Disclaimer: This transcription is provided for informational purposes, reference, and convenience. Please note that it may contain errors, omissions, or spelling mistakes due to the nature of live audio transcriptions. While we strive for accuracy, this document should not be considered a fully authoritative record of the sermon. For clarification, we recommend referring to the original source. Thank you for your understanding and patience. 

I invite you to take your Bibles this morning and turn to Hebrews chapter one. As we continue our verse-by-verse examination of this amazing epistle. We are going to be looking at verses four through 14 this morning, and I've entitled my discourse to you "Christ's Superiority Over the Angels." Let me read the passage, Hebrews chapter one, beginning in verse four,

"...having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.

"For to which of the angels did He ever say, 'Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee?' And again, 'I will be a Father to Him and He shall be a Son to Me'?

"And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, 'Aand let all the angels of God worship Him.'

"And of the angels He says, 'Who makes His angels winds, and His ministers a flame of fire.'

"But of the Son He says, 'Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom.

"'Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above Thy companions.'

"And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the works of Thy hands;

"'they will perish, but Thou remainest, and they all will become old as a garment,

"'and as a mantle Thou wilt roll them up; as a garment, they will also be changed, but Thou art the same, and Thy years will not come to an end.'

"But to which of the angels has He ever said, 'Sit at My right hand until I make Thine enemies a footstool for Thy feet?'?

"Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?"

Angels have always fascinated me, but with all of the silly, unbiblical ways they are portrayed on television and in Hollywood, and even in print media, it's hard to separate fact from fiction at times, so let me try to do that for you. Biblically, angels are God's highest created spiritual beings. Certainly, they're higher than man. Hebrews chapter two and verse nine we read that when Jesus became a man, he, "was made for a little while lower than the angels." However, man is made in the image of God, angels are not. It would appear as we read scripture that God created angels before he created man, according to Job 38 beginning in verse six, "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy" when God laid the cornerstone of the earth and sunk its bases.

Now scripture doesn't tell us how many angels there are, how many that he created. However, whenever they are described, the inspired writers always use language that indicates that they are innumerable, myriads upon myriads, 1000s of 1000s. Scripture also indicates that there is great rank and order among the angelic beings. In fact, one angel, Michael, is called the "archangel" in Jude nine, a title that indicates rule or authority over other angels. Angels are capable of moral judgment. They are capable of thinking in high terms. They are highly intelligent, but they have no physical bodies. Therefore, we cannot see them unless God gives us a special ability to do so. From time to time, angels took on bodily form to appear to various people in scripture, but essentially, they are spiritual beings, spirit beings. They are magnificent creatures with incredible power, incredible abilities, but they cannot procreate, so they never increase. Nor can they ever die or even be annihilated, so they never decrease. According to Revelation chapter 12 and verse four, when Satan was cast out from his dwelling place in heaven, a third of the angelic host went with him. We call those demons. We see that in scripture they serve Satan, trying to thwart the purposes and work of God.

Scripture indicates that the unfallen, the holy angels, inhabit the full realm of the universe, including the third heaven, where God abides, that would also obviously include the second heaven, which is spatial; that infinite heaven beyond the galaxies that we are even aware of, and certainly it would include the first heaven, which we are aware of, that encompasses the earth. There is an indication in Luke 16:22 that angels are sent to carry the souls of believers into heaven when they die, and repeatedly we read how God will send his angels to gather up the wicked for judgment at the end of the age, and deal, according to Second Thessalonians one eight, "deal out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus."

Now, while there is no convincing proof in Scripture that there's such a thing as a guardian angel appointed to each one of us, we are told that God sends them to serve us, to protect us, and they join with us in worshiping God. We are even warned in Hebrews 13:2 to be careful how we treat strangers, since we might be entertaining angels without knowing it, but it's important to understand that the first century Jews, to whom this epistle was written, literally worshiped angels. They understood that they were God's highest created beings, higher than man. They believed that angels served God, but they also erroneously believed a number of things about them. For example, they believed that the angels gave counsel to God in what we might call a celestial senate, for example, in Genesis 1:26 where God says, "Let us make man in our image," they thought that the "us" referred to a collaborative effort between God and this angelic senate. Unfortunately, the ancient rabbinic teachings - the writings found in the Talmud - reveal all kinds of fanciful things about angels that the Jewish people believe. They believe, for example, that there was such a thing as a recording angel that recorded everything that men spoke. They believed there was an angel of death who went out only to do God's bidding, and who impartially delivered summons to both the righteous as well as the wicked. There was a guardian angel, they believed, for every nation and for every child. They believed that 200 angels controlled the movement of the stars. And then there were special angels that had special assignments. For example, one was the calendar angel that controlled the days and the months and the years. Another angel was responsible for the seas. There were angels that administered the rain and the snow and the thunder and the lightning, and so on. And some were considered to be the wardens of hell and torturers of the damned, that would not be a pleasant assignment. So they believed a lot of silly things about angels.

But they also believed the truth about angels that the prophets taught them revealed in the Old Testament scriptures. They understood, for example, that God placed angels as sentinels over in the Garden of Eden. They believed that there was an angelic, invisible army, for example, that was sent to Dothan to protect Elijah from the Syrians. They believed that God had sent an angel to shut the mouths of the lions when Daniel was thrown into their den. They are called "mighty ones who do His word" in Psalm 103:20, and so on. They believe those things, but most importantly, they believe the truth that angels assisted God when the Law was mediated to Moses at Mount Sinai, and of course, according to scripture, they were commanded to carve wooden angels, overlay them with gold, and with wings outspread, they were set over the Ark of the Covenant.

Now, if for no other reasons than these the Jews esteemed angels next to God. However, they believed therefore that angels outranked this man called Jesus of Nazareth that everybody was so excited about, and so for this reason the writer of Hebrews has to convince them that Christ is the mediator of a better covenant than that given through Moses. So it is this mixture of truth and error concerning angel worship; that's what the writer of Hebrews is up against here in his attempt to prove the superiority of Jesus Christ over all things, including the angels.

I might add that because of these errors, later on, a cult known as the Gnostics, who also worshiped angels, taught that Jesus was merely another angel, and this lie slithered into the church, as all lies tend to do; slithered into the church at Colossae, causing Paul to warn them in Colossians 2:18. "Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worshiping of the angels."

So it's for this reason, in the first three verses of Hebrews that we studied the last time we  were together, the inspired writer unequivocally asserts Christ's deity, that he is the creator of all things, including the angels  because he made the world, there in verse two; that he is the sustainer of all things, because he upholds all things by the word of his power, there, in verse three. He is also the consummator of all things, because he is the heir of all things, in verse two, and finally he is the redeemer of his elect, because he has made purification of sins, and has now sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

So that brings us to the passage before us, verses four through 14, and here he continues to make his case to his Hebrew audience by using their very own scripture, a study which I might add is theologically deep. The complexity of this passage to advance this argument is profound. There's no milk here for spiritual babes, okay? Only meat for those who really care nothing for the world but are starving for the greatness and the glory of God. So, what we're going to have here this morning, folks, if you listen very carefully, is just a soul-satisfying filet mignon of biblical truth that will melt in your mouth and hopefully melt your heart, and I'm going to do my best to make these incredible truths clear and compelling, but you must pay close attention.

Let me give you the big picture here. We always want to start with the big picture. In these verses, the writer is going to use a series of successive Old Testament quotations that will form a logical progression of God's redemptive purposes in the world, culminating in the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. He will begin with quotations that speak about the Lord Jesus Christ as the Messiah and his relationship with God, and then he will move from there to speak about the permanence of his reign, his rule over his subjects, and the righteousness of his rule, and then finally he will address the Messiah's current position and status as he prepares to return to the earth and establish his kingdom; and in this he will prove from their very own scripture, that as the Son of God, the Messiah, he is unique, and he is infinitely superior to the angels.

Here, the Spirit reminds them that God says things about the Lord Jesus Christ that have never been and could never be said about angels, thus proving the preeminence, the superiority of Christ. He speaks of five things that are true of him, but not of them. The first one, if you will notice, he is called the "Son of God" in verses four through five. So let's go to the text,

"...having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they..." and then he asks a rhetorical question, quoting Psalm 2:7, which was a royal psalm of David. He says this, "For to which of angels did He ever say, 'You are my son, today I have begotten you?'" Well, the answer is obviously none. And then again, quoting from Second Samuel 7:14, "'I will be a Father to Him and He shall be a Son to Me.'"

Now let's back up. The context of the first quotation, in Psalm 2, is that of kings and rulers that are plotting in vain to overthrow God and his anointed one, ultimately the Messiah, but in that first context it is referring to King David in the near sense, and the Messiah Christ in the ultimate sense. And if you go to Psalm two, you would read God's response. It's found in verse four and following,

"He sits in the heavens and laughs, the Lord scoffs at them.

"Then he will speak to them in His anger and terrifying them in His fury, saying,

"'But as for me, I have installed My king upon Zion, My holy mountain.'

"'I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, "You are My Son, today I have begotten You."'"

Now the Jewish people would have understood immediately the argument here, they would have understood the context of Psalm 2, that moves from the lesser David, through the Davidic dynasty, to the greater David - the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then how fitting, therefore, for the inspired writer to quote, after Psalm 2, moved to Second Samuel 7, where we have the Davidic covenant. Where God reaffirmed the regal terms of the original Abrahamic covenant, but with the further provision that those covenanted rights will now be attached permanently to the historic house and succession of David. That's what Second Samuel is about; Second Samuel 7.

Moreover, in that text, by God's grace, those rights, even though historically interrupted for a season, will at last in a future kingdom, be restored to the nation of Israel in perpetuity, with no further possibility of interruption. So it's for this reason he says, "I will be a Father to Him," referring to Jesus the Messiah, "and He shall be a Son to Me." Wow, what an argument from their own scriptures. They realize that none of this refers to angels, it can only refer to the Son of God, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, as a footnote, prior to his incarnation, the title for the Lord Jesus Christ would have just simply been God, the second member of the triune Godhead. He only became the Son of God in his incarnation, when he was begotten in time. Nowhere in Scripture do we read of the eternal sonship of Christ, a truth that refutes the heretical argument of some of the cults that states, well, since Jesus is the Son of God, he must be eternally inferior to God, subservient to God, always under God, but never God, very God. And unfortunately, a poor translation of verse four in the King James version tends to fuel this fire, instead of saying "having become so much better than the angels," the King James says "being made so much better than the angels." And some will take this to mean that Jesus was created, but the Greek term used is "ginomai" and it means "to become." In other words, as the Son, he became lower than the angels when he took on the human form in his incarnation. If the writer wanted to say that Christ was created in verse four, he would have used the Greek term "poiéō," which means to make or to create, but he did not use that; so Jesus became the Son of God at His incarnation, and as we look at Scripture, as a result of the Holy Spirit coming upon the Virgin Mary, Luke says in Luke 1:35, "The holy offspring shall be called the Son of God." And later Luke says in Luke three verse 22, "The Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove and a voice came out of heaven, 'Thou art My beloved Son, in Thee I am well pleased.'"

But folks, He is not only the Son because of His virgin birth, but also because he was begotten again from the dead in his resurrection. Now stick with me here. Paul speaks of this in Romans chapter one, beginning in verse three. He says,

"concerning God's son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh,

"who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord."

Now it's fascinating when you think about it. We don't become sons of God in the fullest sense until we are born again, right? We're sons of God in the sense that that he created us, but we're not really his sons in the fullest sense until we're born again. Likewise, the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, he became God's son at his human birth, but the fullness of his sonship came in his second birth, when he rose again. He was declared to be a Son when he rose from the dead, that's Paul's point.

Now notice, in verse six, the writer continues to establish the Messiah's relationship with God to prove his superiority over the angels. Not only is he called the Son of God, but secondly, he is called the firstborn. Verse six,

"And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, 'and let all the angels of God worship Him.'" This is a quotation from Deuteronomy 32 and verse 43. I need to pause for a second with a footnote. These quotations, if you look them up, are going to vary slightly from the Old Testament text that you have, that I have, from which they were taken, because at the time that this letter was written most Jews used a Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint, and it is from the Septuagint that the quotations in Hebrews are taken. I might also add, this is one of several reasons why we do not believe Paul wrote this letter, because he typically quoted directly from the Hebrew text, more than the Septuagint.

Now let's go back to verse six, "when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, 'And let all the angels of God worship Him.'" Well, first of all, this was hard for the Jews to swallow. You mean the angels are supposed to worship this carpenter's son from Nazareth, are you kidding me? We're supposed to worship him as our Messiah? You see, Jesus just didn't meet up to their expectations. They wanted a conqueror, not some meek and mild-mannered prophet. But notice the argument here, he is the first born, it says - "prōtotokos" in the original language. It means first in rank or position. It doesn't mean first in time. This is not a description, it's a title. He is the preeminent one. He is the highest ranking one, he is the foremost one. Often, but not always, the firstborn, or the eldest son, would be the heir to a father's estate, but that wasn't always the case. You remember, Esau was the first born, he was the eldest son, but Jacob was the prōtotokos; he was the first in rank.

Now, if we go to Colossians chapter one, for example, in verse 15, Paul says here, speaking of Christ, "and He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." Now, this does not mean that he is the first created being in a long line of created beings, like the Jehovah's Witnesses and other cults, would have us believe. It means that he is the preeminent one. He is the one to whom belongs the right and the dignity of the firstborn in relation to every creature. That's the point. He is the highly exalted one. He is the one above every creature and heir and ruler of all. A few verses later, in verse 18 of Colossians one, Paul says he is also "head of the body, the church, and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead." Now if "firstborn" meant first in time, in other words, the first person to be resurrected from the dead. This would be a false statement. A number of people had been raised from the dead before Jesus. Lazarus was resurrected from the dead prior to Jesus. A number of Old Testament saints were raised from the dead, remember, at the crucifixion in Matthew 27. So again, the term has nothing to do with time, but with rank, with position. Jesus is the "prōtotokos" from the dead; the most highly exalted one of all who have been resurrected from the dead.

Now this helps us understand verse 6, "And when He again brings the firstborn into the world..." Now, let's stop here. The "world," here, an interesting term in the original language, it means the inhabited earth. Well, obviously, Christ was not the first person born in the earth, but he was the preeminent one - the greatest one, the most highly exalted one -who came to an inhabited earth where millions had been born prior to his birth. Now let's look closely here at verse seven. There's an interesting word that the Spirit of God inspired the writer to use; "...and when He again brings the firstborn into the world..." what does this mean? Well, this speaks of the time when the preeminent one - the firstborn, the highly exalted one, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ - returns in all of his glory as King of Kings and Lord of lords at his second coming, you see, although he was the most highly exalted one when he came the first time, he came in obscurity, he came in humility, but when God the Father again brings the firstborn into the world, no one's going to miss him. They will see him as the glorified Messiah King. They will see the one described in Psalm2 that the writer was referring to, the one who sits in the heavens and laughs. Dear friends, a day is going to come when the Lord Jesus Christ, who is currently seated at the right hand of the Father, is going to rise in his fury and in his indignation, and with his nostrils flared, he is going to return once again to this earth in all of his wrath and all of his fury to judge the nations of the world. He will return again, as this text says, to this world, this inhabited earth, as Revelation says, "He will return to smite the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron, and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty, and on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written," you know it, "King of Kings and Lord of Lords."

You know Zephaniah, and many other prophets, prophesied about that coming day when the preeminent one, the firstborn, is going to return again, that's described here in Hebrews 1:7. Zephaniah says this in chapter three and verse eight, "'Therefore, wait for me,'" declares the Lord, 'For the day when I rise up as a witness. Indeed, my decision is to gather the nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out on them My indignation, all My burning anger. For all the earth will be devoured by the fire of My zeal.'" You know when this happens, who's President of the United States isn't going to matter one raisin. All the ridiculous politically correct rhetoric won't matter when the firstborn returns again to this inhabited earth. All the military might in the world will be as useless as trying to spit at the sun to put it out.

And when the firstborn comes again into the world, notice what the writer says about God. God says, "'And let all the angels of God worship Him.'" And again, he's quoting from their own scriptures, a quotation from Psalm 97:7. Now this is an intriguing statement. You might ask, "Well, don't all the angels worship him now?" Well, of course they do. All of the unfallen angels have worshiped the second member of the triune Godhead throughout time, since their creation. However, you must bear in mind when they saw the incarnation and the gospel - these have been mysteries to the angels. In fact, Peter says they are things into which angels long to look. But friends, the point here is this: when the firstborn returns in all of his glory, the angels are going to understand fully and they will worship him - the Son of God, who will appear in a glorified human body, the firstborn of all creation, the firstborn from the dead, our Savior, our King, the Lord Jesus Christ.

John was allowed to witness what this angelic worship will look like someday. I love this passage, Revelation chapter five, beginning in verse 11, "Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders..." which, by the way, I believe refers to the glorified church... "the number of them was myriads of myriads, and 1000s of 1000s, saying with a loud voice, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.' And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea and all things in them, I heard saying, 'To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb,  be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.' And the four living creatures kept saying 'Ame.'  And the elders fell down and worship."  Now, folks, that's going to be a worship service, right? Remember that I said that one day when we are there.

Now, having established the Son's relationship to God the Father, the writer continues this logical progression of Old Testament passages and speaks about now the permanence of his reign, his rule over his subjects, and the righteousness of his rule. Notice the third point here: he is superior to the angels, not only because he is called the Son and the firstborn, but thirdly, he is the ruler of the angels, and here he's going to cite Psalm 104:4 from their scriptures. Notice verse seven, "And of the angels He says, 'Who makes His angels winds and His ministers a flame of fire.'" The term make can also be translated create. The idea here is he is the one who employs his angels as the winds, his ministers as the lightnings, or he makes his angelic ministers the directing powers of winds and flames when they are required to perform his will. So, once again, from their own scripture, the writer is reminding them that basically the angels are subordinate to the Son; they are servants of the Son, the one who created them.

Moreover, Christ is the one that makes his angels invisible and powerful, like the wind, as well as purifying and destructive as fire to execute his judgment. As I thought about this, my mind went to Matthew chapter 13 and verse 40, where Jesus says, "At the end of the age the Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." So Christ is superior to the angels, because he is called Son of God, he's called the firstborn, because he's the ruler of the angels, and fourthly, he has an eternal throne, and this is what the argument is in verses eight through 12.

So the writer begins by quoting Psalm 45:6-7, here in verse eight, 'But of the Son He says, 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom.'" By the way, can there be any clearer affirmation of the deity of Christ than what we have right here? Jesus is the eternal God who will rule forever. What a comforting thought, with all of the chaos of this presidential election. Folks, you just got to stay focused on the real story, the ultimate story. Now, the word "kingdom," that is used here, "basileia" is used 18 times in the epistles, and it always refers to the divine rule of God; and seven times the kingdom is specifically assigned to our Lord Jesus Christ, as it is right here. This position of divine sovereignty is presented by the writer of Hebrews as evidence of our Lord's infinite superiority over all of the angelic host. That is the point. And it's interesting, the angels are higher than us, so obviously he's higher than any of us, and in verse nine it is his personal righteousness that has made the ground of his exaltation above all of his companions. Notice verse nine, "'You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions."

As I read this, I'm reminded of just the contrast that we have here to the corrupt and godless rule we experience with our leaders who hate righteousness, whose hearts know nothing of real gladness, nothing of real contentment, because they have no hope, because they don't have Christ. They're obsessed with power and prestige rather than moral integrity, rather than glorifying God. They have no fear of God, so they don't love righteousness, nor do they hate lawlessness.

But next, the writer goes on in verses 10 through 12 and cites from Psalm 102 verses 25 through 27, "And You, Lord,'" referring to Christ, "'...in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands; they will perish, but You remain;   and they all will become old like a garment, and like a mantle You will roll them up; like a garment they will also be changed. But You are the same, and your years will not come to an end.'" The argument is simple: unlike the angels, Christ, the Lord Jesus, is the creator, and he is eternal. He is immutable. He never changes. Remember, in John one, John makes it very clear that he is the eternal Word. He is the pre-existent, self-existent, uncreated creator of the universe. And folks, what a magnificent truth this is to anchor our soul during these times of uncertainty. I mean, life is always uncertain. We have no guarantees. I mean, one lab result can radically change your life. One phone call. I was reminded again this week of the dramatic increase in sinkholes around the world. Have you read about that? It's got pictures. I mean, you can see pictures. All of a sudden, whole houses just fall into the earth, people disappear into the earth, walking along, cars, huge buildings, dramatic increase in this. But isn't it great to know that God is eternally the same? We can count on Him. He never changes. He is the ultimate certainty. Our hope is in Christ alone, as we sing so often. The one who is in control as the almighty sovereign of His creation.

But we know that the heavens and the earth will change, as we read here. The writer says they all will become old, like a garment, and like a mantle. You will roll them up like a garment, they will also be changed. Boy, this is the environmentalist's worst nightmare, isn't it? You see, as we read scripture at the end of the millennial reign of Christ, the Creator is going to uncreate the heavens and the earth. Peter talks about this in Second Peter 3:10, "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up." I have to smile when I read this passage. You know, people today are so, or at least they're being told to feel guilty about their carbon footprint because of man-made global warming. You know, what they need to be concerned about is their spiritual footprint, and God made global incineration. I mean, that's the reality here. In Revelation chapter six, beginning in verse 12 we read about this time, John says, "And I looked when He broke," referring to Christ, "the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders of the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?'"

 A great description of what's going to happen right before the Lord returns again. When he returns again, he will not recreate the earth, but he will make it once again, you might say renovate the earth, into a into Edenic splendor, and then at the end of the millennial reign he will uncreate and then recreate the heavens and the earth.

Folks, we need to really relax in these great truths, by the way, especially with respect to God's unchangeable nature, his immutability. In fact, Hebrews chapter 13:8, we read that Jesus Christ is the same. You know it "yesterday and today, yes and forever." You know everything that we see, everything that we experience in this world is going to pass away with a roar Peter tells us; an inconceivable act whereby a holy God is going to purge the universe once and for all from every vestige of sin, and then our precious Jesus is going to create a new heaven and a new earth. This is the one that we worship: Christ, the preeminent one.

Well, finally, having proved proven Christ's superiority over the angels by emphasizing his relationship to God and establishing the the permanence of his reign, he finally addresses the Messiah's current position, his current status right now as he prepares to return and establish his kingdom. So finally Christ is superior to the angels, number five, because all things are subject to him. I might add that this is the seventh Old Testament passage used in the writer's argument, quoted from Psalm 110:1, which, by the way, is another royal psalm, which was one of the favorites of the early church because of its obvious messianic implications. So in verse 13 he says, "But to which of the angels has He ever said, 'Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet?'" Obviously, none of them. Again, they're fully aware of what Psalm 110 is all about. It pictures the Messiah, the divine king priest ruling in the midst of his enemies. If you read that psalm, it speaks of how he's preparing to destroy all of the rival kings in the day of his wrath, that he's going to come and judge the nation, he's going to fill the places with dead bodies, he's going to overthrow all of the satanic chiefs that lead the nations and against him. And by the way, that's what they were looking for in Jesus, and they didn't see that. Ah, they're going to see it one day when he returns again.

Daniel speaks of this time in Daniel chapter seven, beginning in verse 13. He says, "I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven one like a Son of Man was coming, and he came up to the Ancient of Days, and was presented before Him, and to Him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away, and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed." Well, obviously, none of these Old Testament passages refer to the angels; they can only refer to the Messiah, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one that is king.

And he closes with this, "Are they," referring to angels, "not all ministering spirits sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?" The answer is yes. Christ is the king. They are the servants. By the way, this again is such a comforting thought, isn't it? I'm sure that there are angelic beings right here in our midst that we cannot see. Who knows how many 1000s of them might be here. Who knows how many of them might be out there protecting us from some harm. We just don't know. Who knows how God uses them to guide us and to protect us and serve us in our lives.

Well, there you have it. Why is Christ superior to the angels? Because he is called Son of God. He alone is the firstborn. He is the creator, the ruler of the angels. He has an eternal throne, and all things are subjected to him, and all God's people can say, "Amen." I mean, it's just incredible when you realize what is being said here.

Well, I want to leave you with this challenge. Ask yourself, am I living in a way that is worthy of Christ's kingdom? Paul says in Colossians 1:13, "He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son." And in First Thessalonians 2:12 we are told to "walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory." Are you doing that? Are you walking in a manner worthy of what God has given you in Christ. You remember last week, I challenge you to get excited about our eternal kingdom, not the passing kingdom of the United States of America. You say, 'Well, Pastor, what must I do?" Let me give you one passage in closing, Hebrews 12, and we'll look at this in great detail when we get there later on, beginning in verse 28 The writer says this: "Since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable servant with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire."

Folks, we've got to learn to cultivate a heart of gratitude and a worshiping life that offers holy service to our worthy and our awesome God. Are you doing that? I hope you are. Let me give you one suggestion, the most important thing that you can do to help you walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory is this: discipline yourself to have a consistent devotional life. Let me say it again, discipline yourself to have a consistent devotional life, not that you do it out of duty, but you do it out of desire. The psalmist says in Psalm 119:1 "How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord." That means who habitually and with great discipline, study and meditate, and obey the word of God. So, may I recommend that you start with Psalm 119. I noticed the beautiful banners that we have up here, Psalm 119. Take Psalm 119 begin to go through it prayerfully with a pen and a paper, begin to think through those incredible passages. It's a great wisdom psalm that conveys the thought that the word of God contains everything that we need. So let's grow together in the grace and the knowledge of Christ, and that will not happen unless we get to know him and know his word. He is superior to all of the angels, superior to us, and yet he is the one who gave himself for us. Isn't that amazing? And the one who is coming again to take us unto himself. Let's pray together.