If you don't know where that is, just go to the second floor and go all as far as you
can until you get to the playground.
And then you know you've gone too far.
You turn around and come back and it's the first room right beside the playground, okay?
A couple of weeks ago I was ill on Thanksgiving weekend and so what I've done is to take that
text and repackage it for today.
It sort of works like this.
How many of you husbands have ever bought a Christmas present, for example, for your
wife and you had to wrap nicely and then you put it away somewhere.
And when Christmas came you couldn't find it.
And so in the middle of January, sure enough, here it shows up.
You discover it.
And so what do you do?
Well, you perhaps unwrap it and you put Valentine's paper around it and you give it to her for
Valentine's Day, right?
So what I've done is to take this text and I've taken off the Thanksgiving wrapping
and I've put Christmas wrapping on it and presented it to you this morning so that we
have covered all of that that I wanted to cover in this series on the last days.
Advent is one of my favorite seasons of the year and I love the music of Christmas.
I know that some of you men are already thinking about what you're going to buy your wives
and probably most of you have already shopped and done all of it, right?
Right.
So if you haven't done that yet, I have some hints for you men who are shopping for your
wives.
Just some things to keep in mind as you go out.
Number one, never give your wife any kind of household appliance or something that's
going to make household work easier for her, such as one of those brooms that you see on
television or one of the mops that you see or those dust claws.
Avoid anything that you see in an infomercial.
That's hint number one.
That number two, don't give her any bulk cleaning supplies.
Okay?
Now, Costco has some great deals.
I understand that, but don't present a big box of tide to her and say, here, honey, I
know you always wanted this.
Number three, avoid giving her any sharp objects made by Ronco, which slice and dice and none
of the Jensu knives.
Stay away from those.
Number four, do not buy gifts for yourself and then pretend that they're for her.
Okay?
Don't say, here, honey, here's that drill I know you've always wanted.
Finally, let me say that if you're going to buy her lingerie, do not buy flannel, especially
the kind with feet in them.
Okay?
So just some hints for your Christmas shopping this year.
Some of you guys sort of need it, right?
Well, Advent season reminds us of the greatest gift ever given, and that is God's gift of
His Son.
It's the most remarkable period in human history, at least to date.
It is when God Himself became man and He lived among us for a little while.
That was the fulfillment of God's promise made hundreds and hundreds of years before,
created many times and in many different ways, and that was the promise to provide a final
deliverer.
That is someone who could deal with humanity's greatest problem, and that is our slavery
to selfishness and sinfulness.
And God promised that this deliverer would be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and then one who would bless all of the nations.
I remind you of this verse, and by the way, I think it's in your notes.
If not, it'll be on the screen, but I encourage you to pull out your notes.
We'll be looking at a number of texts this morning.
In Genesis chapter 12 and verse 3, God said this, among other things, to Abraham, all
people's unearth will be blessed through you.
Now the apostle Paul takes that phrase, and he brings it into his writing of the book
of Galatians, chapter 3 and verse 8.
I want you to take a look at what he does with that verse from Genesis.
And the scriptures foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the
gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, all the nations shall be blessed in you.
Isn't that interesting?
And then in Galatians in the fourth chapter, the apostle said, and when the fullness of
time was come, God sent forth what?
His Son made of a woman.
There's the first advent, the Christmas story.
God sent forth His Son being birthed by a woman.
You see, advent is about God coming down here to the earth.
But advent also reminds us of a larger story, that although God was here on the earth in
the person of Jesus 2,000 years ago, that was only the first phase of His plan to redeem
the lost race of Adam.
Eventually God's plan is to bring about a totally new creation.
He's already started that really in us, because the Bible says that anyone be in Christ, that
is a follower of Christ by faith, he is a what?
A new creation, a new creature.
So God has already begun that work, but someday it's going to involve a whole new universe.
God will send His Son the second time to accomplish that.
And that's what we've been talking about in this series on the last days.
God is going to send His Son and fully effect the salvation that He secured the first time
that He came.
Hebrews 9.28 says, Christ was once offered to take away the sins of many people, and
He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are
waiting for Him.
That's the outcome of the last days.
Now we've studied this theme for several weeks, and we have seen that the last days is a very
broad biblical theme predicting a period of time that will bring about horror and suffering
and the pouring out of God's wrath in the world.
And all of that will precede the culmination of it, which is blessing and salvation through
Christ's return to the earth.
Now if I'm correct, the last days, which is a period of time, biblically speaking, from
the first coming until the second coming, at least 2,000 years long now, the last days
have toward the end of them another period that we might call also the last days, the
last days of the last days.
And that's when this time yet to be fulfilled is going to happen on the earth.
And having learned a little bit more about that last week in particular, you may say
to yourself, how am I going to make it through?
What am I going to hang on to if we are in fact entering into this period of time called
the last days of the last days?
What I want to say to you this morning from the book of Hebrews, the first chapter, is
this.
Now you can face whatever lies ahead with joy and confidence if you lay hold of your last
day spiritual benefits.
You see, people in previous generations envy you because of the benefits that come to you,
because of the period of time in which you live.
That's explained to us here in the first three verses of the book of Hebrews.
In the past, that is before this age, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets
at many times and in various ways.
But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all
things and through whom He made the universe.
The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining
all things by His powerful word.
After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty
in heaven.
Now friends, in those three verses, God lays out for us some benefits that we have in these
last days so that we can make some bold statements that will see us through the last days.
We can enter into this period of time with joy and confidence because, number one, we
can boldly say, I know God's final word.
We can say this, people before this age could not say it, but we know God's final word.
It says here, God has spoken to us by His Son.
People in previous generations heard God's voice.
God spoke to them through the prophets many times, various ways, in bits and pieces.
Just bits and pieces.
That's how they saw things.
Something like a puzzle.
They had the pieces to the puzzle, but they didn't have the frame for the puzzle.
And so they didn't know how all of these things fit together.
So they had God's truth in bits and pieces, but they didn't understand how they fit.
But in these last days, God has spoken to us by His Son, and in doing that, God has
given us the framework for the puzzle.
God has spoken fully, definitively, conclusively in Christ.
We should expect that there will be no prophet superior to Christ who will come after Him.
There is no place in God's plan for another prophet by the name of Muhammad.
He is a false prophet.
There is no room for a prophet by the name of Joseph Smith.
He is a false prophet.
Or any other person who claims to speak with some later revelation.
For Jesus Christ is God's final word.
You all remember the old E.F. Hutton commercial, right?
When they speak, what?
That's right.
And I want to tell you something.
When God speaks, there's nothing more to be said.
When God speaks, that's it.
It's full.
It's complete.
And He has spoken in His Son.
You say, well, there are lots of voices in our world today.
And some of them disagree with God.
When I lived in Kentucky 10 years, there was a phrase that I learned.
I've never heard it spoken outside of Kentucky, probably with good reason.
But it kind of gets to the point of this.
It says, it don't make no never mind.
It don't make no never mind.
In other words, it doesn't make any difference if you hear other voices because God has spoken.
That's it.
What God will do in the last days is to exalt His Son through whom He's spoken.
You see, the last days are really all about Jesus.
The last days are about God vindicating Jesus, acclaiming Jesus, revealing Jesus, who He
is, to everyone so that someday every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He
is Lord.
Eventually, everything will come under His absolute and direct rule.
That's what the last days are all about, God's Son and what He has said through Him.
Some of you enjoy reading the book of the Revelation.
A few of you are right now reading through the book.
I commend you for that.
You may not understand everything that you read, to say the least, but it is the only
book in the Bible that promises a special blessing to anyone who reads it.
So read it.
The book is introduced by these words, the revelation of things that are going to come
about in the future.
Is that what it says?
You know, the revelation of who?
Jesus Christ.
The book of Revelation does deal with some future things, but that's not its purpose.
Its purpose is to show us the glory that is uniquely Jesus Christ.
It is the book of Revelation about Him.
You see, this word that God has spoken through Jesus is the key that unites all of history.
All of it comes together under the Lordship of Jesus Christ eventually.
Therefore, I can say this, I don't have to worry.
I don't have to worry about the future because Jesus ties it all together.
I don't have to be alarmed and frustrated about what's going to happen tomorrow or what's
going to happen next on God's calendar.
I think I know, but I don't have to worry about those things because Jesus Christ holds
it all together and I am Jesus Christ.
Therefore I am free from worry.
I don't have to try to figure it out.
All I have to do is keep my eyes on Him.
So how will you make it through the last days?
You will make it through because you keep your eyes on Jesus because He is God's final
word and that's all you need.
That's all you need.
There's a second benefit that we see here and that is I can boldly say because I live
in the last days, I understand history's big picture.
You and I know all that is necessary for us to know.
If you have a story before you and you know the beginning of the story and you know the
ending of the story and you know the events in the middle and how they all fall out, why
read the book, right?
Why go to the movie?
Because you already know it all.
Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end.
He's the Alpha and He's the what?
The Omega.
You and I know the beginning, we know the ending and we have everything in between in
Him and that's essentially what the writer says here.
Notice what he says.
Through the Son, God made the universe.
That's the beginning.
That's the start of it all.
He says God appointed the Son heir of all things.
That's the future.
Everything eventually belongs to Him and is under His rule, the beginning and the ending.
And then He says the Son sustains all things by His powerful Word.
That's everything in between.
The beginning, the ending.
Everything in between is all about Jesus Christ.
Now the universe is not eternal.
Scientists are discovering this now after having followed a stray idea brought about,
frankly, through evolution, that the universe must surely be eternal.
All that has ever been, all that will ever be is the cosmos.
Says Carl Sagan.
He knows better now.
The universe has the beginning and scientists understand that through the Big Bang Theory.
Now they may not know all about it but they know that it had a beginning.
And they've also discovered that the universe is going to one day contract.
Again, they don't have the details of revelation from God's Word on it but they know from their
theories of science that the universe eventually is going to contract and be no more.
They know now that it has an ending.
And we know that as it's laid out right now, the whole cosmos is like a poem that God has
written.
And Jesus is the origin.
Jesus is the air of it all in the end.
And all of history and all of its eras in between are planned out.
And all of those successive periods of time, however many there be, were all planned out
through Jesus Christ.
As it says in Hebrews 11.3, by faith we understand that the world, the word there literally is
the ages, the eons of time, the successive periods of time were prepared by the Word
of God.
Who is the Word of God?
Jesus Christ, the Son.
So the wise scene was made out of things which are, what is seen was not made rather out
of things which are visible.
So my friends, you and I understand history's big picture.
We understand that now.
People in the past did not grasp this.
But in these last days we know this to be true.
God tells us the beginning, the end, it all is about Jesus.
God has the big picture all planned out.
And if God has the big picture planned out, let me assure you, He has your life, your
peace of that planned out too.
The words of David in Psalm 139, for you created my inmost being, you Lord knit me together
in my mother's womb.
And then down in verse 16 it says, all the days ordained for me were written in your
book before one of them came to be.
What is David saying here?
He's saying, Lord, before I was even conceived, you had all of my days planned out.
How are you going to make it through the last days?
Well, I want to tell you how you're going to do that.
By understanding that you don't have to question your life's purpose.
Because God has a plan for you.
God does.
Now, you may not understand this plan.
But in fact, you can only see it a day, even a moment at a time.
Whatever lies ahead, whatever events there be, however long we're going to be here on
the earth, all of those things are planned out by God and you and I don't have to question
what God is doing.
The universe did not originate with an unplanned big bang.
And you did not originate with an unplanned accident.
God has planned for you to be alive right now in this period of time, in this generation,
and he has a purpose for your life.
And one of the greatest discoveries you can make is God's purpose for you and to live
that out.
What a benefit you've got.
People in past ages are jealous of what you've got, that they didn't have the privilege of
possessing.
Third, my last day benefits include these.
This, I have confidence in God's nature.
I have confidence in God's nature.
The text says the sun is the radiance of God's glory and the what?
The exact representation of his being.
Now, people have lots of ideas about God and most of them are pretty screwy.
As you read in our world today and even some of the most popular books that are being sold
in the bookstores, remind you of the old proverb of the blind man feeling an elfin, trying
to figure out what it is.
They're so lost, so groping in their spiritual darkness that they cannot understand God,
although God has revealed himself.
But they're trying to figure God out and what inevitably happens is that they make God in
their own image.
Is God a good God or is he bad?
Is God angry?
Does God care about us personally?
Is God evolving and changing with time?
That's one of the latest theories of liberal theologians.
Obviously, you see where they get it from, evolution, the whole philosophy of it.
They apply to theology and God's changing too over time.
Or is God the same yesterday, today, and forever?
Is God personal or is he the force who's with you?
Is God real or is God imaginary?
Is God kind and loving or is God capricious and potentially mean as the Muslim sphere
that he is?
These things matter.
How can I make it through the last days if I don't know what God is really like?
You see, I have confidence in God's nature and that's because of the Son.
Notice the two phrases used to describe the Son.
First one is he is the radiance of God's glorious being.
He is the shining out of who God really is.
In the Old Testament, there was this appearance of God's glory that was called, as you might
know, Shikaina, is the Hebrew word, the glorious appearance of God.
The glorious appearance of God was incarnated in the person of Christ so that we can actually
look at that glory and see exactly what it's like.
He goes on to say it's the exact representation of God's very nature.
The word there is where we get our English word, character.
Do any of you remember the name Underwood?
Well, let me ask it this way.
Do any of you remember a mechanical machine called a typewriter?
Underwood was a type of typewriter.
What happened with those, and I know for some of you this is like going into a museum, but
there were keys on the keyboard and you would push the key that actually went down.
That caused a reaction, a mechanical reaction, and there was a lever inside that went up.
On the end of that was a little character, and it would hit an actual ribbon of ink.
Can you believe that?
It would impress the character on the paper leaving a mark there.
That's exactly what this word means, the exact representation.
Jesus Christ is the impression of deity on human flesh, human nature, so that when we
look at Jesus, we are seeing exactly what God is like.
Therefore, I know God is loving and caring.
I know that God is merciful and gracious, because that's what Jesus is like.
You see, I don't have to question God's care, because Jesus shows it to me.
I don't have to worry about whether God's going to take care of me in the last days,
or whatever tough thing I'm passing through, because Jesus shows me how much God cares
about me, about you.
The whole phrase here indicates that the Son is distinct from and yet equal to the one
whose essence is imprinted upon Him.
You and I have the wonderful benefit, the confidence of who God is by His nature, because
we live in the last days.
Jesus has come and showed us God.
There's a fourth benefit that I want to talk about briefly, and that is, my last
day benefits include I enjoy amnesty from God's wrath.
You believe in amnesty?
Well, we ought to believe in this guide.
Amnesty means release.
He provided purification for sins, the big problem, the big problem, my sins.
My sins separate me from God.
My sins keep me out of God's holy presence.
My selfishness, my self-centeredness separate me from God.
But Jesus has provided purification for sins.
The word purification here is catharsis.
We use that word in our English language in drama, medicine, in psychotherapy.
It's also used in religious expressions like here.
What it means is to release from one condition or one experience and to be restored to another.
So people can go through a psychological catharsis by some experience they have, and they're
changed by it.
They're released from what they were before.
They become something else.
What it's saying here is that we are released.
We are changed.
We are restored to something we were not before by Jesus' purification of our sins.
The writer talks about this more in chapter 10 when he says, we have confidence to enter
the most holy place.
Question, what was it that kept people out of the most holy place in the Old Testament?
Sins.
Even the high priest could not go behind the veil into the most holy presence of God without
blood that had to be sprinkled for his sins and the sins of the people.
The writer says here, we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of
Jesus by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain that is his body.
So what was it that physically separated the most holy place from the rest of the temple?
It was a curtain, right?
What happened to that curtain at the very moment that Jesus said, it is finished.
It was torn in two from the top to the bottom.
That curtain was a symbol of his body in which he suffered and died.
And as he died, that curtain was torn in two and the way into God's holy presence was now
opened, it says, because Jesus has provided the cleansing for our sins.
The Old Testament, this was illustrated in the day of Atonement by the scapegoats.
You familiar with that concept?
Two goats were brought to the high priest.
One of them, the high priest would place his hands on the heads of the goats and confess
the sins of Israel.
One of the goats was then taken and sacrificed and the blood was sprinkled in a certain way
in the Tabernacle or the temple.
The other goat was then led out into the wilderness and released.
Symbolically, that goat was carrying away the sins of the people.
What this idea of catharsis is to embrace both of these, Jesus died to pay the penalty
and he carried away our sins.
In the Old Testament, it was all by atonement, which means a what?
A covering over.
God just covered over the sins, but they were not carried away, taken away.
But when Jesus died, all of those sins and all of our sins were carried away.
The record was cleansed because of the worth of his sacrifice blood for us.
I enjoy amnesty from God's wrath.
What's that got to do with the last days?
Remember last week, I told you that there's coming on the earth this time called the tribulation.
It is a time when God's wrath is going to be poured out upon the earth because of its
rejection of his son.
It will be a horrible time of suffering.
The encouragement that I have from this is that because you and I have amnesty from God's
wrath, we're not going to be there for that.
Now, not everybody agrees with me on this, but I believe that because we have already
received amnesty and cleansing from God's sin and therefore amnesty from God's wrath,
that it would be entirely inappropriate for us to be in the world when God's wrath is
poured out.
We have not been appointed to wrath, but to what?
Salvation, Paul writes to the Thessalonians.
I don't have to fear God's judgment because Jesus cleanses me.
Jesus cleanses me.
Finally, I want to say my last day benefit that I can enjoy is that I have a high priest
who intercedes.
A high priest who intercedes, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.
Now, this relates to the high priest of the Old Testament who represented Israel before
God.
On that day of Atonement, for example, he would enter into the holiest place in the temple.
As he did, he would have on his chest the breastplate.
This was a piece of solid gold about that large and embedded in it were 12 precious
stones.
On each one of those stones engraved the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel so that
when he went into the presence of God, he represented the whole nation.
You and I have a high priest, as the writer of Hebrews says, who has passed through the
heavens.
Who is it?
Jesus, the son of God.
You and I have a high priest who enters into the very holy place, and he remains there
in the presence of God, among other things, praying for us as a group and for us individually.
So we are invited, it says in verse 16 of chapter 4, to approach the throne of grace,
the mercy seat, with confidence that we may receive mercy and grace to help us in our
time of need.
Are you in a time of need today?
You have one to praise for you at the throne of grace.
Simply approach the throne of grace and you have the mercy, the grace that you need today.
Will you need it tomorrow?
Will you need it in the last days and those events coming on the earth?
The high priest is there, my friend, and your name is engraved upon his breastplate, even
upon his hands by the nails across.
He represents you before God.
It was a great old hymn that left the hymnals years ago.
Remember hymnals?
They were books that you collected hymns in.
And it was a great old hymn that you won't find even in more recent hymnals, written
back in the middle of the 1800s, that says, every stormy wind that blows from every swelling
tide of woes, there is a calm, assured retreat to his found beneath the mercy seat.
Ah, whither could we flee for aid when tempted desolate dismayed?
Or how the hosts of hell defeat had suffering saints, no mercy seat?
Thank God we have a mercy seat and we have a great high priest who stands there praying
for us.
So I don't have to feel alone because Jesus knows and prays for me.
He knows you.
And even when you are too discouraged, too low, too much in pain, to even pray for yourself,
He prays for you.
That's why you can make it through the tough times.
What to do with the last day benefits, just four very quick thoughts.
And for these I go to Hebrews chapter 10.
Here's what we need to do now to take advantage of our benefits that we enjoy in this age.
Since we have a great priest over the house of God, he says, chapter 10, since we live
in this privileged time that we do, let us draw near to God.
In other words, live near to God.
This is no time, my friends, for us to be playing out in the pig pen of sin.
This is no time for us to put up with backsliding in our lives.
This is no time for us to be asleep at the switch.
Let us draw near to God and live in consistent fellowship with Him.
Secondly, He says, let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess.
In other words, hold on to your hope.
Do not throw away your confidence.
It will be richly rewarded.
You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what
He's promised for in just a very little while.
He who is coming will come and will not delay.
That's our hope, my friends.
It is that hope that gives us perspective on everything else.
Hold on to your hope.
Number three, He says, let us consider how we may spur one another on to love and good
deeds.
In other words, exist to encourage.
Don't get focused on yourself in the last days.
What's going to happen to me?
How am I going to make it?
Be looking around at others.
Be a blessing to them.
Encourage them to walk on with God.
We need each other in this regard, and that brings me to the final point.
That is, He says, let us not give up.
That is, let us not abandon meeting together like some do.
But let us encourage one another.
In other words, stay connected with others in God's family.
Don't be casual about being in church.
Don't be haphazard about being with others in a small group where you really get to know
each other and connect.
He says, hey, stay connected.
And all the more as you see the day approaching, He says, the last days.
Now, we have a choice.
We can choose to live in fear.
We can look at the last days and say, oh my goodness, what's going to happen?
I am so frustrated.
I can't figure all of this out.
This person says that.
That person says something else.
Who's right?
What's going to happen?
We can go down that road.
Why?
We have the wonderful benefits we have living in these last days.
And if we will simply do what He tells us to do, the result will be we will be fixed.
We will be firm.
We'll have a foundation that will take us all the way through the last days.
And instead of having agitated hearts, our hearts can be still and know that He is God.
Is that what your heart is today?
At the end of the service, we're going to have some people who will be up here to pray
with you.
And if you'd like to come and pray with some folks for something in your life, something
that's troubling you and agitating your heart, please come.
If you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I beg you to come and just say, would you
pray for me?
I need to take a step of faith.
I need to become a follower of Christ.
Right now though, we're going to sing together after I've prayed.
Father, thank you for what you say to us about the last days.
But I pray that we will be so in touch with you, so walking with you, so near to you,
that we will be so connected with others, so focused on encouraging others, that we'll
be so tight with hanging on to our hope that our hearts will be still and quiet, trusting
as we live through this time that we're privileged to be a part of.
Lord, help us to know what we're about, what our role is, and then to do it, and all the
more so as the day approaches.
Jesus' name.
Amen.