tie it down to that which will hold you in place. It is the truth that stays. And we must look at it and consider it and keep looking at it until we are realized that, oh, what's this? I've got to be careful. Always somebody putting something else in here, trying to add to it. It is not the gospel that slips away. It's people who heard it might, by inattention, just lose it. Lack of paying attention to the truth. The sure anchorage of the revelation in the Son cannot be allowed behind while we go on. That's the beginning. Who He is, what He's done. Great soteriology, study of salvation, very important. We become adrift by neglect. We move along and earthly things take us away from the gospel. These Hebrew believers to whom this great exhortation is directed had heard. They were anchored. They were hearers, thus believers by faith. Are you anchored in Jesus? Does the anchor hold? Check the moorings. Check the connections from your own life to what you do and are. I've anchored in Jesus, the songwriter said. The storms of life I brave. I've anchored in Jesus. What's the line? I fear no wind or wave." What about us? How much fear dominates? How much of this life is more difficult than we want it to be? How many times have we recently stopped with our Bible open, set a little table and knelt beside the bed, whatever you did, laid a Bible open and started reading? Am I connected to this truth, or is this what I believe? Or have I drifted? Have I drifted? It's still a good question, isn't it? That's the danger given us here, is the danger of drifting away. Undoubtedly a problem early on. And many, I'm sure, who had no relationship to Jesus, who were a part of the Jesus group for a while, here and there, the church. They left the moorings. They were sluggish, neglectful, and they got away, they did, from it, from the truth. Maybe drifting might be the quietest, easiest, most delightful way to die spiritually. I don't know. You just drift away from what's demanded of you. And you just keep on going. Take a look up one day and there's nothing on either side of you, on four sides of you, except water. No safe harbor. Difficult. Verse 2, we hear about the word, the message declared by angels. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, That is, transgressions were dealt with accordingly, obediences were dealt with accordingly, and retribution, sometimes death, sometimes other penalties. The law was being followed and worked. It's the law of Moses that was revealed. The law that Moses received from God. Stephen talked about it in the 7th chapter of Acts, verse 38, referring to the one that was with him in the wilderness and was spoken to about what was there, what needed to be done, one who received the law. God's Word is often sent somehow by angels to folk. Remember Lot? That whole story beginning in verse 1, who came to see him? This angel trio came to see him, and they told him what was going to happen and told him how he had to get out of there. His soul was marred by the culture he lived in. Daniel heard from angels, got messages from God as well. And the word that came through angels, the old covenant law, was reliable. It did what it was supposed to do. And God's Word was being accomplished in these lives. Overstepping commandments cost. So here's the question in verse 3. How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? The easy answer, not an easy thing to embrace sometimes, but an easy answer to give, you don't escape. If we are not in Christ Jesus, there is no escape. He is the door, the way, the life, all of that. And if we're true believers and born again, we've already escaped as we tend to the truth of the Word of God that we know. Let me read a verse to you from John, John chapter 5. Hang on, I'm sure we'll get lightened up here in a minute. John 5, very important. Here's what we read. "...Truly, truly..." We know who says that, right? Jesus says that. "...verily, verily, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My word..." There's the hearer. "...and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life. Jesus said that while He was walking around on the earth teaching. He who hears Me, what I say, introduces Himself in so many ways in His teaching and preaching. If we hear Him and believe who He is, we're already saved from what's coming. When I first came back here 20 years ago almost now, one thing I kept repeating, I repeated it quite a few times, salvation is bigger or greater than creation. Anybody remember me saying that? Remember that statement? What do I mean? Listen, that creation is going to be replaced. the created world. The kingdom of God is going to be made of a people who are born again and every kingdom outside the kingdom which Christ rules in will finally bow the knee and submit to the King. The bigger reality is the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. this marvelous, great and magnificent salvation, born again, we follow Jesus. And what has happened for us is that God has already, already executed upon a substitute the penalty for my sin and yours. We know who the substitute is too, don't we? The Lord Jesus Christ. That great event is called the gospel, the good news, its salvation at its core. The Redeemer suffered in your place. The death came out of the grave victorious over all of it, that you might walk with Him and go home finally to be with Him. Whoever believes in Him, John 3, 18 says, whoever believes in Him is not condemned. If you don't believe, He said, you're condemned already. So in every case, those who come to know God through Jesus Christ, as the Word of God is preached to them, those who continue to do that will be saved by grace through faith. And we'll find the life that only Jesus can bring overcoming all else. How shall we escape? There's no other Savior, no other way but Jesus. That Greek word is an interesting word for escape, but I don't have time to run that rabbit trail. Just escape, miss it, not get caught up in it. We're living in a time a little bit like Noah's day, aren't we? Now if you haven't gone back and read a little bit about Noah and his family, or checked him out in Luke, or any of those other places he's quoted, you have to go and see what's happening with him, with the culture. I'm going to read a little bit to you. There were giants in the land, and I'm not going to explain that either. I'm just going to read it. I have opinions, but opinions don't count too much. When men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose, any they chose, any they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever. He is flesh, his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, these giant guys, and also afterward. When the sons of God came into the daughters of men, they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart, every intention of the thoughts of his heart were on evil, only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth. And it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals, creeping things, birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found grace, favor in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now, listen, now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh, but the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. He's going to tell him now to build a boat, the next part. Luke, Gospel of Luke chapter 17. Listen to this from the, starting with Verse 23, they will say to you, look there or look here. Talking about saying there's the Christ, the Son of Man, the coming. They will say to you, look there, look here, do not go out or follow them, for as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in His day. But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation, just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man." Now here's what was there. They were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage. until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. So will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed." Wow! Here's what I think. I think that there is, in our world today, a lot of unjudged lust and violence. And much that goes on, people are thinking they're getting away with it. But somehow when they did it, God judged it, and He does. The wrath of God revealed from heaven is clearly over those kinds of things. But nothing changes many times for the people. Unjudged lust, unjudged violence, but there will come a day of judgment. The warning that Noah gave was, God's having me build a boat to get us out of here. There's a flood coming, it's going to cover everything. And they refused to listen. Refused! But we see violence filling our own nation more and more. And the promise, clearly, in the book of Isaiah from God, Isaiah the prophet dealing with it often, is that God will finally judge the world! The whole world! Go back and read Isaiah 24, see what it looks like. Isaiah 24. If as true Christians born again, we're in the world but we're not of it, we're filled with the Spirit, and yet there are fears that come into our heart when we realize what people are boasting as to the progress of our nation. We abhor the bolder and bolder flaunting of abominations before the eyes of human beings and in front of Scripture. We know, as Scripture says, that all the nations of the earth are polluted by unjudged murder, killing, blood everywhere, and the ground everywhere. By unnumbered adulteries, by despising marriage vow, putting away which God hates, putting away what God hates. I wonder if marrying and giving in marriage was a normal process, or just get one, try another! Because it happens so often! I think that we go to the Scripture, we'll find helpful some of the things we're grappling with. Are you drifting? I want to ask that one last question and then we'll go. That'd be a great time to go fellowship around cake, wouldn't it? Talk about judgment and drifting. How about the attention and earnestness you give to the things of God and your salvation? Has it diminished from what it was at one time? Were you one time so in love with Jesus that that's all you could talk about? Now it's an embarrassment when your friends get too aggressive about Jesus. You have a distaste for the word, often absent from worship. Or God is worthy to be worshiped. where the church draws nearer and grows together in a body more and more as we worship? Is it significant to us in our thoughts? Are we absorbed in earthly selfish interests of the majority of our life? Listen, we just have to think about it every once in a while, just helping you deal with it as I deal with it in my own life. You mean pastor's drift? In fact, we can go off to the side and try to figure out how to make the church grow, how to make this happen, and pretty soon we're spending so much time with that we haven't prayed all week, and we don't have time to read and study. Does that happen? Yes, it happens. And so the Word says to me, where's the love for Jesus that burned in your heart when you were born again? Burned in your heart when you first began to preach, when you wanted everywhere to preach, and it didn't matter, you would pay them! I don't think I ever did, but I would have. Got some pretty low shots and offerings, but I didn't care. Didn't care. Don't let our hearts, God, don't let our hearts decrease in life toward deadness or occupation with the things that take us away from you. We want to have a God consciousness. We want to be conscious of God working here and over our lives and in our lives. We want to be conscious that we're in a kingdom already as it exists in the world walking together. Don't put away all thought of judgment to come, because if we do that, it's too easy to drift. I forget who it was, I should have looked this up, but some of these things come while I'm preaching, and this is one of them. And I don't have the name of the guy that said this. Benedict, I think, said to his monks, live every day when you get up. as if this is the day you're going to die. That's just not encouraging. Live as if today were the day you're going to die. Serve the Lord in the place you're in because that's what He's put you in. Do it. Don't live like the animals, without concern for eternity or judgment or anything. You have a mind and a heart, soul. You have a body that's going to go back to the dust. But inside this body, no matter how it wrinkles and how it droops, is the Holy Spirit Himself working in my spirit and yours to accomplish His purpose in this world with such as us. Yes, He will. Yes, He will. Let the Lord work in you His plan. Walk with Him. Talk to Him. If you're reading the Scriptures regularly, let them speak to you so that when you pray, you can speak back. Because we don't initiate the conversation. God's already got that started. We respond to what His Word says. And He works in us through that same Word. Let's take time to be set apart like that. Amen. Let's pray. Father, I thank You for Your people in this place. My brothers and sisters, become friends, family. I want to thank You for them. I want to thank you for them, their willingness to hear your word, your voice in it. I want to thank you for their willingness to submit to the truth they know, the truth they've heard, and then their concern to walk on from there with you so that we're growing as well, maturing, becoming a little more all the time like our Master, our Lord. Thank you, Father, for your faithfulness to this people today, for your healing power and those reaching out to you, for your spiritual renovation in our lives, for the hope of glory, for the wonder of the glorious presence of Jesus, to be at His feet again, to listen to His words, His voice, to respond and feel His power lifting us, shaping us. making us what He wants to make of us. We'll look for Your glory and manifest in some of these folks even this week, Lord. And we give You praise for all You are and all You do. In Jesus' name, Amen.