The Tragedy of Neglecting Salvation 

Hebrews 2:1‑4
 

We come tonight to Hebrews chapter 2 verses 1 to 4, passage of Scripture, portions of which are undoubtedly familiar to many of you who have studied the Word of God in days past.  Perhaps brand new to others of you who are new Christians, but very important verses they are.

Hell is undoubtedly full of people who were not actively opposed to Jesus Christ but who simply drifted into damnation by neglecting to respond to the gospel.  Such people are really here in view in these four verses.  These are people who know the truth, who even believe the truth, who are well aware of the good news of salvation provided in Jesus Christ but who never are willing to commit their lives to Jesus Christ.  And so they drift on past the call of God into eternal disaster.  Because that is the theme of these verses, it thus makes them extremely urgent and important verses.

Now as we approach this text, I want to give you a little bit of a background so that you'll understand where we are in the mind of the writer of the book of Hebrews.  This is an epistle addressed to Jews as is obvious from the title.  We do not know who the human author is, we do know that the Holy Spirit is the real author.  And we know that it was written to three different groups of Jews, all residing in a particular community.

First of all, included in this Jewish community were Jewish non‑ Christians who didn't believe anything about the gospel, who maybe never even heard it.  Strictly Judaistic oriented.  Secondly, there were also some Jewish Christians who had received Jesus Christ, who had believed the gospel, but who were still hanging on to the ritual of Judaism, who were going through some of the forms which were no longer necessary because once the reality had come, the ritual needed no longer to exist.  The third group then, were Jewish non‑Christians who were convinced intellectually but had never committed their lives to Christ.  They were the ones who heard the good news of salvation.

They'd heard of the forgiveness of sin in Christ.  They'd heard the message but they'd never been willing to commit themselves to it.

Maybe even many of them believed it.  Many of them undoubtedly were attending the community of believers with some sort of a profession that they were really believers when in fact they were not.  And so, the epistle of the Hebrews takes into view all three of these three groups.

And so, in the epistle, the writer really has one purpose and that is to show all of them that Jesus Christ has brought a marvelous new covenant called the New Testament.  He has died on a cross, shed His blood for the forgiveness of sins.  And in this new covenant, men can have forgiveness.  And the new one is better by far than the old one, the rituals of Judaism.  And so, the writer of Hebrews from the beginning of the book to the end of the book proves the new covenant better than the old and the new Mediator, Jesus Christ, better than anybody connected with the old covenant.  He is attempting to show Jews not that the old covenant was wrong, but that it was incomplete, but that the old covenant is only complete in Jesus Christ who fulfills it all and that they needed to accept the new covenant of His shed blood in final sacrifice for their sins and accept Him as the mediator of a better covenant.

So the whole theme of Hebrews, then, is that the new covenant is better, that Christ is better than everything and everybody.  And to receive Jesus Christ is what it's all about.

Now in order to prove this, the writer of Hebrews then goes through all of the characters of the old covenant:  Moses, Aaron, the priesthood, angels who were mediators of the old covenant.  And in every case he proves Christ to be better than all of those.  Now if Christ is a better mediator than any of the Old Testament, then His covenant is a better covenant.  And so, as we've begun to study Hebrews, we saw in verses 1 to 3 of chapter 1 that Christ is better than everybody and everything.  And then in verses 4 to 14, concluding chapter 1, we saw that Christ is superior to what?  To angels.

You say,.  "Well, why is that important?"  Because to the Jewish mind, angels were extremely important.  Angels mediated the old covenant.  And so, the Holy Spirit wants to show us that the new covenant is better because Christ is better than angels.  A better mediator means a better covenant.  And we've been into all that in detail.  If you want to catch up on it, why you can get those tapes and do that,

But as we come to our point, we come to what really amounts to an invitation thrown into the middle of this treatise on angels.  He's still talking about angels clear over far into chapter 2 and he's not done yet with the angels in terms of their relationship.  And so, at this point he is sort of stopping with the talk about angels for a minute to interject an invitation.  He is applying directly to the hearers what he has been saying about Christ.  All along he's been saying, Christ is the greatest one.  Christ is the one who alone can purge your sin.  Christ is God.  Christ is the creator.  Christ is worthy of your worship. Jesus Christ is the exalted one."  All the way along he's been saying this.  And now he stops all of a sudden and he gives a personal invitation for those readers and those hearer to respond to what he's been saying.

You might say that doctrine breaks into invitation.  You see, the Word of God always demands a response.  That's the point.  The Word of God always demands that somebody react to it.  And may I add, too, that any effective teacher must do a lot more than just dispose of facts, dumping them on his hearers.  Any really effective teacher knows that he must warn, that he must exhort and that he must invite.

And the writer, by the time he gets to chapter 2 verse 1, is impassioned and he really cares about the salvation of his hearers.

He's not so egocentric that all he cares about is spewing out doctrine then shutting his mouth and walking away, he cares about response.  He cares that people respond to what he's been saying.  He not only cares to exalt Christ, but he cares that they respond to Christ.

And I'll tell you something.  A man may know a lot of truth and he may know a lot of doctrine, but if he doesn't have a passionate concern for how people react to it, he's not worth a nickel as a teacher.  There must be a concern for response.

The Apostle Paul was like this.  As great a theologian as he was, as masterful a mind and a grasp of philosophy and logic as he had, he was still an impassioned individual.  And in Romans chapter 9 verse 1, after this great eight chapters of treatise on the tremendous character of the gospel, Paul all of a sudden bursts into an invitation.  And he says, "I say.  the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have .

great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart." You say, "Why, Paul?"  "For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen." Paul had such a cry in his heart that ?

??or.?e respond to the gospel and that his own Jewish kinsmen come to Christ that it ate away at him.

In chapter 10 of the same epistle in verse 1, he says, "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved." Now there is the character of a true teacher.  It's not just academics.  It's not just pedantics.  It's not just cranking out the information.  It's having a passionate concern with how people respond.

In 1 Corinthians 9 and chapter 9 and verse 19, Paul says, .For though I am free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all that I may gain the more.  And unto the Jews I became as a Jew that I might gain the Jews, to them that are under the law as under the law, not being myself unto the law, that I might gain them that are under the law.  To them that are without law is without law, being not without law to God but unto the law to Christ that I might gain them that are without law.  To the weak became I as weak that I might gain the weak.  I am made all things to all men that I might by all means save some and this I do for the gospel's sake." Now there's a guy who really had it right.  There's a guy who not only could turn out the academics, but he had the passion.

In John chapter 5 verse 39 and 40, Jesus said this, "Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life and they.  are they which testify of Me."  Now listen to what the next verse says, and ye will not come to Me that you might have life."  Jesus had a passionate concern that His hearers respond.  Always teaching that is true teaching demands a response.

In fact, in chapter 13 of Hebrews, I think it's verse 22, the ?

whole book of Hebrews is called a word of exhortat